PBS and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. expose Latin America’s dirty secrets | Being Latino Online Magazine

PBS and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. expose Latin America’s dirty secrets | Being Latino Online Magazine: For centuries, Latin America has denied its African past. Race was a taboo topic that was rarely discussed and celebrated. To be Black and Latino meant you were mystical, mysterious, and foreign. Blacks knew their place in Latin American society and “rocking the boat” was always frowned upon.

That image and the issues surrounding it are now being challenged in Black in Latin America, the four-part PBS series hosted by acclaimed Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The series, which premiered two weeks ago with a fantastic segment about the Black experience in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, concludes with two more episodes that have quickly become must-see TV for any serious follower of Latin American history and society.

Gates, who two years ago gained global notoriety with his controversial arrest in front of his Cambridge apartment that led to a beer summit with President Obama, shines in this series. His insight and ability to exhibit Latin America’s dirtiest secret on the small screen needs to be commended.

James Farmer Jr., Freedom Ride Organizer On Non-Violent Resistance : NPR

James Farmer Jr., Freedom Ride Organizer On Non-Violent Resistance : NPR: Wednesday May 4, 2011 marks the 50th anniversary of the first Freedom Ride. To commemorate the occasion Fresh Air is replaying interviews with civil rights activist James Farmer Jr., one of the organizers of the 1961 Freedom Ride, and historian Raymond Arsenault. Arsenault's book Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice has just been rereleased as a companion volume to the film Freedom Riders, premiering May 16, 2011 on PBS.

The late James Farmer Jr. was one of the architects of the Civil Rights movement in America. In 1942, Farmer co-led what he believed was the first coed civil rights sit-in in American history at a Chicago restaurant that refused to serve African-Americans.

The same year, Farmer co-founded CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality, which was one of the first Civil Rights groups to apply Gandhi's principles of non-violent resistance.

'The Kissing Case' And The Lives It Shattered : NPR

'The Kissing Case' And The Lives It Shattered : NPR: In 1958, James Hanover Thompson and his friend David Simpson — both African-American, both children — were accused of kissing a girl who was white. They were arrested, and taken to jail. Prosecutors sought a stiff penalty — living in reform school until they were 21.

'The Kissing Case,' as it came to be known, drew international media attention at the time. But since then, it's been largely forgotten. Even the Thompson family rarely talked about it. Recently, James Hanover Thompson sat down with his younger brother, Dwight, and told him what happened.

'We were playing with some friends over in the white neighborhood, chasing spiders and wrestling and stuff like that,' James says.

Week of events planned for unveiling of King memorial - The Washington Post

Week of events planned for unveiling of King memorial - The Washington Post: The foundation building Washington’s new national memorial to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is planning four days of events and an Aug. 28 dedication, which could be attended by as many as 250,000 people, the foundation announced Thursday.

The dedication is scheduled to take place on the 48th anniversary of the day King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial, just northwest of the spot on the Tidal Basin where the new memorial is being erected.

Obama Administration Releases Latino Education Report

Obama Administration Releases Latino Education Report: Changing demographics mean challenges facing Latino students are of importance to the entire nation, a senior U.S. Department of Education official presenting a report in Miami said Wednesday.

“Our numbers have grown so large that the future of the U.S. is inextricably linked to the future of the Latino community,” said Juan Sepulveda, director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans.

Latinos are the largest minority group in America’s public education system, numbering more than 12.4 million in Pre-K through high school, according to the latest enrollment figures available. Nearly 22 percent of all Pre-K through 12 students enrolled in America’s public schools is Latino. Still, Latinos lag behind other groups in many indicators and have the lowest levels of education attainment.

Latino Education Crisis Detailed In White House Report

Latino Education Crisis Detailed In White House Report: The largest and fastest-growing minority group in the United States is also chronically underserved by the nation's public schools.

A report released Wednesday by the White House and the U.S. Department of Education details the current crisis in Latino education. While one in four American children is Latino, according to the document, the demographic has 'the lowest education attainment levels' in the country.

More than 17.1 million Latinos younger than age 17 live in the U.S., comprising more than 23 percent of the country’s youth and nearly 22 percent of all K-12 public school enrollment, the report, titled 'Winning the Future: Improving Education for the Latino Community,' outlines.

Latino and Asian voters mostly sat out 2010 election, report says - The Washington Post

Latino and Asian voters mostly sat out 2010 election, report says - The Washington Post: A record 14.7 million Latino voters sat out the 2010 midterm elections, according to a report by the Pew Hispanic Center that shows the nation’s fastest-growing minorities are largely failing to exercise their right to vote.

Along with Asian voters, who appear similarly disengaged, the absence of so many Latino voters at the polls means the political influence of these minority groups will fall short of their demographic strength by years, if not decades.

About 31 percent of eligible Latino and Asian voters cast ballots in the 2010 congressional elections, compared with 49 percent of eligible white voters and 44 percent of eligible blacks, according to the Pew report. Asians comprise a much smaller portion of the electorate than Latinos, though both groups are exploding in size.

Conference Spurs Participants To Consider Higher Education Diversity Challenges

Conference Spurs Participants To Consider Higher Education Diversity Challenges: Inclusivity was the buzzword on Wednesday at the annual Diversity in Higher Education Conference at Duke University in Durham, N.C. It permeated conversations of modifying higher education to more readily accept non-mainstream cultures, changing what people consider to be the color of the race problem, and making online education and technology more effective for diverse students. The challenge: making it all happen.

“Everyone seems to be onboard with diversity and inclusion, but the struggle is how to operationalize it,” said Dr. Benjamin D. Reese Jr., vice president of the Office for Institutional Equity at both Duke University and the Duke University Health System.

Arizona - Judge Rules Against Maricopa Deputies - NYTimes.com

Arizona - Judge Rules Against Maricopa Deputies - NYTimes.com: A federal judge ruled Monday that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department violated the constitutional rights of Julio Mora, an American citizen, and his father, Julian, a legal resident, in 2009 when deputies stopped their truck and took them to a business where an immigration raid was under way. The Moras were detained along with others arrested in the raid. A trial is expected this year to determine whether the detention was racially motivated and whether Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the deputies should be held individually liable.

