FLASHBACK 1988: Residents denounce racism with South High's closure and East, West and Highland High's merging 

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In commemoration of City Weekly's 40th anniversary, we are digging into our archives to celebrate. Each week, we FLASHBACK to a story or column from our past in honor of four decades of local alt-journalism. Whether the names and issues are familiar or new, we are grateful to have this unique newspaper to contain them all.

Title: Goodbye, South High
Author: Richard Barnum-Reece
Date: February, 1988

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The problem, of course, is the Negroes. The Negroes and the Mexicans. This is not to discount those swarthy legions who eat horses—Tongans, Samoans, Tahitians, the entire grass-hut conspiracy. And then there's them damn carp eaters—the Vietnamese and the Cambodians.

"It's not race, it has nothing to do with the race," protests the blonde-haired bimbo from East High. "It's the students. They're destroying East High. They're destroying our school."

"Don't say a thing about race," the fat lady chimes in who is snooping the interview from behind. "You say anything about race and the news media will misquote you. That's all the news media can do: misquote you."

"Excuse me," your reporter says tightening his grip on his pencil with his left hand, reaching quietly into the pocket of his trench coat with his right, where he keeps the can of industrial size Mace in the event the fat lady, who obviously had an ugly season on the road show circuit this year—just in case the fat lady went completely bonkers.

"Didn't you just say, 'You say anything about race and the news media will misquote you?' I want to be sure since I don't misquote you."

The Fat Lady, who has nothing against minorities but doesn't want her daughter to marry one, stared the red, pig-eyed look of a bad dog about to rip your throat out. "I didn't give you permission to quote me at all," she says.

"I didn't ask for permission," the reporter says. "I didn't ask for permission at all."

And so it went that fateful night when the Salt Lake City Board of Education took the ugly leap off the dark end of the pier and voted for Plan G, the majority report that came up out of the bowels of the boundary committee, a committee that changed its own ground rules when it realized that of its 12 members it was never going to get enough people on the same side of any vote to nail down a 75 percent majority so—what the hell—let's go with eight of 12 and leave it at that.

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Which they did. The entire controversy came down when the state mandated that the local school districts weren't about to run their schools at less than 70 percent occupancy and since Salt Lake City—to put it nicely—had been hanging on by the end of its fingernails to get any real numbers what with the slow death of the inner city, well, that meant you had to start lopping off a few heads.

First to go was 25 schools. 42,000 students became 25,000. That's right. The past few years Salt Lake City has seen the demise of 25 schools. But no high schools. No alma maters, no memories of high school proms. And then the Big Decision: former mayor Ted Wilson's old high school, South, until recently an inner-city training ground for minorities on the outskirts of the American Dream, where such as the old Olympic coach himself, Nate Long, once held forth and former student body president Dennis Borup hustled cheerleaders in the parking lot. Yes, it had come to this, it was time for South High school to close its doors. Brand new multi-million-dollar gymnasium and Olympic swimming pool or not.

And the rich kids at East and Highland had no idea how that was going to affect them.

"We get all kinds of criticism from one side and the other," says the flack for the Salt Lake City school district. "The ones from the West Side say they don't like some boundaries because of elitism or racism and the people from the East Side want to preserve the quality of their neighborhood schools."

They opened the meeting where the final decision was going to take place with a short little prayer from Lorna Matheson, who invoked the power of the Lord and then there were a few nice words from board president Keith Stepan, a former Hillcrest High School jump shooter for Art Hughes who has obviously picked up a few new tricks to pull together a strong bag of political mojo.

What you had was your Plan G and your Plan P. Plan G, the majority report which was finally adopted by a 4-3 vote, sends students from Federal Heights, the Avenues, and Arlington Hills to West High next year. Luckily, for those who find rubbing shoulders with the pony eaters to be a kiss of death, those wealthy students presently attending East who would have to attend West under the new boundary plan are "grandfathered in." They don't have to go but their kid brother or sister—if they are in the ninth grade or younger—are kissed by the Brother and Sister of Doom.

So to speak.

Plan P, the minority report, recommended that the line of demarcation would send all the Avenues students to West but save the truly wealthy kids—those living north of the University and East of Virginia Street in the Arlington Hills and Federal Heights area. They would continue to go to East.

But not now folks. The Board has spoken.

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"I am opposed to Map P because I want to see three truly competitive high schools," says Stepan. "To me that means that the critical mass of the students at each school should give us a good mix. There should be quality and equality of all students and that's what this is all about. I believe "G" is an improvement but in as much as I would hope to have as much equality as possible, I still note that it leaves West below the national standard."

"Where does it leave East?" a man yelled from the audience.

"God, what do you want?" snickered a lady.

Indeed. What do they want? In the audience, as the vote was tallied, much of the East High faction of the crowd snorted and laughed at what they perceived to be the lame hypocrisy of the board. "If they think they've got us they're crazy," a friend of the fat lady's says as she walked outside, visions of lawsuits dancing in her head. "We've just started to fight this one."

"I just think they should have an open enrollment for the students from South," says Brooke Nielsen, a student at East who will not be affected by the vote but whose friends and family will be. "I think it would be easier for everyone if there was an open enrollment where the South students could go wherever they wanted and the rest of us could stay right where we are. This way all the Avenues and Arlington Hills will have to go to West. They will have to bus people to West when it's only a few blocks to walk to East right now."

The roosters have come home to roost. When the Southies were battling black people being bussed to South Boston, hurling epithets at buses, spitting on little girls dressed in white frocks, it was a problem for others to contend with. Utahns, Salt Lakers in particular, didn't have to confront the expressions of racism—lower quality schools, separate and unequal education and busing—to attempt to rectify the problem. Twenty years ago, Salt Lake was lily white and Northern European. Now you've got the carp eaters, the Pony Thieves, the Grass Skirt Conspiracy, the American Melting Pot that infuriates much and melts little.

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"More money will be wasted on busing that could be spent on improving the quality of education," says another East High student. "This is a stupid decision."

"The decision of these board members was made a year ago," says Rich Grow, whose youngest children are now in the West High School district. "We've had a year of talking and there's really been no change at all in these people's positions. They had their minds made up all along. Ron Walker (a board member) told us he had no special agenda but his mind was made up. He came to our community council meeting but he really wasn't there to listen to us, he was there to placate us. I don't think he ever really considered our position."

So when the vote came down, a controversial 4-3 decision that satisfied no one, something like if the Supreme Court had split on the inevitable decision that led to the resignation of Richard Nixon, the four horsemen of the Apocalypse were Stepan, Ron Walker, Susan Keene and Colleen Minson.

They gobbled up Plan G which sent the rich kids from the Avenues and Federal Heights to West and which lowered the academic standards of East by raising the academic standards of West and which brought the hard issues of neighborhood schools and the life and times of education—your child, your money, your hopes and dreams for the future—right into your living room. And for once Utah, we're not talking about the TV set.

"I'll end up sending my kids to Highland by registering them with their grandparents who live in the district," says one parent. "I'll send them to private school. I'm not going to take this."

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"I have a little light-hearted presentation I'd like to make," says Stepan when the meeting started, before the mayhem began to take hold. "It's an award we got, a special award, it's never been given before. It's a purple heart with a purple ribbon. It's called an award for valor for the frustration and fortitude that this board has gone through. It's for wounds suffered in the performance of our duty and, well, it's just a fun little thing and we appreciate getting it.

"You know, we have to make some tough, tough, decisions."