The Southern
Legal
Resource Center
NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release: Monday, September 12, 2005
SLRC to hold news conference outside
Latta School Board meeting
BLACK MOUNTAIN , NC – Officials of the Southern Legal Resource Center will hold a news conference Tuesday, September 13, at 6:45 p.m. , in front of the Latta School District administrative offices at 502 N. Richardson Street .
The news conference will take place immediately prior to the Latta School Board's regularly scheduled meeting, which the board refused to allow the SLRC to address.
The SLRC represents Candice Hardwick, a Latta High School student who last year was forbidden to wear a t-shirt that included a small image of the Confederate flag. Since then the school board has rebuffed repeated attempts by Candice and her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Daryl Hardwick, to discuss the issue.
“We will be in town to discuss legal options with the Hardwicks and other interested parties,” said SLRC Executive Director Roger McCredie, “but we would still like to see if we can bring the school board to the table. Certainly that would be in the board's best interest.”
In 2003 the SLRC successfully prosecuted a case against a Kentucky school system that forbade the wearing or display of Confederate symbols on school property. The court's decision in this case, Castorina v. Madison County Schools, is now law in the U. S. Sixth Circuit ( Kentucky , Ohio , Tennessee and Michigan ) and is being used as a precedent in other locations.
The Southern Legal Resource Center is a nonprofit legal organization that specializes in civil rights issues involving Southern culture and heritage.
-end-
For additional
information, contact:
Roger McCredie
The Southern Legal Resource Center
(828) 669-5189
