NAACP Protests Fayette County Public School System

Authored by Lachin Hatemi M.D.

Fayette County Public School system (FCPS) is a behemoth of an organization which is responsible for providing education to the children of Lexington, Kentucky. With a budget of more than $400 million, FCPS is also one of the largest employers in the city of Lexington.

Once a month, FCPS officials hold a public meeting to go over their budget, agenda and take input from its stakeholders (i.e., general public, parents and other interested parties). These school board meetings have a history of being monotonous and often put most in the audience to sleep had changed dramatically in the recent months.

There is a new participant in the room, the Lexington-Fayette County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Members of NAACP are not very quiet with their presence in these meetings. Actually in a recent meeting, one of the members of NAACP was asked to remove herself form the meeting room for causing a disturbance to the meeting.

The local chapter of the NAACP has significant concerns regarding equity in policies and finances within FCPS, more specifically, the unfair distribution of Section-7 funds and other general funds between low and high performing schools.

One of the main organizers of the protests is Dr. Shambra Mulder, the Chair of Education Committee, was very specific in her comments. 

“The Section 7 money is basically the excess money the district has to use at their discretion.  The law stipulates that it should be used based on student needs, achievement gaps, and as requested by schools according to their school improvement plans.  It appears for the last 5 years, this money has been distributed haphazardly.  As a result, high-performing schools have received more money than low-performing schools that primarily serve the low-income students in the district.  This is unacceptable and appears to have led to an adverse impact on academic achievement of the neediest students.  It remains to be seen whether the district is serious about providing the academic and financial resources necessary to turn around their low-performing schools.”

NAACP recently filed several open record requests asking for the records of general funds and how Section-7 money was distributed among schools.

Lachin Hatemi is a physician and a civil rights activist based in Lexington, Kentucky. Hatemi is also the founder and partner in consulting firm, Hatemi & Wallace Consulting. You can reach him at Lachin@HatemiWallace.com.

 

University of Kentucky Lies about Minority Student Data

Authored by Lachin Hatemi M.D.

NAACP asked University of Kentucky officials to release the number of African American students at University of Kentucky College of Medicine, what they got back after a year long struggle was falsified data which was published by the local newspaper, Lexington Herald Leader, without any investigation. University’s legal counsel, William Thro even admitted in a personal email that the data about number of black medical students was false.

Over the last decade, black medical students were specifically targeted by the Dean of Medical School and other administrators. Most of the black medical students were asked to leave the school after couple years and many others were held back in their education.

When blamed for systematic discrimination against black medical students by NAACP and other activists, Eli Capiuloto decided to mislead the general public by releasing falsified information. But this was no surprise to people who knew him.