“Corridor of Shame”

February 27, 2007: President Amy introduced her law partner, Steve Morrison, as a highly accomplished professional who, among many other achievements, has taken over 240 cases to jury verdict and pleaded a case in front of the US Supreme Court. Mr. Morrison introduced himself as a teacher at the USC School of Law who was once critiqued by a student as “not only dull, but the cause of dullness in others.” After listening to Steve Morrison, our Rotary Club would never believe the latter. He delivered a compelling discussion based on the theme: South Carolina has a constitutional covenant with every child to provide them an education … “we’re not doing it!”

Steve Morrison eloquently and quantitatively related the historical events leading up to his current litigation, Abbeville vs. the State of South Carolina, and then proceeded to illustrate why this landmark case is critical to the future of our State. He used three themes:
A cinder block church
Six dollars
The Dean of the Virginia Business School
The “cinder block church” was mentioned during trial testimony when a witness stated she read the following on the marquee of a church across the street from the courthouse: “To hold a man down, you must stay with him.” Mr. Morrison went on to show statistics confirming that in the schools he represents, between 85-100 percent are: black, below the poverty line, have the worst paid teachers, are in isolated districts, and have below standard schools. That led him to discuss the “six dollars”. In the districts mentioned the drop-out rate averages over 55 percent. Morrison stated that for every child that doesn’t graduate from High School, 65 percent end up on welfare and 35 percent end up in jail. Most importantly, expert testimony stated for every one dollar invested in education, the state receives a six dollar return in taxes…he emphasized that’s just state taxes and doesn’t even include job revenue or the return on investment from eliminating the welfare or jail tax burden. Finally he quoted the Dean of the Business School, “There comes a time when you must give up hope of a better yesterday.” He summarized by saying “genius (advanced and proficient) blossoms” if provided:
Great teachers
Decent facilities and good leadership
More exposure to the great teachers if they fall behind

Submitted by Bill Crowe, Keyway Committee