Sarah Garland: Memphis Merger Fight Revives Old Desegregation Debate

Sarah Garland: Memphis Merger Fight Revives Old Desegregation Debate: The city of Memphis, Tenn. and the suburban county that encompasses it are locked in a battle over whether to consolidate their schools into one large system.

The city board, which proposed the merger, says the move is in reaction to a county proposal to transform itself into a 'special district,' which would keep it from having to give some of its tax revenues to the city schools, as it does now. For Memphis, where the majority of the students are low-income, the special district scenario could prove disastrous.

The fight is a flashback to the 1970s, when school districts across the country faced busing plans intended to undo decades of racial segregation. As the New York Times notes, Tennessee had to pass a law back then to keep suburban school districts from transforming themselves into special districts in an effort to avoid desegregation.

Book Reviews: Black History Month Beckons

Book Reviews: Black History Month Beckons: New works on Black history have been pouring in throughout the past year. As Black History Month arrives, it is time to take a closer look at the offerings. If there is a trend in subject matter, it is that most of the latest books appear to be on sharply focused, narrow, but nevertheless appealing topics that history has neglected or viewed differently in the past. Click here for our roundup of reviews.

Dormitories Seen as Retention Tools at Urban, Commuter Schools

Dormitories Seen as Retention Tools at Urban, Commuter Schools: Rutgers University freshman Steven Johnson grew up only a few minutes from the Newark, N.J., campus where he now studies and lives. But for him, his old neighborhood and the campus are worlds apart. Drug dealers monopolized the street corners in his neighborhood, he says. Gunfire was normal; homicides not unheard of. Johnson lives in a university residence hall courtesy of a university scholarship valued at nearly $11,000. He finds time to balance his studies while participating in school activities and expects to earn a B average in his first semester. If it wasn’t for the opportunity to live on campus, he says, college would be a bust.

More Young Americans Identify as Mixed Race - NYTimes.com

More Young Americans Identify as Mixed Race - NYTimes.com: "COLLEGE PARK, Md. — In another time or place, the game of “What Are You?” that was played one night last fall at the University of Maryland might have been mean, or menacing: Laura Wood’s peers were picking apart her every feature in an effort to guess her race.

“How many mixtures do you have?” one young man asked above the chatter of about 50 students. With her tan skin and curly brown hair, Ms. Wood’s ancestry could have spanned the globe.
“I’m mixed with two things,” she said politely.
“Are you mulatto?” asked Paul Skym, another student, using a word once tinged with shame that is enjoying a comeback in some young circles. When Ms. Wood confirmed that she is indeed black and white, Mr. Skym, who is Asian and white, boasted, “Now that’s what I’m talking about!” in affirmation of their mutual mixed lineage.

Southern Sudan Votes For Secession By 99 Percent : NPR

Southern Sudan Votes For Secession By 99 Percent : NPR: Southern Sudan's referendum commission said Sunday that more than 99 percent of voters in the south opted to secede from the country's north in a vote held earlier this month.

The announcement drew cheers from a crowd of thousands that gathered in Juba, the dusty capital of what may become the world's newest country.

The weeklong vote, held in early January and widely praised for being peaceful and for meeting international standards, was a condition of a 2005 peace agreement that ended a north-south civil war that lasted two decades and killed 2 million people.

The head of the commission's southern bureau, Justice Chan Reec Madut, said Sunday that voter turnout in the 10 states in the south was also 99 percent. He said only some 16,000 voters in the south chose to remain united with northern Sudan, while 3.7 million chose to separate.

States inspired by Arizona illegal-immigration law face tough fiscal realities

States inspired by Arizona illegal-immigration law face tough fiscal realities: As state legislatures convene this month, lawmakers across the country who had vowed to copy Arizona's strict measure cracking down on illegal immigrants are facing a new reality.

State budget deficits, coupled with the political backlash triggered by Arizona's law and potentially expensive legal challenges from the federal government, have made passage of such statutes uncertain.

In the nine months since the Arizona measure was signed into law, a number of similar bills have stalled or died or are being reworked. Some have faced resistance from law enforcement officials who question how states or communities could afford the added cost of enforcing the laws.

Ohio Case: The 'Rosa Parks Moment' For Education? : NPR

Ohio Case: The 'Rosa Parks Moment' For Education? : NPR: Kelley Williams-Bolar, an Akron, Ohio, woman who served nine days in jail for lying to get her children into a better school system, was released earlier this week.

But the controversy over the case appears to be growing. Williams-Bolar's felony conviction has stirred strong feelings over school funding, equality — and the law.

The Conviction

Two-and-a-half years ago, Williams-Bolar was called to a meeting at the middle school her two daughters attended. When she arrived, she faced school administrators and a school lawyer. The meeting didn't go well, turning into a shouting match.

The school in the Copley-Fairlawn district on the west side of Akron had hired an investigator who discovered that Williams-Bolar and her daughters lived outside the district, in subsidized housing two miles away in Akron. She claimed in affidavits that she and her daughters lived in Copley with her father.

Chlamydia Screening More Common for Black and Hispanic Women - NYTimes.com

Chlamydia Screening More Common for Black and Hispanic Women - NYTimes.com: All sexually active women under 25 are supposed to be screened for chlamydia. But a new analysis finds that black and Hispanic women are screened at significantly higher rates than white women, and this could help explain why minority women have higher reported rates of the disease.

The study, published in the February issue of Pediatrics, examined the records of more than 23,000 women ages 14 to 25 who visited health care facilities in Indianapolis from 2002 to 2007.

Over all, 58 percent of the women were screened. The youngest women and those with insurance were slightly more likely to be tested than the older and the uninsured. But black women were three times as likely to be tested as white women, and Hispanic women almost 13 times as likely to be tested.

Chlamydia rates are higher among blacks and Hispanics, and this could be a reason to screen them more often than whites. But cervical cancer rates, for example, are also higher among blacks and Hispanics, yet there is no difference by race in screening for that disease. The authors say the stigma attached to a sexually transmitted infection like chlamydia may make clinicians less likely to test white women.

Southern University New Orleans Chancellor: Low Graduation Rate No Reason To Merge

Southern University New Orleans Chancellor: Low Graduation Rate No Reason To Merge: NEW ORLEANS – Hundreds of students, faculty and alumni of Southern University at New Orleans rallied Wednesday to protest a proposed merger of the predominantly Black school with the neighboring University of New Orleans.

Gov. Bobby Jindal last week asked the state's top higher education board, the Board of Regents, to do a study of a possible merger ahead of the spring legislative session. Lawmakers' approval would be needed for a merger, and opponents at Wednesday's meeting made clear they will lobby against it.

“If we allow the state to take this institution, then as a community and as a people, we have failed our children,” Faculty Senate President Joseph Bouie said.

Does the DREAM Act Have a Future?

Does the DREAM Act Have a Future?: During the 111th Congress’s lame-duck session, President Obama defied expectations by racking up several important legislative victories, such as the repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Unfortunately for the hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States, the DREAM Act was not one of them.

The Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors Act, as it is formally known, would provide a path to citizenship for individuals between the ages of 12 and 35 who meet certain requirements and enable them to attend college or serve in the military.

In the days following the bill’s passage in the U.S. House of Representatives, by a vote of 216-198, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was not able to muster the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster and bring the measure to the floor. And, with a newly empowered Republican majority ruling the House, its fate is uncertain. What went wrong?

