In a week when the Census Bureau estimated that Indiana’s African-American population has reached an all-time high of 675,140, or 10.4 percent of all Hoosiers, our African-American community could be facing a scenario where there will be no African-Americans at the top of our state’s judiciary.
It’s been 21 years since then Gov. Evan Bayh racially integrated Indiana’s top judicial courts. First through the appointment of Robert Rucker as the first African-American Appeals Court judge in 1991, then three years later appointing Carr Daren as the state’s second Black Appeals Court judge.
The next year, Bayh made dual history naming Myra Selby as the first Black and first woman on the Indiana Supreme Court. When Selby left the court in 1999, Gov. Frank O’Bannon elevated Rucker to the Supreme Court.
Now Judge Darden is retiring. And last week, the state’s new Chief Justice Brent Dickson gave out strong hints that Justice Rucker may not stand for a retention vote this November and may also retire.
The odds that an African-American will replace Darden on the Appeals Court are barely one-in-five. Last week, the Indiana Judicial Nominating Commission chose five finalists for Darden’s seat. Only one of those recommended is African-American – Madison County Superior Judge Rudolph R. Pyle III. The other four are non-Hispanic whites, including two women.
The commission meets in two weeks to pick three nominees for Gov. Mitch Daniels to choose from. Given criticism of the lack of appointments of women to high judicial positions, there’ll be pressure on Daniels to perhaps pick a woman.
Then if Rucker really retires before Daniels leaves office, there’s the opportunity for the governor to have chosen three Supreme Court justices in eight years.
The severe downside could be the elimination of any African-American at the highest rungs of this state’s judiciary.
Bayh’s integration of the high courts was groundbreaking. But the specter that Indiana could go back to a lily-white top judiciary is alarming and disturbing.
Worse is the deafening silence from African-American organizations, on all sides of the political spectrum, on this rapidly developing negative scenario.
What I’m hearing
in the streets
It’s hard to evaluate the impact the new IREAD-3, third grade reading test had on African-American students because the State Department of Education refuses to release, until next month, detailed data on how African-American students (and other disaggregated student categories) performed.
What is clear is despite the hype from educational reformers, the performance of charters on IREAD-3, at least here in Indianapolis, didn’t set the world on fire. Just 66 percent of charter third graders passed IREAD-3; just below IPS’s 67 percent.
While some charters showed great IREAD-3 results, others had horrid performances; especially the Imagine Charter Schools which continue to display mediocre achievement results.
The abysmal IREAD-3 performance at Flanner House’s Charter School is also disappointing. Given Flanner House’s importance and legacy in our community, those running that school must be open and honest with our community about what happened and the steps they’ll take to make sure their students can read at and hopefully above grade level.
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The Census Bureau released its first population estimates since the 2010 Census and they report continued growth for our African-American community.
Black population in Indiana grew 3.2 percent to 675,140 from April 2010 to July 2011. Black population in Indianapolis/Marion County rose 2.2 percent to 262,033; while Black population in the Indianapolis metro rose 3.1 percent to 292,436.
Indiana is now 10.4 percent Black; our city/county’s 28.8 percent Black and the metro area’s 16.4 percent Black.
You might have seen headlines that said for the first time in America, a majority of children under age 1 are minorities.
But that’s been the case for several years in Indianapolis. The new Census estimates report that of the population under age 5, 54.1 percent are minority.
African-Americans comprise 34.5 percent of those under 5 in the city/county; Hispanics are 18 percent and the remainder other races.
At least in the younger ages, Indianapolis is already a majority-minority city. A fact that policymakers and politicians, in all communities, still refuse to grasp.
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A wide cross section of Black leadership has demanded that Mayor Greg Ballard include a wide range of community input into the selection of the next Public Safety Department director. But it’s obvious that Ballard only consults his alleged Black “advisory council.” That’s the shadowy amorphous group Ballard referenced last year after criticism of his continued refusal to meet with broad cross sections of Indianapolis Black leadership.
Ballard’s policy of Black isolation is something one would expect from a fourth world nation despot, not the mayor of a major American city.
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It’s disappointing that new Indy Parks Director John Williams, an African-American, apparently signed off on Parks’ plan to keep most swimming pools in minority-majority neighborhood closed for 14 days after all other pools opened this Saturday.
Not sure why pools like Douglass Park, Bethel, MLK, Riverside and others in Black neighborhoods won’t open until June 9, while all other pools open May 26.
If the longer IPS school year was the reason, why weren’t these additional pools open Memorial Day weekend and the following weekend only?
The decision smacks of the minority community unfriendly policies of former Parks Director Stuart Lowry. It’s a shame Williams seems to be following in Lowry’s footsteps.
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U.S. Senate Republican candidate Richard Mourdock will hate it, but last Saturday 10 outstanding Hoosier minority high school seniors shared $72,000 in scholarships in the 29th annual Fund for Hoosier Excellence. A scholarship program for outstanding Hoosier students started by Sen. Richard Lugar.
I’m sure after Lugar’s retirement, this great program will continue. While Mourdock and Republican radicals will continue to demonize Indiana’s minorities; instead of providing uplift as Lugar did.
See ‘ya next week.
You can email comments to Amos Brown at acbrown@aol.com.
