PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

By MICHAEL CONNELLY Connelly • Baker • Wotring • Jackson LLP

‘Suffer the Little Children’

TWe often give lip service to the concept that children need and deserve special consideration, op-portunity, encouragement and protection. There are often ways in which our society can do a better job of helping children become productive members of society, and perhaps, leaders for the future. During this year, the Houston Bar Association has placed a special emphasis on its children’s programs. I want to review some of the history of those programs, highlight some of the new emphasis the HBA has initiated, and challenge members of the Houston Bar Association and the legal profession to do a better job of assisting children about which there should be little debate.
For a number of years, the HBA has provided successful programs which provided important educational and developmental assistance to children. Those programs include the Adopt-A-School Program, Special Olympics, Lawyers for Literacy, Campaign for the Homeless, and others. More details about those programs are regularly published in the Houston Bar Bulletin and The Houston Lawyer magazine. This year, we have given special recognition to the chairs of the Campaign for the Homeless Committee (Scott Arrington and Beth Soule), and the Lawyers for Literacy Committee (Sharon Cammack, Gary Ilagen, and Susan Sanchez) who have made significant contributions to the efforts of those committees. Last year, the HBA received an award from Special Olympics for volunteer efforts, and Tim Donoughue (this year’s chair) received an award for his volunteer efforts. I personally witnessed the benefits of the Adopt-A-School program when I visited the library at B.C. Elmore School and viewed the substantial volumes of books donated by the HBA and its members which served to completely restock the library of that school after substantial flood damage destroyed all their library books.
This year, the HBA expanded its programs for children in some dramatic ways. A key feature of this year’s effort was the creation of KidZone, an interactive Web site feature which provides information on legal rights, safety, and legal education, along with links to other relevant Web sites. We have notified all the public and private schools in this city about KidZone, as well as all public and private agencies and organizations which deal with issues affecting children. We were thrilled to learn that Boy Scouts of America added the KidZone link to their website.
We also took important educational messages directly to the schools in this community. We continued the Dialogue on Freedom program, which pairs a member of the federal judiciary with a practicing attorney to lead high school classes in discussing freedom in America. In addition, we used the 50th anniversary of Brown v. The Board of Education to reach school children of all ages. For elementary schools, volunteers read the story of Linda Brown and her effort to gain equal education. For middle schools and high schools, HBA volunteers lead discussions about the significance of Brown and its impact on public education. In total, volunteers were present in about 250 schools.
There should never be a question about why we focus so much of our time and energy on children’s issues. There should never be a moment of complacency about these programs. Our society is dynamic; population patterns change; technology is never static; and educational systems are always challenged in terms of personnel, curriculum and funding. Helping children develop into productive members of society and leaders for the future is a never-ending challenge, but a very rewarding one. The HBA recently participated in an all-day symposium concerning the Brown decision. In that program, prominent educators lamented the fact that, in spite of Brown, a technology divide is continuing to cause racial segregation in our schools. The Supreme Court ruled in Brown that racial segregation in public schools is “inherently unequal.” Yet, if we are not devoting the personnel and resources to public education which are necessary to achieve equal learning opportunities, isn’t that as unjust as segregation?
Things change in our society because we personally intervene. Sometimes it is the sweat equity we invest in a project, a program or an issue. Sometimes it is the public outrage that we express over circumstances. In both of those instances, we are helping to adopt, mold and develop a social conscience which is the foundation for belief systems in our society. That social conscience needs to elevate the issues affecting children to the top of our agenda. We should ask ourselves: how much inequality in education, in opportunity, in treatment is acceptable? If your answer is anything other than a resounding “NONE,” then you need to reassess what has made America great in the past, and what will continue to preserve this society for the future. We should be voices demonstrating insight and wisdom in solving inequality in the law and in our society. We should voice our moral outrage at the rising instances of child abuse (between 5,500 to 6,500 each year in this community with as many as 49 fatalities reported locally). We should use our constitutional freedoms like freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of the press to be involved in children’s issues. Those freedoms, without involvement, are wasted; and those issues, without involvement, are lost.

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