Perspectives: Diversity and the Future of the Professoriate – A Call to Action

Perspectives: Diversity and the Future of the Professoriate – A Call to Action: In 1981, the U.S. Department of Education reported that 4.2 percent of full-time faculty positions in higher education were held by African-Americans. In 2003, more than two decades later, the numbers had increased slightly, to 5.6 percent. If this rate remains constant, it will take more than 180 years for the Black faculty percentage to reach parity with the Black percentage of the U.S. population. Compelled by these startling statistics, last November I convened the “Diversity and the Future of the Professoriate” conference at Princeton University’s Graduate School.

Optimism, Energy, and Economic Development Define State of Indian Nations -- WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --

Optimism, Energy, and Economic Development Define State of Indian Nations -- WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --: WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In today's State of Indian Nations address, the President of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), Jefferson Keel, called for a new era in U.S. tribal relations defined by optimism and economic opportunity. He called for the U.S. government to focus on Indian Country as a place where infrastructure challenges could be seen as opportunities for economic growth. Republican Senator Murkowski of Alaska delivered the congressional response. (Watch the Video of the State of Indian Nations: http://livestre.am/AJgY / Read the Transcript: http://tinyurl.com/4fyv5l3 )

Tools Suggest Humans Left Africa Earlier Via Arabia : NPR

Tools Suggest Humans Left Africa Earlier Via Arabia : NPR: Some primitive stone hand-axes and scrapers unearthed in a desert on the eastern side of the Arabian Peninsula suggest that the first modern humans may have left Africa earlier and by a different route than scientists had previously thought.

What it does is push back, by quite a lot, the timeframe in which we think anatomically modern humans — so, you and me — migrated out of Africa.

- Simon Armitage, geologist, Royal Holloway, University of London

Archaeologists led by Hans-Peter Uerpmann from Eberhard Karls University in Tubingen, Germany, found the 100,000- to 125,000-year-old tools in a rocky, sheltered indentation in a bare, arid mountain in the United Arab Emirates. The tools seem to have been made with a technology similar to that used during that time period in East Africa, suggesting that early humans may have left that continent by crossing what is now the bottom of the Red Sea.

Unusual climate conditions back then would have mostly dried up the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which separates the Horn of Africa from Arabia, researchers report in the journal Science. And once early humans made the easy crossing, perhaps using rafts or boats, they would have arrived at a welcoming world of rivers, lakes and grassland, instead of the deserts seen today.

Naval Academy Settles with Critical Professor

Naval Academy Settles with Critical Professor: BALTIMORE – An outspoken critic of the U.S. Naval Academy's admissions policies has settled a complaint that alleged he was wrongly denied a pay raise for exercising his First Amendment rights.

English professor Bruce Fleming said Wednesday that he was satisfied with the settlement. But he said nothing has been done to address his concerns about the Annapolis academy's academic standards, which he said are deteriorating because of a push by college leaders to increase the number of minority midshipmen and to field competitive teams in football and other sports.

Perspectives: Mentoring Can Be the Critical Ingredient in Minority Male Academic Achievement

Perspectives: Mentoring Can Be the Critical Ingredient in Minority Male Academic Achievement: My hometown is among the communities with the lowest-performing schools. Milwaukee — where 75 percent of Black male eighth-graders read below grade level — graduates only 40 percent of its African-American students. Of my high school class of 900, only 197 students graduated in four years. I was one of the few males of color who went on to college. I graduated near the top of my high school class and found myself at a small state school in the University of Wisconsin system.

I have had the opportunity to work with young African-American and Hispanic male college students for more than 10 years at Iowa State University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and now at DePaul University. An overwhelming majority of these men came from some of the most underperforming public school systems in the country, such as those in Milwaukee and Chicago. Those men of color who reach college are often seen as anomalies.

Missouri court rules immigrant's adoption rights terminated illegally - CNN.com

Missouri court rules immigrant's adoption rights terminated illegally - CNN.com: The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned a lower court ruling that terminated the parental rights of a Guatemalan woman whose son, the woman says, was adopted without her consent while she was imprisoned following an immigration sting in 2007.

The court ruled that the state violated its laws in terminating the parental rights of Encarnacion Bail Romero, but the supreme court sent the case back to the lower court for retrial rather than return the boy to his biological mother.

'The trial court plainly erred by entering judgment on the adoption petition and terminating Mother's parental rights without complying with the investigation and reporting requirements ... ,' Judge Patricia Breckenridge wrote in the court's principle opinion.

In ‘Harlem Is Nowhere,’ Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts Seeks History - NYTimes.com

In ‘Harlem Is Nowhere,’ Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts Seeks History - NYTimes.com: Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts’s first book, “Harlem Is Nowhere,” takes its title from a 1948 essay by Ralph Ellison, and it pays homage, in grainy and shifting ways, to many other classics of black literature and thought.

It reads, in fact, as if Ms. Rhodes-Pitts had taken W. E. B. Du Bois’s “Souls of Black Folk” and Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and spliced them together and remixed them, adding bass, Auto-Tuned vocals, acoustic breaks, samples (street sounds, newsreel snippets, her own whispered confessions) and had rapped over the whole flickering collage. It makes a startling and alive sound, one you cock your head at an angle to hear.

At the end you may decide, as I did, that this ambitious racket is somewhat hollow: the book never coheres or locates its own beating heart. But Ms. Rhodes-Pitts’s is a voice you’ll want to hear again, to recapture the scratchy buzz she’s put into your head.

K-12 Science Proficiency Bottoms Out Among Nation’s High School Seniors; Blacks, Latinos at Lowest Levels

K-12 Science Proficiency Bottoms Out Among Nation’s High School Seniors; Blacks, Latinos at Lowest Levels: Only about one-fifth of America’s high school seniors are proficient in science, and the rates of proficiency are even lower among minority students, according to the results of a national science assessment released Tuesday.

The 2009 Science National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) at Grades 4, 8 and 12 shows that only 34 percent of fourth-graders, 30 percent of eighth-graders and a strikingly low 21 percent of high school seniors performed at or above the proficient level in science.

Racial and ethnic disparities in science proficiency were present at all three grade levels, but the gaps at the 12th grade level show—perhaps more than anything else—the degree to which those disparities might manifest themselves among diverse groups of students at the college and university level.

Less than half of students proficient in science

Less than half of students proficient in science: The nation's students are still struggling in science, with less than half considered proficient and just a tiny fraction showing the advanced skills that could lead to careers in science and technology, according to results from an exam released Tuesday.

Only 1 percent of fourth-grade and 12th-grade students, and 2 percent of eighth-graders scored in the highest group on the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federal test known as the Nation's Report Card.

'Our ability to create the next generation of U.S. leaders in science and technology is seriously in danger,' said Alan Friedman, former director of the New York Hall of Science, and a member of the board that oversees the test.

The results also show a stark achievement gap, with only 10 percent of black students proficient in science in the fourth grade, compared to 46 percent of whites. At the high school level, results were even more bleak, with 71 percent of black students scoring below the basic knowledge level, and just 4 percent proficient.

Fifty-eight percent of Hispanic 12th-grade students scored below basic, as did 21 percent of whites.

D.C. Couple Donates Film Collection to Three Louisiana Universities

D.C. Couple Donates Film Collection to Three Louisiana Universities: Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., now has its own “silver screen.”

An impressive collection of films about African-Americans is now housed on the campus and will be presented beginning in February to commemorate Black History Month.

The 89 motion pictures, released between 1915 and 1969 and recently converted to DVD from reels, are part of the memorabilia collection of Washington, D.C., toxicologist Dr. Lewis Brown and his wife, environmental chemist Dr. Shamira Brown. The couple met as undergraduates at Dillard University in New Orleans and both earned graduate degrees at Southern.

