Off the Beaten Path

Off the Beaten Path: ...The number of nontraditional college students — defined as students not attending college right after high school or who must work while attending — has seen steady growth since the 1980s as more people already working or raising a family decide to get a degree. A report by the National Center for Education Statistics in 2002 said 73 percent of all undergraduates were nontraditional students.

Some 81 percent of Black and American Indian students have at least one characteristic of a nontraditional student; 76 percent of Hispanic, 67 percent Asian and 66 percent of Whites do as well, according to the American Council on Education.

And for the 2008-2009 school year, a for-profit institution that seemingly caters to this population — the University of Phoenix — enrolled more new students than any other program in the country.

That could spell trouble for traditional programs slow to adapt to nontraditional needs. With the graduating class of 2008, the University of Phoenix’s online campus overtook Florida A&M and Howard universities as the top producer of bachelor’s degrees awarded to African-Americans.

According to U.S. Census figures, in 2005, there were 17.5 million college students. About 37 percent of them were 25 years old or older. Projections by NCES show more growth for the nontraditional crowd than for those entering college following high school graduation over the next few years.

Jena 6 Cases Near Conclusion

Jena 6 Cases Near Conclusion: Five of six Black teens accused of beating a White high school classmate in a case that led to the biggest civil rights protest in decades will plead guilty in a deal expected to be finalized this week, Louisiana court officials involved with the case told The Associated Press on Wednesday.


The six students were initially charged with attempted murder in the 2006 attack on Justin Barker and became known as the “Jena Six,” after the town where the beating took place.

Charges against Carwin Jones, Jesse Ray Beard, Robert Bailey Jr., Bryant Purvis and Theo Shaw were reduced to aggravated second-degree battery.


Court officials, who asked not to be identified because the agreement was not yet public, told the AP that those five will plead to lesser charges Friday but would not be specific. Officials also would not talk about penalties.

DREAM Act Rally Provides Visual Reminder of What’s at Stake for Undocumented Students

DREAM Act Rally Provides Visual Reminder of What’s at Stake for Undocumented Students: The commencement ceremony on this hot Washington, D.C., afternoon was an emotional one for many of the students gathered. They weren’t being recognized for years of hard work to achieve their dreams. It was recognition of the dreams denied to them — undocumented immigrants who could not attend college — that elicited tears.



Gathered for a mock graduation ceremony, nearly 500 immigrant students and their supporters descended on the nation’s capital earlier this week to bring attention to the plight of undocumented students and rally for passage of the DREAM Act.



Sponsored by the United We DREAM Coalition, the ceremony was part of a growing campaign in which students nationwide participated in local commencement exercises to garner support for the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, a bill that would provide a path to citizenship for many undocumented students brought to the country by their parents.

Some Progress for Missouri University on Diversity; Agreement With Hispanic Board Signed

Some Progress for Missouri University on Diversity; Agreement With Hispanic Board Signed: More than three years after being condemned by an independent auditor as one of the worst universities for faculty diversity and overall racial inclusivity the auditor had ever seen, the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) reports some improvement in its diversity profile.



In 2006, only three of the university’s 115 full professors were Black and one was Latino, the Associated Press reported. Today, with associate and full professor combined, there are two Latino professors and 11 African-American professors, university officials say.



University of Missouri-Kansas City Chancellor Leo E. Morton, and Alfonso Z�rate, chair of the university’s Hispanic Advisory Board, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) Wednesday to establish a framework to address the persisting racial issues, such as increasing the number of underrepresented minorities, financial aid assistance for students that qualify, and improving efforts to recruit and retain minority faculty.

Nightlife Area's Dress Code Seen As Discriminatory

Morning Edition, June 25, 2009 · It's standard practice for nightclubs to enforce dress codes, banning t-shirts, sneakers or hats. But in Kansas City, Mo., a new entertainment district has established some pretty strict rules that some claim discriminate against young African Americans and Latinos. And now the city is trying to encourage business development downtown, while ensuring patron's civil rights.

It's almost midnight on a steamy Saturday evening, and Kansas City's new Power and Light District is teeming with people. About a dozen new bars, restaurants and clubs are clustered around one block – which has a central, open-air plaza. A lot of people are here for the first time.

But not everyone is having a good time.

"I don't look like everybody else here — plaid shirt, Abercrombie and Fitch, they probably think I'm some Mexican from LA," says Mark Vasquez, who was just turned away at the entrance. He's here from Houston with his brother – who was wearing the same outfit, but got in: a black t-shirt, dark jeans, and sneakers.

"First it's like nothing on my shirt, you can't come in with a blank shirt, and then when a lot of people are showing that, they let them in with blank shirts," he says. "They say my shirt is too long."

Vasquez probably should have been admitted. The dress code here bans sleeveless shirts on men, excessively baggy or sagging clothing, work boots, and sports attire, when liquor is being served.

"I didn't think dress codes were an issue until the Power and Light District," says Dan Winter, of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas and western Missouri. He's been steadily fielding complaints since the downtown district opened last year. "You can't put a major attraction like that, right next to the center of the African-American community and expect them to feel comfortable restricting what they wear, and only what they wear, really."

