School Board Trustee Says Naacp 'lies'

School Trustee William C. Godfrey last night assailed Dr. Albert H. Wheeler and the National Association for the Advancement 'of Colored People (NAACP) for "lies" and "unjustified attacks" on the Ann Arbor School System. He also lashed out at the "Gestapo-Inquisition style of the liars in our town who palm thmselves off as some kind of civil rights advocates," and blamed the "NAACP and its allies" for "undermining" the authority and discipline of Ann Arbor teachers and administrators. Godfrey was referring to charges made over the weekend by Wheeler at a Michigan NAACP meeting in Lansing that "severe and discriminatory expulsion and suspension procedures" are being practiced in Ann Arbor and other state school dstricts. Wheeler is president of the Michigan NAACP. Wheeler said all students, and particularly black students, ■need "more protection" against indiscriminate suspension. He said his charges were the result of a number of complaints received recently from black students in the Ann Arbor Public Schools who feit they had been suspended for "rather I significant" offenses. "I am compelled to make the counter charge that those statements are lies," Godfrey said. "From my personal knowledge of school operations, I conclude that the opposite of what Dr. Wheeler says is true." "In my judgment, the quality of the classroom situations for many students has been debased because of unjustified attacks, like this current one, on the faculty and administration," Godfrey continued. "Over the past few years, the NAACP and its allies here in Ann Arbor have succeeded in undermining the authority of teachers and building administrators to the point where breakdown of classroom discipline is destroying the rights of the overwhelming majority of students to go about the business of learning peacefully." The trustee blamed the NAACP for helping the discipline problem in Ann Arbor to reach a "crisis level." He said "There is a kind of intellectual t y r a n n y being forced on our teachers- the result of which is the paralysis or destructic-n of their will to impose proper classroom discipline and punishment," Godfrey added. Wheeler told The News Monday the NAACP hopes to prompt the Ann Arbor School District and other Michigan school districts to adopt "more reasonable" suspension procedures. He said the NAACP feels district-wide suspension and expulsion policies should be adopted, instead of leaving the decisión up to the individual principal, as is now the case. Godfrey told the school board he feit the "strength" of the language in his statement last night was "appropriate" because of Wheeler's recent charges and "what has happened in the past."