Charlotte woman faces slavery-related charges involving illegal - WBTV 3 News, Weather, Sports, and Traffic for Charlotte, NC-

Charlotte woman faces slavery-related charges involving illegal - WBTV 3 News, Weather, Sports, and Traffic for Charlotte, NC-: A north Charlotte woman faces federal slavery-related charges involving an illegal immigrant teenager, but she says the charges are a bunch of hogwash.

Lucinda Shackleford has been indicted on one count of forced labor and another charge accusing her of withholding the illegal immigrant's birth certificate in furtherance of slave trafficking.

According to the indictment, the Department of Health and Human Services put an illegal immigrant referred to as CRB -- who Lucinda identifies as Carlos Alberto Montes Salvador -- in Lucinda's care in February 2009.

Lucinda says Carlos was 17 and about to turn 18 at the time.

The indictment says Carlos wasn't supposed to work, but Lucinda allegedly made him clean up about 60 yards in the trailer park she lives in off Old Statesville Road. She's also accused of making him sell beer and food out of her trailer.
She's also accused of not feeding Carlos right and demanding money from him.

New Film Spotlights Discrimination Against Muslim Students

New Film Spotlights Discrimination Against Muslim Students: The new film “Mooz Lum” brought a 14-year-old girl at a Chicago viewing to tears because its scenes of harassment against Muslim students were all too familiar, says “Mooz Lum” screenwriter and director Qasim Basir. The girl told him she was often afraid to wear her hijab at school because of teasing and harassment.

“The point of making this film is to put a human face on Muslims and Islam,” says the filmmaker.

' Mooz Lum,” based on Basir’s life story, chronicles his upbringing in a strict Black Muslim family, studying to be a Qu’ranic scholar before transitioning to college life. Basir says the film’s title represents a mispronunciation of “Muslim” and conveys how misunderstood Islam is in the United States.

New Report Details Minorities’ Struggles to Bounce Back from Recession

New Report Details Minorities’ Struggles to Bounce Back from Recession: As the nascent economic recovery picks up steam, minorities are still struggling to make gains, according to a new report from the Center for American Progress. The report, “The State of Communities of Color in the U.S. Economy,” documents that minorities continue to lag behind Whites in homeownership and economic security while reporting higher rates of unemployment and foreclosures. Representatives from several top advocacy groups held a conference call with reporters this past Friday to discuss the report, and they urged policymakers to take more aggressive measures to aid the most economically depressed communities.

High-Profile Black Political Scientist to Lead New Center on Race, Gender and Politics in the South

High-Profile Black Political Scientist to Lead New Center on Race, Gender and Politics in the South: Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry, the witty Black political scientist who has developed a loyal following as a television pundit on MSNBC and a columnist for The Nation, has decided to leave her teaching post at Princeton University to join the faculty at Tulane University, where she will head up a new center focused on race, gender and politics in the South.

The 37-year-old Harris-Perry held a joint appointment in Princeton’s political science and African-American studies departments and will begin at Tulane in the fall. Her chief responsibility will be to develop a center to critically examine the role of progressive politics and the intersection of race, religion and gender in the South.

The Thorny Path to a National Black Museum - NYTimes.com

The Thorny Path to a National Black Museum - NYTimes.com: In the late 1970s, when Lonnie G. Bunch III had his first job at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, veterans of the Tuskegee Airmen, the all-black squadron, accused the museum of playing down their contributions during World War II. In response, the museum asked some of the African-Americans on staff to allow their faces to be used on mannequins, increasing the “black presence” in its exhibits.

“I didn’t do it,” Mr. Bunch said recently, who was among those asked. “That’s not the way I wanted to be part of a museum.”

Thirty years later Mr. Bunch, and African-American history itself, are part of a Smithsonian museum, but in a very different way. As the director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Mr. Bunch, 58, is charged with creating an institution that embodies the story of black life in America.

The Root: Twitter Trends Paint The Wrong Picture : NPR

The Root: Twitter Trends Paint The Wrong Picture : NPR: African Americans reportedly make up 25 percent of Twitter users, but the trending topics on any given day reflect hateful, stereotypical and misogynistic messages. Are we using our large social networking presence to do more harm than good?

Here's an interesting fact about Twitter: Black people love it. According to a study by Edison Research, we make up 25 percent of the 17 million (and counting) people who use the social networking site. And here's something else about black people and Twitter: We love to start trends — trending topics, that is.

Twitter defines trending topics as the 'new or newsworthy topics that are occupying the most people's attention on Twitter at any one time.' Adding a hashtag (#) to a tweet creates a themed, grouped message. If enough people tweet the same hashtag, it's considered a trending topic.

Black Models Celebrated As Runway Revolutionaries : NPR

Black Models Celebrated As Runway Revolutionaries : NPR: ...But as important as those ladies were, the event was transformed by the presence of several African-American models. According to Harold Koda, curator in charge of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, at the evening's end, fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert, who'd dreamed up the event, described it this way: 'It was as if, on this cold night, all the windows of Versailles had been blown open.'

Around 200 people will gather Monday at the Costume Institute to celebrate these black models whose work that night made American fashion a contender on the world stage.

Koda says many people he interviewed who were at Versailles said the event nearly 40 years ago was special.

"And what made the presentation of the Americans so riveting, magical and overwhelmed the presentation of the French was the presence of African-American models," he says.

BET honors Jamie Foxx, Cicely Tyson, Herbie Hancock as black culture visionaries

BET honors Jamie Foxx, Cicely Tyson, Herbie Hancock as black culture visionaries: Thirty years ago, BET had a niche to fill. It was entertainment for blacks, by blacks and about blacks, back before MTV would even air Michael Jackson videos. But in 2011, African American performers aren't hidden, so the D.C.-based cable network isn't quite as singular as it once was.

But there's no less need for entertainment.

On Saturday night, the network took over the Warner Theatre to fete six visionary figures in black culture. Some honorees were on solid footing on the red carpet - fashion icon Iman, keyboard maestro Herbie Hancock, acting pioneer Cicely Tyson and all-around alpha male Jamie Foxx.

HBCUs Tapped for New International Program

HBCUs Tapped for New International Program: With an eye toward the global economy, seven historically Black colleges and universities will participate in a new national initiative to help HBCUs expand their international programs and partnerships while enhancing global learning activities on their own campuses.


The universities were named to the new Creating Global Citizens: Exploring Internationalization of HBCUs project, jointly funded by the U.S. Department of Education and the American Council on Education (ACE). After conducting a competition among Black colleges, ACE announced the winning participants Jan. 21.

The seven participants—Dillard University, Howard University, Lincoln University of Missouri, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Savannah State University, Tuskegee University and Virginia State University—will work with an ACE project team to review their current international programs and explore new ideas.

North Carolina A&T Fires Official Over Sickle Cell Death

North Carolina A&T Fires Official Over Sickle Cell Death: GREENSBORO N.C. — North Carolina A&T State University fired an athletics official and suspended a second after learning coaches were urged against testing potential athletes for the sickle cell trait two days before one died during a tryout.

The university fired associate athletics director Merlene Aitken and suspended top athletic trainer Roland Lovelace with pay, The News & Record of Greensboro reported Wednesday.

The newspaper reported earlier this month that a public records request uncovered an Aug. 17 e-mail from Lovelace to nine coaches and to Aitken asking coaches not to have student athletes tested until they were selected to a collegiate team.

“The reason for this is that the student health center is charging the athletic department for this test to be done,” Lovelace wrote.

