Black Parents Sue Maplewood Schools Alleging Segregated Classrooms

A group of black parents in Maplewood and South Orange, N.J., have sued their school district in federal court over discrimination.

Columbia High School has a tracking system that assigns students to classes based on their perceived ability. Walter Fields of the local group Black Parents Workshop filed the federal lawsuit because, he says, students are being given a separate and unequal education.

"It's a practice of tracking African-American students into lower level courses as well as creating academic levels in which those students are placed in those lower level courses that are absent the rigor that is required to allow these students to be college or career ready," Fields said. 

Black Parents Workshop is also concerned about racial segregation in elementary schools in the South Orange Maplewood School district, and Fields says that segregation contributes to the problems black students encounter when the tracking system begins in middle school. 

Listen to Nancy Solomon's 2009 radio documentary, "Mind the Gap". 

The lawsuit seeks 12 million dollars in damages and demands that classes no longer be tracked and that programs be put in place to help African-American students. 

The school district is saying it can't comment on litigation. But last week, before the lawsuit was filed,  the school board voted to eliminate all lower levels in the tracking system, but Fields says it doesn't go far enough.