Deportation of Illegal Immigrants Under Review - NYTimes.com

Deportation of Illegal Immigrants Under Review - NYTimes.com: ...The about-face by ICE in Ms. Zanella’s case is an example of the kind of action Democratic lawmakers and Latino and immigrant groups have been demanding from the Obama administration to slow deportations of illegal immigrants who have not been convicted of crimes. In particular, pressure is increasing on President Obama to offer protection from deportation to illegal immigrant college students who might have been eligible for legal status under a bill in Congress known as the Dream Act.

In an April 13 letter, the top two Democrats in the Senate, Harry Reid of Nevada and Richard Durbin of Illinois, asked the president to suspend deportations for those students. But short of that, the senators asked Mr. Obama to set guidelines by which those students could come forward individually to ask to be spared deportation and to obtain some authorization to remain in the United States.

Some See Educational Inequality at Heart of Connecticut Case - NYTimes.com

Some See Educational Inequality at Heart of Connecticut Case - NYTimes.com: NORWALK, Conn. — The tale outlined outside court by the defendant’s supporters had a heartbreaking story line — a child tossed out of school, a homeless mother charged with felony theft for the crime of sending him to a better school than the one available to her, the inequalities that define America’s schools.

But despite the torrent of angry calls and e-mails that have flooded Norwalk’s City Hall and school district as a result of the recent publicity, the case of the mother, Tanya McDowell, got only murkier on Wednesday as she pleaded not guilty to first-degree larceny and conspiracy charges stemming from accusations that she illegally sent her child to a suburban Norwalk school when he really lived in urban Bridgeport.

Ms. McDowell’s story has become something of a cause célèbre since her arrest two weeks ago; education and civil rights advocates on Wednesday harshly criticized the charges against her. Others claim the child was summarily booted out of his elementary school in an affluent neighborhood.
Yet the larger issue of access to equal education is in danger of being blurred by the far more complicated matter of just what happened to Ms. McDowell and her son, Andrew Justin Patches, a kindergartner.

Black Unemployment At Depression Level Highs In Some Cities

Black Unemployment At Depression Level Highs In Some Cities: ...She is among the 15.5 percent of African Americans out of work and still looking for a job.

For economists, that number may sound awful, but it’s not surprising. The nation’s overall unemployment rate sits at 8.8 percent and the rate among white Americans is at 7.9 percent. For a variety of reasons -- ranging from levels of education and continuing discrimination to the relatively young age of black workers -- black unemployment tends to run twice the rate for whites. Yet since the Great Recession, joblessness has remained so critically elevated among African Americans that it is challenging longstanding ideas about what it takes to find work in the modern-day economy.

...“Over the course of the recession, the unemployment disparity between college educated blacks and whites actually widened,” says economist Algernon Austin, director of the Race, Ethnicity, and Economy program at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. “If black workers who are the most prepared to compete and work in the new economy can’t find jobs, that’s something that we as a country have to take seriously".

Historically Black Schools Turning to Capital Campaigns

Historically Black Schools Turning to Capital Campaigns: When Dr. Frank G. Pogue Jr. arrived at Louisiana’s Grambling State University as interim president a year ago, he quickly made an unexpected and unpleasant discovery. The school’s primary funding source—the state—was steadily reeling in the cash line and cutting taxpayer support for higher education, not just at Grambling but all over the state.

Today, faced with state allocation reductions of more than 20 percent, with more cuts on the horizon, the veteran educator is hoping to stem his school’s downward revenue spiral by beefing up his fundraising operations and launching Grambling’s first organized capital campaign. He is not alone. From Louisiana to West Virginia to North Carolina—and many states in between—a growing number of historically Black colleges and universities are coming off the sidelines and finally getting into the major fundraising game.

College Teams, Relying on Deception, Undermine Gender Equity - NYTimes.com

College Teams, Relying on Deception, Undermine Gender Equity - NYTimes.com: Ever since Congress passed the federal gender-equity law known as Title IX, universities have opened their gyms and athletic fields to millions of women who previously did not have chances to play. But as women have surged into a majority on campus in recent years, many institutions have resorted to subterfuge to make it look as if they are offering more spots to women.
At the University of South Florida, more than half of the 71 women on the cross-country roster failed to run a race in 2009. Asked about it, a few laughed and said they did not know they were on the team.
At Marshall University, the women’s tennis coach recently invited three freshmen onto the team even though he knew they were not good enough to practice against his scholarship athletes, let alone compete. They could come to practice whenever they liked, he told them, and would not have to travel with the team.

Connecticut Hospital Teams With Tuskegee University on Cancer Study

Connecticut Hospital Teams With Tuskegee University on Cancer Study: HARTFORD, Ct. – Saint Francis Hospital and Tuskegee University have announced a partnership to study why prostate cancer has a disproportionately high death rate among African-American men.

The Hartford hospital's Curtis D. Robinson Men's Health Institute will provide data and samples to Tuskegee's cancer research program under a memorandum of understanding signed Monday. The collaboration will include scientific research and testing to try to determine how prostate cancer is passed on in African-American men and to predict which cancers will be more aggressive.

“This partnership is a leading-edge, very novel approach to finding a cure for prostate cancer,” said Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg, medical director of the Connecticut institute.

The hospital plans to routinely provide researchers at the Alabama University with prostate cancer tissue from African-American men. The Tuskegee program has previously had only random samples for its research.

Rafael Espinoza, Popular Cop, Is Illegal Immigrant: Officials

Rafael Espinoza, Popular Cop, Is Illegal Immigrant: Officials: ANCHORAGE, Alaska — For years, the man known as Rafael Espinoza was widely respected as an exemplary police officer who was popular among his peers in Alaska's largest city.

All that ended this week when authorities discovered he was really Mexican national Rafael Mora-Lopez, who was in the U.S. illegally and stole another man's identity, officials charged.

'His reputation here is one of a hard-working officer, one who was very professional,' Anchorage Police Chief Mark Mew said Friday at a news conference announcing Mora-Lopez's arrest. 'The problem, obviously, is he is not Rafael Espinoza.'