Psychologist Champions Cultural Competence in Mental Health Field, Academic Administration

Psychologist Champions Cultural Competence in Mental Health Field, Academic Administration: As Dr. Stanley Sue planned for retirement from the University of California, Davis, this past summer, he realized he still wanted to work on projects of passion. So he shopped for another job, landing as a professor at Palo Alto University and director of its new Center for Excellence in Diversity.

As director, Sue, a pioneer among Asian-American psychologists, will examine PAU’s curriculum and recommend ways to weave more diversity and cultural competence into day-to-day teaching. Among other things, he’ll advise university officials on how to increase minority representation among students and faculty. PAU offers only psychology degrees—doctorate, master’s and bachelor’s—with undergraduates taking non-psychology courses at nearby De Anza College. Racial and ethnic minorities now represent 39 percent of the 703-student body at PAU and 26 percent of the 31 full-time faculty.

During Howard University Visit, Michelle Obama Urges Students To Study Abroad

During Howard University Visit, Michelle Obama Urges Students To Study Abroad: With Chinese leader Hu Jintao visiting Washington this week for talks with President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama traveled to nearby Howard University Wednesday morning where she urged students to study abroad and help strengthen the U.S. presence in the global community.

“Studying abroad isn’t just an important part of a well-rounded educational experience. It’s also becoming increasingly important for success in the modern global economy. Getting ahead in today’s workplaces isn’t just about the skills you bring from the classroom. It’s also about the experience you have with the world beyond our borders—with people, and languages, and cultures that are very different from our own,” the First Lady told the Howard University study abroad forum audience during a speech.

Scholar Deciphers Census Data, Political Climate After Reapportionment

Scholar Deciphers Census Data, Political Climate After Reapportionment: When the Census Bureau begins cranking out more official results this winter of the 2010 decennial census, political scientist Robert A. Holmes will be poring over the data to see what it portends for Blacks and other minorities and how they can use it to sustain political momentum in this decade.

So far, the landscape doesn’t look good, says Holmes, a veteran educator who spent more than 30 years at the graduate school of Clark Atlanta University before retiring in 2008. Holmes, who also served in the Georgia Legislature for 34 years, is the author of numerous papers on voting rights and minority participation and is a consultant for National Popular Vote, the election reform campaign.

FBI probing MLK route bomb for racial motives

FBI probing MLK route bomb for racial motives: SPOKANE, Wash. -- Federal agents are investigating race as a possible motive behind an abandoned backpack containing a functional bomb after it was left along the downtown route of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade.

'The confluence of the holiday, the march and the device is inescapable, but we are not at the point where we can draw any particular motive,' said Frank Harrill, special agent in charge of the Spokane FBI office.

The suspicious backpack was spotted by three city employees about an hour before the parade was to start Monday, Harrill said. They saw wires and immediately alerted law enforcement, who disabled it without incident, he said.

School Desegregation Battle: A Thing of the Past . . . and the Present

School Desegregation Battle: A Thing of the Past . . . and the Present: North Carolina -- 'Courage: The Carolina Story That Changed America' has returned to its original home at the Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte after a long time on the road. It took the story of the South Carolina case that led to the Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision -- striking down school segregation -- to Atlanta, Baltimore, New York and the Museum of Tolerance, a Simon Wiesenthal Center museum in Los Angeles. Parts of the exhibition were used in a tour of South African museums arranged by the U.S. State Department.

As it moves back into the Levine, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary, the historical perspective of 'Courage' could not be timelier. It comes as the country stops to honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., though part of his dream -- equal educational opportunity for all children – is marred by achievement gaps and high dropout rates.

Sharpton’s King Day Forum Focuses on Gun Violence - NYTimes.com

Sharpton’s King Day Forum Focuses on Gun Violence - NYTimes.com: Of the many events on Monday honoring the memory of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the gathering held by the Rev. Al Sharpton in Harlem was one with a wide audience and a narrow focus: the toll of gun violence, from a parking lot in Tucson to the streets of New York.

Senator Charles E. Schumer said that no constitutional amendment was sacrosanct and that “there’s nothing wrong in putting reasonable limits on guns.”

Alluding to the concern over the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and 18 other people this month in Tucson, State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman said, “Sometimes it takes something big and dramatic to get
people’s attention.”

Former Mayor David N. Dinkins remarked, “It is absolutely ridiculous that any idiot can get a gun and kill people.”

But it was the host of the gathering who brought the message about gun control, wishful as it was, closest to home.

Lack of Emphasis On Reading, Writing Impedes College Student Learning, Study Says

Lack of Emphasis On Reading, Writing Impedes College Student Learning, Study Says: ...The report also found that “Black-White gaps” in student performance increase over the four-year college experience. “African-American students improve their CLA performance at lower levels than White students during four years of college,” the report states.

“That’s obviously disturbing,” says Arum. “It’s not too different than the picture in K-12 education. What is different is that in K-12, we’ve asked educators to address that gap and close the racial gaps in learning, and you don’t really have a discourse in higher education that’s similar to that. You don’t have people telling colleges and universities ‘Make sure all the kids are learning.’”

The book and report suggest several policy recommendations, including seeking federal funding for institutional improvement.

Study: Workplace Diversity Must Include Buy-In From Whites

Study: Workplace Diversity Must Include Buy-In From Whites: Organizational efforts to create and maintain an inclusive multicultural environment often face resistance by Whites, says a University of Michigan researcher.

“Without the support of Whites, organizations and educational settings will fail in their attempts to navigate and manage the complexities of diverse work forces and constituencies,” says Dr. Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, an associate professor of management and organizations at Michigan’s Ross School of Business. “In the face of the dramatic projected growth in demographic diversity, such failure could have severe economic, social and political consequences.

“Our research reveals that this resistance can have little to do with prejudice,” he adds. “Instead, it can stem from a basic human need to belong.”

Young King Inspired By Time On Conn. Tobacco Farm : NPR

Young King Inspired By Time On Conn. Tobacco Farm : NPR: Martin Luther King Jr. could hardly believe his eyes when he left the segregated South as a teenage college student to work on a tobacco farm in Connecticut.

'On our way here we saw some things I had never anticipated to see,' he wrote his father in June 1944. 'After we passed Washington there was no discrimination at all. The white people here are very nice. We go to any place we want to and sit any where we want to.'

The slain civil rights leader, whose birthday is observed Monday as a federal holiday, spent that summer working in a tobacco field in the Hartford suburb of Simsbury. That experience would influence his decision to become a minister and heighten his resentment of segregation.

'It's clear that this little town, it made a huge impact on his life,' said John Conard-Malley, a Simsbury High School senior who did a documentary with other students on King's experiences in Connecticut. 'It's possibly the biggest thing, one of the most important things, people don't know about Martin Luther King's life.'

Black leaders regroup to address widening poverty among African American children

Black leaders regroup to address widening poverty among African American children: Two decades ago, 22 black leaders gathered for a retreat on farmland in rural Tennessee once owned by writer Alex Haley. The reason for the gathering, which included historian John Hope Franklin and civil rights matriarch Dorothy Height, was to address growing rates of poverty among black children.

The idea for the Harlem Children's Zone was born there. So was the Freedom School initiative, which has provided summer and after-school enrichment programs for 80,000 children.

But a larger issue has overshadowed those successes: Rates of black childhood poverty keep growing.

After years of work, Vt. sculptor Chris Sharp honors King with bronze figures - 19 in all

After years of work, Vt. sculptor Chris Sharp honors King with bronze figures - 19 in all: Chris Sharp was standing at a copying machine in the Vermont high school where he teaches art when the White House security people called: Was he the guy who sent the heavy bronze sculpture of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the homemade wooden packing crate?

