Lessons from the past by a man who lived it

Former 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Nathaniel Jones

On Friday, October 29, I had the privilege of serving as keynote speaker for the conference titled “From Redlining to White Flight: The History of Housing Segregation & The Importance of Regionalism.” The conference was a partnership between the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion and Cooley Law School.

The purpose of the program was to educate attendees about past practices and decisions that have led to the segregated housing patterns that we see in metropolitan Detroit today.  One of historic turning points for the region was the 1974 case of Milliken v. Bradley. In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a plan for cross-district busing in metropolitan Detroit. The morning portion of the conference included a re-enactment of the Supreme Court oral arguments in Milliken v Bradley.

The cast of re-life justices who participated in the re-enactment included Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Marilyn Kelly, U.S. District Judges David Lawson and Denise Page Hood, 40^th District Court Judge Joseph Oster, and retired Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge James L. Ryan. Attendees, comprised mostly of Cooley law students and high school students from Macomb and Oakland Counties and the City of Detroit, were able to sit in a crowded courtroom and experience the case as it was presented back in the early1970s. 

I attended the conference to talk about historical population and housing trends in Southeast Michigan. It is impossible to look at federal housing and transportation policies and the long-term effects of Milliken v. Bradley without having a deeper understanding of why metro Detroit remains so racially polarized. Housing redlining kept neighborhoods segregated, federal mortgage policies and the building of the freeways subsidized suburban sprawl, and the prohibition of forced busing encouraged white flight.   

During the conference, I was able to sit beside someone who fought in the trenches to insure that Detroit’s children had an opportunity to live in a diverse world—an opportunity that was squandered by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Milliken case. The person sitting next to me on the panel[1] was Nathaniel R. Jones, retired judge for the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and current Senior Counsel and Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer for the firm Blank Rome LLP. 

His bio reads like a history of the Civil Rights Movement.  He started his career in Youngstown, Ohio in 1956 as executive director of its Employment Practices Commission.  In 1960, President Kennedy appointed him assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio.  He went on to serve as deputy general counsel to the Kerner Commission on Civil Disorders which investigated the race riots that occurred across the country in 1967; general counsel of the NAACP, a position formerly held by Justice Thurgood Marshall; played an important role in furthering the abolition of apartheid in South Africa; and was consulted by the drafters of South Africa’s new constitution.

As general counsel for the NAACP, Judge Jones argued Milliken v. Bradley in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, and shared with the audience many little-known facts about the case and the participants – facts that will play a prominent role in his upcoming memoir.

Listening to Judge Jones, it is abundantly clear how Detroit’s past still profoundly influences us today. It was especially gratifying that young people were in the audience, people who will blaze our path to the future now armed with the lessons of the past. How fortunate we are to have people like Judge Jones to help show us the way.

 

 

[1] The other panel members brought a great deal of experience as well and included Clifford Shrupp, Executive Director (since its creation in 1977) of the Fair Housing Center of Metropolitan Detroit; Assistant U.S. Attorney and Chief of the Civil Rights Unit (in the Eastern District of Michigan) Judy Levy, and Elliott S. Hall, a Partner of Dykema Gossett and long time fixture in the Detroit legal community.

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Michigan’s Defining Moment: Dark Clouds, Silver Linings

Are only storm clouds on the horizon for Michigan? According to two experts, maybe so. But taking a hard look at the facts and figures is the only way we can brighten up the horizon.         

On May 27, 2010, Leaders Without Borders sponsored a breakfast meeting to discuss the report “Michigan’s Defining Moment—Making it Happen.”  The Center for Michigan, a nonpartisan “think and do” tank, issued the report that was based upon the input of more than 10,000 ordinary citizens. Together they created an agenda for Michigan’s future.         

Data Driven Detroit's Kurt Metzger at the Leaders Without Borders breakfast

 

The report includes a 2010 Michigan Scorecard created in partnership with Data Driven Detroit. The Scorecard measures Michigan’s performance in the areas citizens found most crucial to the state’s success, including education, tax policy and economic development. Sunny icons represent the state’s “good” standing in comparison to other states and regions. Partly cloudy icons represent “average” performance, and “stormy” icons represent comparatively poor performance.         

At the breakfast, D3’s Kurt Metzger described some of the data behind the storm clouds that have gathered over Michigan. In 2008, 14.4 percent of Michigan residents were in poverty.         

 “No neighboring Great Lakes State has more people in poverty,” Metzger said.         

