School Racial Probe Still Incomplete

School racial probe still incomplete

By BARBARA MISLE

NEWS STAFF REPORTER

An official in Washington says the 11-month federal investigation of racial imbalance in the Ann Arbor public schools is still “near completion,” but will not estimate when the probe will be finished.

Since December, Nathaniel Douglas, chief of the education litigation division of the U.S. Justice Department, has said the investigation is almost completed.

“We are still near completion, but I just don’t know exactly when we will be finished,” Douglas said in a telephone interview this week.

Most of the data gathered in the probe has been reviewed and analyzed, he said.

But some additional information gathered this month must be reviewed before a final determination on the case can be made, according to Douglas.

There are three possible outcomes of the investigation: no action or a lawsuit that is either litigated or settled through the courts if evidence of illegal segregation is found.

Douglas, along with Assistant Attorney General William Reynolds, will make the determination.

It is not unusual for an investigation to take this long, said Douglas.

The five-member legal team working on the probe has visited Ann Arbor four times to collect information. The most recent visit early this month was arranged to collect some additional data requested by newly assigned head attorney, Levern Younger.

Younger replaced Dawn Martin, who in December accepted a job in the New York attorney general’s office.

Neither Younger nor Douglas would not disclose the nature of the most recent information.

“The investigation is continuing,” Younger said. “I cannot be any more definitive than that.”

Douglas also would not say what the nature of the information is.

The investigation began in response to a complaint written in 1984 by parents at Northside Elementary School who charged that children there were receiving an inferior education.

The letter charged that school officials had been aware of conditions at Northside - which is more than 70 percent black - but refused to make any changes.

Last October, the school board adopted a districtwide reorganization plan that would close seven elementary schools and racially balance the remaining 19 buildings.

That plan marked the first time in 20 years that an Ann Arbor school board actually adopted a plan even though four committees have been appointed since 1963 to study racial imbalance in the district’s schools.