Louis Diggs: Giving African-American history a home in Baltimore County - baltimoresun.com

Louis Diggs: Giving African-American history a home in Baltimore County - baltimoresun.com: It's easy to miss the little two-story, boarded-up house behind the Historical Society of Baltimore County in Cockeysville.

Known as 'the Pest House,' it was once a haven for patients suffering from contagious diseases, such as smallpox. Built in 1872, it's been empty for decades.

But efforts to convert it into a research center for county African-American history would take the old stone building beyond its dreary past into a brighter future, provided fundraisers can obtain more than $300,000 for the renovation job.

White supremacist principal running Bronx school with majority black and Latino students

White supremacist principal running Bronx school with majority black and Latino students: A firebrand educator with ties to a white supremacist group is running a Bronx Catholic school where most of the students are black and Latino, the Daily News has learned.

Frank Borzellieri, 48, was quietly promoted to principal of Our Lady of Mount Carmel School two years ago - despite a history of controversial writings and campaigns, including a push to ban a biography on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

In 2004, Borzellieri wrote the book 'Don't Take It Personally: Race, Immigration, Crime and Other Heresies,' in which he declares 'diversity is a weakness' and says the rising black and Hispanic populations in America will lead to the 'New Dark Age.'

He has also written frequently for the white supremacist publication American Renaissance, with which he is still 'intimately involved,' the non-profit Southern Poverty Law Center says.

Montford Marines: Few, proud and black - CNN.com

Montford Marines: Few, proud and black - CNN.com: ...It was one of the worst times of my life,' said Fizer, in Atlanta Saturday for the annual gathering of the Montford Point Marines. 'I was fighting the war on racism and Jim Crow and at the same time getting ready to fight a war overseas.'

The history-making Marines never received the same recognition as the famed Tuskegee Airmen, African-American pilots who fought in World War II. But the few Montford Marines who are still alive reunite each year at their convention and hope to spread the word about the path they paved.

This year, they are focusing on preserving their legacy with a monument at Montford Point and supporting a bill that would grant Congressional Gold Medals for the first black Marines. On Saturday, Commandant Gen. James Amos will meet with the Montford Point survivors and begin a month-long effort to pay tribute to them.

Usage: 'Latino' preferred over 'Hispanic' - latimes.com

Usage: 'Latino' preferred over 'Hispanic' - latimes.com: We have updated our rule on the use of Latino to reflect more accurately what the editors of the 1995 Times stylebook intended: that the term in virtually all cases is the appropriate choice over Hispanic, in keeping with the practices and sensibilities of residents of our region.

We offer this combined new listing in place of two separate and occasionally confusing former entries:

Latino, Hispanic: Latino is the umbrella term for people in the United States of Latin American descent. It refers to Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans and others from the Spanish-speaking lands or cultures of Latin America. A Latino woman is a Latina. It is preferable to say that an individual is Mexican American, of Salvadoran descent and so forth, instead of using the umbrella term.

Keep in mind that Latino is an ethnic group, not a race category. Latinos may be of any race: white, black, Native American, Asian, mestizo, etc. Some speak Spanish; some don't. Some are U.S. born; others are immigrants.

Review Shows Title IX Is Not Significantly Enforced - NYTimes.com

Review Shows Title IX Is Not Significantly Enforced - NYTimes.com: In 1998, the University of Southern California was accused of denying its female students a fair chance at participating in sports. Thirteen years later, the federal agency charged with investigating sex discrimination in schools has not completed its inquiry of U.S.C.

In 2008, the same federal agency, the Office for Civil Rights, came across evidence that Ball State University in Indiana was losing a disproportionate number of women’s coaches. But the agency opted to let Ball State investigate itself. After a two-week inquiry, during which Ball State failed to interview a single coach, the university concluded that there was no evidence that any of the coaches had been unfairly treated or let go.

The federal law known as Title IX — requiring schools at all levels across the country to offer girls and women equal access to athletics — has produced a wealth of progress since it was enacted almost four decades ago. Almost no one disputes that.

But scores of schools, year in and year out, still fail to abide by the law. For those schools, almost no one disputes this: There is little chance their shortcomings will ever be investigated, and even if they are, few will be meaningfully punished.

Unearthing an African-American Village Displaced by Central Park - NYTimes.com

Unearthing an African-American Village Displaced by Central Park - NYTimes.com: For more than a decade, anthropologists and historians pieced together the history of a short-lived African-American community that was snuffed out in the 1850s by the creation of Central Park. They combed vital records and tax documents, scanned parkland using radar and studied soil borings.

But because the vestiges of the community were buried beneath the park, the leaders of the Institute for the Exploration of Seneca Village History — a consortium of three professors from City College, Columbia University and New York University — were kept from doing the one thing that would open a window onto the daily existence of the some 260 residents: digging.

That all changed eight weeks ago, after they won permission from the city to excavate in an area of the park near 85th Street and Central Park West.

Census Finds Slight Stabilizing in New York City Racial Makeup - NYTimes.com

Census Finds Slight Stabilizing in New York City Racial Makeup - NYTimes.com: New York City edged a baby step closer to racial equilibrium in the last decade, according to census results released this month. Compared with the 1990s, the numbers of Hispanic and Asian New Yorkers grew more slowly; blacks recorded their first population loss since the Civil War; and non-Hispanic whites, who registered their smallest population loss in decades, also logged the biggest gains of any group among young children.

As a result, according to the 2010 census, the city was 33 percent non-Hispanic white, 29 percent Hispanic, 23 percent black and 13 percent Asian. In 2000, the city’s makeup was 35 percent non-Hispanic white, 27 percent Hispanic, 25 percent black and 10 percent Asian.

APNewsBreak: Rosa Parks essay reveals rape attempt - Wire Entertainment - sacbee.com

APNewsBreak: Rosa Parks essay reveals rape attempt - Wire Entertainment - sacbee.com: Long before Rosa Parks was hailed as the 'mother of the civil rights movement,' she wrote a detailed and harrowing account of nearly being raped by a white neighbor who employed her as a housekeeper in 1931.

The six-page essay, written in her own hand many years after the incident, is among thousands of her personal items currently residing in the Manhattan warehouse and cramped offices of Guernsey's Auctioneers, which has been selected by a Michigan court to find an institution to buy and preserve the complete archive.

The Associated Press was provided with some samples of the documents in the archive, including portions of the essay. Archivists had reviewed the documents for Guernsey's and provided descriptions of their contents.

Civil rights historian Danielle McGuire said she had never before heard of the attempted rape of Parks and called the find among Parks' papers astounding.

New Haven Firefighters Settle Race Discrimination Claims - NYTimes.com

New Haven Firefighters Settle Race Discrimination Claims - NYTimes.com: NEW HAVEN (AP) — White firefighters who won a race-discrimination case before the Supreme Court in 2009 will receive about $2 million in damages from the City of New Haven, officials said Thursday. The settlement helps end a seven-year-long legal battle that propelled national debate over racial justice.

The Supreme Court ruled that officials had violated white firefighters’ civil rights when they threw out the results of promotion tests in 2003 because too few minority applicants did well. After that ruling, the case went back to United States District Court in Connecticut, where the firefighters sought back pay, damages and legal fees.

Court documents indicated that the 20 firefighters accepted offers from the city for back pay, additional pension benefits and interest on Wednesday. A trial to decide the damages had been set to begin Aug. 26.

NAACP: Education Key To Improving The Futures Of Black Youth

NAACP: Education Key To Improving The Futures Of Black Youth: African-American leaders say education is the key to lifting black men and youths out of lives of crime and unemployment.

Panelists at the annual NAACP convention said Thursday that pushing more black youths to graduate high school and college will lead to dramatically lower rates of incarceration, recidivism and joblessness.

