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Obama administration officials say they've put the civil rights division of the Department of Justice "back in business."

Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez used the phrase when he was in Greensboro for the opening of the International Civil Rights Center and Museum Feb. 1.

Will he return to Greensboro for a more substantial demonstration?

If not, folks in two smaller North Carolina cities, Kinston and Goldsboro, might wonder why. Both towns are feeling the "business" from Washington for "offenses" that civil-rights crusaders could find in Greensboro, too.

Kinston got it first, last August, when the Department of Justice rejected a plan approved by two-thirds of the city's voters to switch to nonpartisan municipal elections.

Loretta King, then-acting assistant attorney general, told Kinston officials "the elimination of party affiliation on the ballot is likely to reduce the ability of blacks to elect candidates of choice."

It was an astounding slap in the face of Kinston voters, who are smart enough to elect "candidates of choice" without the help of party labels, even if the Justice Department doesn't think so.

Of course, most North Carolina cities and towns hold nonpartisan elections. Greensboro does. Is that a violation of civil rights? Could last November's defeat of Yvonne Johnson, Greensboro's first black mayor, be blamed on nonpartisan voting? If she'd been identified on the ballot as a Democrat, and Bill Knight as a Republican, would more voters have figured out they were supposed to vote for her? Please, let's not ask the Justice Department to answer that.

Meanwhile, the federal departments of Justice and Education are investigating Wayne County Public Schools in response to a complaint from the North Carolina NAACP about Goldsboro High School.

National Public Radio reported this story last week, noting that Goldsboro High was where "60 years ago, a teenage Carl Kasell (later an NPR newscaster) took drama from an energetic teacher named Andy Griffith."

Today, 99 percent of Goldsboro students are black, 80 percent are poor and their school is an example of "resegregation" and "apartheid education," according to William Barber, a Goldsboro minister and president of the state NAACP.

He's also denounced "the right wing's attack on diverse schools," referring to the Wake County Board of Education, which voted to drop a program of busing to create economic balance in schools. So far, however, the feds are focusing on Goldsboro.

But here's something to ponder in Greensboro: If students at Goldsboro High have been handed a second-class education, so have their counterparts at two overwhelmingly African American high schools here, Smith and Dudley. In fact, there's a stronger case here.

End-of-course tests for 2009 show Goldsboro trailing Wayne County and state averages but outperforming Smith and Dudley in English 1, Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Geometry, Biology, Chemistry and Physical Science. In some cases, the Goldsboro scores are better by 30 points or more.

Goldsboro posted higher scores than Smith but not Dudley in U.S. History and trailed both Smith and Dudley in Civics/Economics.

Goldsboro's class sizes were smaller than the Wayne County average in all those subjects except Algebra 2 (they were equal there), which means the school was given more resources per student, not fewer. That's not the case at Smith and Dudley, where class sizes in several subjects were greater than average for Guilford County Schools (and higher than Goldsboro's in most).

It's only logical to conclude, then, that whatever violations Washington sees at Goldsboro High probably are present at Smith and Dudley, too -- and at other schools in Guilford County and across the state.

The question is what the feds would do about it. Ordering massive busing to move kids around the county not only would unleash massive protests -- from white and black communities in Guilford County -- but doesn't win support from the courts anymore.

More likely, Washington would bring down punitive action until the school system devised an acceptable plan to achieve required results -- hitting targeted test scores, for example -- and demonstrated real progress.

The administration was wrongheaded and insulting in its ruling on Kinston's elections, but it won't be off base if it observes that poor education violates children's rights. North Carolina courts said as much years ago, but little has been accomplished since. Maybe in this case the business is really needed.