Promoted After Lawsuit : Black Principal Stirs Turmoil in Small Town

In the months since Freeman Cooper, who is black, became principal of nearly all-white Fairview High School, there have been a student walkout, threats against a judge and occasional signs reading “The KKK Lives.”

The town has been in turmoil since Cooper replaced a white principal last fall as a result of a civil rights lawsuit that Cooper filed against the school system.

Last week, the police chief found it necessary to escort Cooper to work after the Williamson County School Board voted Monday to drop incompetency charges lodged against Cooper by Supt. Ken Fleming. Some teachers and students at the meeting wept when they heard the news, and some parents trooped angrily out the door.

Charged Nature of Case

Cooper’s lawyers see the emotional reaction as indicative of the charged nature of a racial discrimination case, but some school officials believe otherwise.

‘Race Was Not a Factor’

“I don’t think this case has anything to do with race,” Fleming said. “Obviously, race has been alleged and surrounds it. As far as I am concerned, race was not a factor.”

Fairview, a rural town of 3,600 persons 30 miles southwest of Nashville, is predominantly white. It is part of a county school system of 10,000 students, 4.7% of them black. Four of the county’s 18 principals are black. Fairview High School has 500 students and three blacks: one student, one teacher and Cooper.

Cooper, 56, was an elementary school principal in the county school system when he was demoted to physical education teacher in 1976. He filed a federal lawsuit in 1980, contending that the board had discriminated against him by demoting him and by not naming him principal of a high school in 1974.

Last August, U.S. District Judge Thomas Wiseman in Nashville ordered the school board to make Cooper a principal at one of the four high schools and give him $80,000 in back pay. Fairview’s principal, a white man popular in the community, was removed, and Cooper took his place.

Students Stage Walkout

False fire alarms started going off after Cooper’s appointment, and a flurry of alarms apparently preceded an afternoon student walkout last November.

Signs turned up at school reading: “The KKK Lives.” One student dressed as a Ku Klux Klansman during a school costume day.

“There were frustrations. I just happened to be a convenient label,” Cooper said last week.

But Richard Manson, one of Cooper’s attorneys, went further. “Certainly, they were attempting to use intimidation in order to force Mr. Cooper either to make a substantial amount of errors or force him out of the institution altogether,” he said.

Manson says his client’s case “is probably indicative of a lot of desegregation plans and how they failed.”

“I think desegregation, in and of itself, is a very difficult process, and then when you have these very close-knit communities and predominantly white communities, the kind of resistance they offer is just unreal,” he said.

Series of Bitter Hearings

Fleming’s allegations that Cooper was incompetent, inefficient, insubordinate and neglectful of his duties sparked a series of bitter school board hearings.

Death Threats to Judge

Judge Wiseman, who last fall received death threats that he says were related to the Cooper case, had “strong reservations” about Fleming’s charges but refused to block the hearings.

After the school board’s decision last week, Police Chief Robert Odum not only escorted Cooper to work the next day, but had several police vehicles parked at the school. In that first uneasy day, a number of false fire alarms went off. About 100 students stayed home.

Cooper said that most students have since returned to school. He is working with Fleming and the board on a plan to make sure that things run smoothly at Fairview.

“My objective is to try to heal all the wounds and solidify and unify the total situation,” he said. “It’s a city of intelligent folk. They want what was best for the city and school. Sometimes we become frustrated and take out our frustrations. But we all want what’s best for the school.”