Soon after the announcement, Mora-Lopez appeared in U.S. District Court in Anchorage and pleaded not guilty to a charge of passport fraud, which carries a maximum 10-year sentence. At his arraignment, Mora-Lopez told a federal magistrate he is 47, even though officials listed his age as 51.

The Root: Good Education Is A Right — Not A Crime : NPR

The Root: Good Education Is A Right — Not A Crime : NPR: ...Since January, two African-American women have been publicly shamed for sending their children to a school district that was better than the one in which they lived. Both Ohio mom Kelley Williams-Bolar and Connecticut's Tonya McDowell have been charged with larceny for fudging official school documents. 'I did this for them, so there it is,' said Williams-Bolar, who used her father's address to get her two daughters into a better public school. Together, Williams-Bolar and McDowell owe more than $45,000 in back tuition, according to court documents.

The Ohio school district where Williams-Bolar illegally sent her two daughters used taxpayers' money to hire a private investigator to see how far the mother would go to ensure that her daughters didn't end up in somebody's drop-out factory. In the end, she was sentenced to 10 days in jail, three years' probation and community service.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan Says Minority Teachers Needed

Education Secretary Arne Duncan Says Minority Teachers Needed: Education Secretary Arne Duncan made several stops in New Jersey on Wednesday, pushing a program aimed at recruiting more teachers to work in urban and rural areas.

Duncan hosted a town hall meeting at a Newark youth and employment center to talk about the Department of Education’s TEACH Campaign, which provides educational materials, information and job listings to encourage people to pursue teaching jobs in underserved areas. One of the primary objectives is to get more Black and Hispanic teachers especially men into the schools.

“I see this as the civil rights issue of our generation,” Duncan said, arguing that he was optimistic that even “the poorest kid, from the toughest community from the most dysfunctional family” can thrive when given a good education.

DNC's Family Feud Over Minority Contracting

DNC's Family Feud Over Minority Contracting: Party insiders say the Democratic National Committee awards few contracts to companies controlled by racial minority groups, despite repeated pledges to increase business to such firms.

Instead, Democratic leaders claim progress by leaning on a broader definition of “minority contractors” that includes white women, the disabled and the gay community, according to internal memos and emails obtained by The Huffington Post and corroborated by those insiders.

The apparent dearth of contracts has fueled frustration and criticism, mostly from African American Democratic loyalists who accuse the party of failing to use its institutional finances to advance the cause of fair racial representation in the lucrative business of politics.

Former Rutgers Student Charged with Hate Crime in N.J. Suicide

Former Rutgers Student Charged with Hate Crime in N.J. Suicide: A former Rutgers University freshman was indicted Wednesday on a hate crime charge after allegedly using a webcam to spy on a same-sex encounter involving his roommate, who committed suicide shortly afterward in a case that started a national conversation on bullying.

A 15-count indictment was handed up Wednesday by a Middlesex County grand jury against Dharun Ravi, who already had faced invasion of privacy charges along with another student, Molly Wei.

The indictment charges Ravi with bias intimidation, invasion of privacy, witness and evidence tampering and other charges stemming from the suicide of 18-year-old Tyler Clementi in September.

Proposed Smithsonian Latino Museum Faces Hurdles - NYTimes.com

Proposed Smithsonian Latino Museum Faces Hurdles - NYTimes.com: Seven years after opening its National Museum of the American Indian, and four years before the scheduled unveiling of its museum of African-American history, the Smithsonian Institution is being urged to create another ethnic museum on the National Mall, this one to recognize the history and contributions of Latino Americans.

A federal commission has spent two years asking Latinos what they would want in such a museum, and next month the commission will report its findings to Congress, which would have to approve a new museum.

Though the creation of such an institution has support from members of Congress, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and celebrities like Eva Longoria, building it faces significant obstacles, including budget pressures and a feeling among some in Washington that the Smithsonian should stop spinning off new specialty museums and concentrate on improving the ones it already has.

PBS Series Explores Black Culture in Latin America

PBS Series Explores Black Culture in Latin America: On a street in a seaside city in Brazil, four men describe themselves to Henry Louis Gates Jr. as Black. Flabbergasted, the Harvard scholar insists they compare their skin tones with his.

In a jumble, their forearms form a mocha spectrum. Oh, the men say: We’re all Black, but we’re all different colors.

Others in the marketplace describe Gates, who is Black and renowned for his African-American studies scholarship, with a variety of terms for someone of mixed race — more of an indication of his social status as a U.S. college professor than of his skin color.

“Here, my color is in the eye of the beholder,” Gates says, narrating over a scene filmed last year for his new PBS series, “Black in Latin America.” The first of four episodes filmed in six Caribbean and Latin American countries begins airing Tuesday. A book expanding on Gates’ research for the series is set for publication in July.

Throughout the series, Gates finds himself in conversations about race that don’t really happen in the U.S., where the slavery-era “one-drop” concept is still widely accepted.

Perspectives: Desegregating the Legal Community

Perspectives: Desegregating the Legal Community: Much was made a couple of years ago of then-U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s contention that “a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a White male who hasn’t lived that life.” Her critics claimed that it showed a less-than-judicial temperament.

In fact, Justice Sotomayor was merely stating what many in the legal community have been saying for decades: the legal community’s lack of diversity has a serious impact on access to justice in America. This impact is seen in the disparate criminal arrest and sentencing rates. It is also seen in the common perception of unfairness felt by minorities working and appearing within the justice system.

UNCF Study Shows HBCUs Chosen for Small Faculty-Student Ratio, Sense of Belonging

UNCF Study Shows HBCUs Chosen for Small Faculty-Student Ratio, Sense of Belonging: In the presumably post-racial age, are historically Black colleges and universities necessary? A new study from the United Negro College Fund’s Frederick D. Patterson Research Institute, attempts to answer this question. The study, “Students Speak! Understanding the Value of HBCUs from Student Perspectives,” uses first-person interviews from UNCF member institutions to uncover the reasons why many students choose to attend HBCUs.

The report was co-authored by Dr. Tammy L. Mann, executive director of the Frederick D. Patterson Research Institute; and Janet T. Awokoya, a senior research associate at the Institute.