Prince George's County Board of Education May Name Upper Marlboro School After Obama - washingtonpost.com

Prince George's County Board of Education May Name Upper Marlboro School After Obama - washingtonpost.com: President Obama's name would grace a new Prince George's County elementary school a few miles from the White House under a proposal scheduled for a vote tonight, barely five months after he took office.

If the Prince George's Board of Education approves the plan, Barack Obama Elementary School would be the first in the Washington region named after the president. The school is under construction outside the Capital Beltway in Upper Marlboro and is slated for completion by year's end.

Minority-serving Institutions Battle for Budget Consideration

Minority-serving Institutions Battle for Budget Consideration: For minority-serving institutions coping with the greatest recession in decades, there may be major gains for those who earn the title of “Hispanic-serving agricultural college or university.”

Already called “HSACU” among government relations experts, the designation may pay off big for some Hispanic-serving institutions. The 2008 Farm Bill created six new small programs for such colleges and universities, and the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities is asking Congress for $260 million in total start-up funding for next year.

With university endowments down and states cutting back on public-college funding, such new pots of money, however small, are attracting interest among college leaders. In addition to this battle, minority-serving institutions are asking Congress to fund a new — but as yet unfunded — program to address the digital divide at Black colleges, HSIs and tribal colleges.

Books By Martin Luther King Jr. To Be Republished

Four books that have been long out of print by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. will be published again under a deal with Beacon Press brokered by King’s youngest son, Dexter King.

In a statement, Dexter King called the deal “a historic partnership.”

“Beacon Press will be a dedicated public outlet for his work and will help bring his urgently needed teachings of nonviolence and human dignity, and his dream of freedom and equality to a new global audience,'' said King, chair of his father’s estate.

Beacon, a department of the Unitarian Universalist Association, publishes books on social justice, human rights and racial equality. Among the authors it has published are James Baldwin, Derrick Bell, Cornel West, Howard Thurman, Marian Wright Edelman and Roger Wilkins.

On Jan. 18, 2010, the federal holiday observing what would have been King’s 80th birthday, the Boston-based publisher will release new editions of several of King’s most important works, which have been unavailable for nearly two decades, including:

Stride Toward Freedom, first published in 1958, is King’s memoir of the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 and 1956.

Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, first published in 1967, is King’s last book and an analysis of the state of American race relations and the movement after a decade of U.S. civil rights struggles.

Trumpet of Conscience, first published in 1968, contains five lectures King gave in 1967.

Strength to Love, first published in 1963, is a volume of his most well-known homilies and the book in the civil rights leader’s briefcase when he was killed on April 4, 1968.

Education Chief to Warn Advocates That Inferior Charter Schools Harm the Effort - NYTimes.com

Education Chief to Warn Advocates That Inferior Charter Schools Harm the Effort - NYTimes.com: The Obama administration has made opening more charter schools a big part of its plans for improving the nation’s education system, but Education Secretary Arne Duncan will warn advocates of the schools on Monday that low-quality institutions are giving their movement a black eye.

“The charter movement is putting itself at risk by allowing too many second-rate and third-rate schools to exist,” Mr. Duncan says in prepared remarks that he is scheduled to deliver in Washington at the annual gathering of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

In an interview, Mr. Duncan said he would use the address to praise innovations made by high-quality charter schools, urge charter leaders to become more active in weeding out bad apples in their movement and invite the leaders to help out in the administration’s broad effort to remake several thousand of the nation’s worst public schools.

Among Many Peoples, Little Genomic Variety - washingtonpost.com

Among Many Peoples, Little Genomic Variety - washingtonpost.com:

...All of Earth's people, according to a new analysis of the genomes of 53 populations, fall into just three genetic groups. They are the products of the first and most important journey our species made -- the walk out of Africa about 70,000 years ago by a small fraction of ancestral Homo sapiens.

One group is the African. It contains the descendants of the original humans who emerged in East Africa about 200,000 years ago. The second is the Eurasian, encompassing the natives of Europe, the Middle East and Southwest Asia (east to about Pakistan). The third is the East Asian, the inhabitants of Asia, Japan and Southeast Asia, and -- thanks to the Bering Land Bridge and island-hopping in the South Pacific -- of the Americas and Oceania as well.

The existence of this ancient divergence has long been known.

What is new is a subtle but important insight into what happened on a genomic level as the human species spilled across the landscape, eventually occupying every habitable part of the planet.

A Quest to Be Heard - washingtonpost.com

A Quest to Be Heard - washingtonpost.com: ...He walked fast, knowing that time is against him. The old black farmers whose case he comes to Washington to discuss were getting older, dying off, and they still had not been repaid for the years of discrimination to which the government had subjected them. A few weeks before, when President Obama had released his proposed budget, he had included $1.25 billion for the 70,000 farmers with outstanding claims -- an amount that as far as Boyd was concerned was $1.25 billion short.

He paused at the entrance to the congressman's office, smoothed a wrinkle out of his jacket and cleared his throat.

"National Black Farmers Association," he added after a moment.

Eight-and-a-half years, and he was still introducing himself.