Yale University law professor James Foreman Jr. says the quality of education in urban schools also must be raised in order to boost critical thinking skills essential for today's job market.

Foreman says part of the reason for the low achievement of some black men is that the manufacturing job base relied on in the minority community for decades has disappeared.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: Black In Latin America

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: Black In Latin America: ...The most important question that this book attempts to explore is this: what does it mean to be 'black' in these countries? Who is considered 'black,' and under what circumstances, and by whom in these societies, the answers to which vary widely across Latin America in ways that will surprise most people in the United States. As my former colleague, the Duke anthropologist Randy Matory, recently put this to me: 'Are words for various shades of African descent in Brazil, such as mulattoes, cafusos, pardos, morenos, pretos, negros, etc., types of 'Black people,' or are pretos and negros just the most African-looking people in a multi-directional cline of skin-color-facial feature-hair texture combinations?' And how does wealth or class enter the picture? Matory asks.

Brazil to Send 100,000 Science Students Abroad

Brazil to Send 100,000 Science Students Abroad: BRASILIA, Brazil — Brazil will grant 100,000 scholarships for university students to study abroad as the rapidly developing nation tries to boost competitiveness and fill a growing shortage in the supply of top engineers and other key professionals, officials said Tuesday.

The scholarships are part of the government's Science Without Frontiers program that focuses on students in science, health, mathematics, physics, engineering and technology, said Science and Technology Minister Aloizio Mercadante.

The government will finance 75,000 of the scholarships and the private sector will put up the funds for the remaining 25,000, he said.

“We will place our best students in the world's best universities,” Mercadante said.

Charter Schools and College Access

Charter Schools and College Access: The development means of the 150 students whose parents applied to SEED for the 2011-2012 school year, DaShawn is guaranteed a spot.

Of course, merely being admitted to SEED, or any other school for that matter, is not the only way for DaShawn or other children from tough economic situations to go further in life.

At the same time, statistics suggest that it is more likely. School figures show that 96 percent of SEED graduates from 2004 through 2010 had been accepted into four-year colleges and universities.

Further, a small but emergent body of research suggests that enrollment in charter schools, such as SEED, does increase a student’s chance of graduating from high school and going on to college.

Ohio Educator Frank Hale Dies

Ohio Educator Frank Hale Dies: Longtime educator and civil rights activist Dr. Frank W. Hale Jr., vice president emeritus at Ohio State University, died Wednesday of cancer, according to The Columbus Dispatch. He was 84.

A 54-year veteran of higher education, Hale spent 24 years at Ohio State where he spearheaded efforts that led to the school becoming a leading producer of minority Ph.D. students, according to a statement by the university. In addition to Ohio State, Hale worked at many schools, including Oakwood College in Alabama and Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio.

“We have lost one of the true giants of the Ohio State community,” President E. Gordon Gee said in a statement.

Making the Work of Black Scientists Accessible to the Public

Making the Work of Black Scientists Accessible to the Public: Since 2000, The HistoryMakers (www.thehistorymakers.com) web campaign has been conducting interviews with prominent African-Americans in fields such as business, education, entertainment, law, music and religion. So far, 2,000 people in more than 80 U.S. cities and towns have been interviewed.

Two years ago, HistoryMakers founder and executive director Julieanna L. Richardson put a focus on the field of science with the mission of using the life stories of individuals in the sciences as a way to encourage people to enter professions in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields. A $2.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation has made the ScienceMakers project a reality.

Raising the Bar on Diversity

Raising the Bar on Diversity: Dr. Lawrence T. Potter, Allegheny College’s first chief diversity officer, comes from a family that is committed to higher education. As a third generation college graduate, he has mixed his education between Stillman, a historically Black college in Tuscaloosa, Ala., where he earned bachelor’s degrees in English, philosophy and religion and then the University of Missouri—Columbia, where he earned a master’s degree and doctorate in English. He also taught in China as a Fulbright scholar.

During his 15 years in higher education, Potter has worked as both a professor and administrator. At the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn., he served as executive director of institutional diversity and chief diversity officer as well as McNair Scholars Program director. He also received the William Malevich Faculty Leadership Award. In 2008, the St. Paul Foundation awarded him the Facing Race Ambassador Award for his anti-racism work in the Twin Cities.

Summer learning program seeks to close opportunity gap - The Washington Post

Summer learning program seeks to close opportunity gap - The Washington Post: For many Washington area kids, summer is a footloose season marked by family trips and shuttling from camp to camp. But for poor children, the hot months are often filled with empty time that stultifies learning.

The opportunity gap has widened this year as some cash-strapped local agencies have eliminated thousands of summer school slots, leaving needy students with fewer ways to keep pace with their more affluent peers.

Battling the summer slide in the District is Horizons Greater Washington, one of a handful of privately funded efforts that seek to turn summer into an advantage — instead of a liability — for children from low-income families.

BBC News - Colombian salsa star, singer Joe Arroyo dies

BBC News - Colombian salsa star, singer Joe Arroyo dies: The Colombian salsa star, Joe Arroyo, has died at the age of 55, after being in hospital for a month with heart, lung and kidney problems.

Arroyo, whose most famous hit was La Rebelion, began singing in brothels in the Caribbean city of Cartagena at the age of eight.

He went on to sing for a number of Colombia's most famous salsa groups.

But he also drew on a rich heritage of other Afro-Colombian rhythms during his career, and composed over 100 songs.

His wife said Arroyo died 'peacefully' in Barranquilla, another Colombian city on the Caribbean coast.

'A great loss for music and for Colombia' was how one fan - the country's president, Juan Manuel Santos - described Arroyo's death on the social network, Twitter.

Recession Study Finds Hispanics Hit the Hardest - NYTimes.com

Recession Study Finds Hispanics Hit the Hardest - NYTimes.com: Hispanic families accounted for the largest single decline in wealth of any ethnic and racial group in the country during the recession, according to a study published Tuesday by the Pew Research Center.
The study, which used data collected by the Census Bureau, found that the median wealth of Hispanic households fell by 66 percent from 2005 to 2009. By contrast, the median wealth of whites fell by just 16 percent over the same period. African Americans saw their wealth drop by 53 percent. Asians also saw a big decline, with household wealth dropping 54 percent.
The declines have led to the largest wealth disparities in the 25 years that the bureau has been collecting the data, according to the report.
Median wealth of whites is now 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households, double the already marked disparities that had prevailed in the decades before the recent recession, the study found.

Despite Interventions, No-Show Students Drop Out : NPR

Despite Interventions, No-Show Students Drop Out : NPR: In Baltimore, the vast majority of kids who never finish school drop out because of extreme poverty, homelessness and a drug epidemic that has left some neighborhoods desolate and dangerous.

In the toughest neighborhoods, kids miss lots of school days, and that puts them at risk of dropping out. Now, Baltimore's efforts are driven toward reaching these children early.

When Danny Lamont Jones showed up at Tench Tilghman Middle School in East Baltimore, he was living only a few blocks away in a homeless shelter.

'I think I was 12 when I first came here,' Danny says. 'Living in a shelter, like, with people I don't know — everything was, like, going downhill, and I didn't know what to do.'

Forum: Digital Divide Could Leave Latinos Further Behind in Education, Jobs

Forum: Digital Divide Could Leave Latinos Further Behind in Education, Jobs: Panelists at a Tuesday morning workshop held by the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) suggested that lack of broadband Internet access could hinder the progress of Latinos living in the United States. The panelists, drawn largely from the world telecommunications, warned that Latinos and other minorities risk falling behind in educational and economic attainment if the so-called “digital divide” is not bridged.

The workshop, “Latinos and the Internet: Jobs, Education, Empowerment and the Digital Economy,” was part of the final day of NCLR’s “Embrace NOW” conference at the Washington Marriott-Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C.

