William Capacchione

William Capacchione (born March 16, 1951) grew up in Tennessee. In 1971, he moved to North Carolina to work in the electronics industry. For a short time, Capacchione was a member of the John Birch Society. During the 1970s, Capacchione joined the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

Capacchione was convicted in 1990 of burning a cross in 1984 and sentenced to six months in prison and 200 hours community service working with minorities.

In 1997 Capacchione sued the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District, claiming that his daughter was denied enrollment to Olde Providence Elementary, a magnet school, because she was not black. This caused U.S. District Court Judge Robert Potter to reactivate the landmark 1971 Supreme Court decision Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education.

In September 1999, Potter ruled that CMS is "unitary," issuing an injunction against the use of race in student assignment and the allocation of "educational opportunities," and mandated that a new student assignment plan be in place for the 2000-2001 school year.

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