As College Graduates Cluster, Some Cities Are Left Behind - NYTimes.com

As College Graduates Cluster, Some Cities Are Left Behind - NYTimes.com: DAYTON, Ohio — As cities like this one try to reinvent themselves after losing large swaths of their manufacturing sectors, they are discovering that one of the most critical ingredients for a successful transformation — college graduates — is in perilously short supply.

Just 24 percent of the adult residents of metropolitan Dayton have four-year degrees, well below the average of 32 percent for American metro areas, and about half the rate of Washington, the country’s most educated metro area, according to a Brookings Institution analysis. Like many Rust Belt cities, it is a captive of its rich manufacturing past, when well-paying jobs were plentiful and landing one without a college degree was easy. 

 

Educational attainment lagged as a result, even as it became more critical to success in the national economy. “We were so wealthy for so long that we got complacent,” said Jane L. Dockery, associate director of the Center for Urban and Public Affairs at Wright State University here. “We saw the writing on the wall, but we didn’t act.”

U.S. Child Poverty Second Highest Among Developed Nations: Report

U.S. Child Poverty Second Highest Among Developed Nations: Report: Can government spending lift poor children from poverty?

A new report from UNICEF suggests it's possible. The latest edition of UNICEF's report on child poverty in developed countries found that 30 million children in 35 of the world's richest countries live in poverty. Among those countries, the United States ranks second on the scale of what economists call "relative child poverty" -- above Latvia, Bulgaria, Spain, Greece, and 29 others. Only Romania ranks higher, with 25.5 percent of its children living in poverty, compared with 23.1 percent in the U.S.

The term "relative child poverty" refers to a child living in a household where the disposable income is less than half of the national median income. Many critics argue that relative poverty isn't the same as real hardship, or absolute poverty.

Asian American Group Files Supreme Court Brief Opposing Race-Conscious Affirmative Action

Asian American Group Files Supreme Court Brief Opposing Race-Conscious Affirmative Action: The 80-20 National Asian American Educational Foundation and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights have filed an amicus brief Tuesday with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the plaintiff in the Fisher v. University of Texas affirmative action case. The case is likely to result in a definitive ruling on the legality of race-conscious affirmative action in higher education.

The joint brief, signed by three other Asian American organizations, challenges race-conscious affirmative action, which is alleged to restrict the admission of Asian Americans at higher education institutions. The brief argues that contemporary affirmative action policies are similar to methods that were used to restrict Jewish student enrollment at American universities during the last century.

Commentary: Toward More Meaningful Campus Celebrations of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

Commentary: Toward More Meaningful Campus Celebrations of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: Here we are at the end of May and most places of higher learning have completed finals and convened their graduation ceremonies.

Earlier this month, people had already started to check out. Not a good time for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month on campus. To overcome the logistics issue, some campuses celebrate Asian-Americans as early as October, while other campuses with large numbers of Asian and Asian-American students tend to treat every day as a heritage month day. Few seem to be addressing the real need: to go beyond the simple food festivals and make APA Heritage Month a more meaningful engagement between the campus and America’s diverse Asian cultures. You can always bring in a speaker.

Show a movie. Have a sushi demonstration.

But that’s old school.

Black Italian player vows to walk off field if racially abused | The Raw Story

Black Italian player vows to walk off field if racially abused | The Raw Story: Mario Balotelli, named in Italy’s 23-man squad for the European Football Championships, has threatened to walk off the pitch if he is racially abused by fans.

The 21-year-old Manchester City star said in an interview withFrance Football magazine that he reacted differently when Juventusfans targeted him with racist chants during a match for his former club Inter Milan in 2009.

“I pretended not to see anything,” he was quoted as saying. “I wanted to play. I was young. It was for me to tell (the referee). Racism is unacceptable. I can’t abide it.”

But he added: “If it happens again, I’d leave the pitch straight away and I’d go home. This is 2012. It can’t happen.”

Fears over racism and violence in co-hosts Poland and Ukraine have mounted this week after the BBC aired a documentary showing fans in both countries making Nazi salutes and monkey chants at black players.