UDC to Study Monument Proposal for African-American Military Hero

UDC to Study Monument Proposal for African-American Military Hero: The University of the District of Columbia moved Tuesday to study the cost of erecting a monument to honor Col. Charles Young — a pioneering Black military leader who supporters say is often overlooked.

At a ceremony attended by elected officials, African-American veterans and representatives of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, the university also announced plans to establish a $500,000 scholarship for veterans in the name of Young, a one-time commander of the Buffalo Soldiers, an all-Black regiment within the U.S. Army.

University officials and supporters say the tandem efforts are meant to right a historical wrong and make higher education more affordable for those who have served in uniform.

Aiming for More Than Tolerance at a Private Pennsylvania College

Aiming for More Than Tolerance at a Private Pennsylvania College: Allegheny College is the 32nd oldest college in the nation. In 2015 it will celebrate its bicentennial. The college has rigorous standards and is dedicated to the ideal of providing a transformative education to ambitious, talented students regardless of their social or financial means. Set in rural northwestern Pennsylvania, this predominantly White residential college (student population 2,100) has pledged to diversify its faculty and student body. It’s an impressive story of determination that has resulted in the creation of a chief diversity officer position.

Jerry Brown, California Governor, Signs Dream Act For Illegal Immigrant Students

Jerry Brown, California Governor, Signs Dream Act For Illegal Immigrant Students: California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill Monday that allows college students who entered the United States illegally to receive limited financial aid, the Associated Press reports.

AB 130, also known as the California Dream Act, is the first of a series of two bills. The second part would allow undocumented students eligible for public scholarships -- this second half is being held in the Senate Appropriations Committee, Pasadena Star-News reports. Brown is also expected to sign the second piece of legislation, according to The Sacramento Bee.

The piece of legislation Brown signed today passed through the state Senate less than two weeks ago. It grants those who currently qualify for in-state tuition further eligibility for private scholarships funded by nonstate sponsors.

California joins several other states across the country that offer tuition breaks to illegal immigrants, including New York, New Mexico, Texas and Maryland.

Microsoft’s Imagine Cup Competition Seeks Diversity

Microsoft’s Imagine Cup Competition Seeks Diversity: After nine years, Microsoft’s Imagine Cup competition boasts a strong international presence, with students from more than 70 countries competing this year. During the last two cup competitions, it fell to Tara Walker, an Academic Development evangelist at Microsoft, to ensure that HBCU and other minority-serving students had a place at the table.

Begun in 2003, Imagine Cup challenges undergraduates to use technology — with the aid of Microsoft platforms — to solve worldwide challenges. This year, students were tasked with creating programs that addressed the United Nations' eight millennium development goals, which include ending hunger and poverty, access to universal education and environmental sustainability.

Wealth Gap Between Whites, Minorities Widens To Greatest Level In A Quarter Century

Wealth Gap Between Whites, Minorities Widens To Greatest Level In A Quarter Century: The wealth gaps between whites and minorities have grown to their widest levels in a quarter-century. The recession and uneven recovery have erased decades of minority gains, leaving whites on average with 20 times the net worth of blacks and 18 times that of Hispanics, according to an analysis of new Census data.

The analysis shows the racial and ethnic impact of the economic meltdown, which ravaged housing values and sent unemployment soaring. It offers the most direct government evidence yet of the disparity between predominantly younger minorities whose main asset is their home and older whites who are more likely to have 401(k) retirement accounts or other stock holdings.

Study Shows Racial Wealth Gap Grows Wider : NPR

Study Shows Racial Wealth Gap Grows Wider : NPR: There's long been a big gap between the wealth of white families and the wealth of African-Americans and Hispanics. But the Great Recession has made it much worse — the divide is almost twice what it used to be.

That's according to a new study by the Pew Research Center, which says that the decline in the housing market is the main cause.

The numbers are astounding. The average wealth of a white family in 2009 was 20 times greater than that of the average black family, and 18 times greater than the average Hispanic family. In other words, the average white family had $113,149 in net worth, compared to $6,325 for Hispanics and $5,677 for blacks.

That's the largest gap since the government began collecting the data a quarter of a century ago, and twice what it was before the start of the Great Recession.

School District Won't Allow Black Valedictorian, Lawsuit Alleges

School District Won't Allow Black Valedictorian, Lawsuit Alleges: After four years of nearly straight-A's, Honor's and Advanced Placement classes, 18-year-old Kymberly Wimberly achieved the highest GPA at McGehee Secondary School in Little Rock, Arkansas, according to a court complaint.

However, instead of awarding the student for her hard work and dedication, the school denied her the valedictorian status because she was black, claims the document filed by Wimberly's lawyer, John W. Walker.

According to the court document, this is not the first time this has happened in the school's history:

'[The] defendant's actions were part of a pattern and practice of school administrators and personnel treating the African-American students less favorably than the Caucasian ones...Until Wimberly, the last African-American valedictorian in the McGeeHee school district was in 1989.

Models of Success at Minority-serving Institutions

Models of Success at Minority-serving Institutions: Recently, two professors of education received a grant for an unusual and much needed purpose. “We’re gathering good data on what is going right with colleges and universities dedicated to serving Black, Hispanic and Native American students,” said Dr. Marybeth Gasman of the University of Pennsylvania. She and Dr. Clifton Conrad of the University of Wisconsin received a $1.5 million grant to document, publicize and support “Models of Success” at nine minority serving institutions.

“If we get away from stereotypes and look at the data on the actual value added through teaching, then many MSIs actually outperform White colleges and universities,” said Conrad. “When you control for factors such as high school grades, test scores and family background, it becomes clear that some MSIs are producing better outcomes for these students than other institutions. The goal of the grant is to identify those successes and best practices, document them with good data and then actively promote and publicize them as widely as possible.”

The project includes $50,000 grants to each of the participating colleges to help them improve their ability to analyze and document their successes.

Redistricting in Md. has element of racial friction - The Washington Post

Redistricting in Md. has element of racial friction - The Washington Post: Few states’ delegations in the House of Representatives pack the political punch of little blue Maryland. Among its eight members is a Democratic juggernaut: the House minority whip and ranking members of the powerful budget, intelligence and oversight committees.

The eight also stand out as collectively far more white than the Maryland they have come to represent, the 2010 Census showed. Just a quarter of the state’s representatives are African American even though minorities, most of them blacks, now make up nearly half of the state’s population.

As Maryland’s redistricting process begins, African Americans in and out of state government are increasingly split over whether their top priority should be to push to redraw lines to ensure better representation for blacks or to protect Maryland’s white incumbents because of the coveted positions of power they have attained on Capitol Hill.

Michigan Ban on Affirmative Action May Get Second Look

Michigan Ban on Affirmative Action May Get Second Look: Facing a deadline this week, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette has pledged to ask an entire federal appeals court to suspend and re-examine a landmark decision that overturned the state's ban on affirmative action in college admissions.

But here's the key issue: Will a majority of the court's 15 active judges agree to take the case?

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals hears cases in three-judge panels. It would be rare for the full court to sweep aside the work of one of its panels and start from scratch, but this is not a typical case. It involves a 2006 law approved by 58 percent of Michigan voters and a very contentious issue the role of race and gender in decisions by public officials.

Sweeping New Immigration Laws in Georgia and Alabama Impact Migrant Labor Trends

Sweeping New Immigration Laws in Georgia and Alabama Impact Migrant Labor Trends: In late 2007, Dr. Cesar Escalante began investigating the effects of the nation’s increasingly stricter immigration policies on smaller organic farmers — produce and grain growers—who lack the finances to either mechanize certain aspects of their business or hire federally recognized foreign guest workers.

