September 28 - October 4, 1995

A Sad Tale Of Misplaced Priorities And Poorly Chosen Battles In The Amphi School District.

B y  V i c k i  H a r t

IN JULY OF 1995, Reginald Lewis Jr. shot his mother in the hand, barricaded himself in his home and held off the SWAT team. When the cops finally went in, he was gone.

Reginald Lewis Jr. was picked up by police two days later in the alley behind his home.

Before this little matter was resolved this past August, Reginald Lewis Jr. was stopped by University of Arizona police officers, who say he was speeding in a rental car he was not authorized to drive. After the stop, according to the UAPD, officers allegedly found marijuana and other drug paraphernalia, a handgun with altered serial numbers, a loaded 30-30 Winchester rifle and a loaded 12-gauge shotgun in the car.

During his processing following the arrest, the police report says Reginald Lewis Jr. told an officer, "I'm going to beat your ass when I see you in your normal car and clothes. I'm going to kick your ass when I see you." So the police added an additional charge of "threats to cause physical injury" to the list of weapons violations. Reginald Lewis Jr. was jailed.

OF COURSE, none of this particularly surprised officials in the Amphitheater School District.

In July 1992, they expelled Reginald Lewis Jr. for weapons violations. The charges included handling, possession and transfer of a weapon (a knife), possession of bullets on campus and off-campus conduct involving a gun. Reginald Lewis Jr. appealed the expulsion, but it was upheld by a vote of the board.

And thus began what many in the district describe as a three-year nightmare.

Reginald Lewis Jr. was described as a special education student and possible wanna-be gangster. School officials say even though he was expelled, he could have returned; they felt there was "hope" he'd get his life together. But Reginald Lewis Jr. never returned to school in the Amphi District.

Instead of joining with the school to help the obviously troubled youth, his father, Reginald Lewis Sr., launched a war against the Amphi District. He turned to the Civil Rights Coalition and its executive director, Dolores Graham, for help.

Charges of discrimination against the Amphi District were filed with the federal Office of Civil Rights in 1992. Reginald Lewis Sr. put his name on the complaint. Lewis claimed the bullets the school found on his son had been planted, and that the district discriminated against and expelled him without due process because he was a minority. Reginald Jr.'s father is Anglo, his mother Asian.

Several other families joined the suit, claiming their children had been disciplined without cause because they were minorities. It became a class action that took three years to resolve.

Sylvia Campoy, the Equal Opportunity specialist for the Amphi District, spent the majority of her time working on the suit. Assistant principals Suzanne Connors at Canyon del Oro High (CDO) and Gerry Bauman at Amphi High spent months compiling data at their schools. District officials, teachers and secretaries spent hundreds of hours detailing statistics.

In the meantime, Reginald Lewis Sr. decided to fight the district another way--he ran for the Amphi School Board in the 1992 election. He campaigned hard, too. Much too hard.

Parents attending panel discussions in which he participated complained he dominated the discussions, harassed and harangued. Parents accused him of intimidating other candidates and pushing a single-issue campaign. He threatened Amphi officials, saying that when he won they'd be out of a job. He showed up at the district office regularly, causing "commotions," according to district officials. And he was so disruptive at school board meetings that a police officer was hired to maintain order. Dick Evers, CDO's principal, even swore out a restraining order against Reginald Lewis Sr., claiming the candidate was threatening him with bodily harm.

Of course, Reginald Lewis Sr. lost the school board election, getting only 5,152 out of 43,005 votes.

But it wasn't over.

The Civil Rights Coalition continued to press the discrimination suit. Campoy says the district cooperated fully with the investigation. Beyond that, she says, she personally invited members of the coalition to bring specific allegations of discrimination to her for investigation. They never did, she adds.

Campoy also says several meetings with the coalition were set up, but coalition members canceled them all.

Last October 6, four days before an Amphi bond election, the Civil Rights Coalition released to the Tucson Citizen a report on the situation in the district by the U.S. Office of Civil Rights. The headline in the Citizen read: "Amphi is accused of bias." A spokeswoman for the coalition was quoted as saying, "Amphitheater Public Schools are suspected of being less than even-handed when it comes to doling out discipline to minority and special education students." However, the report itself noted federal education department investigators "have not determined there has been discriminatory action."

Amphi voters passed the bond election.

In June, the Amphi case was closed by the U.S. Office of Civil Rights. The school district was found to be in compliance with federal requirements. The Office of Civil Rights stated there clearly was no evidence of discrimination, and in every case listed in the complaint, including that of Reginald Lewis Jr., a "no cause" finding was issued, exonerating Amphi.

Amphi officials would never claim there's no discrimination at all in the district. What they do say is they intend to address and rectify any such issues immediately. Campoy says the suit gave them an opportunity to clean up their record-keeping and become more committed to facing and correcting these issues in the district. And Amphi officials say they intend to continue to follow a strict discipline policy, regardless of race, sex, ethnicity or educational level.

Meanwhile, Dolores Graham, executive director of the Civil Rights Coalition, maintains, "Just because the case was closed doesn't mean the process is not very flawed." As far as Reginald Lewis Jr. goes, she says, "They weren't his bullets," adding, "Canyon del Oro High will call the police for anything, even writing on desks in pencil."

And what about the knife officials allegedly caught him with? "That could be true," she says. "A lot of kids carry pocket knives."

Fortunately for the rest of us, not all of them graduate to loaded shotguns.

Ignoring the costs, Amphi appears to be the winner in this case, while Reginald Lewis Jr. is the big loser. Instead of getting the help he so clearly needed when he was 15 years old, it appears he was used to promote the agenda of others. Today, at 18, he has no high school degree, but, according to police, he does have the spiffy new alias of "Reggie Chilito." An arresting officer described his style of dress as "that of a gang member."

He has the distinction of shooting his mom, although no charges are being filed because both his parents contend the incident was accidental; and he's been indicted on four felony counts, which, now that he's an adult, may lead to prison time if he's convicted. Out on bond, he recently missed two hearing dates. An arrest warrant has been issued.

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