Absolutely, Sharp replied. He was the guy who at his own expense sculpted, cast and was shipping in carpet-lined crates his 60-pound statues of King to President Obama and 16 other destinations across the country.

The White House was "direct," but pleasant, Sharp said of the conversation a week or so ago, and the caller seemed to know everything about him. Apparently satisfied, "they said, 'thank you very much,' " and bade him good day.

Group: Oldest living African-American dies at 113

Group: Oldest living African-American dies at 113: SHREVEPORT, La. -- When she turned 113, Mississippi Winn could still stand up on her own and never thought her age was a detriment to her life.

The upbeat former domestic worker from Shreveport, known in the city as 'Sweetie,' died Friday afternoon at Magnolia Manor Nursing Home, said Milton Carroll, an investigator with the Caddo Parish Coroner's Office. He said he could not release her cause of death.

Winn was believed to be the oldest living African-American in the U.S. and the seventh-oldest living person in the world, said Robert Young of the Gerontology Research Group, which verifies information for Guinness World Records.

Young said Winn was one of two known people left in the United States whose parents both were almost certainly born into slavery because documents show they were born before the end of the Civil War, though her great-niece Mary C. Hollins says Winn never acknowledged that.

Remembering MLK: The Things We’ve Forgotten Would Guide Us - COLORLINES

Remembering MLK: The Things We’ve Forgotten Would Guide Us - COLORLINES: Martin Luther King, Jr., would have been 82 this month, and his assassination occurred nearly 43 years ago. As we get further and further from that time, memories get fuzzy and a kind of collective amnesia sets in, as Vincent Harding has observed, some of it deliberately promoted amnesia. So, the question is how to remember King clearly and to see that amazing moment in history that he participated in through a sharp and focused lens? Three things come to mind.

First of all, King was a radical. Not the venomous kind that promotes reckless violence against innocent people; quite the opposite. King was a radical in his criticism of the root causes of injustice, and in his brilliantly imaginative vision of a different, more just and humane world. For example, King did not just urge protesters to be non-violent, he urged politicians and governments to be non-violent. In 1968 he took a brave stance against the war in Vietnam, in a speech in New York City’s Riverside Church, that cost him some of his liberal supporters. He criticized the injustices of capitalism: persistent poverty, inadequate aid to workers and the poor, and growing wealth disparity. Let us remember he died demanding not simply integration, but labor rights for striking sanitation workers in Memphis.

Welcome to MLKDay.gov

Welcome to MLKDay.gov: What is the MLK Day of Service?

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, 'Life's most persistent and urgent question is: 'What are you doing for others?''

Each year, Americans across the country answer that question by coming together on the King Holiday to serve their neighbors and communities.

The MLK Day of Service is a part of United We Serve, the President's national call to service initiative. It calls for Americans from all walks of life to work together to provide solutions to our most pressing national problems.

The King Center

The King Center: Established in 1968 by Coretta Scott King, The King Center is the official, living memorial dedicated to the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Learn more about us, shop at our NEW online store, plan a visit, or meet our new president, Martin Luther King, III.

Martin Luther King Online - Speeches, Pictures, Quotes, Biography, Videos of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.!

Martin Luther King Online - Speeches, Pictures, Quotes, Biography, Videos of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.!: Hundreds of great pictures of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. including his childood and family, with other civil rights leaders and many from the famous I Have a Dream Speech!

Jacqueline Edelberg: Great Teaching: Not Just a Good Idea, It's the Law (Almost)

Jacqueline Edelberg: Great Teaching: Not Just a Good Idea, It's the Law (Almost): ...So, if a great teacher produces great results, what does an ineffective teacher produce? Turns out, it's a pretty shoddy product. A recent study by Eric Hanushek, the Hanna Senior Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institute featured in Waiting for 'Superman,' proves that an above-average teacher produces a year and a half's worth of normal test score gains in a single academic year, while a below-average teacher raises their students' scores by only a half a year. Consequently, unlucky children saddled with poor teachers fall further and further behind.

In a city like Chicago, which suffers from a colossal achievement gap (only 6 percent of CPS high school freshmen will graduate from college), the disparity might seem insurmountable. Not so, says Hanushek. A great teacher can bring even the lowest performing students up to grade level in just three years. If great teachers, or even merely average teachers, replaced their lowest performing counterparts, Hanushek predicts the nationwide economic impact due to increased test scores and higher future earnings would amount to $100 trillion, roughly the same number of clams required to wipe out the entire national debt.

Alan Mendelsohn of New York's Bellevue Hospital Creates Program On How To Talk To Babies

Alan Mendelsohn of New York's Bellevue Hospital Creates Program On How To Talk To Babies: When it comes to building your child's vocabulary, the answer may be in quantity, not quality.

NPR reports that University of Kansas graduate student Betty Hart and her professor, Todd Risley, wanted to figure out the cause of the education gap between the rich and poor. So, they targeted early education and headed a study that recorded the first three years of 40 infants' lives.

The conclusion? Rich families talk to their kids more than poor families.

Brian Jones: Dr. King and the Achievement Gap

Brian Jones: Dr. King and the Achievement Gap: The approach of a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King provides an opportunity to reflect on one of the hot topics in education reform today: the racial achievement gap. Everyone wants to close the gap. Or so it would seem.

Despite the hope many invested in President George W. Bush's 'No Child Left Behind' (NCLB) initiative, which highlighted the persistence of the gap, and set the goal of closing it by 2014, progress toward that end has been incremental at best.

In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg claimed to have reduced the gap 'by half' in some places. But in the summer of 2010, when city's tests were re-scaled, the scores were revealed to be only half as good as previously believed. Only 40 percent of Black students were found to have met the state's math standards, compared with 75 percent of white students. The new scoring revealed that only 33 percent of black students met the English standard, while 64 percent of whites and Asians did.

Shaun Johnson: Are You Man Enough to Teach?

Shaun Johnson: Are You Man Enough to Teach?: In terms of men in education, we need more guys to man up rather than man down. Statistical realities have demonstrated for over a century the critical absence of men in the classroom with no signs of change. Numbers from a variety of sources, the National Education Association and the National Commission of Education Statistics, for example, show a proportion of men in K-12 hovering at around 25 percent. This proportion decreases dramatically with the age of the student, demonstrating a clear disdain or dismissal of nurturing younger children. Data from the United Nations via UNESCO also illustrates that an absence of male teachers is a global concern not unique to the United States.

Wake County School Board In North Carolina Eliminates Integration Busing In Face Of Budget Cuts

Wake County School Board In North Carolina Eliminates Integration Busing In Face Of Budget Cuts: In Wake County, N.C. some are accusing the local school board of upholding segregation, elitism and even racism.

According to the Washington Post, the Wake County School Board has slowly eroded much of its integration policy over the past year, including integration busing. However, proponents of the trend say it's not about race or class war, but about practicality.

ABC Local reported that the school board claimed the existing desegregation policies regarding busing were unfair and unhelpful, citing long bus rides and costly bus routes as detrimental to student success.

Wake County's new superintendent, Tony Tata, looks to continue the school board's emphasis on 'neighborhood schools.' Tata told WRAL that he believes progress and diversity are two separate issues, and his focus is on the former.

NAACP Blasts Charlotte Schools Holding Classes On Martin Luther King Jr. Day

NAACP Blasts Charlotte Schools Holding Classes On Martin Luther King Jr. Day: CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A North Carolina chapter of the NAACP is criticizing a decision to have students in the Charlotte area make up for a snow cancellation by attending school on Martin Luther King Day.