Among the major findings from Escalante’s case studies is that as the supply of foreign labor, chiefly Latino undocumented immigrants, has diminished, about 67 percent of surveyed farmers in the five Southern states he targeted said they were having a hard time finding workers. These include two states being sued over their new immigration laws.

Continuing shortages, the study says, would result in a 5 percent to 10 percent increase in the price of commodities. Smaller farms, Escalante, a University of Georgia associate professor of agriculture and applied economics said, were more heavily reliant on their own families. In one case, a farming couple asked their two offspring to return home from college to help run the operation.

Biography Helps Renew Calls to Investigate Malcolm X Assassination - NYTimes.com

Biography Helps Renew Calls to Investigate Malcolm X Assassination - NYTimes.com: The death of Malcolm X, shot dead at the Audubon Ballroom in Upper Manhattan in 1965, never inflamed the public imagination in the same way the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did. But scholars have long believed that a bungled investigation resulted in the imprisonment of the innocent and allowed some of those responsible to go free. Over the decades, efforts to reopen the case have failed.
Now a best-selling biography has helped to renew calls for a full investigation. But this time they may well gain traction because the legal environment has changed: prosecutors in the South have demonstrated that it is possible to pursue and win cases that are decades old and, as a byproduct, they have made the failures of the police in the civil rights era abundantly clear.
At the same time, news has emerged that the man long suspected of having fired the shot that killed Malcolm X but who was never arrested is living in Newark under a different name.

Jackson State Hires First Female Athletic Director

Jackson State Hires First Female Athletic Director: Jackson State University has hired Vivian Fuller as its first female athletic director.

University President Carolyn Meyers introduced Fuller at a news conference on Wednesday.

The 56-year-old Fuller replaces Bob Braddy.

“I'm excited to be a Tiger,” Fuller said. “Jackson State has such a long and proud tradition. I look forward to honoring that tradition and helping our student athletes be the best they can be.”

The daughter of a North Carolina sharecropper, Fuller has spent eight years at Sojourner-Douglass College, where she is dean of the Cambridge, Md., campus.

Coral Aviles, Californian Student, To Sue School District For Teacher's Racist Comments

Coral Aviles, Californian Student, To Sue School District For Teacher's Racist Comments: Southern California student Coral Aviles will sue her school district for racist remarks made by her teacher, reports CBS Los Angeles.

Aviles says the incident occurred last year. She describes what happened in a statement released by MALDEF:

'Last year, during the World Cup I wore a 'Mexico' soccer jersey to school. I walked into my performing arts class, and my teacher asked me in front of the class if I was Mexican. I responded 'yes.' She then asked me in a loud voice: what was I doing in her country? She said that it was because of people like me that she had to pay high taxes and high insurance rates. I tried to speak with the principal about it. When I returned, the teacher asked me to leave the classroom because I was crying so much. I never expected to be treated so badly because of who I am.'

Talented Young Black Scholars Find an Open Path to Ivy League

Talented Young Black Scholars Find an Open Path to Ivy League: ...It used to be that newly minted Ph.D.s had to establish themselves and cut their academic teeth at less competitive colleges and universities. That was certainly true for young Black scholars. The prospects of landing a coveted teaching position at one of the nation’s eight Ivy League institutions were dim. In the years leading up to the Civil Rights Movement, most Black Ph.D.s were relegated to teaching at HBCUs.

But things are a bit different today.


With the influx of a new generation of highly trained Black Ph.D.s, Ivy League institutions are aggressively courting these young scholars fresh out of graduate school, luring them to their faculties sometimes with top salaries, pre-tenure sabbaticals and reduced teaching loads.

Inner-city girls inspired by women's World Cup - CNN.com

Inner-city girls inspired by women's World Cup - CNN.com: ...Stewart oversees the urban program, whose players are mostly African-Americans competing against suburban teams and elite clubs.

'I don't recruit and we're not exclusive,' Stewart said. 'It's not like I went out and picked the girls. The program exists because the girls want to play and we happen to be in a predominately African-American neighborhood.'

The Anderson Monarchs are named after two very important role models: Marian Anderson, the great opera singer from Philadelphia, and Jackie Robinson's 1945 Negro League team, the Kansas City Monarchs.

Stewart walked away from partnership at a downtown Philadelphia law firm to become a fourth-grade teacher at a Catholic elementary school and to volunteer his out-of-school hours to introducing soccer to urban youth who otherwise might not have a chance to play.

Commentary: Flashpoint Over Struggle To Preserve Mexican-American Studies in Arizona

Commentary: Flashpoint Over Struggle To Preserve Mexican-American Studies in Arizona: ...For several years, the state of Arizona has embarked on eliminating or dismantling TUSD’s highly successful Mexican American Studies (MAS) program on the premise that its classes:

• Promote the overthrow of the United States government.

• Promote resentment toward a race or class of people.

• Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.

• Advocate for ethnic solidarity.

Having never set foot in an MAS classroom or conducted an audit, former State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne embedded these allegations in the 2010 anti-ethnic studies law HB 2281. The law mandates that a school district can lose 10 percent of its state funding if it is out of compliance, and this was how Mr. Horne singled out MAS as his last act in office.

Within this context, TUSD Board President Dr. Mark Stegeman unilaterally proposed changing ethnic studies classes into electives instead of core courses. Dr. Stegeman argued he would be better able to defend the classes as electives. This would, however, effectively dismantle the program because it would force students to take additional English or history classes.

Texas Study Raises Questions About Impact of School Discipline - NYTimes.com

Texas Study Raises Questions About Impact of School Discipline - NYTimes.com: ...Minority students facing discipline for the first time tended to be given the harsher, out-of-school suspension, rather than in-school suspension, more often than white students, the study said. (The nature of the offenses was not noted.) A disproportionate number of minority students also ended up in alternative classrooms, where some have complained that teachers are often less qualified.

“What we really need to do is go in to those districts and see if these really are choices being made,” Mr. Skiba said. “We don’t really know enough about the reasons for African-American and Latino over-representation in school discipline. We have enough data to show that it’s more than just poverty and any greater misbehavior. My guess is it’s very subtle interactional effects between some teachers and students.”

Mr. Thompson, of the Council of State Governments, said one of the study’s most important findings was how demographically similar schools disciplined students differently. Although Texas law requires suspension or expulsion for certain offenses, Mr. Thompson said that 97 percent of suspensions were discretionary, and that suspension rates might say as much about administrators’ discipline philosophy as about student behavior.

Report Details Texas School Disciplinary Policies : NPR

Report Details Texas School Disciplinary Policies : NPR: ...Of the 1 million students in Texas who were tracked, 15 percent were disciplined repeatedly — 11 times or more. Half of them ended up in juvenile-justice facilities or programs for an average of 73 schooldays. These students were likely to repeat a grade and not graduate from high school.

Just as worrisome, Thompson said, is who is being suspended and expelled.

'African-American students and those with particular educational disabilities experience a disproportionately high rate of removal from the classroom for disciplinary reasons,' he said.

One glaring example: 70 percent of black girls were suspended or expelled, compared with 37 percent of white girls, usually for the same offenses. This gets to another key finding: In almost every case, the decision to remove a student was made solely by a teacher or school administrator. This may explain why minority kids are punished disproportionately, said Doug Otto, schools superintendent in Plano, Texas. He said racial prejudice is involved.

'It is a problem, but it's pretty hard to be a renegade teacher, so to speak, and just willy-nilly expel students because you're prejudiced,' he said.

Study exposes some some myths about school discipline - The Washington Post

Study exposes some some myths about school discipline - The Washington Post: ...In an analysis that controlled for 83 variables to isolate the effect of race on discipline, the study found African American students had a 31 percent higher likelihood of being disciplined for a discretionary offense, compared with identical whites and Hispanics.

The analysis also concluded that African Americans had fewer mandatory-discipline offenses than whites or Hispanics.