Education: flunking the test         

The state also received a stormy rating in employment. Michigan has been repeatedly at the bottom among states, leading the nation in unemployment for four straight years.         

Education isn’t much brighter, said Metzger. Although recent MEAP scores indicate improvements in reading and math skills, Michigan students are tanking on the National Assessment of Educational Program (NAEP). For example, in 2009 more than 84 percent of Michigan fourth graders scored “proficient” or better on the MEAP, but only 30 percent scored “proficient” or better on the NAEP.          

The same year, 70.3 percent of Michigan eighth graders scored well on the Michigan math test, while only a third of them passed the NAEP. The gap of proficiency between the state and national tests makes you wonder if we are just dumbing down the tests to make ourselves feel good, Metzger said.         

Poor test performance may be linked to the lack of funding devoted to education in Michigan, said Metzger. Although Michigan educators are well-paid, the data shows the state is slipping in money spent per-pupil. Metzger suggested we start rethinking the big paychecks for superintendents and give the money to the kids.         

Stemming the brain drain         

Education isn’t the only place where dark clouds loom over Michigan. The state is also ranked last in population growth in this decade.         

“Migration led to growth in every state, but Michigan,” said Metzger. “We have to find a way to bring young people back to Michigan.”    

Phil Power stressed the common agenda that Michiganders share.

 

Undaunted by the dark clouds, the Center for Michigan’s Phil Power insisted that it is only by taking an accurate assessment of where we are that the state can begin to address its critical needs. Like a coach before the big game, he motivated the leaders present to form nonpartisan coalitions to help build Michigan’s future. The Center’s report, “Michigan’s Defining Moment—Making it Happen,” gives ten steps to transforming Michigan. The primary target areas are: Economic Growth & Quality Of Life; A Talented, Globally Competitive Workforce; and an Effective, Efficient & Accountable Government.        

Angela Wynn and Joan Morehead are all smiles after the Michigan's Defining Moment presentation

 

 “It has to be a collective act from all of us in order to save our state,” Power said.         

Angela Wynn, Senior Community Liaison for Blue Cross Blue Shield, was compelled by the focus on bi-partisan education reform. “I’m an advocate for education,” she said, “so anything about education grabbed my interest.”         

Joan Morehead, a community leader who develops workshops for the unemployed, was amazed at how the priorities for the state remained consistent across different demographic groups. “Our needs are more similar than dissimilar,” she said.         

Power stressed the importance of having a shared vision, and putting our differences aside to achieve a mutual goal.         

“We are at the hinge of our history,” he said. “We cannot let things go on the way they are.”

Educators should count on data

Staying ahead of the numbers can help schools save critical programs

Today I read this headline in the Detroit Free Press: “School districts study enrollment drops.” The article talked about how school officials in Southfield and Romulus have created committees to study their shrinking student populations and to consider the ramifications. Will they have to close schools? Eliminate programs? Re-purpose their buildings? How can they cut staff while still guaranteeing good student outcomes?  

If you focused only on daily news reports, you’d think that Detroit and other urban districts were the only ones losing students—and the valuable state grant that comes with each pupil. We here at the Detroit-Area Community Information System have done an analysis of public school student enrollment across 83 districts in the tri-county area. We know that districts like Detroit, Southfield and Romulus aren’t the only districts in trouble…and the trouble didn’t just sneak up on us.

While we can blame the current recession for some of this loss, the demographic changes started occurring long before 2001. Our population—particularly younger families—has been moving from our urban core to the suburban townships, while births have been dropping across the region since 1990. Detroit births dropped by nearly half between 1990 and 2007.  For many southeastern Oakland County communities, only about one in five households have school-aged children.

More recently, 46 districts experienced decreased enrollment since 2005. A total of 53,053 students have left public schools in the tri-county area (2/3 from Detroit) in the past three years.  There were actually 36 districts that gained population (one held constant), but they accounted for an increase of just 11,170 students. *

Charter schools were the winners in each county, adding 743 students in Macomb, 1,214 in Oakland and 7,618 in Wayne.  The net for our area is a loss of 32,308 students in the last three years!

It’s great that districts are now trying to be pro-active as they face serious declines in their student populations. But this is also a teachable moment for us statisticians. It’s time we made data more available to school officials, city planners and policy makers. It may feel like our public schools are now being hit by a tsunami, but it’s really a tidal wave that has been a decade in the making.

 

* Our data came from the Center for Educational Performance and Information