Justice Delayed, Part One

Justice Delayed Part One
By Regina Williams-Preston
 
I am a 25-year veteran teacher in the South Bend Community School Corporation; for many of those years I was a member of the special education support team and my job was to support administrators and teachers in compliance monitoring related to special education law. Believe me, from 1999 to 2024, I saw it all. Three years ago, I was honored to be asked to serve on the Reparatory Justice Commission.
 
The Commission’s role was to research the history of the harm done to Black people from systemic racism, injustice, and overt discrimination in South Bend across 5 different areas: Housing, Economic/Employment, Policing/Criminal Legal System, Health, and of course, Education.  The goal was to create a set of recommendations about what it would take to repair those harms.
 
Since the report was released, we have received overwhelmingly positive feedback from people – most express appreciation for the detailed history and documentation of discriminatory practices that they never knew Black people faced in South Bend. Then they ask the big question,  “What can we do about it?”
 
Recently, the Commission held a public meeting to discuss the recommendations set forth in the report. As a member of the Education Subcommittee, I’d like to share and expand on our ideas for how the South Bend Community School Corporation can repair the harm and remove systemic barriers to Black students getting access to quality education.
 
I want to start with acknowledging a widely held sentiment. After we presented the report to the South Bend City Council, a woman approached me with frustration and almost exhaustion in her voice and said, “WE DON’T NEED ANOTHER STUDY!  We don’t need more reports that sit on a shelf.”  I think we can all agree.
 
In fact, the conversation got me thinking. It’s been more than 25 years since I joined the fight for equal access to quality education for Black students in South Bend. But the Consent Decree, you know, that time when the United States filed a lawsuit against the South Bend Community School Corporation asserting that they (and I quote) “engaged in acts of discrimination which were intended and had the effect of segregating student and faculty on the basis of race…[and these] discriminatory actions had a system-wide affect and that those actions continue to cause, in large part, the patterns of racial imbalance in student assignment which persist today.”
 
That was 46 years ago. At that time, the federal government mandated that the district 
1. Maintain equitable discipline practices, 
2. Ensure educational and extracurricular programs be equal for each school, 
3. Continue to pursue affirmative action hiring practices, and  
4. Provide for staff training and curriculum evaluation.
 
That was 1980. 
 
Then, in 2000, 20 years after the Consent Decree, the school board commissioned a Harvard research team that evaluated the district and gave recommendations for action in the Thoughtbridge report. Eleven years after that, the school board brought them back to evaluate progress. Within the first few sentences of this 2011 Thoughtbridge report, researchers noted “…not only has there been little action to address and resolve the issues raised in the 2000 report, that inaction has exacerbated the existing problems and created new problems for SBCSC…” Thoughbridge noted 
1. The disproportionate number of African American students labeled as discipline problems, 
2. The belief that resources are not equitably distributed to schools on the west side,
3. The lack of diversity in the hiring and staffing of schools, and
4. The lack of cultural proficiency by teachers, admin and staff. 
 
Then, in 2021, 10 years after the last Thoughtbridge Report, the school board passed the Equity Statement calling for the district to 
1. Address persistent disproportionality in discipline, 
2. Ensure equitable distribution of resources, 
3. Make a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in hiring teachers and staff, and 
4. Provide culturally responsive and culturally sustaining instructional practices, curricular materials, and professional (development). 
 
Now, it’s 2026, 5 years after the board’s Equity Statement. The Reparatory Justice Commission Education– Subcommittee has a list of recommendations for the district based on past harms. Can you guess what’s on the list? In a nutshell, 
1. End disproportionate discipline, 
2. Ensure equitable distribution of resources, 
3. Hire Black teachers, and 
4. Provide cultural competency training. 
 
Anyone seeing a pattern here? As the second Thoughtbridge report points out, number 5 on its top five “undiscussables which hamper the corporation’s ability to deal with the challenges it faces” is We talk a lot about these issues; we just don’t do anything about them.