Miss. school reverses race-based rules for student elections

From MSNBC.com:

The school board in Nettleton, Miss., voted Friday to reverse its policy under which race determined whether a candidate could run for class positions, including president.

According to a memo sent home with students last week, African-American students could not run for class president in Nettleton Middle School this school year. However, the board voted at an emergency session Friday to drop that policy, according to Craig Ford, a reporter with the NBC News affiliate WTVA, who attended the meeting.

According to the district's statement, the practice had been in use for more than 30 years with whites and blacks rotating among offices annually.

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"It is the belief of the current administration that these procedures were implemented to help ensure minority representation and involvement in the student body," Superintendent Russell Taylor said in a statement.

"Therefore, beginning immediately, student elections at Nettleton School District will no longer have a classification of ethnicity. It is our intent that each student has equal opportunity to seek election for any student office."

Scrutiny of the practice occurred after Brandy Springer, a mother of four children, contacted blogger Suzy Richardson, founder and editor of the blog mixedandhappy.com.

"My [eighth-grade] daughter came home from[Nettleton] school telling me that she wanted to try out for the school reporter, but it is only open to black students," Springer wrote Richardson. "They told her 'she should run for class president, that was open to only white students.'"

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