The Charlotte Observer reports that the city's NAACP chapter called Wednesday on area clergy to urge church members to keep their children home on Monday's federal holiday.

Charlotte City Councilman Patrick Cannon also criticized the system's decision, calling it disrespectful to the slain civil rights leader's legacy.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Superintendent Peter Gorman says state law governing the school calendar gives local districts little flexibility in scheduling makeup days.

A severe winter storm canceled area schools for the first three days this week.

Mississippi Governor: Time To Build Civil Rights Museum

Mississippi Governor: Time To Build Civil Rights Museum: Possible presidential contender Gov. Haley Barbour—under fire recently for comments that critics claim minimized the problems of Mississippi's civil rights era—said Tuesday night that his state should build a museum dedicated to the movement.

The Republican, who is considering a 2012 run in what could be a crowded GOP field, also used his 38-minute State of the State speech to criticize the policies of President Barack Obama.

Barbour said 2011 is a good time to move forward with the museum in Jackson. He said that was because it is the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Riders' journey that challenged racial segregation and the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War.

Researcher Finds Easy Solution for Test Anxiety

Researcher Finds Easy Solution for Test Anxiety: A simple writing exercise can relieve students of test anxiety and may help them get better scores than their less anxious classmates, a new study has found.

The report in today’s edition of the journal Science says students who spend 10 minutes before an exam writing about their thoughts and feelings can free up brainpower previously occupied by testing worries and do their best work.

“We essentially got rid of this relationship between test anxiety and performance,” said Dr. Sian L. Beilock, an associate professor in psychology at the University of Chicago and co-author of the study with graduate student Gerardo Ramirez.

Psychologists, educators and parents have known for a long time that the way students perform on a test does not necessarily indicate what knowledge they bring to the table. Test anxiety is fairly common in classrooms, especially in the United States because of its “increasingly test-obsessed culture,” Beilock said.

Test anxiety can lead to poorer grades and lower scores on standardized tests and college entrance exams, which can condemn talented students to inferior colleges.

Across America, Latino Community Sighs With Relief : NPR

Across America, Latino Community Sighs With Relief : NPR: I wasn't the only person on Saturday who rushed to her Android when news came of the Tucson shooting. I wasn't looking however to read about what had happened. My auntie had already filled me in — 'Someone tried to murder una representante. People have been killed,' she'd reported. What I wanted to know was the killer's surname.

My eyes scanned the mobile papers. I held my breath. Finally, I saw it: Jared Loughner. Not a Ramirez, Gonzalez or Garcia.

It's safe to say there was a collective sigh of brown relief when the Tucson killer turned out to be a gringo. Had the shooter been Latino, media pundits wouldn't be discussing the impact of nasty politics on a young man this week — they'd be demanding an even more stringent anti-immigrant policy.

On 10th Anniversary, Wikipedia Aims for Diversity

On 10th Anniversary, Wikipedia Aims for Diversity: NEW YORK – Wikipedia, the online trove of assorted facts and trivia, is trying to be more well-rounded.

As the encyclopedia nears its 10th birthday on Saturday, its leaders are seeking a more diverse group of editors—specifically, women, people in developing countries, and people with expertise in assorted disciplines.

Wikipedia is about to open an office in India and wants to expand further in Brazil, Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries. Today, 20 percent of the site's pages are written in English, but the organization expects that to change over the next 10 years.

“Everybody brings their crumbs of knowledge to the table, and all those crumbs become a banquet. And we're missing some people from the table,” said Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that runs Wikipedia.

Paper names ex-Klansman in civil rights murder - CNN.com

Paper names ex-Klansman in civil rights murder - CNN.com: (CNN) -- Early on the morning of December 10, 1964, Frank Morris ran out of his shoe store, his clothes and skin on fire.

People who saw him in the hospital afterward said the African-American businessman was so badly burned they didn't recognize him.

'Only the bottom of his feet weren't burned. He was horrible to look at,' said the Rev. Robert Lee Jr., now 96.

Morris survived for four days before dying -- long enough to tell the FBI that two men had broken into his store while he slept, smashed windows, doused the place in gasoline and told him: 'Get back in there, n____.'

Study Calls for Better Identification of ELLs for Federal Funding - Inside School Research - Education Week

Study Calls for Better Identification of ELLs for Federal Funding - Inside School Research - Education Week: Federal support of programs for English-language learners depends on a formula based on the number of ELL students in each state and district, but a long-awaited national study suggests officials need a more comprehensive way to identify the students who need help.

The final report, developed by Washington-based National Research Council for the U.S. Department of Education, calls for federal policymakers to to change the funding formula for ELL grants to incorporate state-level counts of students with limited English proficiency in addition to the Census Bureau data now used to identify them.

Title III of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act provides grants to states and districts to support programs to help English learners gain proficiency in the language, as well as help immigrant students transition in American schools. Title III, at $750 million in FY 2010, is still a small grant pool compared to Title I, but the program's profile has grown with the skyrocketing increase in ELLs; while the Education Department estimates the school-age population has grown 3 percent in the last decade, ELLs have jumped 60 percent, to nearly 4.5 million students.

Edwin Lee, San Francisco's First Asian-American Mayor, Sworn In

Edwin Lee, San Francisco's First Asian-American Mayor, Sworn In: SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco welcomed its first Asian-American leader Tuesday, as City Administrator Edwin Lee was sworn in as interim mayor before a crowd of hundreds.

The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to appoint Lee to fill the remainder of Mayor Gavin Newsom's term. Newsom was sworn in Monday as California's lieutenant governor.

Immediately following the vote, Lee took the oath of office before a packed audience of family members, current and former city leaders and supporters from the Chinese-American community who gathered in the City Hall rotunda.

'This is a big step we're making as a city,' said Supervisor Eric Mar, one of four Asian-Americans serving on the 11-member board.

High Unemployment Helps Make 2010 Record For Workplace Discrimination Complaints, Resolutions

High Unemployment Helps Make 2010 Record For Workplace Discrimination Complaints, Resolutions: Persistently high unemployment levels and a brutal job market contributed to a record number of workplace discrimination complaints in 2010, the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission reported Tuesday.

'I think when people are less likely to find a new job, they're more inclined to file a charge of discrimination,' EEOC spokeswoman Justine Lisser told HuffPost. 'Whereas in the past they might just walk off and go to another job, nowadays they can't really do that, because there are no jobs.'

Lisser said the jump in discrimination complaints -- which totaled 99,922 in 2010, up from 93,277 the previous year -- was likely due to two factors besides the economy: the EEOC's new education and outreach efforts about discrimination, and a new law that took effect in September 2009 that makes it easier for people to prevail on claims of disability discrimination.

University of Georgia Celebrates Desegregation Anniversary

University of Georgia Celebrates Desegregation Anniversary: ...The civil rights milestone may not be as prominent in the public’s consciousness as, say, the Little Rock Nine—the name bestowed upon the students who integrated Little Rock Central High School under military guard following Brown v. Board of Education, the historic Supreme Court decision of 1954 that desegregated public schools—but in many ways it is similarly significant.

“Today, 50 years after my first steps on this campus, I don’t even have to put it in my own words,” Charlayne Hunter-Gault, who delivered a talk this week at the 50th Anniversary of Desegregation at UGA, said in an interview with Diverse.

“So many young people came up to me at the reception who weren’t even born at the time and thanked me for opening the doors,” said Hunter-Gault, a longtime journalist who has worked for prominent news organizations such as The New York Times and CNN.