Wells Fargo Settles Discriminatory Lending Suit, Pays Tennessee Towns Memphis, Shelby $432 Million

Wells Fargo Settles Discriminatory Lending Suit, Pays Tennessee Towns Memphis, Shelby $432 Million: ...Memphis and Shelby County filed a lawsuit in 2010 against Wells Fargo, accusing the bank of targeting of African-American neighborhoods for predatory loans. The suit alleged the practice, which dated to 2000, resulted in excessive foreclosures in those neighborhoods.

Wells Fargo has denied the allegations, citing its longstanding commitment to fair and responsible lending. The city of Baltimore has filed a similar suit against Wells.

"We agreed that it was in the best interests of everyone involved to work together rather than to continue to be involved in a protracted legal fight," Leigh Collier, Wells Fargo's regional president for the mid-south region said in a statement.

The Memphis agreement comes as Wells Fargo faces potential civil charges from the U.S. Department of Justice under laws that prohibit discrimination against minority homebuyers.

With One Wish, Banishing Memories Of Jim Crow : NPR

With One Wish, Banishing Memories Of Jim Crow : NPR: As the sun beams down, Dorothy Flood, 75, stands on the steps of the Royal Gorge Express train, smiling like a 1940s movie star.

"Right there! Then turn around, right there!" photographers call out, jockeying to snap her picture. "Here we go, count of three — one, two and three!"

And with a tip of his cap, a porter offers Flood his hand, and her "Wish Of A Lifetime" begins.

Many are familiar with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, an organization that grants wishes to terminally ill children. Less familiar is the nonprofit group Jeremy Bloom's Wish Of A Lifetime. The organization grants wishes to adults age 65 and older — and recipients need not be ill or dying to qualify.

Dorothy Flood's wish — to ride in a train dining car — is an easy one to make come true.

Alcorn State University’s Newly-hired Football Coach to be First White to Head SWAC Team

Alcorn State University’s Newly-hired Football Coach to be First White to Head SWAC Team: LORMAN, Miss. – Alcorn State has hired former Memphis defensive coordinator Jay Hopson as its head football coach.

The school announced the hiring on Monday and, according to Alcorn State, Hopson will be the first White head football coach in the Southwestern Athletic Conference.

"I don't see it as Black or White; we're purple and gold," Hopson said at a news conference on the Lorman campus.

Hopson, 43, replaces Melvin Spears, who was fired in February after going 2-8 in his only season.

Hopson resigned from Memphis' staff in September 2011. He also has coached at Marshall, Delta State, Southern Mississippi and Michigan.

John Roueche Awarded Inaugural Diverse Champions Award

John Roueche Awarded Inaugural Diverse Champions Award: In a speech punctuated with laughter and applause, Dr. John E. Roueche said farewell Tuesday to attendees of the 34th annual National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD) conference. NISOD is the outreach arm of the Community College Leadership Program (CCLP) at the University of Texas at Austin.

Roueche is retiring after 42 years of service as director of CCLP, widely regarded as the premier training ground for community college presidents in the U.S. — and the most diverse graduate program of its kind. He will become president of the new Roueche Graduate Center at National American University as of July 1.

Howard volunteers bring clean water to Kenya village - College, Inc. - The Washington Post

Howard volunteers bring clean water to Kenya village - College, Inc. - The Washington Post: ...The Howard Chapter of Engineers Without Borders is here for two weeks, working to improve water quality for this rural community.

The nine-member team is building a rainwater-harvesting unit and filtration system as well as installing six biosand filters. The new tank will provide an additional 2,600 gallons of water for an orphanage in Choimim village that is home to nearly two dozen children, many of whom were abandoned in the tea fields, or abused.

The “first flush” filters will trap the initial rush of rainwater, which is filled with impurities that were resting on the roof (e.g. dust and pollen). The biosand filters purify the dirty water and make it safe to drink. They are very useful in rural and urban areas and are often adopted in areas that lack safe piped water.

