A group of 100 educators and lawyers took a hard look at school segregation in a bar association forum 54 years after the groundbreaking Brown v. Board of Education decision.

NYSUT Executive Vice President Alan Lubin, a panelist, challenged participants to agitate for change. "I have long bemoaned the complacency of our citizens on civil rights issues," Lubin said.

Albany Law School professor Anthony Farley, taking note of contemporary schools divided among the haves and have-nots, sketched U.S. Supreme Court decisions over 150 years that have accompanied an American journey from slavery to segregation to "neo-segregation."

Citing the Brown language to "proceed with all deliberate speed" toward integration, Lubin said, "We do more deliberating than speed in this state."

NYSUT is trying to draw attention to the achievement gap in public schools, Lubin said, citing the union's well-received conference last fall.

Lubin credited NYSUT attorney Timothy Taylor's zeal in organizing the forum earlier this month at the New York State Bar Association's headquarters in Albany. NYSUT was a sponsor of the forum.