Earlier that day, Boyd had been just another farmer trying to get soybean seed in the ground during the short window that is planting season. He picked up his cousin and a hired hand just after daybreak to begin working on a 116-acre tract of land, hustled back to his house to change into a pinstriped suit and black cowboy boots, and grabbed a cup of coffee and a copy of the congressional directory.

Holder Urges New Hate Crimes Law

Holder Urges New Hate Crimes Law: WASHINGTON – Attorney General Eric Holder said this week that recent killings show the need for a tougher U.S. hate crimes law to stop “violence masquerading as political activism.”

“Over the last several weeks, we have witnessed brazen acts of violence, committed in places that many would have considered unthinkable,” Holder told the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.

He cited separate attacks over a two-week period that killed a young soldier, an abortion provider, and a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Federal agents and prosecutors are already involved in local investigations of each attack.

The violence, Holder said, “reminds us of the potential threat posed by violent extremists and the tragedy that ensues when reasoned discourse is replaced by armed confrontation.”

Senate Unanimously Approves Resolution Apologizing for Slavery - washingtonpost.com

Senate Unanimously Approves Resolution Apologizing for Slavery - washingtonpost.com: The Senate unanimously passed a resolution yesterday apologizing for slavery, making way for a joint congressional resolution and the latest attempt by the federal government to take responsibility for 2 1/2 centuries of slavery.

'You wonder why we didn't do it 100 years ago,' Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), lead sponsor of the resolution, said after the unanimous-consent vote. 'It is important to have a collective response to a collective injustice.'

The Senate's apology follows a similar apology passed last year by the House. One key difference is that the Senate version explicitly deals with the long-simmering issue of whether slavery descendants are entitled to reparations, saying that the resolution cannot be used in support of claims for restitution. The House is expected to revisit the issue next week to conform its resolution to the Senate version.

Americas Promise Alliance - Our Work

Americas Promise Alliance - Our Work: Our Work

With more than 300 national partner organizations and their local affiliates, the Alliance is uniquely positioned to mobilize Americans to act. Through hands-on, multi-sector collaboration, we are changing the way organizations do business, and magnifying their power to make a sustainable difference for young people. We have made a top priority of ensuring that all young people graduate from high school ready for college, work and life through an on-going Dropout Prevention initiative. Our work involves raising awareness, encouraging action and engaging in advocacy to provide children the key supports we call the Five Promises:

* Caring adults such as parents, teachers, mentors, coaches and neighbors
* Safe places that offer constructive activities when young people are not in school
* A healthy start and healthy development
* An effective education that prepares young people for college and work
* Opportunities to help others through service

Commentary: Breaking the 'pipeline' to prison - CNN.com

Commentary: Breaking the pipeline to prison - CNN.com: "(CNN) -- One of the most dangerous threats facing black America right now is quietly stealing our children at a young age.

Incarceration is becoming the new American apartheid, and poor children of color are the fodder.

So many poor black babies in rich America enter the world with multiple strikes against them: born without prenatal care, at low birthweight and to a poor, and poorly educated, teenage single mother and an absent father.

At crucial points in their development after birth through adolescence, more risks pile on, making a successful transition to productive adulthood significantly less likely and involvement in the criminal justice system significantly more likely.

This is America's pipeline to prison, a trajectory that is funneling tens of thousands of youths down life paths that lead to marginalized lives, imprisonment and, often, premature death.

Nationally, one in three black boys and one in 17 black girls born in 2001 is at risk of imprisonment during their lifetime.

It's time to sound a loud alarm about this threat to American unity and community, act to stop the growing criminalization of children at younger and younger ages, and tackle the unjust treatment of minority youths and adults in the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems with urgency and persistence.

Colin Powell, foot soldiers battle America's dropout 'catastrophe' - CNN.com

Colin Powell, foot soldiers battle America's dropout 'catastrophe' - CNN.com: ...The number sounds shockingly low, but it's actually not far off the national average. A 2008 study by America's Promise Alliance, a group founded by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, concluded that only 52 percent of students in the nation's 50 largest school systems graduate in four years. About 57 percent of Hispanic and 53 percent of African-American students graduate with a regular diploma in four years, according to the study, which puts the national graduation rate at 70 percent.

'Finishing high school is absolutely basic to being a success at any place in our society. We can't afford this,' Powell said.

"If we lose these youngsters from our educational system, it doesn't mean they're all going to jail," Powell said. "It just means they're not going to have the same earning potential as they would if they finished school. And ultimately that will affect them, and it will affect the nation."

Government Intervention Needed on School Segregation, Experts Say

Government Intervention Needed on School Segregation, Experts Say: Reversing the resegregation of many of the nation’s school districts may require congressional leadership and the president’s attention, said lawyers, policymakers and educators assembled on Capitol Hill Friday to discuss policies that would encourage more integrated schools.

The policy briefing, “New Initiatives for Integrated Education in the Obama Era: Reversing the Resegregation of the Past Two Decades,” drew about 75 attendees and gave several scholars the opportunity to share papers and research studies.