Cornell University Provost Blasted for Plan to Move Africana Center

Cornell University Provost Blasted for Plan to Move Africana Center: Barely a year after celebrating the 40th anniversary of the trailblazing Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University, the center’s faculty, students and staff are fighting to keep the center in its current form — as an independent entity.

A fiery debate has been brewing on the upstate New York campus ever since Provost W. Kent Fuchs announced last December that the center would no longer be autonomous but under the direction of the College of Arts and Sciences as of July 1, 2011. The resulting outcry has become so fierce that Fuchs is now considering reneging on his decision.

Perspectives: Reducing Internship Inequity

Perspectives: Reducing Internship Inequity: Summer internships remain a popular subject of conversation. Not everyone, however, can participate in these conversations. Why? Because many college students cannot afford to hold internships, even as employers increasingly expect them to do so.

Internships have become a critical component of students’ resumes. More than three-quarters of college students at four-year institutions complete at least one internship before graduation (Edwards and Hertel-Fernandez 2010, 2). Internships have numerous benefits, including skills training and exposure to a network of professionals. They are an important stepping stone when applying for jobs after college, with 76 percent of employers citing relevant work experience as the primary factor in hiring decisions (Edwards and Hertel-Fernandez 2010, 5).

University of the West Indies Team Triumphs at HBCU Business Plan Competition

University of the West Indies Team Triumphs at HBCU Business Plan Competition: The best and the brightest of future business leaders congregated in Atlanta this weekend for the Opportunity Funding Corporation’s Innovation & Entrepreneurship Business Plan Competition, or OFC Venture Challenge. More than 300 students on 21 teams either from historically or predominantly Black colleges competed, presenting proposals that ranged from construction and land surveying improvements to the mass production of Jamaican ginger.

The University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica was awarded first place, with Savannah State University taking second, and the University of the District of Columbia placing third. Although only one team could walk away with the top prize, discussions among students showed that each of them walked away with a sense of accomplishment.

Few blacks attend Civil War anniversary events - USATODAY.com

Few blacks attend Civil War anniversary events - USATODAY.com: CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — As cannons thudded around Charleston Harbor this week in commemoration of the start of the war that extinguished slavery, the audiences for the 150th-anniversary events were nearly all-white. Even black scholars lecturing about black Union troops and the roots of slavery gazed out mostly on white faces.

The reasons blacks stayed away are not exactly a mystery: Across Dixie, Civil War commemorations have tended to celebrate the Confederacy and the battlefield exploits of those who fought for the slaveholding South.

But the National Park Service is trying to make anniversary events over the next four years more hospitable to black people.

S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley Angers Black Legislators over Medical School Board Removal

S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley Angers Black Legislators over Medical School Board Removal: South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has angered Black legislators by replacing the only Black member on the Medical University of South Carolina board with a White man.

Some Black legislators said Wednesday that Haley doesn't care about diversity. She is South Carolina's first female and first minority governor as an Indian-American.

Earlier this month, the governor replaced Dr. Paula Orr, a Black woman, with dentist Harold Jablon of Columbia, who earned a doctorate degree from MUSC's dental school in 1971. The move left only White men on the medical school's 14-member board.

Conference: Race Matters in Collegiate Sports

Conference: Race Matters in Collegiate Sports: Expert panelists at the “Losing to Win: Discussion of Race and Intercollegiate Sports” conference turned their attention partly to the media coverage of minority student-athletes and did not shy away from addressing accusations that media outlets do not always fairly scrutinize Black and other minority athletes. Panelists also decried the lack of minorities working as sports reporters, producers, and editors and admitted the numbers are getting worse, not better.

“We don’t always get it right,” said Tom O’Toole, the prep sports editor at USA Today, in reference to frequently uneven treatment of African-American athletes in the press. “When (reporters) would write stories, and I’m sure that I have been one of them, we would write ‘in code,’” O’Toole said.

Languages Grew From a Seed in Africa, Study Says - NYTimes.com

Languages Grew From a Seed in Africa, Study Says - NYTimes.com: A researcher analyzing the sounds in languages spoken around the world has detected an ancient signal that points to southern Africa as the place where modern human language originated.

The finding fits well with the evidence from fossil skulls and DNA that modern humans originated in Africa. It also implies, though does not prove, that modern language originated only once, an issue of considerable controversy among linguists.

The detection of such an ancient signal in language is surprising. Because words change so rapidly, many linguists think that languages cannot be traced very far back in time. The oldest language tree so far reconstructed, that of the Indo-European family, which includes English, goes back 9,000 years at most.

Candid Race Talk Launches College Sports Symposium

Candid Race Talk Launches College Sports Symposium: Expert panelists speaking during the opening sessions of a two-day academic conference on college sports and race detailed how lucrative sports competition — men’s basketball and football — have led many to ask whether student-athletes in those sports are exploited for their talent while others profit immeasurably. That many, if not most male athletes in Division I basketball and football are African-American, was frequently mentioned.

The “Losing to Win: Discussions of Race and Intercollegiate Sports” symposium at Wake Forest University has brought together nearly 50 panelists from all walks of academia, law and athletics, including coaches, administrators and athletes, to discuss historic and contemporary dimensions of big-time college sports, while highlighting the racial components of those issues.

Latino kids follow parents' lead when it comes to exercising (or not) - latimes.com

Latino kids follow parents' lead when it comes to exercising (or not) - latimes.com: Compared with other ethnic groups, Hispanic adults spend very little time engaging in leisure time activity. And their lack of playtime may be contributing to their kids' sedentary habits--and excess weight, says new research.

The authors of the study, published this week in the journal Pediatrics, note that compared with non-Hispanic white kids, Hispanic kids between age 6 and 17 are much more likely to be physically inactive: 22.5% of immigrant Hispanic children, 17.2% of U.S.-born Hispanic kids with immigrant parents, and 14.5% of U.S.-born Hispanic kids with a single immigrant parent are considered sedentary. Among their non-Hispanic white peers, 9.5% are considered inactive.

Harvard admits record numbers of African-American and Latino students | Education | The Guardian

Harvard admits record numbers of African-American and Latino students | Education | The Guardian: While Oxford draws criticism for the racial profile of its intake, Harvard's latest admissions figures show that 11.8% of its new students for this autumn will be African-American and 12.1% Latino – thought to be record proportions of the two minority groups.