NISOD Session Highlights Latino Student Success Imperative

NISOD Session Highlights Latino Student Success Imperative: Improving student completion rates at community colleges goes hand in hand with improving educational outcomes for Latinos, Excelencia in Education President Sarita Brown said Monday at the 34th annual convention of the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD) in Austin, Texas.

“You can’t reach this goal without a tactical plan for Latinos,” said Brown. Founded in 2005, Excelencia is a research-based organization dedicated to improving education for the nation’s fastest-growing population. It emphasizes Latinos as an “asset” and “human capital” the nation can ill afford to ignore.

“We are a major proportion of your student body, our workforce and of this country’s civic leadership. Those are arguments that Excelencia makes every day,” said Brown during a panel titled “Examples of Excelencia: Meeting the Latino College Completion Challenge.”

Paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey predicts end is near on debate over evolution - The Washington Post

Paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey predicts end is near on debate over evolution - The Washington Post: NEW YORK — Richard Leakey predicts skepticism over evolution will soon be history.

Not that the avowed atheist has any doubts himself.

Sometime in the next 15 to 30 years, the Kenyan-born paleoanthropologist expects scientific discoveries will have accelerated to the point that “even the skeptics can accept it.”

“If you get to the stage where you can persuade people on the evidence, that it’s solid, that we are all African, that color is superficial, that stages of development of culture are all interactive,” Leakey says, “then I think we have a chance of a world that will respond better to global challenges.”

Leakey, a professor at Stony Brook University on Long Island, recently spent several weeks in New York promoting the Turkana Basin Institute in Kenya. The institute, where Leakey spends most of his time, welcomes researchers and scientists from around the world dedicated to unearthing the origins of mankind in an area rich with fossils.

Bottom Line - Black workers filing charges over noose in locker room

Bottom Line - Black workers filing charges over noose in locker room: Three African-American workers at a Siemens Energy facility in New Jersey have filed charges of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights after they said years of racial harassment recently culminated in their finding a noose hanging in front of their lockers.

"The complainants ... are pursuing these charges and will be filing a federal lawsuit in the hopes of bringing to light and changing the current climate of open racial discrimination at this facility," Brian K. Wiley, the lawyer representing the employees, said via email.

In January, four-year Siemens employee David Solomon said he entered the workers' changing area and found a noose hanging "right next to my locker." He photographed the noose and alerted his co-workers, Eddie Clarke and Barry Murphy. In an April 4 affidavit, all three testified that they had seen the noose and detailed numerous other instances of racial discrimination.

Hal Jackson, black radio pioneer and civil rights activist, dies at 96 - The Washington Post

Hal Jackson, black radio pioneer and civil rights activist, dies at 96 - The Washington Post: Hal Jackson, who broke through the color wall on the radio in Washington in the 1930s, pushed the District’s major clothing retailers to let blacks into their dressing rooms and restrooms in the ’40s and became the first black host on a national broadcast network in the ’50s, died May 23 at a hospital in New York, his family confirmed.

Mr. Jackson was 96, by most accounts, and still hosted a weekly music show on a New York radio station he once owned.

Through most of the second half of the last century, many black New Yorkers grew up knowing Mr. Jackson as the man who introduced them to the latest R&B hits, a radio DJ whose smiling face appeared on billboards across the city. For decades before that, Mr. Jackson’s was a household name in black Washington.

A broadcasting and civil rights pioneer who repeatedly found ways to smash through barriers, Mr. Jackson as a Howard University student was determined to get on the radio, at first as a sportscaster.

HBCUs Could Be Hit Hard by New NCAA Rules

HBCUs Could Be Hit Hard by New NCAA Rules: When NCAA’s Division I bowed to increasing pressure last year to address lagging academic performance among student-athletes, its decision to raise the minimum academic requirements to qualify for intercollegiate competition stirred a backlash among officials at many HBCUs.

“It will kill us,” one HBCU president said in an off-the-record interview, asserting her school would be forced to cut a number of its best football and basketball athletes because they were academic underperformers. The new rules would also lessen the likelihood some rising athletes who finish high school academically underprepared could qualify.

The NCAA decision put the HBCU leaders in a bind.