“Congress hasn’t done anything positive to help the desegregation of schools since the 1970s,” said the panel’s moderator, Dr. Gary Orfield, a professor from the University of California, Los Angeles and co-director of the Civil Rights Project /Proyecto Derechos Civiles.

At the end of the 1960s, Southern public schools were among some of the nation’s most integrated because of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. However, today, the region is experiencing an increasing amount of resegregated school districts.

NAACP demands apology for ex-election leader's posting - WIS News 10 - Columbia, South Carolina |

NAACP demands apology for ex-election leader's posting - WIS News 10 - Columbia, South Carolina |: COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) - The state NAACP is demanding an apology from a former South Carolina official whose Internet posting suggested a gorilla that escaped from the Columbia zoo was an ancestor of first lady Michelle Obama.

NAACP president Lonnie Randolph said Monday that former Election Commission chairman Rusty DePass has not offered a 'proper' apology. Randolph says the NAACP isn't giving DePass undue attention, rather decrying racially charged commentary against the Obamas.

Minutes after the gorilla's escape was reported, DePass posted: 'I'm sure it's just one of Michelle's ancestors - probably harmless.'

The Facebook posting was captured on a South Carolina politics blog, and DePass later said that it was a joke about statements Obama has made about evolution.

Prominent black conservative and South Carolina national committeeman for the Republican National Committee Glenn McCall says he's spoken with DePass about the comment.

Minority kids grow to majority in some counties - USATODAY.com

Minority kids grow to majority in some counties - USATODAY.com: Young Americans who are minorities outnumber young whites in almost one of every six U.S. counties. It's a demographic wave that is transforming more parts of the nation and raising questions about who is a minority.

An analysis of the under-20 population shows that minority youths are the majority in 505 counties and that 60 counties have reached that milestone in this decade.

declines in the number of white kids," says Kenneth Johnson, demographer at the University of New Hampshire's Carsey Institute who analyzed Census data. "This isn't about immigration anymore."

The multiplying effect of diversity is rapid. In 2008, 34% of U.S. residents were minorities, but 48% of babies born in the USA were minorities. The number of white youths has dropped 5.3% since 2000 while the young minority population grew 15.5%. "It will be hard to define who is a minority in the future," says Robert Lang, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech.

Study Finds Possible Link Between Childhood Deaths and Stimulants for ADHD - washingtonpost.com

Study Finds Possible Link Between Childhood Deaths and Stimulants for ADHD - washingtonpost.com: Children taking stimulant drugs such as Ritalin to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder are several times as likely to suffer sudden, unexplained death as children who are not taking such drugs, according to a study published yesterday that was funded by the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institute of Mental Health.

While the numbers involved in the study were very small and researchers stopped short of suggesting a cause and effect, the study is the first to rigorously demonstrate a rare but worrisome connection between ADHD drugs and sudden death among children. In doing so, the research adds to the evolving puzzle parents and doctors face in deciding whether to treat children with medication.

States consider college aid cuts; student programs at risk - USATODAY.com

States consider college aid cuts; student programs at risk - USATODAY.com: At a time when many students and parents are struggling to pay for college, several cash-starved states are considering reducing funds for grants and scholarships for thousands of low- and middle-income students.

In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to close the state's $24 billion deficit includes sharp cuts in the state's Cal Grants program, which provides up to $9,700 a year for eligible college students.

Schwarzenegger has proposed eliminating Cal Grants for new students and reducing grants for some existing students.

The plan would have an impact on more than 200,000 students, according to the Institute for College Access and Success, an advocacy group.

Democrats have vowed to fight the proposal, but for some prospective students, the damage has already been done, says acting institute Director Lauren Asher.

Justices May Strike Down Part Of Voting Rights Act : NPR

Justices May Strike Down Part Of Voting Rights Act : NPR: As the Supreme Court wraps up its term, the Justices seem likely to strike down a key part of the Voting Rights Act. According to sources in and outside of the Justice Department, a team of the department's lawyers has been strategizing in private for weeks to plan a speedy response to a potential loss in court.

The case, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder, challenges the 2006 renewal of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The act targets places with a history of discrimination against minority voters. Jurisdictions covered by the law need Justice Department approval to change their voting procedures. The law has been widely credited with breaking down barriers to minority voting and getting minorities into elected office, but the people who brought this lawsuit say the law's policies are unfair and outdated.

The Voting Rights Act is 'really one of the crown jewels of the civil rights movement of the 1960s,' says election law professor Rick Hasen of Loyola Law School Los Angeles. 'For the court to now consider striking down a major portion of it would be at least symbolically monumental.'

Decrying Over-Representation of African-Americans in Prisons, Reformers Ask Senate for Changes

Reforming the nation’s ailing criminal justice system can help African-Americans and many of the nation’s youth, whose brushes with the law leave them with bleak futures and few opportunities, a prominent Black legal scholar and other leaders told Congress Thursday.

“There are too many people in prison and too many of them are Black, brown and young,” said Charles Ogletree, a Harvard Law School professor. “It’s the right time to look at the criminal justice system. It has been a failure,” he told the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs.