Republican school board in N.C. backed by tea party abolishes integration policy

Republican school board in N.C. backed by tea party abolishes integration policy: IN RALEIGH, N.C. The sprawling Wake County School District has long been a rarity. Some of its best, most diverse schools are in the poorest sections of this capital city. And its suburban schools, rather than being exclusive enclaves, include children whose parents cannot afford a house in the neighborhood.

But over the past year, a new majority-Republican school board backed by national tea party conservatives has set the district on a strikingly different course. Pledging to 'say no to the social engineers!' it has abolished the policy behind one of the nation's most celebrated integration efforts.

And as the board moves toward a system in which students attend neighborhood schools, some members are embracing the provocative idea that concentrating poor children, who are usually minorities, in a few schools could have merits - logic that critics are blasting as a 21st-century case for segregation.

For Minorities, A New ‘Digital Divide’

For Minorities, A New ‘Digital Divide’: When the personal computer revolution began decades ago, Latinos and Blacks were much less likely to use one of the marvelous new machines. Then, when the Internet began to change life as we know it, these groups had less access to the Web and slower online connections placing them on the wrong side of the “digital divide.”

Today, as mobile technology puts computers in our pockets, Latinos and Blacks are more likely than the general population to access the Web by cellular phones, and they use their phones more often to do more things.

But now some see a new “digital divide” emerging with Latinos and Blacks being challenged by more, not less, access to technology. It's tough to fill out a job application on a cell phone, for example. Researchers have noticed signs of segregation online that perpetuate divisions in the physical world. And Blacks and Latinos may be using their increased Web access more for entertainment than empowerment.

Fifty-one percent of Hispanics and 46 percent of Blacks use their phones to access the Internet, compared with 33 percent of Whites, according to a July 2010 Pew poll. Forty-seven percent of Latinos and 41 percent of Blacks use their phones for e-mail, compared with 30 percent of Whites. The figures for using social media like Facebook via phone were 36 percent for Latinos, 33 percent for Blacks and 19 percent for Whites.

Building a Festival Network for Black-Theme Films - NYTimes.com

Building a Festival Network for Black-Theme Films - NYTimes.com: Ava DuVernay, the filmmaker and publicist, imagines a time when black-theme pictures will flourish in places where African-American film festivals have already found eager viewers.

Fifty such cities would be an ideal black-film circuit, Ms. DuVernay said. In March she will start with five.

“I Will Follow,” which was written and directed by Ms. DuVernay and stars Salli Richardson-Whitfield (“I Am Legend,” “Black Dynamite”) as a woman sorting through memories of a dead aunt, is set to become the first film from the newly formed African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement.

The plan is to put black-theme movies in commercial theaters, initially from the independent film program recently begun by the AMC theater chain, for a two-week run supported by social networks, mailing lists and other buzz-building services at the disposal of allied ethnic film festivals.

Misery With Plenty of Company - NYTimes.com

Misery With Plenty of Company - NYTimes.com: Consider the extremes. President Obama is redesigning his administration to make it even friendlier toward big business and the megabanks, which is to say the rich, who flourish no matter what is going on with the economy in this country. (They flourish even when they’re hard at work destroying the economy.) Meanwhile, we hear not a word — not so much as a peep — about the poor, whose ranks are spreading like a wildfire in a drought.

The politicians and the media behave as if the poor don’t exist. But with jobs still absurdly scarce and the bottom falling out of the middle class, the poor are becoming an ever more significant and increasingly desperate segment of the population.

How do you imagine a family of four would live if its annual income was $11,000 or less?

Arizona Orders Tucson to End Mexican-American Studies Program - NYTimes.com

Arizona Orders Tucson to End Mexican-American Studies Program - NYTimes.com: TUCSON — The class began with a Mayan-inspired chant and a vigorous round of coordinated hand clapping. The classroom walls featured protest signs, including one that said “United Together in La Lucha!” — the struggle. Although open to any student at Tucson High Magnet School, nearly all of those attending Curtis Acosta’s Latino literature class on a recent morning were Mexican-American.

For all of that and more, Mr. Acosta’s class and others in the Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican-American program have been declared illegal by the State of Arizona — even while similar programs for black, Asian and American Indian students have been left untouched.

In Black America, The Depression Rolls On

In Black America, The Depression Rolls On: ...Among white people, the unemployment rate dropped in December to 8.5 percent -- hardly acceptable, but manageable were the government spending more to expand a fraying social safety net and generate jobs. For black Americans, the unemployment rate was 15.8 percent.

Professional economists will not pause for an instant at those figures. It is a truism that the black unemployment rate generally runs double the white one, and yet when did that become acceptable? How can there be so little discussion about a full-blown epidemic of joblessness in the African-American community, as if the commonplace incidence of despair -- and, more recently, reversed progress -- somehow amounts to old news?

'Can you imagine any other group at that level of unemployment and the media dismissing it as not important?' the Rev. Jesse Jackson asked during an interview this week.

NewsHour Extra: Arizona Bans Ethnic Studies for K-12 Students | December 28, 2010 | PBS

NewsHour Extra: Arizona Bans Ethnic Studies for K-12 Students | December 28, 2010 | PBS: In May, Gov. Jan Brewer signed a law banning the state’s schools from teaching ethnic studies classes, defined as history, anthropology and literature courses designed to teach the stories, histories, struggles and triumphs of people of color through their own unique perspectives.

Specifically, the law targets Mexican-American studies programs taught in Tucson schools, where 60 percent of the students are of Mexican descent. The bill (HB2281) passed by the Legislature states that schools will lose state funding if they offer any courses that “promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.” This law will cut the Tucson school district’s budget by $36 million a year if they continue to teach ethnic studies courses.

Accounting Giant Ernst & Young Seeks To Attract More Minority Hires

Accounting Giant Ernst & Young Seeks To Attract More Minority Hires: A partner from Ernst & Young’s Chicago office was in a unique position Thursday as she pitched the perks of working for an accounting behemoth to a room full of minority college students.

While touting the virtues of the accounting life, Dorothy Proux animatedly told her success story to more than 100 sophomores and juniors from 58 colleges and took questions from the crowd at the Discover Tax conference. Hoping to lure more minority and women graduates into accounting, specifically tax work, Ernst & Young has created the all-expenses-paid event five years ago. This year, it took place Jan. 5-7 at the Hilton Hotel in New York City.

“There really is a limited number of highly qualified underrepresented minorities that are majoring in accounting,” says Megan Goeltz, a recruiting leader for the company.

Perspectives: Inadequate Counseling for Those Who Need It

Perspectives: Inadequate Counseling for Those Who Need It: In their well-researched book, No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal: Race and Class in Elite College Admission and Campus Life, Drs. Thomas Espenshade and Alexandria Walton Radford note that it will take significant investments of both resources and time to close the racial and socioeconomic academic achievement gaps. However, an immediate, affordable opportunity exists to improve the quality of academic preparation and postsecondary planning for all students, especially poor students and many students of color.

Auburn Is First In One Ranking, 85th in Another - NYTimes.com

Auburn Is First In One Ranking, 85th in Another - NYTimes.com: ...Among all the bowl teams this season, Auburn has the highest disparity in the graduation rates between white players (100 percent) and black players (49 percent), according to a study at the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida.

Jim Gundlach, the Auburn sociology professor who uncovered the academic abuse, saw the decline in the team’s ranking as progress. “A genuine consequence to this has been that the people who want to do things right have gotten a bit more grasp over what the university is trying to do,” he said.