Among the 2009 intake, 10.8% of students at Harvard were African-American, compared with 8.2% at Princeton, and 7% at Yale. To put the data in some context, African-American students made up 14% of US college enrollments in 2008.

The MP and former higher education minister David Lammy suggests that part of the reason Harvard does better on race is that it writes to every high-achieving minority student. The Ivy League institution is proud of its outreach, sending admissions officers every year to schools in every US state.

Oxford University diversity row: 'Grades aren't enough' | Education | The Guardian

Oxford University diversity row: 'Grades aren't enough' | Education | The Guardian: There has only been one moment in his three years at Oxford when Stephen Bush felt uncomfortable about race. That was in a tutorial about the US president Thomas Jefferson, who believed black people were inferior to white.

Bush, who is reading history at Balliol college, said: 'Every time one of the students quoted from his letter they would look at me really nervously, but I just found it funny. Some people here come from some quite rural places and have to get in the car to buy some milk, let alone see a black person.'

Oxford's record on diversity is under the spotlight this week after the prime minister described his alma mater's admissions figures as 'disgraceful'. But for black applicants to Britain's oldest university, the barriers can be as much about class as race – a failure by state schools to prepare pupils for interview, or a damaging lack of confidence compared with private school candidates.

Book Examines Impact of Women’s Studies

Book Examines Impact of Women’s Studies: Today is Equal Pay Day, an event originated by the National Committee on Pay Equity in 1996 to generate awareness about the ongoing pay gap between women’s and men’s wages.

College students are engaged in daily discussions about civil rights, gender, race and class and we look to them to continue the fight against inequality. But when it comes to declaring a major, they are often dissuaded from pursuing women’s and gender studies due to perceived impracticality. Advisors, fellow students, parents and even the general public often ask, “How can that lead to a career?”

Va. teacher holds mock slave auction - The Washington Post

Va. teacher holds mock slave auction - The Washington Post: Trying to bring a Civil War history lesson to life, teacher Jessica Boyle turned her fourth grade Norfolk classroom into a slave auction: She ordered black and mixed race students to one side of the classroom. Then, the white students took turns buying them.

Parent complaints began rolling in shortly after the April 1 lesson, and the principal at Sewells Point Elementary School, Mary B. Wrushen, wrote to parents last week that Boyle had gone too far.
“The lesson could have been thought through more carefully, as to not offend her students or put them in an uncomfortable situation,” Wrushen wrote.

Lessons on the Civil War have long been among the most sensitive topics in Virginia classrooms, many located near the grounds of the Confederacy’s bloodiest battles. And the role that slavery played in the conflict’s origins has been particularly controversial.

PBS to feature Black in Latin America - Repeating Islands

PBS to feature Black in Latin America Repeating Islands: Black in Latin America, a new four-part series on the influence of African descent on Latin America, is the 11th and latest documentary film from renowned Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., presenter and writer of the acclaimed PBS series African American Lives (2006), Oprah’s Roots (2007), African American Lives 2 (2008), Looking for Lincoln (2009), and Faces of America (2010).

Six Latin-American countries are featured in the series: Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Brazil, Mexico, and Peru

Black in Latin America, premiering nationally Tuesdays April 19 and 26 and May 3 and 10, 2011 at 8 p.m. (ET) on PBS (check local listings), examines how Africa and Europe came together to create the rich cultures of Latin America and the Caribbean.

... On his journey, Professor Gates discovers, behind a shared legacy of colonialism and slavery, vivid stories and people marked by African roots.

'Black in Latin America': The Other African Americans | The Root

'Black in Latin America': The Other African Americans | The Root: I first learned that there were black people living somewhere in the Western Hemisphere other than the United States when my father told me the first thing he had wanted to be when he grew up. When he was a boy about my age, he said, he wanted to be an Episcopal priest because he so admired his priest at St. Philip's Episcopal Church in Cumberland, Md., a black man from some place called Haiti.

I knew by this time that there were black people in Africa, of course, because of movies such as Tarzan and TV shows like Sheena, Queen of the Jungle and Ramar of the Jungle. And then, in 1960, when I was 10 years old, our fifth-grade class studied 'Current Affairs,' and we learned about the 17 African nations that gained their independence that year. I did my best to memorize the names of these countries and their leaders, though I wasn't quite sure why I found these facts so very appealing.

Black in Latin America: Brazil's Complex View of Race and Color | The Root

Black in Latin America: Brazil's Complex View of Race and Color | The Root: Brazil once touted itself as free of racism. It turns out that the truth was more complicated -- a lot more complicated. In his new PBS series, The Root's editor-in-chief examines the complexities of race and color in Brazil, the country with the second-largest number of people of African descent in the world after Nigeria -- far more than the United States. Check out the video below and those to the right to find out why the scope of slavery was so much larger in Brazil, and what prompted Gates to say, 'I knew how barbaric slavery was in the United States, but it was even worse in Brazil.'

Skin Bleaching A Growing Concern In Jamaica

Skin Bleaching A Growing Concern In Jamaica: KINGSTON, Jamaica -- Mikeisha Simpson covers her body in greasy white cream and bundles up in a track suit to avoid the fierce sun of her native Jamaica, but she's not worried about skin cancer.

The 23-year-old resident of a Kingston ghetto hopes to transform her dark complexion to a cafe-au-lait-color common among Jamaica's elite and favored by many men in her neighborhood. She believes a fairer skin could be her ticket to a better life. So she spends her meager savings on cheap black-market concoctions that promise to lighten her pigment.

Simpson and her friends ultimately shrug off public health campaigns and reggae hits blasting the reckless practice.

'I hear the people that say bleaching is bad, but I'll still do it. I won't stop 'cause I like it and I know how to do it safe,' said Simpson, her young daughter bouncing on her hip.

People around the world often try to alter their skin color, using tanning salons or dyes to darken it or other chemicals to lighten it. In the gritty slums of Jamaica, doctors say the skin lightening phenomenon has reached dangerous proportions.