“The numbers are heartbreaking,” said Matt Cregor, of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, who the called the study “remarkable” for its scope and depth. The results, he said, reflected patterns elsewhere. “What we’re seeing in Texas is no different than what we are seeing nationally.”

“We’re not going to close the so-called achievement gap or end this graduation or dropout crisis until we take a hard look at the numbers like these and the practices and policies that created them,” Cregor said.

Deshon Marman Protest: NAACP Stands Up To Airline That Kicked Man Off Plane For Wearing Saggy Pants

Deshon Marman Protest: NAACP Stands Up To Airline That Kicked Man Off Plane For Wearing Saggy Pants: Approximately 20 protesters stood on the curb outside the U.S. Airways ticket counter at San Francisco International Airport Monday afternoon shouting calls of justice for Deshon Marman.

Marman's story instantly became a national lighting rod after airline employees ejected him from a U.S. Airways flight for wearing pants they deemed too baggy. The 20-year-old African American was later arrested after refusing to comply with crew member instructions to leave the aircraft as it was parked at the gate.

Holding a sign reading, "U.S. Airways must be sentenced repentance," Rev. Renard Allen of San Francisco's Third Baptist Church said the protestors, organized by the local chapter of the NAACP, were there to "protest injustice, inequity, decimation and racial profiling." He added, "we're saying this will not fly in the land of the free and the home of the brave."

World wishes Mandela a very happy birthday - Cape Argus | IOL.co.za

World wishes Mandela a very happy birthday - Cape Argus | IOL.co.za: THE WORLD celebrated Nelson Mandela’s 93rd birthday today, hailing the man whose fight against the apartheid regime, his imprisonment and subsequent rise to power as South Africa’s first democratically elected president captivated hearts and minds around the globe.

US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle sent a birthday wish to Mandela today, saying he continued to “be a beacon for the global community, and for all who work for democracy, justice and reconciliation”.

They wished him happy birthday on behalf of “the people of the United States”.

Closer to home, politicians, NGOs, corporates, celebrities and ordinary people rolled up their sleeves and dedicated 67 minutes of their time to good causes, and at schools pupils raised their voices and sang a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday to the beloved icon.

N.Y.C. Fire Commissioner Recruits at Black Church - NYTimes.com

N.Y.C. Fire Commissioner Recruits at Black Church - NYTimes.com: With a protracted racial discrimination lawsuit looming over the Fire Department, the fire commissioner, Salvatore J. Cassano, went to a black church in Queens on Sunday to encourage new applicants.

Mr. Cassano emphasized the job’s benefits and pay — after five years, a firefighter’s annual salary jumps to $100,000 — and used his own humble beginnings to describe the department as a meritocracy.

“I raised five children, four grandchildren, on a salary where I just graduated from high school with no college experience,” Mr. Cassano said, adding, “It wasn’t who you knew; it was what you knew.”

If you work hard, he said, “You can be whoever you want to be.”

The appearance was part of a continuing recruitment effort, focused on churches and community centers and in minority areas across the city, in anticipation of next year’s revamped exam, said Francis X. Gribbon, a department spokesman.

Gordon Parks Worked for the F.S.A. Before He Gained Fame, Documenting Society's Divisions - NYTimes.com

Gordon Parks Worked for the F.S.A. Before He Gained Fame, Documenting Society's Divisions - NYTimes.com: Gordon Parks (1912-2006) is celebrated as a photographer, filmmaker, memoirist and breaker of color barriers. Before he was famous, however; before he was Gordon Parks, he had a one-year fellowship as a photographer at the Farm Security Administration. There, under the tutelage of Roy Stryker, he honed his skills.

And now we get to sample the result in a gem of a book, “Fields of Vision: The Photographs of Gordon Parks,” just published by the Library of Congress and the Giles publishing house. It presents 50 of Mr. Parks’s F.S.A. photos from the library’s holdings. The editor, Amy Pastan, has found many fine photographs that have rarely been seen.

It’s beautifully printed but, happily, it’s the antithesis of a coffee-table book, both in size (barely 7-by-7 inches) and in price.

It’s also just one of a series that the library is presenting of works commissioned from some of America’s greatest photographers from the F.S.A. and the Office of War Information.

The Politics Behind New Voter ID Laws : NPR

The Politics Behind New Voter ID Laws : NPR: Voters going to the polls next year — and even some this year — will encounter a lot of new rules. Photo ID requirements and fewer options for early voting are among the biggest changes.

They're part of a wave of new laws enacted by Republican-controlled legislatures this year. Supporters say the rules are needed to ensure honest elections.

But Democrats say it's part of a concerted GOP campaign to suppress the vote. They say minorities, students, the poor and disabled — those most likely to vote Democratic — will be hurt the most.

Seven states so far this year have enacted new laws requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls. Ohio and Pennsylvania are considering similar requirements, and several other states already have them on the books.

Other states have placed restrictions on voter registration drives, imposed new requirements for voters to show proof of citizenship, or reduced the amount of time for early voting.

Harvard Training College Teachers on Black History

Harvard Training College Teachers on Black History: ...The program was founded in the mid-1990s by Sullivan, Du Bois institute director Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and University of California-Berkeley history professor Waldo Martin. They wanted a way to introduce college teachers from different disciplines to new scholarship on Black civil rights, from Emancipation to the 1960s. Teachers are urged to use the scholarship to develop new curriculum and programs for their classrooms.

Martin said a number of projects have come of the program, including an anthology edited by a former participant on the Literature of the Civil Rights movement.

Sid Bedingfield, a journalism professor at University of South Carolina and former CNN senior producer, said he has been inspired by the program to create a media course on black press from the time of slavery and also show how slaves used other forms of communication to spread the word of events that affect them, such as President Abraham Lincoln's victory.

As Black Unemployment Climbs, Healthy American Eating Declines

As Black Unemployment Climbs, Healthy American Eating Declines: ...Some 4.5 million Americans are eating less-healthy food this year than they were a year ago, according to a Gallup Poll released in June, a trend that appears to go hand in hand with diminished spending power. Americans spent slightly less money on all types of food in 2009 than they did in 2008, the latest year for which data is available, according to Census data. At the same time, average annual spending on fresh fruits and vegetables also declined.

The trend appears particularly pronounced for African Americans like Washington, given that the black unemployment rate now sits at 16.2 percent, compared to 9.2 percent for Americans overall.

New Finds For The African American Museum : NPR

New Finds For The African American Museum : NPR: There's a new museum going up in Washington, D.C., and although its doors won't open until 2015, every few months here on weekends on All Things Considered, we get an early peek at the collection that's taking shape.

The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture will stand just a few hundred feet from the Washington Monument, making it the newest museum on the National Mall.

Recently, host Guy Raz sat down with the museum's director, Lonnie Bunch, to see some of latest things he's collected from around the world. This time he started by showing off a 19th-century watercolor painting of a slave ship on its way to America.

Rethinking SIDS: Many Deaths No Longer A Mystery : NPR

Rethinking SIDS: Many Deaths No Longer A Mystery : NPR: ...The 'Back to Sleep' public health campaign that followed proved hugely successful. As back-sleeping rates soared, the SIDS rate dropped. By 2000, it had fallen 50 percent. But since then, progress has stalled.

About a quarter of parents in the U.S. say they don't put their babies on their backs to sleep, and among African-Americans, it's about half. According to statistics, African-American babies die of SIDS at a rate twice that of whites.

Moon has been researching why so many people disregard the recommendations. She's found everything from misconceptions about the risks of choking to distrust of doctors to confusion and skepticism.

No Charges in Saggy Pants Arrest of College Football Player at Calif. Airport

No Charges in Saggy Pants Arrest of College Football Player at Calif. Airport: SAN FRANCISCO – Prosecutors said Wednesday they will not file charges against a University of New Mexico football player who was arrested after wearing saggy pants on a plane at San Francisco airport.