Openly opposing the higher standards would send a message that HBCUs are putting athletic performance over academic performance. After all, the reason for going to college is ostensibly to earn a college degree that will prepare a person for a lifetime of employability.

First black Naval Academy grad dies - baltimoresun.com

First black Naval Academy grad dies - baltimoresun.com: The first African-American to graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy has died, according to an announcement from the school Wednesday.

Wesley Brown started at the academy in 1945, after the first five black men to attend failed to complete their first year there. He graduated 370th out of nearly 800 graduates in 1949, gaining national media attention, and went on to have a 20-year career in the Navy.

Brown, who was in his 80s, was a veteran of World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and spent time with the Navy working in various other countries.

He retired in 1969 with the rank of lieutenant commander.

Minority-Serving Schools Targeted by Howard Hughes Medical Institute STEM Grants

Minority-Serving Schools Targeted by Howard Hughes Medical Institute STEM Grants: Ten minority-serving institutions are among 47 small colleges and universities receiving science education grants totaling $50 million-plus from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

The four-year grants, which range from $800,000 to $1.5 million, are aimed at providing students with real-world research experiences, creating more engaging science courses and increasing the diversity of students in the sciences.

“It’s time for us to be more in tune with what’s going on elsewhere, rather than just what we’ve always known and done here,” says Dr. Bettye Sue Hennington, professor of biology at Tougaloo College. The historically Black institution in Mississippi, which secured a $1.3 million HHMI award, has about 350 undergraduates majoring in STEM disciplines, comprising about one-third of the student body.

BBC News - Daily torment of racism in the classroom

BBC News - Daily torment of racism in the classroom: School is finished for the day, but as on most evenings, 14-year-old Khadeja Fahat, is catching up on her school work.

Since the year 9 pupil faced racist Islamaphobic abuse every day at her school in Wilmslow, Cheshire, her education has suffered along with her mental health.

"I was tormented nearly every day; I was scared to go to school," said Khadeja.

"I used to go to school thinking: what am I going to face today?

"Is someone going to physically hurt me, or shout something at me or throw something at me?"

She continued: "The other children would shout verbal abuse at me; I was called a terrorist and a Taleban and asked why I was behind 9/11.

"Someone once shouted: look at that girl, she has a bomb in her bag.

BBC News - More than 87,000 racist incidents recorded in schools

BBC News - More than 87,000 racist incidents recorded in schools: Nearly 88,000 racist incidents were recorded in Britain's schools between 2007 and 2011, the BBC has found.

Data from 90 areas shows 87,915 cases of racist bullying, which can include name calling and physical abuse.

Birmingham recorded the highest number of incidents at 5,752, followed by Leeds with 4,690. Carmarthenshire had the lowest number with just 5 cases.

A racist incident is defined as any situation perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person.

In response to the local authority figures, obtained under a Freedom of Information request, the Department for Education said racism needed to be "rooted out".

Brown University Names First Director for Slavery Center

Brown University Names First Director for Slavery Center: Dr. Anthony Bogues (bohgz) will serve as the inaugural director of the center. He is a professor of Africana Studies at the Ivy League school and a visiting professor at the Rhode Island School of Design.

The announcement was made Tuesday by Kevin McLaughlin, the dean of the faculty.

The university launched the center after a recommendation from a committee created by outgoing President Ruth Simmons to investigate Brown's historical ties to slavery.

Simmons calls the creation of the center and the naming of its first director "crucially important steps" in the future of academic work in the fields of human rights and justice.

At CUNY’s Top Colleges, Black and Hispanic Freshmen Enrollments Drop - NYTimes.com

At CUNY’s Top Colleges, Black and Hispanic Freshmen Enrollments Drop - NYTimes.com: More than a decade after the City University of New York ended open admissions to its four-year colleges, a marked shift has occurred at its top institutions as freshman classes now enter with far better academic credentials and also a different demographic mix.

The changes began in 2000, with new minimum requirements for test scores for college admission, continued as academic standards were raised in stages over the years and accelerated sharply with the recent recession, as CUNY’s bargain prices beckoned far more applicants. 