Ogletree, who taught President Barack Obama at Harvard, said services such as after-school programs and mentoring can go a long way toward keeping youth out of trouble. He even cited the example of his former student, now the president of the United States.

Debate Erupts Over Building Plan by Muslim School in Virginia - NYTimes.com

Debate Erupts Over Building Plan by Muslim School in Virginia - NYTimes.com: FAIRFAX, Va. — For years, children’s voices rang out from the playground at the Islamic Saudi Academy in this heavily wooded community about 20 miles west of Washington. But for the last year the campus has been silent as academy officials seek county permission to erect a new classroom building and move hundreds of students from a sister campus on the other end of Fairfax County.

The proposal from the academy, which a school spokeswoman said was the only school financed by the Saudi government in the United States, has ignited a noisy debate and exposed anew the school’s uneasy relationship with its neighbors.

Setting a New Standard

Setting a New Standard: Despite the gains minorities have made in student enrollment and higher education leadership, the needle needs to move further and faster in the next 25 years to narrow the widening educational achievement equity gap.

When 22-year-old Roberto Rosas was awarded his bachelor’s in electrical engineering this spring from the University of Texas at San Antonio, it marked a major milestone for his family.

Like a growing number of students of color, Rosas is the first person in his family to graduate from college, a feat he achieved based on sheer determination to better himself and the lives of those around him.

News Corp. Forms Diversity Council After Chimp Cartoon

News Corp. has agreed to form an external diversity council after meeting with civil rights groups about a New York Post cartoon that critics said likened President Barack Obama to a dead chimpanzee.

The company will form a "diversity community council" in New York City that will meet with senior company executives twice a year, NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous said Wednesday. It also will include a statement of commitment to diversity in its annual report.

News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch published an apology in the Post soon after the cartoon appeared in February, but pressure for further action continued. Jealous called the cartoon an “invitation for assassination” and urged a boycott of the paper and the firing of the editor and cartoonist. The Rev. Al Sharpton asked the Federal Communications Commission to review policies allowing News Corp. to control multiple media outlets in the same market.

More students on free lunch programs - USATODAY.com

More students on free lunch programs - USATODAY.com: WASHINGTON — Nearly 20 million children now receive free or reduced-price lunches in the nation's schools, an all-time high, federal data show, and many school districts are struggling to cover their share of the meals' rising costs.

Through February, nationwide enrollment in free school lunch programs was up 6.3% over the same time last year, to 16.5 million students, based on data from the U.S. Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), which subsidizes the programs. Participation in reduced-price lunch programs rose to 3.2 million students, the data show.

Gene may help explain kidney failure in African-Americans - CNN.com

Gene may help explain kidney failure in African-Americans - CNN.com: (CNN) -- A single gene, called MYH9, may be responsible for many cases of kidney disease among African-Americans, researchers say.

Although doctors have blamed hypertension for causing common forms of kidney disease in African-Americans, new research shows that high blood pressure may not be the chief cause.

"The MYH9 gene association in African-American kidney disease is the most powerful genetic cause of a common disease yet discovered," said Dr. Barry Freedman, professor of internal medicine and nephrology at Wake Forest University, who led a team of researchers in isolating the gene.

About 70 percent of African-Americans with non-diabetic forms kidney disease have the MYH9 gene, and many of them end up on dialysis, he said. The gene predisposes African-Americans to the kidney disease that was thought to stem from high blood pressure. It also gives them a higher risk of kidney disease associated with HIV.

Enhanced HBCU Teacher Preparation Role Discussed at U.S. Education Department Meeting

Enhanced HBCU Teacher Preparation Role Discussed at U.S. Education Department Meeting: A national strategy to avert teacher shortages as well as improve overall teaching quality in U.S. public schools will include the participation of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) as key players in the formulation of strategic policies, U.S. Education Department officials told a gathering of HBCU education school officials and HBCU presidents on Tuesday.

Noting that HCBU graduates account for 50 percent of African-Americans teaching in U.S. public schools, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said HBCUs will play a critical role in helping the United States meet the demand for new teachers in the coming decade.

“Education is the civil rights issue of our generation,” Duncan told attendees at the HBCU Teaching and Teacher Education Forum that was held at the U.S. Education Department.

The meeting, which was organized by the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, brought together many of the veterans of past teacher education programming and credentialing reforms to plot new strategies based on what one attendee called “an ideal moment in time.”"

Study Finds High Rates of Illness Among D.C. Black Women - washingtonpost.com

Study Finds High Rates of Illness Among D.C. Black Women - washingtonpost.com: Black women in the District suffer from obesity, diabetes, heart disease and generally poor health in alarmingly high numbers, and white women do not.

That is the finding of a study released early today by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The study said there is a large disparity in the incidence of certain chronic diseases between black and white women.

Kaiser's study was based on data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the federal Current Population Survey from 2004 to 2006. The study reflected health statistics in the states and the District.

More Minority Faculty Members Sought by Theology Schools

More Minority Faculty Members Sought by Theology Schools: "Minority teachers are underrepresented at theological schools and need more financial help and encouragement to become faculty, according to a prominent group of scholars dedicated to improving religious education.