One dropout every 26 seconds is ticking time bomb for blacks

One dropout every 26 seconds is ticking time bomb for blacks: Between the trials and tribulations of the controversial No Child Left Behind law, the growing issue of bullying in schools, and the feeling that parents, teachers and administrators are all searching for a magic solution to the problem that is the American educational system, here comes more bad news.

Recently, President Barack Obama's education secretary Arne Duncan stated that every 26 seconds, a student drops out of high school. But things are even worse for black students; a whopping 40 percent of African-American students don't graduate from high school. These dismal statistics are creating an underclass of African-Americans who have become unemployable, while also affecting the very fibers of the black family structure.

Marc Williams, a high school music theory teacher at Cesar Chavez Charter School in Washington DC, also works with the school's retention program. He sees a number of different causes for black students not finishing high school.

Facing Racism Accusations, Delaware Law School Professor Sues Dean for Defamation

Facing Racism Accusations, Delaware Law School Professor Sues Dean for Defamation: A Widener University law professor facing accusations of racism and sexism filed a defamation lawsuit against the school’s dean Friday, claiming he has been deemed a threat to the school and targeted for dismissal because of his teaching methods and his conservative political and legal views.

Lawrence Connell, a White, tenured professor, also alleges that Dean Linda Ammons, who is Black, is upset that he has used her in attention-grabbing hypothetical crime scenarios he uses in his criminal law classes.

“She set out to destroy him because of his conservative beliefs,” Connell’s attorney, Thomas Neuberger, said after filing the lawsuit in Sussex County Superior Court.

Online Course Helping American Indian Leaders Improve Tribal Governance

Online Course Helping American Indian Leaders Improve Tribal Governance: The governance structure of most American Indian tribes was designed by the U.S. Department of the Interior in the 1930s, and tribes and experts say the systems disadvantaged tribal nations more than they helped.

“These governments were not very sophisticated and were often unwieldy, with no provisions for court systems. These systems usually hampered efforts to get things done,” says Dr. Stephen Cornell, faculty chairman of the University of Arizona’s Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management and Policy.

The old governments also carry a legacy of colonialism that creates distrust in leadership and fosters economic dependence, Cornell says. As one tribal leader told Cornell, “We’re trying to replace the victim attitude with the victor attitude.”

“If someone in Washington, D.C., is making your decisions for you, you aren’t likely to go very far,” Cornell says. “Tribal nation building must be done by Indian people.”

Adoption changes spur growth in multiracial families - USATODAY.com

Adoption changes spur growth in multiracial families - USATODAY.com: With 130,000 children adopted each year in the USA, researchers find growing numbers involve kids whose race is different from their parents'.

The latest data show that about 40% of adoptions in America involve such families; among children from other countries adopted by American parents, 84% are transracial or transethnic, says Adam Pertman, executive director of the nonprofit Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, a research, policy and education organization.

He shared the statistics as part of a panel on multiracial identities Friday at the nonprofit Council on Contemporary Families, a group of family researchers, mental health practitioners and clinicians meeting here.

Australian Universities Take Steps to Increase Numbers of Indigenous Students and Academics - NYTimes.com

Australian Universities Take Steps to Increase Numbers of Indigenous Students and Academics - NYTimes.com: Indigenous Australians have long been under-represented in their country’s universities, but now some institutions are creating leadership posts to help increase the number of indigenous students and academics.

Last week, the University of Sydney announced that a new deputy vice chancellor would be responsible for the institution’s strategy and services for the indigenous.

The University of Queensland created a similar position, with the title pro vice chancellor, last month, while Charles Darwin University has had a pro vice chancellor dedicated to indigenous leadership since 2008.

Indigenous people account for 2.4 percent of the population but constitute only 1.25 percent of students entering universities, according to a report by the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Melbourne.

Vivien Rowan, who battled racial discrimination in D.C. area, dies at 89 - The Washington Post

Vivien Rowan, who battled racial discrimination in D.C. area, dies at 89 - The Washington Post: At a Silver Spring Peoples drug store in the early 1960s, Vivien Rowan finished shopping with her two young sons and approached the register.

After taking her money, the cashier slammed Mrs. Rowan’s change on the counter, stepped back and crossed his arms.

Mrs. Rowan, an Arkansas native who had grown up with racial discrimination, found the store manager and demanded a formal apology. She insisted that the cashier place her change in her palm.
“She taught us never to accept unequal treatment,” her son said.

Mrs. Rowan, 89, who died March 26 at Georgetown University Hospital of complications from a stroke, endured many episodes of racial disparity in the Washington area.

She was the wife of Carl T. Rowan, a prominent State Department official and among the first nationally syndicated black columnists in the country.

Middle Colleges Grow in Number and Target Lower-Income, Minority Students

Middle Colleges Grow in Number and Target Lower-Income, Minority Students: This fall, Maryland will become the latest in a growing number of states to open a “middle college,” or a high school housed on a college campus. Prince George’s Community College will open the Academy of Health Sciences, a high school focusing on allied health services. The school will begin accepting applications this month.

“Students must be looking for a different kind of environment, unlike the structure that exists in most public school programs,” says PGCC President Charlene Dukes. “Middle college provides students with the opportunity to engage in an environment that, we hope, will add to the intellectual stimulation that they already received in their middle schools.”

Nearly Half Of Mississippi Republicans Think Interracial Marriage Should Be Illegal | TPMDC

Nearly Half Of Mississippi Republicans Think Interracial Marriage Should Be Illegal | TPMDC: Americans nationwide are evenly divided over the issue of same sex marriage. But Republicans in Mississippi are divided over a wholly different wedlock issue: interracial marriage.

In a PPP poll released Thursday, a 46% plurality of registered Republican voters said they thought interracial marriage was not just wrong, but that it should be illegal. 40% said interracial marriage should be legal.

Gov. Haley Barbour, with a home state advantage in Mississippi, also topped PPP's survey of the GOP primary field at 37%, followed by Mike Huckabee at 19%, and Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich at 10%.

Minority Children Four Times More Likely to Start Poor, Stay Poor

Minority Children Four Times More Likely to Start Poor, Stay Poor: Children of color are four times more likely than their white peers to be born into a poor family and suffer a lifetime of consequences, ranging from diminished academic standing to increased financial insecurity, a report released Thursday found.

