HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The Hutchinson chapter of the NAACP has announced their keynote speaker for the upcoming Freedom Fund Dinner on Saturday, Oct. 19 at 7 p.m. at the Stringer Fine Arts Center at HutchCC.
The keynote speaker will be Victor Goode, Associate General Counsel from the NAACP's National Office. In addition to that role, Goode has also served as the Interim National Education Director. A Thurgood Marshall School of Law graduate, his work at the NAACP has ranged from fair housing and equal education opportunity to voting rights and public accommodations discrimination, in addition to in-house counsel work. He served as Project Manager of the National NAACP Redistricting team and was co-counsel on the Texas and Florida statewide redistricting cases and on the Texas voter ID case. He was co-counsel in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder in which the Supreme Court declared part of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional. A recipient of the Medgar Evers Award, the national NAACP top staff award, Victor was architect and co-author of the NAACP Supreme Court amicus in Fisher v. UT, a challenge to the use of race as a factor in admission.
Some of his most satisfying work is the small victories, like getting a Louisiana district to reinstate a 9- year-old homeless girl whom district officials had wrongfully expelled. Or assisting a Texas high school student in a Houston suburb to obtain Office for Civil Rights systemic relief against the district for racial harassment; the agreement applied to the entire district, not just her high school, and it also applies to harassment based on national origin, including language.
Victor has used the First Amendment and Equal Protection to successfully protect the Association's right to conduct third party direct mail voter registration campaigns, the right of an NAACP leader who worked for the government not to have to choose between his job and his volunteer work in the absence of a conflict, to obtain a Texas Education Agency ruling that Austin Public Schools squelched Austin NAACP speech, and to protect NAACP membership lists against litigants’ discovery.
While Victor spent a great deal of time on the Association’s Black Bike Week public accommodations discrimination cases in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, e.g., NAACP, Inc. et al. v. PAAR Inc., d/b/a/ Damon’s Grill et al., No. 4:04-1691-RBH (D.S.C.-Florence 2006)(settled), he later focused on education cases, e.g., NAACP by its Omaha Branch et al. v. David Heineman, in his official capacity as Governor of the State of Nebraska, No. 8:8:06-CV-371 (D. Nebraska-Omaha 2006)(de jure public school desegregation case stayed pending outcome of state court action; plaintiffs dismissed complaint when the State changed the state law and corrected the problem); State of Connecticut et al. v. Margaret Spellings, Secretary of the Dept. of Education, No. 3:05-CV-01330 (MRK)(D.Conn. 2006)(NAACP motion for permissive intervention in No Child Left Behind case granted)(NAACP and Federal government eventually prevailed in the District Court and Second Circuit Court of Appeal, though not on the merits; the Supreme Court rejected the State’s petition for certiorari, effectively ending the case); School District of City of Pontiac, et al. v. Secretary of Education, No. 05-2708 (6th Cir. 2008)(NAACP amicus urging rehearing en banc in No Child Left Behind Act case; rehearing en banc granted); Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, et al. and Crystal D. Meredith et al. v. Jefferson County Board of Education, Nos. 05-908 and 05-915 (U.S. Supreme Court 2007(Victor co-authored NAACP amicus curiae brief that used then-Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s data to show that race neutral approach to voluntary school desegregation does not work); Hart, et al. v. Community School Board #21, No. 72 CV 1041 (JBW)(E.D.N.Y. 2008)(NAACP response to affirmative action opponent effort to overturn court ordered race-based student assignment to gifted school; case dismissed).
Chrisondra Goodwine et al. v. Robert Taft, et al., No. C-3-75-304 (S.D. Ohio-Western Div. 2008) (In this post-desegregation settlement monitoring case, the Dayton Public Schools ignored an NAACP data request until we filed a notice of violation of settlement agreement with the Court. The data revealed that the school district had not fully complied with the terms of the settlement, but the Court subsequently dismissed the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction). Alexander, et al. v. Underhill, et al., No. CV-N-05-00178-LRH(RJJ)(D. Nevada 2007) (Victor drafted an amicus curiae brief for the Reno NAACP in a challenge to the school district’s approach to student suspensions, claiming that the district violated procedural due process by failing to provide the students with meaningful notice and opportunity to be heard). He continues to advise NAACP affiliates on how to work toward greater desegregation within, and between, school districts.