Most teachers at theological schools are White men, and more than a third of the 253 U.S. and Canadian theological schools accredited by the Association of Theological Schools report they don't even have a minority on their faculty.

Theology scholars from across the United States gathered this past weekend at Vanderbilt University for a meeting of the Fund for Theological Education, an Atlanta-based advocacy group that aims to grow the number of minorities in teaching positions at theological schools.

Report Highlights Growing Recognition of Nontraditional Students at Hispanic-Serving Institutions

Report Highlights Growing Recognition of Nontraditional Students at Hispanic-Serving Institutions: Treating nontraditional students as an asset rather than as a liability has marked stellar leadership among presidents at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), according to “Leading in Changing America: Presidential Perspectives from Hispanic-Serving Institutions,” a report released this week by the advocacy group Excelencia in Education.


“Leadership is a critical component of serving students, specifically Latino students, so we just wanted to talk to college presidents about what students need,” said Dr. Deborah Santiago, the author of the report and vice president for policy and research at Excelencia in Education.


The report describes nontraditional students as significantly “low-income, first-generation, part-time, commuting, ethnically diverse and older” students, while describing traditional collegians as full-time students who are usually White and financially dependent on parents.

Is AP for All a Formula for Failure? - washingtonpost.com

Is AP for All a Formula for Failure? - washingtonpost.com: ...Some people might call this the straggler list. I don't. I have spoken to the administrators of many of those schools. What they say makes sense. They have tried raising achievement slowly with remedial education. It didn't work, in part because the teachers and students had no worthy goal to shoot for. So they have made the AP test their benchmark, and in preparing for it hope to give low- performing students the strenuous academic exercise they need for college. Few pass the three-hour AP exams, so few get college credit. So what? They aren't in college yet. This way they have a chance to accustom themselves to the foot-high reading assignments and torturous exams they will encounter in college.

The Waves Minority Judges Always Make - NYTimes.com

The Waves Minority Judges Always Make - NYTimes.com: WASHINGTON — Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first black member of the Supreme Court, ended his 24 years there bitter and frustrated. He had been unable, he said, to persuade his colleagues in many cases concerning racial equality, the cause to which he had devoted his life.

“What do they know about Negroes?” Justice Marshall asked an interviewer. “You can’t name one member of this court who knows anything about Negroes before he came to this court.”

But the other justices did get to know Justice Marshall, and even the more conservative ones acknowledged that his very presence exerted a gravitational pull more powerful than his single vote.

“Marshall could be a persuasive force just by sitting there,” Justice Antonin Scalia told Juan Williams in an interview for a biography of Justice Marshall, recalling the justices’ private conferences about cases. “He wouldn’t have to open his mouth to affect the nature of the conference and how seriously the conference would take matters of race.”

Harvard to Endow Chair in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies - NYTimes.com

Harvard to Endow Chair in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies - NYTimes.com: Harvard University will endow a visiting professorship in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender studies, a position that, it believes, will be the first endowed, named chair in the subject at an American college.

The visiting professorship was made possible by a gift of $1.5 million from the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus, which will formally announce it at a dinner on Thursday, after Harvard’s commencement exercises. With the gift, Harvard said it would regularly invite “eminent scholars studying issues related to sexuality or sexual minorities” to teach on campus for one semester, according to a draft of a university press release.

HSIs, Others Look to Census for Aid to Schools, Communities

HSIs, Others Look to Census for Aid to Schools, Communities: For minority-serving colleges and their communities, the $787 billion economic stimulus package is not the only new funding game in town. Many also are focusing on the 2010 U.S. Census, with an eye toward ensuring accurate population counts so their communities can claim a fair share of education and other funds.

“Most of our colleges and universities are in communities with a high concentration of low-income residents,” says Dr. Antonio Flores, Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) president. “If they benefit from the census, Hispanic-serving institutions benefit, too.”

The federal government conducts the census every 10 years to count everyone in the United States. But there are concerns that many low-income Americans and immigrants — both documented and undocumented — go uncounted.

“Last time in 2000, the census missed 3 million Americans and 1.4 million homes. Most of those who were missed were poor, and many were minorities,” says Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-Mo., a Congressional Black Caucus member and chairman of the House information and census subcommittee. “That is just not good enough.”

Report Scrutinizes Colleges With Low Graduation Rates, Including MSIs

Report Scrutinizes Colleges With Low Graduation Rates, Including MSIs: Less than 60 percent of new students graduate from the nation’s four-year colleges and universities within six years, according to a new study, and the rate is even lower at most of the historically Black and Hispanic-serving institutions included in the study.

The report being released today, “Diplomas and Dropouts: Which Colleges Actually Graduate Their Students (and Which Don’t),” by the American Enterprise Institute used federally reported data from the 2001 entering class to compare graduation rates between institutions of similar standing, based on student selectivity as classified by Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges. The data do not include transfer students.

Within similarly classified schools, graduation rates varied vastly. The researchers contend these schools are admitting students with similar levels of preparedness and suggest that the practices of the schools themselves factor prominently in student success.

