Thank you, to School Board members Wright, Mignon, Allen and Slough

Our former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young writes about how important it is, in the final analysis, to try to let the other side “save face” in civil rights and other public interest advocacy efforts.

This morning, our St. Johns County School Board “saved face.” And I salute them.

Four out of School Board members expressed the willingness to compromise on Modified Plan J, a redistricting plan that would maintain African-American voting strength at 14% in District 2. On November 8^th, the School Board adopted a plan that would slash minority voting strength. Plan J includes both West Augustine and the Town of Hastings in it – that’s the right thing to do.

On November 9^th, Judith Seraphin and I complained to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and the U.S. Attorney General, about violations of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and the Voting Rights Act. Our School Board would be vulnerable in any action brought by the U.S. Department of Justice. So, as Dean Rusk famously said during the Cuban Missile Crisis, “We were eyeball to eyeball, and the other guy just blinked.”

Board members Carl Wright, William Mignon, Thomas Allen and Beverly Slough all agreed to compromise on Modified Plan J, which keeps West Augustine and the Town of Hastings together. Only now-former School Board Chairman William Fehling (R-Ponte Vedra) was the lone holdout, still chauvinistically following the plays called by the Republican State Committeeman and Tea Party dilettante, RANDY COVINGTON.

Ambassador Andrew Young describes the four stages of resolving a civil rights issue as investigation, negotiation, demonstration and reconciliation.

We’re thankful that long experience on both sides has led to a swift resolution without need for costly litigation. We’re thankful that four of five School Board members are listening to the people.

Let the next School Board, elected in 2012, be different. We hope that it will change things and that the School Board will be newly sensitized to African-American’s rights. We hope that the School Board will remedy the injustice of unequal educational opportunities. We believe that the new School Board will think anew and act anew -- confident that we are one community and we are all in this together.

As for rancid Tea Party hack and predictable dull Republican State Committeeman RANDY COVINGTON, he was a no-show at today’s School Board meeting. This morning’s Record claimed he was going to present yet another map. He did not attend the School Board meeting. Most recently, COVINGTON was showing his lack of knowledge (again), bloviating for 1200 words, attacking Rev. Ron Rawls, Judith Serpahin, and me. This is the same RANDY COVINGTON who is against “experts” writing school curricula. I prefer that math books be written by mathematicians, not politicians. I think most people believe that today’s students need to learn the “real stuff,” not hokum. Those of us who rely on the service of engineers, scientists, doctors and airline pilots want them to learn science and math (not theology) in our public schools.

So RANDY COVINGTON was a no-show today at today’s School Board meeting where he was supposed to tell them what to do. In the words of the late conservative columnist William F. Buckley, Jr., “Why does baloney reject the grinder?”