As a staff attorney at Advocates for Basic Legal Equality in Toledo, Victor served as lead counsel in Almendares v. Palmer, a statewide class action to challenge County and State welfare department treatment of Food Stamp Program participants and applicants whose primary language is Spanish. The case settled, after a successful 4 year fight to obtain class certification. He also used administrative complaints to obtain systemic relief in education and health care cases. He worked with others to help convince the Toledo Public Schools to pass its first anti-racist, multicultural education policy. He worked with the Port Clinton Public Schools to re-evaluate its policies on student race and gender harassment and equal educational opportunity. The superintendent and school board revised its policies & sent teachers and administrators to trainings/in-service on diversity/dealing with racism. Victor negotiated first time agreements with a school district to provide a Vietnamese translator for a student preparing for state proficiency exams and with County mental health providers to provide an interpreter to Vietnamese clients who needed this service.
Pro bono work has been very important, e.g., as a lawyer for Texas State Conference NAACP he investigated funky water, suspicious deaths, racist housing, and the Klan, with co-counsel obtained injunction against Austin Public Schools in a high stakes testing case (about 80 seniors allowed to participate in graduation ceremonies in district high schools), architect of Toledo NAACP complaint to FCC against radio station that violated an FCC rule (FCC fined radio station $4000). He and his wife, sociologist Dr. Jennifer Goode, conducted the first empirical research, creating their own customized databases, on Toledo's Safe School Ordinance. They presented their research at the Harvard Civil Right Project School to Prison Pipeline Conference and other national conferences.
A former Notes Editor for the Thurgood Marshall Law Review, Victor has written about civil rights and education, e.g., V.Goode & J.Goode, De Facto Zero Tolerance-An Exploratory Study of Race & Safe School Violations, in Teaching City Kids: Understanding and Appreciating Them 85 (Peter Lang 2007); V. Goode, Public School Accountability & Community Democracy, SOJOURNER’S TRUTH, May 14, 2003, at 3; V. Goode, Race, Racism & Legal Services Training, MANAGEMENT INFORMATION EXCHANGE JOURNAL, 43 (Spring 2003); V. Goode & P. Flowers, Invisibility of Clients of Color: The Intersection of Language, Culture & Race in Legal Services Practice, CLEARINGHOUSE REVIEW (May-June 2002); V. Goode, Allow Citizens to Stay Informed, It’s the Law, 5 OHIO LAWYERS WEEKLY 668 (July 23, 2001); V. Goode, Two engines: Thoughts on recent development in Toledo, TOLEDO JOURNAL, Jan. 30, 2002 at 16 (public schools & public contracts); Goode, My Child, Your Child, Coalition for Quality Education News & Views 4 (Spring 1998(tips for parents of students with disabilities); Goode, Yudof Misguided on Multiculturalism, TEXAS LAWYER, Dec. 3, 1990, at 2; Goode, Cultural Racism in Public Education: A Legal Tactic for Black Texans, HOWARD LAW JOURNAL (Spring 1990)(the 13th & 14th Amendments prohibit Texas school districts from adopting certain spirit symbols); Goode, The Texas Plan: Public Law School Education, Title VI & the Settlement Monitoring Process, 12 SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW 157 (Winter 1986-87); V. Goode, Note, Integration versus Integration: Race, Law & Economics in the Context of Housing Discrimination, 11 THURGOOD MARSHALL LAW REVIEW 363 (Spring 1986); V. Goode, Book Review, 16 J. ETHNIC STUDIES 127 (Spring 1988)(municipal services discrimination); V. Goode, The Blackest Dirt, The Whitest People: An East Texas Municipal Election Scheme, 11 J. ETHNIC STUDIES 11 (Spring 1984). He earned his B.S. at West Texas State University and his M.P.A. at East Texas State University.
The NAACP's mission is to achieve equity, political rights, and social inclusion by advancing policies and practices that expand human and civil rights, eliminate discrimination and accelerate the well-being, education, and economic security of Black people and all persons of color.
If you’d like to support the ongoing effort at the annual fundraiser, consider becoming a sponsor. Contact the Freedom Fund Dinner chair at (620) 899-1563 or email: [email protected] to get started.