According to the report, noncompetitive institutions graduate, on average, 35 percent of their students, while competitive institutions graduate 88 percent. Less competitive and competitive schools do better than noncompetitive institutions, but the average graduation rate is less than 50 percent. The higher graduation rates among competitive schools is to be expected because they’re admitting highly talented students.

National Immigration Forum Launches New Immigration Reform Campaign

National Immigration Forum Launches New Immigration Reform Campaign: The National Immigration Forum, an immigration advocacy organization, along with a diverse coalition of labor union leaders, religious groups and civil rights organizations is challenging President Barack Obama to expeditiously pass immigration reform legislation with the launch of a new immigration reform campaign.

Supporters of the new campaign, Reform Immigration for America, sponsored by the National Immigration Forum, aim to mobilize the communities across the country to petition elected officials to implement a reform package that: protects U.S. and immigrant workers, allocates sufficient visas to close unlawful migration channels, legalizes the status of undocumented immigrants working in the country, keeps families together and promotes immigrant integration.

Studies Offer Conflicting Results On ‘Obama Effect’

Could merely knowing that a Black man has been elected president of the United States raise the scores of Blacks on standardized tests and shrink the unrelenting and formidable achievement gap? Possibly, suggests a recent study documenting the “Obama Effect” that will appear in the July issue of a scientific journal along side a study that contradicts it.

Preliminary results of a study suggesting that Barack Obama’s political success translated into a narrower gap between Blacks and Whites on a standardized tests in 2008 attracted both optimism and skepticism when it was reported around the time of his inauguration.

It offered hope that an affirming role model and positive feelings could patch the gap between Whites and Blacks long documented in almost every measure of academic performance. Media reports have suggested that parents and educators see ample anecdotal evidence that Obama’s example has inspired Black students to take schoolwork more seriously.


When one team of researchers tested Blacks and Whites at four intervals at the peak of the 2008 election year, median scores for the two groups shifted, significantly narrowing the spread after Obama’s election, according to the results announced earlier by the researchers, Dr. Ray A. Friedman of Vanderbilt University, Dr. David Marx of San Diego State University and Dr. Sei Jin Ko of Northwestern University.

However, a study by Dr. Joshua Aronson, an associate professor of applied psychology of New York University, one of the pioneers of research on race and academic achievement, and colleagues found, “Test scores were unaffected by prompts to think about Obama and no relationship was found between test performance and positive thoughts about Obama.” The findings were based on a test administered after Obama emerged as the Democratic nominee last summer but were only recently noted in the news media.

'Untouchable' becomes India's first female speaker - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

'Untouchable' becomes India's first female speaker - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation): India's parliament has elected its first woman speaker, who is also a member of the low-caste 'untouchable' Dalit community.

Meira Kumar, 64, was elected unopposed by a voice vote in India's 543 seat lower house of parliament.

'For the first time a woman member has been elected speaker and that too a woman from the Dalit community,' Indian Manmohan Singh said after Ms Kumar had taken her seat of office.

'In electing you... we members of parliament pay tribute to the women of our country and the great contribution that they have made.'

A five-term MP, she was a career diplomat who entered politics in 1985.

LA gang case rekindles racism debate - Crime & courts- msnbc.com

LA gang case rekindles racism debate - Crime & courts- msnbc.com: LOS ANGELES - Federal prosecutors called their sweeping indictment of the Varrio Hawaiian Gardens gang the biggest takedown of its kind in U.S. history.

That was sure to grab attention, but details buried in the court documents were bound to touch a raw nerve: One of the Latino gang's primary motivations was hatred of black residents.

It's the third time in recent years federal prosecutors have investigated a gang and found racism in its DNA, reopening a thorny debate that has publicly divided the region's top cops.

In dueling newspaper opinion pieces last year, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca maintained that race fueled gang violence while Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton said skin color was seldom a factor.

"If you do a survey within the African-American community ... you are in constant fear that your young male offspring is going to be killed because of the color of his skin," Baca said in an interview after his piece appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

In an area both proud and sensitive about its diversity, racial tension has been at the heart of some of its ugliest chapters: from the zoot suit riot beatings of Latinos by white sailors in the 1940s to the deadly Watts riots in 1965 to the riots that erupted in 1992 after four police officers were acquitted in the videotaped beating of Rodney King.

So-called brown-on-black or black-on-brown violence has been a long-standing concern in neighborhoods where black residents are being supplanted by Latinos. Acknowledging it, however, has political implications and officials often downplay the tension.

Multiracial people are fastest growing group - Race & ethnicity- msnbc.com

Multiracial people are fastest growing group - Race & ethnicity- msnbc.com: WASHINGTON - Multiracial Americans have become the fastest growing demographic group, wielding an impact on minority growth that challenges traditional notions of race.

The number of multiracial people rose 3.4 percent last year to about 5.2 million, according to the latest census estimates. First given the option in 2000, Americans who check more than one box for race on census surveys have jumped by 33 percent and now make up 5 percent of the minority population — with millions more believed to be uncounted.

Demographers attributed the recent population growth to more social acceptance and slowing immigration. They cited in particular the high public profiles of Tiger Woods and President Barack Obama, a self-described 'mutt,' who are having an effect on those who might self-identify as multiracial.

