While the world focuses on Arizona, the erosion of civil rights rolls right along in Wake County, North Carolina.

A recent takeover of the school board there by Tea Party backed Republicans, and the appointment of Brig. General Anthony Tata, (former FOX news commentator who admires Glen Beck and Sarah Palin) as Superintendent of Schools is simply icing on the cake of a supremacy policy in action.

Fulfilling Father’s Campaign To Segregate Public Schools, Koch Groups End Successful Integration Program In NC

Today in the Washington Post, reporter Stephanie McCrummen detailed how a right-wing campaign in the Wake County area of North Carolina has taken over the school board with a pledge to end a very successful socio-economic integration plan. The integration plan, which created thriving schools in poor African-American parts of the school district along with achieving diversity in schools located in wealthy white enclaves, was a model for the nation. However, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the Tea Party group founded and funded by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, worked with local right-wing financier (and AFP board member) Art Pope to fundamentally change Wake County’s school board

Washington Post has this story:

Republican school board in N.C. backed by tea party abolishes integration policy

IN RALEIGH, N.C. The sprawling Wake County School District has long been a rarity. Some of its best, most diverse schools are in the poorest sections of this capital city. And its suburban schools, rather than being exclusive enclaves, include children whose parents cannot afford a house in the neighborhood.

But over the past year, a new majority-Republican school board backed by national tea party conservatives has set the district on a strikingly different course. Pledging to “say no to the social engineers!” it has abolished the policy behind one of the nation’s most celebrated integration efforts.

And as the board moves toward a system in which students attend neighborhood schools, some members are embracing the provocative idea that concentrating poor children, who are usually minorities, in a few schools could have merits - logic that critics are blasting as a 21st-century case for segregation.

The NAACP has challenged these plans and sought the intervention of the Justice Department.

{Click the headline for a LOT more info on this story.}