Question:

Hello, my name is Danny Yates. I am a Maggie Walker Governor’s School senior from the West End of the city. I am also a reporter for my school paper and a high school correspondent for RTD. I first want to thank all the candidates for the opportunity to ask this question. My question has a bit of a preface. Currently the number of African American governor’s school students from Richmond is disproportional to the percentage of African American students in RPS. This past June, the Maggie Walker Regional School Board voted to spend $70,000 to hire a consulting firm to assess the level of diversity in the school and to propose methods for increasing minority representation. My question is this - would you support a race-based affirmative action program in the school’s admissions and hiring procedures to increase minority students and faculty?

Councilman William Pantele:

“Well of course, this is the first I’ve heard of this issue and it is hard for me to know even where to begin without having a firmer grounding in the facts. I assume that you mean that the percentage of minority students from the city at the Governor’s School is lower than the percentage in the general population … well in that case there would certainly be something that would merit review and study, of course, I think it also illustrates on of the issues with charter schools. Now I’m not against charter schools, I think we should innovate in our public education systems. But, one of the risks is, charter schools tend to gravitate towards cherry-picking students from the general public school system to the advantage of one to the disadvantage of another. The Governor’s School is a great facility it has to be access to all of our students who qualify where there is a slot available. I’m glad the school is looking into the diversity issue and I will be interested, in fact, I will insist on a copy of the results.”

Robert Grey:

“I don’t think you have to hire anybody for $70,000 to figure this out. This is a community that has always had difficulty with race, and we have got to start getting a handle on this by making sure that we provide equal opportunity to all students to attend whatever school we have and I mean that throughout the city. What we have to do is to ensure a level of diversity that this community seeks to promote not only in education, but in business, but in community activities, but in government, and throughout our community. There is no perfect system to do any of this, it requires people of good will, good conscience, and it requires people of commitment to a city that will grow through the strong diversity of its neighborhoods. I think we can accomplish this, and I think we can accomplish this by getting the leaders of the high schools to sit down and make some fundamental choices about leadership and about opportunity.”

Lawrence Williams:

“I don’t think you need to waste money on a consultant. Many of these things, people of good common sense work out over time and it may take many years to do it. Robert (Grey) and I are from John Marshall when it was being integrated and because of that we had some major opportunities. I was able to go to the University of Virginia and Harvard University from there. Now the issue here is with the schools, you should look closely to find people who qualify to be in that spot. Being Afro-American in that slot is important and it should represent the community. Very frankly, once you have those opportunities, you have a different perspective and you care about where you came from. Pantele will not go to Fairfield court and fight to the death to make sure that that community changes. I will, and that is just a fact of life. You have to begin to understand that you have to have diversity so that everyone gets an opportunity to go back and make a big difference.”

Del. Dwight Jones:

“I didn’t know that there was a 70,000 dollar contract out there to just bring diversity to the Maggie Walker high school. If I had known, I would have put a bid in. That’s an easy job. And I probably would have don it for 35 (thousand). The question is easily answered. We have got to have the leadership that requires that there is diversity in all places, and that requires intentionality- somebody who is going to push the envelope and have these conversations that are somewhat difficult to have. And I want to congratulate you young man and congratulate the students at the Maggie Walker school for taking on an issue that many adults, many business, many governments, just don’t want to talk about. And for you to bring it to the forefront and to force a study and some action, really speaks well of the students at the Maggie Walker school and I think you deserve a lot applause and respect for that. (applause).”