OMAHA Neb.
The NAACP sued Nebraska’s governor and a state committee Tuesday over a new law that divides Omaha Public Schools into three racially identifiable districts.
The law, passed by the Legislature at the end of its recent session, splits the Omaha district starting in 2008 into three districts: one mostly Black, one largely Hispanic and one predominantly White.
It was aimed at solving a dispute over school boundaries in the state’s largest city after Omaha Public Schools tried to take over some suburban schools.
The NAACP’s federal lawsuit says the new law violates the constitutional principals embodied in the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which said separate but equal facilities have no place in public education.
“Segregation is morally wrong, regardless of who advocates it,” says Tommie Wilson of the Omaha chapter of the NAACP.
Supporters say the plan will give minorities control over their own school board and ensure that their children are not shortchanged.
State Sen. Ernie Chambers, the Legislature’s only Black senator and designer of the amendment dividing the districts, has long argued that the Omaha district was already segregated because it no longer bused students for integration purposes.
