Attorneys to watch decisions on hiring
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Plaintiffs’ attorneys in desegregation litigation against the Tangipahoa Parish School Board will watch upcoming hiring decisions after a federal court order replaced Amite High School’s white head football coach with a passed-over black candidate for the job, one of the attorneys said.
U.S. District Judge Ivan L.R. Lemelle found there is no evidence the board ever met racial hiring ratios required under 1970s orders and, therefore, violated those orders when it used a special hiring process that resulted in the black candidate not being selected.
In a January 2007 vote that drew some public opposition, the board hired then-assistant football coach Mark Vining. He beat out Alden Foster under the hiring process called “objective criteria.”
Lemelle has called for a revamp of the criteria, which he noted was more subjective than objective with an unfair impact on Foster, currently head football coach at Istrouma High School.
School attorneys have insisted the hiring ratios Lemelle cited — which required 40 percent blacks and 60 percent whites — were met decades ago and they submitted evidence to back the claim.
That point will be part of an expected motion from school attorneys asking Lemelle to reconsider his order. The judge filed the order Monday in U.S. District Court in New Orleans.
Plaintiffs’ attorney Nelson Taylor said Friday that Lemelle’s order goes beyond Amite High. He said the message to the board is it must address a school system faculty-staff ratio that is now 81 percent white and nearly 19 percent black.
Taylor and another plaintiffs’ attorney claim they reached that interpretation after reading Lemelle’s order, which says, “because credible proof of a systemwide faculty staff ratio of 40 percent African-American to 60 percent Caucasian (40-60 ratio) is absent here.”
Taylor, who filed the April 2007 complaint that revived the 1965 desegregation case, said school attorneys have made a commitment to do that voluntarily.
“That’s what desegregation is about. It is about the good faith of school system in being equitable and fair,” Taylor said. “If they are willing to do this, we’ll be watching and waiting to see it.”
During a March 19 hearing, when Lemelle ruled from the bench, the judge appeared to focus on evidence of whether the high school coach ratio was met.
Because of that, School Board attorney Alton Lewis disputed the broader interpretation Friday, saying the judge was writing in the context of a ratio for high school coaches “systemwide.”
“I don’t think that’s what he (Lemelle) intended,” Lewis said of Taylor’s interpretation.
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