
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 5, 1990                   TAG: 9006050534
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: By Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

COURT UPHOLDS VA. SCHOOL BOARD SELECTION PROCESS

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday let stand rulings upholding Virginia's practice of appointing school board members, rejecting a racial bias challenge to the system.

The American Civil Liberties Union and a Virginia legislator vowed to keep fighting the practice.

"Obviously we are very disappointed in the Supreme Court decision," said Kent Willis, executive director of the Virginia chapter of the ACLU.

"We feel that not only was the system intended to be racially discriminatory, but that it continues to be discriminatory, at least in effect. And that's the important aspect of it."

The justices, without comment, let stand rulings that uphold the appointive system even though unlawfully discriminatory motives at times played a role in retaining it.

Seven black Virginia residents and two groups, Citizens for a Better America and the Virginia unit of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, sued state authorities over the appointive system.

The lawsuit alleged that the system unlawfully blunts the political clout of blacks in the state.

Willis said the ACLU remains optimistic about victory in the Virginia General Assembly.

Del. David Brickley, D-Woodbridge, said he has introduced legislation every year since 1976 to allow localities to hold referendums on whether to elect their school boards.

So far, it's failed.

"It's ironic that Virginia is the only state in the nation without some form of elected school boards," Brickley said.

Brickley said numerous polls have shown that Virginians support the right to choose on the issue.

But the judge, upheld last Nov. 24 by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ruled that the system's challengers had failed to prove that racially biased motives survive.

"The defendants have proved that the state does not currently maintain the system . . . for discriminatory reasons," the 4th Circuit Court said.

The number of blacks serving on school boards in the state matches their percentage of the state's population - about 18 percent.

But blacks are under-represented on school boards in 20 of the state's 40 school districts, where they comprise more than 30 percent of the population, the court was told for Monday's appeal.

There are no black members on 50 of the 136 local school boards.

by CNB