Detroit "school activist" Agnes Hitchcock has been given a $250 fine and six months probation after being convicted on charges of disturbing the peace. Hitchcock is the leader of Detroit's Call 'em Out Coalition disrupted a school board meeting by throwing grapes at the board members. She was led out of the chamber by police.
Agnes Hitchcock, leader of the Call 'Em Out Coalition, said she will not be disruptive at future school board meetings. She said the case, which ended with her conviction and sentence Thursday, gave her a chance to speak about mismanagement in the school district.
"It was worth the risk in order to be able to talk about these things in court," she told the Detroit Free Press.
The grapes she threw April 4 beaned at least one board member before police led Hitchcock out of the auditorium. The board voted 6-5 to close schools because of a budget deficit and declining enrollment.
Apparently, the raisin(to be) d'etre* of the group she leads is to be as offensive as possible.
One such group, the Call 'Em Out Coalition, gave Sambo Sell-Out Awards at a February dinner here in Detroit, where City Council member Sharon McPhail (shame on you!) read the nominees. Winners included the mayor, the superintendent of the city schools, a constantly controversial City Council member and businessman Dave Bing.
Public officials are always fair game. My ire is reserved for an attack on one of our best and brightest, who is neither public nor a sellout.
Bing, an NBA star with the Detroit Pistons before becoming a business star who located his auto-supply company in Detroit instead of, oh, a dozen suburban cities he could have chosen, wants to build a charter high school near his business — a living symbol of what the ancestors wanted. He wants to hire local graduates, but many of the best leave Detroit while many of the rest aren't equipped to start work.
"I'm not anti-public schools," he said in news reports last month. "But I don't think they will fix public schools quick enough to stop the drain. And if parents and children don't have other options, it's a lose-lose proposition for both the public schools and the city of Detroit."
It doesn't hurt Bing
The group is mad because Bing decided to partner with white philanthropist Bob Thompson, whose offer to build $200 million worth of charter high schools was rejected two years ago for fear it might hurt the city schools. The pair isn't recycling Thompson's old offer. Bing wants one school, near his company, one whose graduates could see their future down the street.
Very nice.
* Yes, I am aware of the correct spelling of raison d’être. It was a play on words.