The San Mateo County District Attorney's Office reviewed the June 15 arrest of Deshon Marman and determined criminal charges were not warranted.

“My belief is if we took this into a courtroom with 12 members of our community on our jury, they would tell me, ‘Come on guys, you have more important things to spend your time on,’ ” District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said. “And I share that view.”

Marman was arrested on suspicion of trespassing, battery of a police officer and obstruction after police say he refused to leave the US Airways flight on the captain's orders.

The incident sparked allegations of racial profiling after a photo surfaced of a man who flew aboard a US Airways flight wearing skimpy women's panties and mid-thigh stockings days before Marman's arrest. That man was White. Marman is African-American.

Federal Judge Dismisses Texas Southern University Reverse Discrimination Lawsuit

Federal Judge Dismisses Texas Southern University Reverse Discrimination Lawsuit: A federal judge has tossed out a reverse discrimination suit against Texas Southern University by a White faculty member who was terminated for his questionable handling of scholarship funds in a tuition-reduction program for out-of-state and international students.

Although criminal authorities decided not to prosecute Dr. Peter Dittmer, TSU’s internal investigation provided a legitimate, non-discriminatory basis to fire him, U.S. District Judge Gray Miller ruled last month.

Dittmer was a professor in the Airway Science Department, which offers degrees in aviation science management, and was co-coordinator of the department. His responsibilities included awarding merit-based scholarships.

California to Require Gay History in Schools - NYTimes.com

California to Require Gay History in Schools - NYTimes.com: California will become the first state to require public schools to teach gay and lesbian history.

As expected, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill on Thursday that mandates that the contributions of gays and lesbians in the state and the country be included in social science instruction and in textbooks. School districts will have until next January to begin implementing the new law, which was also promoted in part as a way to combat bullying of gay and lesbian students.

“This is definitely a step forward, and I’m hopeful that other states will follow,” said Mark Leno, California’s first openly gay state senator, who sponsored the bill. “We are failing our students when we don’t teach them about the broad diversity of human experience.”

The state already requires schools to teach students about the contributions of some other minority groups, including black people and women. But until now, gay figures like Harvey Milk received little mention in state-approved textbooks.

South Sudan Joins UN As 193rd Member

South Sudan Joins UN As 193rd Member: UNITED NATIONS -- The United Nations has a new member – South Sudan.

The African nation, which gained independence Saturday, became the U.N.'s 193rd member by acclamation Thursday.

General Assembly President Joseph Deiss banged a gavel signifying South Sudan's admission to the world body as diplomats burst into applause.

The country's independence was the climax of a 2005 peace agreement that ended decades of civil war with the Arab-dominated north and called for a referendum in which South Sudan voted overwhelmingly for secession.

After the vote, the flag of South Sudan was raised outside U.N. headquarters to more applause.

Ethnic Art Falling Out of Favor?

Ethnic Art Falling Out of Favor?: ...During the multiculturalist wave that started in the 1950s, traditional ethnic art flowed in from across the globe. Today, that wave has receded as contemporary art has gained momentum. About 80 percent of applicants to art history programs are choosing contemporary art as their major, according to a recent New York Times report. Meanwhile, it has been decades since the number of new graduate students in non-Western art fields has grown significantly. According to Hills, a dissertation on contemporary art would have been inconceivable 30 or 40 years ago. Now, such dissertations are commonplace.

“Undoubtedly, a higher number of applicants are going to modern, contemporary [art],” agrees Dr. Andrea Giunta, a professor of art history at the University of Texas who has worked on the admissions team for three years. “It’s the most represented area.”

American Girls Win Top Google Science Fair Prizes - NYTimes.com

American Girls Win Top Google Science Fair Prizes - NYTimes.com: Three girls from the United States won the top prizes in a global science fair started by Google for their projects on ovarian cancer, grilled chicken and indoor air quality, the company announced Tuesday. The grand prize winner was Shree Bose of Fort Worth, who entered in the 17-18 age group and won a $50,000 scholarship, a trip to the Galapagos Islands and an internship at the European Organization for Nuclear Research. She found a way to improve ovarian cancer treatment for patients who have built up a resistance to certain chemotherapy drugs, Google said. The other two top winners were Lauren Hodge of York, Pa., in the 13-14 age group and Naomi Shah of Portland, Ore., in the 15-16 age group. The three were selected from a pool of 7,500 entries from 91 countries.

Aspiring Business Students with International Immersion Experience in High Demand

Aspiring Business Students with International Immersion Experience in High Demand: ...For minority students at historically Black colleges and universities and majority schools, overseas work can seem like a winner, but preparing for it takes special skills and a mindset that requires more work and discipline.

Schools such as the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business offer study tours of Latin America and a dual degree in business and Latin American studies. The University of Florida’s Hough Graduate School of Business, with a 10.6 percent Hispanic enrollment, uses its location in South Florida to train students for jobs in Spanish-speaking countries.

Puerto Rican Scholar Ricardo Alegria Dies at 90

Puerto Rican Scholar Ricardo Alegria Dies at 90: SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Ricardo Alegria, a Puerto Rican scholar known for his pioneering studies of the island's native Taino culture and who is credited with preserving the capital's colonial district, died Thursday. He was 90.

Alegria died at the Cardiovascular Center of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean from complications of heart disease, said his son, Ricardo Alegria Pons. The elder Alegria had been treated for two weeks at the hospital in June and then was hospitalized again Sunday with chest pains, his son said.

“Thanks to his long life of 90 years, he has had a major impact on all aspects of the culture of all Puerto Ricans,” his son said. “That work and dedication and love of his country does not disappear with his death.”

New College Completion Initiative Targets College Success of KIPP Charter School Alumni

New College Completion Initiative Targets College Success of KIPP Charter School Alumni: Faced with troubling statistics about the college completion rates of its graduates, a network of college-preparatory public charter schools is helping to launch the Partnership for College Completion (PCC), an ambitious college-completion initiative that combines matched savings accounts, college-readiness and financial literacy workshops, as well as academic scholarships.

PCC, the new organization, is a collaborative partnership among the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), and the Center for Enterprise Development, a nonprofit aimed at expanding economic opportunity among underserved communities.

As smartphones proliferate, some users are cutting the computer cord - The Washington Post

As smartphones proliferate, some users are cutting the computer cord - The Washington Post: A third of all American adults own a smartphone and for many minority and low income users, those mobile devices have replaced computers for Internet access.

The findings released Monday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project highlight the breakneck speed consumers are adopting smartphones — faster than just about any high-tech product in history.
It’s been four years since the introduction of the iPhone and rival devices that run Google’s Android software. In that time, the devices have turned much of America into an always-on, Internet-on-the-go society.
A quarter of Americans with smartphones use the devices as their main way to get onto the Internet, the Pew study found. About nine in 10 owners of such devices access the Web and check their e-mail each day through their device.

Peru: Afro-Peruvian singer unearths hidden history - latimes.com

Peru: Afro-Peruvian singer unearths hidden history - latimes.com: Reporting from Santa Barbara, Peru—
In this village that still bears the name of the old Santa Barbara sugar plantation, Susana Baca is trudging through a field of sweet potatoes. Not 48 hours earlier, the internationally acclaimed diva of Afro-Peruvian music returned from Paris, the last stop in her latest world tour.

But on this day, she is visiting her mother's tumbledown hometown, a neglected part of Peru that is the cradle of its multiethnic history, where the descendants of black slaves and Chinese and Japanese field hands have lived together for generations, intermarried and even now continue to work the land.