Beyond financial comfort, even practical dreams of education and savings remain an allusive idea for many nonwhite Americans. The nation's racial wealth disparity is more pronounced in the lives of children, the study, prepared by the California-based Insight Center for Community Economic Development, revealed.

Is Dr. King's achievement at risk? - CNN.com

Is Dr. King's achievement at risk? - CNN.com: On April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. went to Memphis, Tennessee, to stand in solidarity with sanitation workers of AFSCME Local 1733 and the wider community they inspired.

The city of Memphis had refused to recognize the union, paid its black workers less than whites, and always saved the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs for African-Americans. The day following his arrival, April 4, 1968, King was assassinated.

During his life, King had witnessed dramatic change: brave Americans demonstrating nonviolently for equality, a Supreme Court recognizing that separate is not equal justice under law, and a federal government courageously passing the Voting Rights Act, despite its political consequences, because it was the right thing to do.

In New York, Obama Takes Aim at Inequality in Education - NYTimes.com

In New York, Obama Takes Aim at Inequality in Education - NYTimes.com: Describing education and education equality as the “civil rights issue of our time,” President Obama called Wednesday for a renewed effort to eliminate the achievement gap between African-American students and others.

“Too many of our kids are dropping out of schools,” Mr. Obama told a mostly black audience in the ballroom of the Sheraton New York Hotel in Manhattan. “That’s not a white, black or brown problem. That’s everybody’s problem.”

In a lightning-fast visit to New York before returning to Washington for more budget talks, Mr. Obama delivered a sober assessment of what he has done since taking office to help black Americans, and what more needs to be done. He praised the health care overhaul and the auto-industry bailout, and castigated critics who he said had developed “amnesia” about the shape the country was in when he took office.

Oklahoma’s GOP Lawmakers Push to Abolish Affirmative Action

Oklahoma’s GOP Lawmakers Push to Abolish Affirmative Action: A Republican-backed plan to wipe out any affirmative action programs in Oklahoma appears headed for approval by the Legislature, prompting a bitter response from some minority lawmakers that it is merely a political ploy to play on racial fears and draw conservative voters to the polls. If approved, the measure would go on the 2012 state ballot.

The affirmative action proposal by state Sen. Rob Johnson, R-Kingfisher, and Rep. Leslie Osborn, R-Tuttle, would prohibit special treatment based on race or sex in public employment, education or contracts. The bill, which already passed the Senate on a party-line vote, is scheduled for a hearing on Wednesday in a House committee.

Theology Professor’s Discrimination Lawsuit Raises Thorny First Amendment Issues

Theology Professor’s Discrimination Lawsuit Raises Thorny First Amendment Issues: A former tenured professor at the Lexington Theological Seminary is appealing a lower court’s ruling that dismissed his lawsuit against the seminary last year for breach of contract and racial discrimination. The case of Dr. Jimmy Kirby is unusual in that the court’s interpretation of the U.S. Constitution’s religious-freedom provisions disregards civil rights and equal employment statutes and regulations.

Debate Over Relevance of HBCUs Opens 37th NAFEO Conference

Debate Over Relevance of HBCUs Opens 37th NAFEO Conference: The debate over the relevance of HBCUs got a fresh airing Tuesday when a panel discussion triggered an acrimonious exchange that moved some HBCU leaders to defend their institution’s very existence.

The paradoxical nature of the discussion at the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education’s 37th annual National Dialogue on Blacks in Higher Education was perhaps best summed up by Dr. John Silvanus Wilson, Jr., executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

“It’s a bad time for another round of negative publicity for us,” he said, referring to an education report from the early 20th century that stated HBCUs needed to garner “dignified publicity” in order to tap into the philanthropic world for financial support.

Manning Marable Remembered as Public Intellectual and Activist

Manning Marable Remembered as Public Intellectual and Activist: Dr. Russell Rickford hasn’t quite been the same since learning that his mentor and friend, Dr. Manning Marable, passed away at the age of 60, after suffering from complications from pneumonia.

Marable, who was diagnosed with sarcoidosis, underwent a double lung transplant last summer, but friends thought he was on the rebound toward recovery, eager to celebrate the release of his new book, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, a project that took him 10 years to research and write.

A self-described Marxist, Marable had a distinguished career in the academy as a social activist and public intellectual. At the time of his death, he held the M. Moran Weston and Black Alumni Council Professorship of African American Studies at Columbia University, after serving as the founding director of the university’s Institute for Research in African-American Studies and establishing the Center for Contemporary Black History at Columbia in 2002.

Look Broadly for Funds, Fed Official Urges

Look Broadly for Funds, Fed Official Urges: In their search for federal dollars, Hispanic-serving institutions must think beyond programs targeted just at HSIs or minority-serving colleges and look toward broader competitive federal grants open to all of higher education, an Obama administration official said Monday.

Juan Sepulveda, director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans, said education faces a “new policy landscape” in which narrowly targeted federal programs such as grants to Hispanic-serving colleges are unlikely, by themselves, to meet the needs of fast-growing postsecondary institutions.

“The notion that targeted dollars are the only funds available represents the old way of thinking,” he told a public policy forum of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities in Washington, D.C.

Education Week: Study Finds High Dropout Rates for Black Males in KIPP Schools

Education Week: Study Finds High Dropout Rates for Black Males in KIPP Schools: KIPP charter middle schools enroll a significantly higher proportion of African-American students than the local school districts they draw from, but 40 percent of the black males they enroll leave between grades 6 and 8, says a new nationwide study by researchers at Western Michigan University.

“The dropout rate for African-American males is really shocking,” said Gary J. Miron, a professor of evaluation, measurement, and research at Western Michigan University, in Kalamazoo, and the lead researcher for the study. “KIPP is doing a great job of educating students who persist, but not all who come.”

With 99 charter schools across the country, most of which serve grades 5 to 8, the Knowledge Is Power Program network has built a national reputation for success in enabling low-income minority students to do well academically. And some studies show that KIPP charter schools have succeeded in significantly narrowing race-based and income-based achievement gaps between students over time.

