A Pardon for Kelley Williams-Bolar

Monday, September 5, 2011
By Kathleen Cross
58Amid all the rhetoric in this country about how lower-income black parents supposedly don’t care about or participate in their children’s education, Kelley Williams-Bolar was so concerned about the quality and safety of the school in her neighborhood, she used her father’s nearby address to enrol her two daughters in a better one.

She went to jail for that.

The Copley-Fairlawn School where Williams-Bolar illegally enrolled her kids is situated just a few miles from her home in Akron, Ohio, but the quality of teaching and learning on the 75 percent white campus is ranked among the best in the state. Williams-Bolar’s neighborhood school district ranks in the bottom 10 percent.

Williams-Bolar, now a convicted felon, stood before the Ohio parole board in hopes that she would receive a pardon for her “crime.” She told the eight-member body that she was sorry for lying and would do things differently if given the chance. “I love my kids and I would have done anything for my children,” an emotional Williams-Bolar testified.

Her lawyer argued that a felony conviction hampers his client’s ability to provide for her family and destroys her career goal of becoming a certified teacher. The Parole Board heard the arguments, then voted on Sept. 2 to deny Williams-Bolar’s pardon.

She must now turn for mercy to Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who has the final say.

“The parole board’s lack of empathy is astounding, and now the decision rests fully with Governor Kasich,” said Rashad Robinson, executive director of ColorofChange.org. Robinson’s organization plans to lobby the Governor in support of Ms. Williams-Bolar.

The offensive irony in this story is that as this mother was sitting in jail serving her sentence, President Barack Obama spoke these words to loud applause in his January, 2010 State of the Union Address:

“The question is whether all of us — as citizens, and as parents — are willing to do what’s necessary to give every child a chance to succeed. That responsibility begins not in our classrooms, but in our homes and communities. It’s family that first instills the love of learning in a child.”

With all due respect, Mr. President, what we have all learned from this travesty is that those who can afford to move into communities with better schools “deserve” a better education for their children. Those who lack the resources to move or pay out-of-district tuition must watch their children be swallowed up in low-performing schools where their full human potential is left untapped and their goals for the future have little chance to be realized.

When I think of the judge that sentenced Kelley Williams-Bolar and the eight parole board members who were asked to decide this woman’s fate, I can’t help but picture those police officers on the Danziger Bridge in New Orleans who, amid the climate of fear brought on by Hurricane Katrina, shot American citizens to prevent them from crossing that bridge and entering their community.

No, the Ohio authorities weren’t shooting bullets at this mother, but their heartless response to her desperate attempt to rescue her children from their drowning school system seems motivated by the same “guard our resources” and “make an example out of ‘em” mentality that led to the Danziger Bridge shootings.

It would have sent a powerful message about the separate and unequal status of our nation’s schools if just one parent or school staff member from within the mostly white Copley-Fairlawn School District had stood up for Ms. Williams-Bolar at her clemency hearing to call her “crime” an act of civil disobedience.

That would require seeing her as a fellow American with a right to a quality education for her children — not as an outsider coming to take what’s theirs.