Lean On Me: Mr. Joe Clark

The 3 teenagers ended up filing a Civil Rights lawsuit in federal court through their fathers, asking the court to issue an injunction that would bar the school system from further disciplining students in the same situation as well nominal damages. The district court sided with the school board, deciding that the school’s fear of this protest causing disruptions of school discipline was within reason. The Eight Circuit Court of Appeals upheld this ruling on an evenly divided vote. The students ended up bringing their case to the Supreme Court after that.

The meeting continued with board member Jason Hopp presenting Dr. Matthew Flannery, formerly the principal of Shiloh Hills Elementary School, for a roll call vote to approve him as the new Assistant Superintendent of the WIlson School District. Mr. Hopp spoke for approximately two minutes about the credentials, reputation, and record of quality performance that Dr. Flannery has documented during his time with the district. A five-year contract was approved on an 8-1 vote, with Mr. Martin voting “no”. It may be worth observing that Mr. Martin is known as the “no man” of the current board, and often tows one of the more conservative lines of all board members. One can speculate that he may have felt

It seems that in this country people want to rush to the courts to fix things. George could not be fixed by the courts so the time had come to be realistic about meeting George’s needs as no law in the United States gives the state the right to NOT meet his needs. Having looked at the final settlement and the numbers involved it seems clear to me that the family was not out to “milk the school district”. They wanted simply to see their son get the most he could get from the educational system and become as viable of an American citizen as possible. This case cries out for thinking outside the box and putting the child first. Unfortunately, as I have seen from interviewing other teachers many parents simply want a fix for their unfixable child. This case does not fall into this category and the fact that in the end solutions were found demonstrates that point.

The multiple forces in favor of integration were determined to gain access to Central High School and integrate public schools in the south. Before any integration was possible in the United States, the NAACP, or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was forced to file a lawsuit in the Federal District Court to integrate public schools immediately due to the public and state backlash towards integration (Beals 20). Judge Ronald Davies declared that Governor Faubus had “thwarted the court-approved plan of integration” furthering the movement to integrate Central High (Beals 68). After the lawsuit was settled, the Little Rock Nine was scheduled to integrate into Central High School. However, even after these

4) Facts: Since the verdict made by the Supreme Court on the Brown v. Board of Education case, little enactment was made in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina’s school structure. There are 107 schools altogether, in which the student population is 84000. Within the structure, there are 21 schools in which 14000 African Americans attend that are 99% of their race only. The rest of the African American students, about 10000 students, attend integrated school. In this case, the plaintiff, Swann, had come forth to bring the board of education to the court. It all started when Dr. Darius Swann, professor at Johnson C. Smith University, wanted to enroll his child to an almost all white school closer to his home, which he was rejected.

.” (Eisenhower vs. Faubus). President Dwight D. Eisenhower was doing the best he could to try and hold back the crowd. He said “The federal constitution will be upheld by every legal means at my command” (Eisenhower vs. Faubus). Even still, it took a while to control the hostile crowd. Governor Orval Faubus of Little Rock, successfully called in the national guard and prevented the students from entering. Despite this, Eisenhower was eventually able to enforce federal law, and the nine students entered the school. It took a lot of courage and persistence for them to ignore all of the hateful comments they received, but that mindset of peace helped to set an example for future activists in the Civil Rights Movement, and all protests alike. Eventually, the nine students were able to graduate, complete their educational goals, and successfully integrate Central High School - major step towards their goal of equality in the United States (Brown v. Board of Education of

Even after the Supreme Court decision in 1954 in the Brown v. Board of Education case, very little had actually been done to desegregate public schools. Brown v. Board of Education ordered the end to separate but equal and the desegregation of public schools; however, the court provided no direction for the implementation of its decision. Authority was pushed to the Attorney Generals of each state to create and submit plans to proceed with desegregation. Southern states were against the court’s decision and many refused to pass any new legislation. Swann sued the Board of Education in Charlotte, North Carolina because of the racial inequality and lack of efforts to desegregate

The benefits of this decision is that Mrs. Kay Williams and the School Board along with the majority of the community and students will have their rights upheld as outlined in the First Amendment. Superintendent Noble will have “made a stand” as he stated in the newspaper article.

The concurring opinion by Justices O'Connor and Powell was not quite as nice. In Powell's words "I agree with the Court's decision, and generally with its opinion. I would place greater emphasis, however, on the special characteristics of elementary and secondary schools that make it unnecessary to afford students the same constitutional protections granted adults and juveniles in a nonschool setting." This is clearly a detraction from the rest of the justice's opinions and against the nature of the amendment and previous school precedents.

This decision led to them trying to recruit and maintain staff members who were African American and Latino parents. As a parent of four school aged African American students I commend them for taking the time and effort to consider this as a viable approach to bringing the school together as a cohesive community. Students who are a part of a school community that values the input of parents and had staff members who resembled them will in turn feel as if they have representatives who will consider their best

The majority opinion leaned towards letting the 4 petitioning kids, seeing that in a multitude of court cases before showed similar conduct. An example of such was the case West Virginia v. Barnette, where students in the public school system are not held to salute the American flag. “The Fourteenth Amendment, as now applied to the States, protects the citizens against the State itself and all of its creatures- Boards of Education not excepted. These have, of course, important,

Lean on Me is a movie that focuses on an abrasive and tough principal that has been called to whip the underprivileged inner city school of Eastside High into shape to avoid being run by the state as opposed to the local school board. This movie brought about the controversial character of Mr. Joe Clark was played by Morgan Freeman.

In the film "Lean on Me", Joe Clark, a fictional version of the real Mr. Clark who was the principal at an inner-city high school in Paterson, New Jersey, is the ultimate example of an authoritarian leader. In the movie, Clark approaches his job at a decaying academic setting with single-minded goals: to clean up the school, physically and academically, in order to help the students who have potential to graduate and to get rid of the ones who are destined to fail, according to his perceptions. Clark 's leadership style has been both widely praised as successful and a model for similar such schools, and has also been criticized for its bullying tactics. This paper will discuss Clark 's methods of leadership, his style and tactics as

Not everyone accepted the Brown v. Board of Education decision. In Virginia, Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr. organized the Massive Resistance movement that included the closing of schools rather than desegregating them.[28] See, for example, The Southern Manifesto. For more implications of the Brown decision, see Desegregation

Last week, our class saw a movie named “Lean On Me”. It’s an educational movie, which mainly tells how Joe Clark saves the East High. After he left the high school, it became a bad school. And he succeeded in changing it to a good school by establishing strict rules and regulations, caring about his students and improving himself. As far as I’m concerned, there are three reasons that can explain why Joe Clark succeeded while other principles have failed.