Malcolm X Scholar Manning Marable Dies at 60

Malcolm X Scholar Manning Marable Dies at 60: Dr. Manning Marable, an influential historian whose forthcoming Malcolm X biography could revise perceptions of the slain civil rights leader, died Friday, just days before the book described as his life’s work was to be released. He was 60 years old.

His wife, Leith Mullings, said Marable died from complications of pneumonia at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan. She said he had suffered for 24 years from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory lung disease, and had undergone a double lung transplant in July.

“I think his legacy is that he was both a scholar and an activist,” she said. “He believed that history could be used to inform the present and the future.”

HBCUs Must Embrace Online Education

HBCUs Must Embrace Online Education: Historically Black colleges and universities have been the cornerstone of education for the African-American community for more than 150 years. These institutions have prepared graduates to compete with the best and brightest minds globally, and I, as a graduate of historically Black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, stand as a testament to their transformative power. Now is the time for HBCUs to deliver this power via online learning.

Obama said HBCUs have a real opportunity to flourish and contribute to the president’s national goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates by 2020. However, many HBCUs find themselves at a crossroads, not only in terms of dwindling enrollment and diminishing endowments but also in the area of technology, especially when it comes to online learning opportunities.

Being Bilingual May Boost Your Brain Power : NPR

Being Bilingual May Boost Your Brain Power : NPR: In an interconnected world, speaking more than one language is becoming increasingly common. Approximately one-fifth of Americans speak a non-English language at home, and globally, as many as two-thirds of children are brought up bilingual.

Research suggests that the growing numbers of bilingual speakers may have an advantage that goes beyond communication: It turns out that being bilingual is also good for your brain.

Judy and Paul Szentkiralyi both grew up bilingual in the U.S., speaking Hungarian with their families and English with their peers. When they first started dating, they spoke English with each other.

But they knew they wanted to raise their children speaking both languages, so when things turned serious they did something unusual — they decided to switch to Hungarian.

How Slavery Really Ended in America - NYTimes.com

How Slavery Really Ended in America - NYTimes.com: On May 23, 1861, little more than a month into the Civil War, three young black men rowed across the James River in Virginia and claimed asylum in a Union-held citadel. Fort Monroe, Va., a fishhook-shaped spit of land near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, had been a military post since the time of the first Jamestown settlers. This spot where the slaves took refuge was also, by remarkable coincidence, the spot where slavery first took root, one summer day in 1619, when a Dutch ship landed with some 20 African captives for the fledgling Virginia Colony.

Malcolm X Biographer Dies on Eve of a Revealing Work - NYTimes.com

Malcolm X Biographer Dies on Eve of a Revealing Work - NYTimes.com: For two decades, the Columbia University professor Manning Marable focused on the task he considered his life’s work: redefining the legacy of Malcolm X. Last fall he completed “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention,” a 594-page biography described by the few scholars who have seen it as full of new and startling information and insights.

The book is scheduled to be published on Monday, and Mr. Marable had been looking forward to leading a vigorous public discussion of his ideas. But on Friday Mr. Marable, 60, died in a hospital in New York as a result of medical problems he thought he had overcome. Officials at Viking, which is publishing the book, said he was able to look at it before he died. But as his health wavered, they were scrambling to delay interviews, including an appearance on the “Today” show in which his findings would have finally been aired.

From homeless child to star student - The Washington Post

From homeless child to star student - The Washington Post: ...“Life is analogous to a wrestling match,’’ reflected Michael, a three-sport athlete, trombonist, student government president and straight-A student at Springbrook High School in Silver Spring. “Everything you do is based on preparation. What the outcome will be is based on hard work. . . . A lot of your success is determined by heart.’’

The young life of Michael Robinson is a story of sweat, studies and struggle. He is Springbrook’s first Ron Brown scholar; the designation, named after the late Clinton administration commerce secretary, comes with a $40,000 scholarship. It’s the latest accolade for an 18-year-old who grew up fatherless on a diet of canned foods and rice, endured months in a homeless shelter, and is now a first-generation college prospect choosing among Columbia, Princeton and Yale.

At each of those schools, about 7 percent of applicants were accepted this year. Of the 6,200 who applied for the Brown scholarship, 16 won the prize.

NationalJournal.com - The Next America - Friday, April 1, 2011

NationalJournal.com - The Next America - Friday, April 1, 2011: The next America is arriving ahead of schedule. And it could rattle assumptions about the coming presidential election.

Last week’s release of national totals from the 2010 census showed that the minority share of the population increased over the past decade in every state, reaching levels higher than demographers anticipated almost everywhere, and in the nation as a whole. If President Obama and Democrats can convert that growth into new voters in 2012, they can get a critical boost in many of the most hotly contested states and also seriously compete for some highly diverse states such as Arizona and Georgia that until now have been reliably red.

“One of the strengths of our candidacy in 2008 is, we had a broader battlefield; what these numbers suggest is that those same opportunities are there [for 2012], and there are new ones to consider,” David Axelrod, who is expected to be Obama’s senior campaign strategist, told National Journal.

State of Black America 2011: Jobs Wanted

State of Black America 2011: Jobs Wanted: Historically known as the analytical arm of the civil rights movement, the National Urban League has long advocated for racial equality through the spectrum of research and data. The organization continued that tradition on Thursday with the release of its annual The State of Black America report, this year under the theme 'Jobs Rebuild America: Putting Urban America Back to Work.' According to their research, the state of black America is, well, a little bit worse than it was last year.

Identifying the economy as the leading area of disparity between black and white Americans, the National Urban League used its scientific 'Equality Index' formula to determine that economic equality declined a percentage point, down to 56.9 percent from 57.9 percent in 2010. In more comprehensible terms: With black unemployment at 15.3 percent, still nearly double the national average of 8.9.

Teen Girls Discover Digital Technology as ‘COMPUGIRLS’

Teen Girls Discover Digital Technology as ‘COMPUGIRLS’: Dr. Kimberly Scott, an associate professor in women and gender studies at Arizona State University, the digital divide is not just about “who has access to computers, but what happens during that access.”

Scott is the principal investigator and creator of a National Science Foundation-funded project called COMPUGIRLS, an innovative technology program designed to teach girls of color how to use technology to bring about social change.