Justice Gary S. Stein (Ret.) Quoted in the Boston Globe Discussing New Jersey School Segregation LawsuitÂ
Justice Gary S. Stein (Ret.), special counsel at Pashman Stein Walder Hayden P.C., was quoted in the Boston Globe Opinion, “The only way to fix Boston Schools once and for all.” The Opinion suggests that a desegregation lawsuit should be filed to address the intense segregation in Boston schools, and cites examples of similar efforts in other states, including the New Jersey school segregation case, for which Pashman Stein managing partner Michael S. Stein serves as co-counsel.
And in New Jersey, after years of delays, a judge recently heard oral arguments in a similar lawsuit.
Gary Stein, a former New Jersey Supreme Court justice who helped organize the legal challenge, says the plaintiffs, including the Latino Action Network and the state branch of the NAACP, have been able to get by on a modest budget. Help from a pro bono team of lawyers and several volunteer education experts has kept the cost to about $150,000 so far.
And with that small outlay, he says, advocates are poised to root out an injustice that no governor or legislature has been willing to confront.
Some 270,000 Black and Latino students in New Jersey — about half of the statewide total — attend “intensely segregated” schools, where at least 90 percent of the students are kids of color. “We’re a northeastern, progressive state, and we shouldn’t have . . . schools as badly segregated as the ones we have,” Stein says. “It’s an embarrassment.”
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