At the university’s five most competitive four-year colleges — Baruch, Brooklyn, City, Hunter and Queens — nearly 12 percent of freshmen entering in 2001 had SAT scores of 1,200 or more. In 2007, for the last prerecession class, the figure was up to 16 percent, and by last fall, it had jumped to 26 percent. 

At the same time, black representation among first-time freshmen at those colleges dropped, to 10 percent last fall from 17 percent in 2001. Over the same period, the Hispanic share rose slightly for several years, then fell once the recession began, to 18 percent, while the white portion fell slightly, to 35 percent.

Native Americans Struggle With High Rate of Rape - NYTimes.com

Native Americans Struggle With High Rate of Rape - NYTimes.com: One in three American Indian women have been raped or have experienced an attempted rape, according to the Justice Department. Their rate of sexual assault is more than twice the national average. And no place, women’s advocates say, is more dangerous than Alaska’s isolated villages, where there are no roads in or out, and where people are further cut off by undependable telephone, electrical and Internet service.

The issue of sexual assaults on American Indian women has become one of the major sources of discord in the current debate between the White House and the House of Representatives over the latest reauthorization of the landmark Violence Against Women Act of 1994.

Xerox CEO: 'If You Don't Transform, You're Stuck' : NPR

Xerox CEO: 'If You Don't Transform, You're Stuck' : NPR: ...Leading Xerox through that transformation is Ursula Burns, a woman who has undergone tremendous change in her own life. Burns, 53, grew up in New York City's Lower East Side, an area she's described as a tough, drug-infested ghetto.

Burns began her career at Xerox in 1980 as an intern, after completing her Master's degree in mechanical engineering. She rose through the ranks to become the company's CEO — and the first African-American woman to lead a Fortune 500 company — at a time when less than 20 percent of corporate executives are female.

Best Census count ever but blacks, Hispanics still undercounted – USATODAY.com

Best Census count ever but blacks, Hispanics still undercounted – USATODAY.com:

Reprints & Permissions

The Census continued to miss blacks and Hispanics in 2010 despite achieving what was probably the most accurate count in the nation's history, according to Census analysis out Tuesday.

The Census counted 36,000 too many people — a slim 0.01% net national overcount. In the previous Census in 2000, there was a 0.49% overcount.

The latest Census missed hundreds of thousands of blacks, Hispanics, renters, young kids and middle-aged men of all races.

People who are here illegally or are poor are harder to find and count because they move more often and may avoid government contact.

The largest undercount of any racial and ethnic group — 4.88% — was of American Indians on reservations.

Offsetting that, the Census overcounted non-Hispanic whites, middle-aged and older women and homeowners. Americans who have two residences, such as college students and snowbirds, are more likely to be counted twice.

White supremacist sentenced to 40 years in Ariz. bombing that injured black city official - The Washington Post

White supremacist sentenced to 40 years in Ariz. bombing that injured black city official - The Washington Post: PHOENIX — A white supremacist likely will spend the rest of his life behind bars after a federal judge sentenced him to 40 years in prison Tuesday for a 2004 bombing that wounded a black city official in suburban Phoenix.

Jurors in February convicted Dennis Mahon, 61, of three federal charges stemming from a package bomb that injured Don Logan — Scottsdale’s diversity director at the time — and a secretary.

They stopped short of finding him guilty of a hate crime after a six-week trial that included dramatic testimony from Logan and a female government informant dubbed a “trailer park Mata Hari” by defense attorneys.

In handing down the sentence, U.S. District Judge David Campbell said he believed the bombing was premeditated and done to promote an agenda of hate and racism.
He called it an “act of domestic terrorism.”

Mark Traina, New Orleans School Psychologist, Stirs Up Firestorm With Tweets About 'Black Thugs'

Mark Traina, New Orleans School Psychologist, Stirs Up Firestorm With Tweets About 'Black Thugs': A school psychologist in New Orleans is under fire for posting racially inflammatory comments online amid a debate about the school system's treatment of black and special education students.