Helping Black Men Raise Failing Grades : NPR

Helping Black Men Raise Failing Grades : NPR: Some thoughts about school and the struggles black kids face. Lots of folks with lots of experience have lots of opinions about what to do to better educate young African-American males. Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates recently offered yet another glimpse into the issue, suggesting in a piece for the website The Root that the need is dire, which of course it is.

But for many of us in education — and to my mind that includes parents, family and friends — the problem is more than knowing what's needed. It's knowing how to get it done and make it work, how to get young African-American men not only interested but engaged in learning, and enjoying rather than dreading the journey. That requires a lot of commitment from them and from us, and there are no shortcuts.

Forum Examines Challenge for English Language Learners to Excel in Math, Science

Forum Examines Challenge for English Language Learners to Excel in Math, Science: On Monday, the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Language Acquisition held a day-long forum in which panelists wrestled with a complicated question: How can English language learners (ELLs) overcome barriers to communication in critical science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields?

Patricia Simmons, president of the National Science Teachers Association, noted that the average high school biology course requires students understand 20,000 terms—far more than a typical high school language course.

During the forum, High Quality STEM Education for English Learners: Challenges and Effective Practices, panelists agreed that high-level science courses, already a challenge for native English speakers, can prove daunting for ELLs, who are the fastest-growing student population segment in the United States.

FBI investigating brutal hate crime against Native American family | The Raw Story

FBI investigating brutal hate crime against Native American family | The Raw Story: The FBI is investigating an alleged hate crime against a Native American family after local law enforcement released the three white assailants without charges in May.

Indian Country Today reported that three men armed with baseball bats, knives and a crowbar confronted Johnny Bonta and his son-in-law while they were traveling along I-80 in Fernley, Nevada with their family. The three men are Neo-Nazis.

The Bontas, members of the Reno Sparks Indian Colony, said they first encountered the men at a gas station and tried to avoid confrontation by quickly driving away. But the three men pursued them in their own car, cutting them off and causing an accident. A vicious fight ensued, in which Johnny was knocked unconscious with a bat and had his nose and sinus cavities broken. His son-in-law suffered a crushed elbow and a broken hand.

'I saw one of them hit my husband in the head with a bat, and the other one was trying to cut off his braid with a knife,' Johnny's wife, Lisa Bonta, said. 'Johnny was covered in blood and they just kept hitting him with a crow bar. They even tried to slit his throat.'

BBC News - Blood quantum influences Native American identity

BBC News - Blood quantum influences Native American identity: Blood quantum might sound like an action movie, but to the country's Native Americans it's all about identity.

First introduced in colonial Virginia in the early 18th Century as a means of restricting the rights of anyone deemed to be more than 50% Native American, the term only became widespread after the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.

By then, it had become a mechanism for calculating the amount of federal benefits a tribe could expect to receive, based on its population.

Over time, different tribes have adopted different levels of blood quantum.

Florida's Miccosukee Tribe is among a handful which require members to have 50% tribal blood - or the equivalent of one full blood parent.

At the other end of the spectrum, some Cherokee and Apache tribes require just 6.25% blood quantum. The largest number of tribes, however, require 25% or 12.5%.

7th grader wins national Spanish spelling bee in Albuquerque - The Washington Post

7th grader wins national Spanish spelling bee in Albuquerque - The Washington Post: ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The first national Spanish spelling bee has been won by a seventh-grade girl from Santa Cruz, N.M.

Evelyn Juarez, of Carlos F. Vigil Middle School, won by correctly spelling the Spanish word “bizantinismo,” which means excess luxury.

The runner-up, German Rojero of Los Lunas Middle School, misspelled “kanindeyuense,” someone from a Paraguayan territory.

The Albuquerque Journal reports that the two each spelled about 20 words correctly to defeat nine other students, who hailed from as far away as Oregon and Texas, though most were from New Mexico.

Organizer David Briseno, who heads New Mexico’s Association for Bilingual Education, says the state has had a contest since 1994 but he had been dreaming of a national event for years.

Do white people watch black movies? - The Washington Post

Do white people watch black movies? - The Washington Post: White people like movies. Black people like movies. But do white people like black movies? Indiana University telecommunications professor Andrew J. Weaver investigated in “The Role of Actors’ Race in White Audiences’ Selective Exposure to Movies,” published recently in the Journal of Communication. The findings partly confirm what Hollywood insiders already know: The audiences for “Larry Crowne” and Tyler Perry’s “Madea’s Big Happy Family” may not overlap.

“It becomes a vicious cycle,” Weaver writes. “Producers are hesitant to cast minorities in race-neutral romantic roles because of a fear that the White audience will perceive the films as ‘not for them,’ but White audiences perceive romantic films with minorities as ‘not for them’ because they seldom see minorities in race-neutral romantic roles.”

Black economic gains reversed in Great Recession - USATODAY.com

Black economic gains reversed in Great Recession - USATODAY.com: Economists say the Great Recession lasted from 2007 to 2009. In 2004, the median net worth of white households was $134,280, compared with $13,450 for black households, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by the Economic Policy Institute. By 2009, the median net worth for white households had fallen 24 percent to $97,860; the median black net worth had fallen 83 percent to $2,170, according to the EPI.

Algernon Austin, director of the EPI's Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy, described the wealth gap this way: 'In 2009, for every dollar of wealth the average white household had, black households only had two cents.'

Since the end of the recession, the overall unemployment rate has fallen from 9.4 to 9.1 percent, while the black unemployment rate has risen from 14.7 to 16.2 percent, according to the Department of Labor.

'I would say the recession is not over for black folks,' Austin says.

Death Penalty, Still Racist and Arbitrary - NYTimes.com

Death Penalty, Still Racist and Arbitrary - NYTimes.com: LAST week was the 35th anniversary of the return of the American death penalty. It remains as racist and as random as ever.

Several years after the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, a University of Iowa law professor, David C. Baldus (who died last month), along with two colleagues, published a study examining more than 2,000 homicides that took place in Georgia beginning in 1972. They found that black defendants were 1.7 times more likely to receive the death penalty than white defendants and that murderers of white victims were 4.3 times more likely to be sentenced to death than those who killed blacks.

Black Communities Struggle With Mass Joblessness

Black Communities Struggle With Mass Joblessness: ...Though much of the United States continues to suffer the strains of a jobless rate that reached 9.2 percent in June, African Americans have long confronted unemployment reaching to near-Depression levels -- 16.2 percent last month.

Bordeaux has long been the sort of community that African Americans have associated with middle class comforts, a neighborhood in which, in previous generations, black business owners, doctors and academics purchased and built homes -- long before anyone ever heard the term sub-prime mortgage. But today in Bordeaux, while there are a number of comfortable retirees, there are also a lot of people just like Drain: people looking for work.

In this community, Friday's disappointing jobs report appeared to change little if anything, merely affirming an unmistakeable reality: a chronic shortage of jobs.

'Racist' stop-and-search powers to be challenged | Law | The Guardian

'Racist' stop-and-search powers to be challenged | Law | The Guardian: The high court has agreed that a full legal challenge can be brought against a police stop-and-search power alleged to be used in a racist way against African-Caribbean people.

The challenge follows officers stopping and searching a 37-year-old woman with no convictions, after they claimed she was holding onto her bag in a suspicious way.

The woman, Ann Roberts, ended up being held down by officers on the floor in front of other people, handcuffed and taken to a police station where she was wrongly accused of being a class A drug user and placed on a treatment programme under the threat of arrest if she failed to attend.

Roberts was stopped under section 60 of the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, brought in to tackle illegal raves. The power allows police to stop and search people without having a reasonable suspicion they are involved in criminality.

STEM Inequities Persist in High School, New Tool Illuminates Trouble Spots | Education Trust

STEM Inequities Persist in High School, New Tool Illuminates Trouble Spots | Education Trust:
New data from the National Center for Education Statistics’ High School Longitudinal Study paint an alarming picture of opportunity squandered by our nation’s high schools. The NCES data show that 18 percent of all ninth-graders reported taking no science courses in 2009.

