Nebraska Votes to Segregate Schools

NATION/EDUCATION

PHOTOBYTE
Students at Omaha's Central High School rally Friday in support of Omaha Public Schools.

COMMENTLINE
One rationale for dividing the Omaha school system into three districts is that minorities will receive a better education if they have more control over their district. Read on and you decide.

NEWSLINES
Omaha Sen. Pat Bourne decried the bill, saying, "We will go down in history as one of the first states in 20 years to set race relations back."

"History will not, and should not, judge us kindly," said Sen. Gwen Howard of Omaha.

The 45,000-student Omaha school system is 46 percent white, 31 percent black, 20 percent Hispanic, and 3 percent Asian or American Indian.

NEWSBYTES
Omaha Schools Split Along Race Lines
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- In a move decried by some as state-sponsored segregation, the Legislature voted Thursday to divide the Omaha school system into three districts -- one mostly black, one predominantly white and one largely Hispanic. Read more.

Law to Segregate Omaha Schools Divides Nebraska
OMAHA, April 14 (NYT) -— Ernie Chambers is Nebraska's only African-American state senator, a man who has fought for causes including the abolition of capital punishment and the end of apartheid in South Africa. A magazine writer once described him as the "angriest black man in Nebraska."

Lawmakers Adopt Chambers Plan For Splitting Omaha School District
(nebraska.statepaper.com) -- It could not have been envisioned when the Omaha Public Schools first caused a conflagration with a proposed takeover of nearby suburban school districts.

ALSO SEE: LOCAL OPINIONS
Segregation survives
Omaha school district is carved up along racial lines
(www.dailytargum.com) -- Apparently, in Omaha, Neb., the racial segregation of the 1950s lives again. The Omaha city school district needed to be restructured since more affluent suburban districts were unfairly supporting urban schools; the first proposal was to unify all urban schools into one district. However, in a rapid reversal, the city of Omaha has been purposely divided into three racially distinguishable school districts: one black, one white and one Hispanic. However, this law is a disgusting way of enacting state-sponsored segregation.

Omaha segregating
(www.bgnews.com / Northern Star) -- Omaha, have you forgotten Brown v. Board of Education?

Tags: education, Nebraska, Omaha, schools, minorities, minority, Civil Rights, Race, segregation
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