First black mayor in New England dies - Race & ethnicity- msnbc.com

First black mayor in New England dies - Race & ethnicity- msnbc.com: NEW LONDON, Conn. - Former New London Mayor Leo Jackson, the first black mayor in New England, has died. He was 83.

Jackson's election by fellow city councilors in 1979 drew national media coverage. He even got a call from President Jimmy Carter, who won Jackson's endorsement during a presidential primary election fight with Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy in 1980.

Jackson was a Democrat who served a single one-year term as mayor, but stayed on the City Council until 1993. The Springfield, Mass., native worked at a submarine factory in Groton for nearly 30 years.

John MacDougall, of Byles Memorial Home, says Jackson died at his home in New London on Sunday night. The funeral home is handling Jackson's services, which have not be finalized. The cause of death was not released.

‘Black man did it’ hoax sparks outrage - Race & ethnicity- msnbc.com

‘Black man did it’ hoax sparks outrage - Race & ethnicity- msnbc.com: PHILADELPHIA - It's an old lie, claiming that The Black Man Did It.

But it was trotted out again last week when a white mother from suburban Philadelphia said two black men snatched her and her 9-year-old daughter from their SUV and abducted them in the trunk of a black Cadillac.

Blacks across the country were outraged after Bonnie Sweeten was found in a luxury hotel at Disney World. Authorities quickly unraveled the hoax, but not before an Amber Alert, frantic searches and national news coverage that played into images of marauding black men.

Ronald Takaki, Ethnic Studies Pioneer, Dies

Ronald Takaki, Ethnic Studies Pioneer, Dies: Dr. Ronald Takaki, a pioneer in the field of ethnic studies who taught the University of California system's first Black history course, has died. He was 70.

Takaki killed himself Tuesday in his Berkeley home after suffering for two decades from multiple sclerosis, a debilitating neurological disease, according to his son, Troy Takaki.

After joining UC Berkeley's faculty in 1971, Takaki established the Ethnic Studies department’s Ph.D. program, the first of its kind in the United States, and worked to draw talented scholars to teach there. He was the author or editor of nearly 20 books, most of them dealing with marginalized Americans, including the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans.

Takaki began his teaching career in 1966 at UCLA, where he taught the UC system’s first Black history class in the wake of the city's deadly 1965 Watts riots.

Haskell Indian Nations University Commemorates 125th Anniversary, Recognizes Painful History

Haskell Indian Nations University Commemorates 125th Anniversary, Recognizes Painful History: Haskell Indian Nations University turns 125 this year. The university is recognizing its historical anniversary with a yearlong series of events officials are referring to as a commemoration rather than a celebration. Leaders says they will not dodge the painful elements of the school’s history.



“These things happened. They can’t be ignored,” Barbara Hallum, director of Haskell’s extension, says, referring to the early days when Haskell functioned as a boarding school.



Haskell opened its doors in 1884 as the United States Industrial Training School to 22 elementary school students. Children as young as 4 years old were separated from their families for months at a time as they attended the school, which focused its training on domestic arts. In keeping with the thinking of the day, Indian culture and language were seen as the culprits that kept American Indians from becoming American citizens. Children were routinely punished for speaking their language or disobeying the military-style rules of the school. Punishment included incarceration in a jail on campus. The lock from the jail cell is on display today at the school’s cultural center.



Haskell is the longest continually running federal school for American Indians and in many ways is a mirror for the relationship between tribes and the U. S. government.

University of Kansas Names First Woman, First Black Chancellor

University of Kansas Names First Woman, First Black Chancellor: Dr. Bernadette Gray-Little, a top University of North Carolina official, will become the first female and first Black chancellor at the University of Kansas.

Gray-Little, 64, was appointed Friday by the Kansas Board of Regents from among three finalists to succeed Robert Hemenway, who has led the state's largest university since 1995. She will be installed Aug. 15 as the university's 17th chancellor.

The appointment completed the regents' task of finding new leaders for three of the state's universities. Gray-Little is the first African-American to lead a state university in Kansas and the second woman to do so, after Kay Schallenkamp, who was Emporia State University president in 1997-2006.

The regents announced Gray-Little's appointment after holding closed meetings Thursday and Friday. Board members said her academic and administrative credentials put her at the top. Salary talks continue but Hemenway's annual pay was about $267,000.

Report Shows Record Public School Enrollment, More-Diverse Class - washingtonpost.com

Report Shows Record Public School Enrollment, More-Diverse Class - washingtonpost.com: Public school enrollment across the country is hitting a record this year with just less than 50 million students, and classrooms are becoming more diverse, largely because of growth in the Latino population, according to a new federal report.

Nationwide, about one in five students was Hispanic in 2007, the latest year for which figures are available for ethnic groups, up from 11 percent in the late 1980s. About 44 percent of the nation's students are minorities.

The picture of the nation's classrooms comes annually through the Condition of Education, a congressionally mandated look at enrollment and performance trends in schools and colleges. It draws on data from school systems, colleges and national and international exams.