The numbers are even worse for low-income students and students of color: 25 percent of African-American, 22 percent of Latino, and 27 percent of low socio-economic status students took no science their freshman year. In math, the numbers are equally disturbing, with almost 1 in 5 low-SES ninth-graders taking no math at all.

A new tool from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights illuminates key information about course taking in high school, and can help advance efforts to get students the rigorous math and science courses they so desperately need.

Joe Arpaio, Arizona Sheriff, To Pay $200,000 In Racial Profiling Case

Joe Arpaio, Arizona Sheriff, To Pay $200,000 In Racial Profiling Case: The office of an Arizona sheriff known for his efforts against undocumented immigrants has settled a claim with two men and will pay $200,000 in a racial profiling case.

The claim arose from one of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's (ar-PY'-oh) worksite enforcement raids.

Deputies raided a landscaping company in search of identity-theft and fraud suspects Feb. 11, 2009. They stopped Julian and Julio Mora's pickup truck outside the business.

A federal judge later determined the deputies had no reason to stop the men or detain them for nearly three hours.

Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona tell The Arizona Republic the settlement should send a message to police agencies that engage in discriminatory practices.

Sheriff's office attorney Tim Casey says officials couldn't identify the deputies who made the stop, which made it impossible to defend the merits of the stop.

Photo History: The Fashions Of Women Of Color : The Picture Show : NPR

Photo History: The Fashions Of Women Of Color : The Picture Show : NPR: In the past hundred years, trendy American women have worn everything from flapper dresses to bobby socks to bell-bottom jeans. But when we're talking about the history of fashion, Minh-Ha T. Pham, a visual arts and fashion scholar at Cornell University, says there's something — or someone — we often leave out: women of color.

Enter Pham's blog, "Of Another Fashion." There, Pham features old photographs of African-American, Native-American, Asian-American and Latin-American women — and the clothes they wore. Many of the pictures are submitted by readers and include stories about the women in them.
"In general, I'm trying to put together a collection of photos and stories that ... will illustrate the rich and complex texture of ... women of color — who have been both shaped by and shape American fashion in different ways," she says over email.

Native American Rights Lawyer, Formed University of Colorado Law Dean Dies at 68

Native American Rights Lawyer, Formed University of Colorado Law Dean Dies at 68: David Getches, a leading American Indian rights lawyer and former dean of the University of Colorado School of Law, has died. He was 68.

The Boulder Daily Camera reports that university officials say Getches died at his home on Tuesday of pancreatic cancer. He had stepped down as dean of the law school at the end of June to rejoin the faculty.

Getches moved to Colorado in 1970 to become the founding executive director of the Boulder-based Native American Rights Fund. He also served as executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources from 1983 to 1987.

Among American Indian rights cases litigated by Getches, the 1974 United States v. Washington case is cited by the National Congress of American Indians as the leading case on enforcement of tribal treaty rights. That case involved the fishing rights of Northwest tribes granted under treaties signed in the 1800s.

Hate Crimes Against Whites And Latinos Rise In D.C. - News - WAMU 88.5 FM - American University Radio

Hate Crimes Against Whites And Latinos Rise In D.C. - News - WAMU 88.5 FM - American University Radio: D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier says hate crimes targeting whites and Latinos are on the rise. This statistic comes from a report showing that hate crimes in general increased by almost 70 percent last year.

In 2009, D.C. reported a total of two bias crimes based on a victim's race. During the first six months of this year, there were 15.

Lanier says most of the victims were whites and Latinos -- a result, she says, of the city's rapidly changing demographics and landscape.

"The changes in the city: the gentrification, new residents versus old residents, development areas, you've got a lot of development and a lot of people in these development areas and you've got people who commit crimes take advantage of those areas," says Lanier.

Lanier says it's sometimes difficult to tell what is or isn't a hate crime.

Anti-prejudice messages can increase prejudice: study | The Raw Story

Anti-prejudice messages can increase prejudice: study | The Raw Story: Programs aimed at eradicating prejudice by authoritatively telling people not to discriminate against others may actually increase prejudices, according to research to be published in the scientific journal Psychological Science.

The results of the study suggest controlling anti-prejudice messages may actually be creating hostility toward the targets of prejudice.

'Controlling prejudice reduction practices are tempting because they are quick and easy to implement,' Lisa Legault, one of the study's authors, explained. 'They tell people how they should think and behave and stress the negative consequences of failing to think and behave in desirable ways. But people need to feel that they are freely choosing to be nonprejudiced, rather than having it forced upon them.'

Does living in a diverse community make you safer?

Does living in a diverse community make you safer?: Residential integration has long been associated with an improved quality of life for people of color in America. Civil and human rights leaders for over a century have elevated the importance of diversity and inclusion in housing as a core component of advancing the promise of our democracy.

Recent research conducted by Richard Florida, director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto has found that almost three years into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, crime rates are falling in American cities.

The study also finds that 'the growing racial, ethnic, and demographic diversity of our cities and metro areas' is leading to the downward trend. Florida's analysis found that the Latino and foreign-born share of the population is negatively associated with urban crime and that crime also fell as the percentage of the population that is non-white increased.

California Firm Ordered To Pay Damages over HBCU Football Broadcasting Contract Dispute

California Firm Ordered To Pay Damages over HBCU Football Broadcasting Contract Dispute: A California sports broadcast promotion company and its owner must pay HBCU Pro Football about $3.5 million for intentional misrepresentation and breach of contract, a federal judge in Baltimore has ruled.

Last month, U.S. District Judge William Quarles Jr. ordered New Vision Sports Properties and Victor Pelt to pay compensatory and punitive damages for their misconduct in purportedly trying to arrange for the broadcast of several high-profile HBCU games on the CBS College Sports Network (CSTV) in 2008.

It appears uncertain whether New Vision and Pelt will comply with Quarles’ June 10 default order because they and their lawyers did not appear in court. Also, California Secretary of State records show that New Vision’s business registration has been suspended.

Crossing the Border for College

Crossing the Border for College: There is always a line. Sometimes it lasts only 20 minutes, other times several hours. And waiting is a prerequisite whether it’s in the dry, cold weather of January or the windblown desert heat of June.

“It attests to the remarkable motivation of these young people,” remarks Diana Natalicio of the more than 1,400 students who daily cross the Paso del Norte International Bridge from Juarez, Mexico, to attend the University of Te xas in El Paso. “These are obviously students who understand that education really is a pathway to a better life, and they are trying very hard to get that education,” continues Natalicio, who is the president of UTEP.

Some of the young Mexicans even travel an additional 50 miles or so north to Las Cruces, N.M., home of New Mexico State University.

Municipal Employees’ Bias Suits Rise Under Bloomberg - NYTimes.com

Municipal Employees’ Bias Suits Rise Under Bloomberg - NYTimes.com: The number of discrimination cases filed by city employees in New York has risen even as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has adopted a far less adversarial tone than his predecessor did in dealing with the city’s vast work force.

During Mr. Bloomberg’s first two terms in office, the number of lawsuits by employees accusing the city of discrimination was 12 percent higher than the number during Rudolph W. Giuliani’s two terms as mayor, according to government data furnished under Freedom of Information Law requests.

The legal claims came from employees in a wide range of departments and concerned a diverse array of alleged biases: in one six-week period from late 2008 to early 2009, the city paid $300,000 to settle a claim from a male police officer who alleged that his female supervisor had sexually harassed him; $225,000 to settle a sexual harassment claim from a secretary at the Department for the Aging; and a total of $316,500 in seven settlements for grievances stemming from demotions or alleging racial bias and age discrimination.