CAPS loses leadership of Wilcox as co-chair

CAPS loses leadership
of Wilcox as co-chair
Reverend maintains
challenge to courtesy
busing not helpful
By Joyce Blay
Staff Writer

LAKEWOOD — The Rev. Jimmy Wilcox, the self-described driving force behind a petition to challenge courtesy busing of Orthodox Jewish private school children in the township, has dropped both his support for the legal action and his membership in the organization that sponsored it.

Wilcox, a former co-chairman of the Coalition of Advocates for Public School Students (CAPS), said he felt the petition was not helpful, but harmful to the process of improving Lakewood students’ test scores and that it had become a source of division among the town’s communities.

"Initially, when CAPS formed, the purpose was to ensure that public school students received a fair and thorough education," said Wilcox. "But now it has become involved in issues of segregation."

His comment was a direct reference to the agenda he said fellow CAPS member James Waters, who is also president of the township chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) civil rights organization, has instead pursued.

Waters has maintained that the issue of providing public money to bus Orthodox students to private schools in the township using separate buses for boys and girls is one of segregation. However, despite his support for the petition signed by George S. Osborne, the other co-chairman of CAPS, Waters has not signed the petition he supports, according to Wilcox.

"No one, including Mr. NAACP, who was asked to sign the lawsuit, did so," Wilcox said of his fellow CAPS members.

Wilcox, a resident of Brick, said he could not sign the petition protesting a Lakewood issue that affected Brick’s taxpayers.

In his own defense, however, Waters said he could not sign the petition because he was a representative of the NAACP first and foremost and that the position carried with it an adherence to the national organization’s rules and regulations.

"I refused to be a part of the petition because the NAACP takes on its own lawsuits," said Waters. "I can’t disassociate myself from my position as branch president of the NAACP. The NAACP has its own legal staff that it employs when it determines that an issue has a legal dimension beyond a local scope, as this situation does."

Waters did not explain why the NAACP has not yet become involved with the CAPS petition if the local school district issue were one that the civil rights organization would deem worthy of its advocacy. He has in past interviews said that the issue is a regional one, affecting both New York and New Jersey.

However, Wilcox scoffed at Waters’ suggestion that the NAACP’s parent organization would support it.

"I believe this — and this is my change of heart. I do not see where a victory is going to improve the test results of the students of the [public school] district," said Wilcox. "What if Mr. Osborne and CAPS won the lawsuit? At best, the kids will all have to take the bus together. The money that would be saved from this transportation won’t go back to education for the students. You can’t borrow from Peter to pay Paul."

Waters disputed that assertion. He claimed that funding earmarked for courtesy busing could be diverted to the education of Lakewood’s public school students, who are primarily minority, rather than being returned to taxpayers. He said a judge has determined that courtesy busing funds could be used for other things.

Waters vowed to continue to support the legal action initiated by Wilcox, with or without his guidance.

"I’m not concerned about antagonizing the Orthodox community, and low test scores are nothing new," he added. "I don’t believe that Reverend Wilcox’s leaving will affect the ultimate outcome."

When asked what he thought would happen to the petition without his support, Wilcox was skeptical about its chances for success, despite Waters’ optimism.

"If the lawsuit were dismissed, they wouldn’t know any more what to do than the man in the moon," said Wilcox. "That’s why I left CAPS; CAPS members have lost sight of the organization’s original mission. I believe that the education of public school students is more important than a victory with this petition."