Lawsuit Alleges Worcester School Committee Voting Is Unlawful

WORCESTER, MA — A federal voting rights lawsuit filed Monday states that the Worcester School Committee’s procedure for electing new members has prevented people of color from having an equal opportunity to elect candidates. The School Committee operates on an at-large plurality voting system, in which the city as a whole votes for candidates, rather than voting within a district.

Just over 56 percent of Worcester’s population is white. The lawsuit — filed by eight Black and Hispanic Worcester residents, the NAACP Worcester branch, and Worcester Interfaith, Inc. — says that the predominantly white majority votes for the same candidate, rendering the votes of Black and Hispanic people essentially useless. Though the population of the city of Worcester is just over 40 percent Black or Hispanic, the school population is about 70 percent students of color.

“The majority of Worcester Public School students are students of color. City-wide, communities of color constitute a significant portion of the voting population,” the lawsuit reads. “However, voters of color have historically been unable to elect candidates of their choice to the School Committee. The School Committee is currently all-white.”

Named in the lawsuit is Mayor and School Committee Chair Joseph Petty, the Worcester city manager, the city clerk, the School Committee members, the Board of Elections commissioners, and the city councilors.

“We have been made aware of a federal voting rights lawsuit naming the City and several officials as defendants,” the mayor’s office said in a statement to Patch. “As it is the City of Worcester’s policy not to comment on pending or ongoing litigation, we do not have a comment at this time.”

The lawsuit proposes a single-member districting plan, in which residents of color would make up the majority for at least one of the districts. In this system of voting, residents vote only for the representative in their district, and a candidate with fewer than 50 percent of the votes can win.

The lawsuit points out that Worcester is divided into five districts for the City Council election, and cited an example that candidates of color are more successful in those elections than in that for the School Committee. In District 4, Sarai Rivera is serving her fifth term on the council. Rivera is Hispanic. Hispanic and Black people make 41 percent of the eligible voters in her district, compared to 27 percent in Worcester as a whole, the lawsuit says.

“This concentration of minority voters within District 4, and the success of Dr. Rivera at the polls, demonstrates that district-based voting strengthens the ability of minority voters to elect their candidates of choice,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit says that the School Committee members do not need the votes from people of color in Worcester in order to remain in office, and therefore they do not pay attention to that community’s needs, despite the Worcester school population being 60 percent Black or Hispanic.

It cites school discipline — which it says is disproportionately affecting students of color — as an issue people in the community have pushed the School Committee to discuss with no success.

“The lack of diversity on Worcester’s School Committee has had, and continues to have, a detrimental impact on the communities of color whose votes are diluted,” the lawsuit says. “Worcester’s communities of color struggle in their efforts to convince the Worcester School Committee to take action on matters that are important to those communities.”