“There goes the neighborhood” is a phrase I grew up hearing from racist neighbors in the white, middle-class suburbia of my 1960s and 1970s childhood. The phrase — or better said, epithet — packed a lot of meaning. It expressed the opinion that when a black family moved into an all-white neighborhood, expectations were that the place was destined for hell and decay, taking property values down with it. “White flight” was the prescribed remedy.

In a throwback to the J. Edgar Hoover-era COINTELPRO investigations targeting civil rights and anti-war activists, the FBI is now training its agents to be on the lookout for “Black Separatist” terrorists, according to FBI training materials released today by the ACLU. These new disclosures, obtained through Freedom of Information Act litigation, are the latest in a growing flood of FBI training materials that include factually flawed and biased information.

Before I retired from law practice, it would never have dawned on me to direct my mother’s language at Judges, who held my clients’ interests in the palm of their hands. We did, however, have a term for the likes of Smith: we said he had a case of black robe fever. It’s a disease that lesser minds get when they realize that they are appointed for life, and they don’t have to answer to anyone for their actions.

Constance isn’t the first student to face discrimination at Itawamba Agricultural High School. Just before Constance spoke out about the discriminatory prom criteria, another student was forced to leave town.