The 1996 Profile in Courage Award was presented to Calhoun County, Georgia School Superintendent, Corkin F. Cherubini, Ed.D. for his courage in dismantling long-standing academic tracking practices that he believed amounted to educational apartheid. In 1992, Mr. Cherubini, who taught junior and senior English literature for 22 years in Calhoun County, was elected to a four-year term as superintendent of schools. Once in charge, he called attention to the district’s practice of academic tracking which Mr. Cherubini believed was created to circumvent desegregation and to establish a lower set of expectations for most black students. He invited the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) and the Southeastern Desegregation Assistance Center to evaluate the legality of the tracking system. The OCR ultimately agreed that Calhoun County’s practices were in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Mr. Cherubini’s boldness in fighting the status quo inflamed many white parents and school administrators who did not want the in-school system of segregation to change. “What it’s going to take is some moral attitude-changing about the importance of what we’re doing, the necessity of what we’re doing, and the moral, ethical and legal obligations we have to all of our kids,” said Mr. Cherubini.