Auburn’s athletic director, Jay Jacobs, declined to comment. The Tigers’ second-year football coach, Gene Chizik, said of his team’s academic performance and support, “We do a great job, so we’re not concerned with that.” When pressed on the issue of graduating black players, Chizik said, “Those are circumstances; there’s all kinds of different things.”

Study: Blacks less likely to have living wills, medical directives - USATODAY.com

Study: Blacks less likely to have living wills, medical directives - USATODAY.com: Nearly two-thirds of nursing home patients have advance directives, documents allowing people to make end of life decisions when they might not be able to speak for themselves, a government study shows.

But the study, out today, reveals a significant gap between black and white patients with the documents.

The National Center for Health Statistics looked at three groups of long-term care patients and found that 65% of those in nursing homes had advance directives such as living wills and do-not-resuscitate orders, as did 88% in hospice settings and 28% in home health care.

Literary Struggle Continues Over Mark Twain’s ‘Offensive’ Words

Literary Struggle Continues Over Mark Twain’s ‘Offensive’ Words: Mark Twain wrote that “the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter.” A new edition of “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “Tom Sawyer” will try to find out if that holds true by replacing the N-word with “slave” in an effort not to offend readers.

Twain scholar Alan Gribben, who is working with NewSouth Books in Alabama to publish a combined volume of the books, said the N-word appears 219 times in “Huck Finn” and four times in “Tom Sawyer.” He said the word puts the books in danger of joining the list of literary classics that Twain once humorously defined as those “which people praise and don't read.”

Black Colleges Step Up Pursuit of Sponsored Research

Black Colleges Step Up Pursuit of Sponsored Research: When Claflin University President Henry Tisdale challenged his faculty to pursue an aggressive research agenda, he knew the university needed to be dogged in going after lucrative federal research and development contracts to support that research.

“From the beginning, our game plan was to set the bar very high for our faculty and students in terms of research,” says Tisdale, referring to the resources he put into the school’s Office of Sponsored Programs. “I don’t believe in putting in that kind of mandate without a support mechanism.”

Carole Simpson's Network Battle Scars: An Anchor's Fight Against Racism - The Daily Beast

Carole Simpson's Network Battle Scars: An Anchor's Fight Against Racism - The Daily Beast: Carole Simpson got her first big break from Martin Luther King.

She was a rookie radio reporter in 1966 when she conducted an all-night stakeout of the visiting civil-rights leader, blurted out that “I’m the only Negro female reporter in Chicago” and got him to tell her why he was there (to challenge Mayor Daley—the original Mayor Daley—on segregated housing).

Race has always loomed large for the scrappy South Side native—larger than we knew, in fact, according to her new memoir News Lady. Simpson reveals a slew of race-related battles with ABC News, including her account that she was pushed out the door after a 25-year career.

What’s most striking about the book is that some of the most cringe-inducing incidents occurred not just in the early phase of her career, when black women were a rarity in the senior ranks of television news, but years after you would assume that the fried-chicken jokes had stopped. Even if Simpson is enlarging these episodes through the mists of memory, her anger—and sometimes her tears—shows they left an indelible mark.

New law labels interns 'highly qualified teachers'

New law labels interns 'highly qualified teachers': Civil rights advocates are blasting new federal legislation that allows states to classify teaching interns as 'highly qualified' teachers and regularly assign them to schools with mostly poor, minority students.

The measure, which remains in effect until the end of the 2012-13 school year, was signed Dec. 22 by President Barack Obama as part of an unrelated federal spending bill.

The legislation nullifies a Sept. 27 decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that California illegally classified thousands of teachers in training as "highly qualified" in violation of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Under that law, all students are supposed to be taught by "highly qualified" teachers who have earned state teaching credentials, but a 2004 Bush administration policy allowed states to give that status to interns working toward certification.

Universities Forced to Adapt as Demographics Shift

Universities Forced to Adapt as Demographics Shift: In August, 60 years after the University of Texas admitted its first Black student, the school welcomed the first freshman class in which White students were in the minority.

White students, who accounted for 51 percent of UT’s freshman class in 2009, made up 48 percent in 2010. Black and Hispanic students represented about 5 percent and 23 percent, respectively, with Asians and other races making up the rest.

The state’s flagship university passed the demographic milestone earlier than some had anticipated, reflecting a similar shift that is rapidly taking place at other top-level educational institutions across the country."

University of Arkansas-Little Rock Chancellor Establishing Racial Institute To Heal Old Wounds

University of Arkansas-Little Rock Chancellor Establishing Racial Institute To Heal Old Wounds: Joel Anderson spent his childhood watching buses barreling down U.S. 67, passing his hometown of Swifton on a 50-mile daily journey to schools that wouldn’t reject the Black children on board for the color of their skin.

In his segregated schools, Anderson, who is White, heard jokes and taunts about his Black peers, but he was largely unaware of situations he would later come to view as injustices.

He developed a passion for racial equality as a freshman at Harding University, where a mix of conversations with peers from integrated schools and teachings on biblical principles led him to examine his worldview.

Theory in Practice

Theory in Practice: ...Paradise is not the only one to be inspired by the international appeal and uniqueness of the 38-acre urban campus. For more than a decade, Rutgers-Newark has been ranked the nation’s most diverse university by U.S. News and World Report. Officials say the institution’s diversity is fueled, in part, by the area’s growing immigrant population. In fact, 37 percent of undergraduate students report that English is not their first language.

Now, the university’s unique composition is allowing it to test a theory that diversity advocates have long argued but have lacked rigorous scholarship to support: students of all backgrounds benefit from learning in a multicultural and multi-ethnic environment. University officials are refining existing policies and implementing new practices to measure the precise academic benefits of maintaining a diverse student population.

Historians Expose Error-Filled Virginia Textbooks

Historians Expose Error-Filled Virginia Textbooks: In the version of history being taught in some Virginia classrooms, New Orleans began the 1800s as a bustling U.S. harbor (instead of as a Spanish colonial one). The Confederacy included 12 states (instead of 11). And the United States entered World War I in 1916 (instead of 1917).

These are among the dozens of errors historians have found since Virginia officials ordered a review of textbooks by Five Ponds Press, the publisher responsible for a controversial claim that African-American soldiers fought for the Confederacy in large numbers during the Civil War.

South Carolina Program’s Success Highlights Minority Access Debate

South Carolina Program’s Success Highlights Minority Access Debate: The Centers for Economic Excellence Program has drawn cheers from higher education and political officials as a model for establishing South Carolina as a base for research that’s groundbreaking and creates jobs.

The program, paid for with lottery and private money, has brought in nearly 5,000 new jobs that pay an average of $63,000 per year, program supporters say. And the best-paying of those jobs are those held by endowed chairs, nationally recognized research experts hired by the state’s three research universities.

But, of the 34 endowed chairs hired so far, only three have been women and none has been African-American.

Daily Kos: Fascinating 1860 Map of the U.S. Slave Population

Daily Kos: Fascinating 1860 Map of the U.S. Slave Population: 2011 marks the sesquicentennial of the start of the American Civil War. On New Year's Day 150 years ago, South Carolina had already seceded from the United States and the next months would see ten more states secede from the Union, the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, the formation of the Confederate States of America, and the start of the war.

Historian Susan Schulten wrote about the 1860 Census and map showing American slavery in The New York Times last month. The United States Coast Survey used the 1860 Census data, the last time the federal government counted the slave population, to produce two maps illustrating slave population — one of Virginia and the other of the entire South.