The Jefferson Parish school system is investigating Mark Traina after some of his postings -- including “Young Black Thugs who won’t follow the law need to be put down not incarcerated. Put down like the Dogs they are!” -- were highlighted by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports.

Traina's comments - including “Serpas should be warning people to STAY THE HELL OUT OF NEW ORLEANS! These Black Dudes will Kill You!” - were posted on his Twitter feed and on the NOLA.com Website. In an April Tweet, he wrote that 17-year-old Trayvon Martin's killer George Zimmerman was "the real victim and held his ground."

Video shows chaos of Tinley Park restaurant attack - chicagotribune.com

Video shows chaos of Tinley Park restaurant attack - chicagotribune.com: ...An unpublished restaurant security video viewed by the Tribune of the bizarre Saturday afternoon melee had no sound — but it screams with images of fear and aggression. It was an attack that spilled from Internet chat rooms to the floor of the small Ashford House restaurant, bringing to the forefront an underground and nationwide battle between violent anti-racism groups and white supremacists.

Authorities announced charges Monday against five Indiana men in the attacks and said they still sought about 13 who escaped arrest.

Those charged include three brothers, Jason W. Sutherlin, 33, Cody L. Sutherlin, 23, and Dylan J. Sutherlin, 20. Also charged were Alex R. Stuck, 22, and John S. Tucker, 26. All five live near Bloomington, Ind.

The men are connected to the Hoosier Anti-Racist Movement, which is part of the Anti-Racist Action Network that formed in Minneapolis in 1987 to address discrimination, according to a leader in the organization, Jacob Domke.

Officials Say More Diversity Among Recruits Would Boost Teach For America

Officials Say More Diversity Among Recruits Would Boost Teach For America: In Teach For America’s quest to become “bigger and better,” leaders of the organization on Monday said they also recognize the need to make the alternative teacher preparation program more diverse.

“When we think about getting bigger and better, there’s no more crucial aspect of our work than becoming more diverse and representative of the communities that we’re serving,” said Wendy Kopp, CEO and founder of Teach For America, an organization that secures two-year commitments from recent college graduates to teach in “high-need” urban and rural public schools.

Kopp—joined by other members of her management team and board member Michael L. Lomax, president and CEO of the United Negro College Fund—made her remarks Monday during a conference call with reporters.

Increasingly, Men Seek Success in Jobs Dominated by Women - NYTimes.com

Increasingly, Men Seek Success in Jobs Dominated by Women - NYTimes.com: Wearing brick-red scrubs and chatting in Spanish, Miguel Alquicira settled a tiny girl into an adult-size dental chair and soothed her through a set of X-rays. Then he ushered the dentist, a woman, into the room and stayed on to serve as interpreter.

A male dental assistant, Mr. Alquicira is in the minority. But he is also part of a distinctive, if little noticed, shift in workplace gender patterns. Over the last decade, men have begun flocking to fields long the province of women. 

Mr. Alquicira, 21, graduated from high school in a desolate job market, one in which the traditional opportunities, like construction and manufacturing, for young men without a college degree had dried up. After career counselors told him that medical fields were growing, he borrowed money for an eight-month training course. Since then, he has had no trouble finding jobs that pay $12 or $13 an hour.

He gave little thought to the fact that more than 90 percent of dental assistants and hygienists are women.

Analysis: Meeting the STEM Challenge

Analysis: Meeting the STEM Challenge: The nation’s current economic problems show that it is more important than ever to increase the participation of minority-group members and women in technical fields if the country is to maintain the scientific leadership that has driven prosperity for decades, experts say.

Even in a near-stagnant economy, job opportunities abound for those careers focused on science, technology, engineering and mathematics, fields collectively known as STEM. Fewer Americans are training for these jobs, which increasingly are going to those who were born in other countries and educated here.

“Diversity” in Action

“Diversity” in Action: Vaughn Williams, a senior executive at Kennesaw State University, has a strong sense of purpose about his campus and his role in trying to make it a great place.

“My job is to emphasize at least three elements of growth among the students I touch at Kennesaw,” he said in a recent interview. “I call them three C’s: Classroom achievement, Community involvement and a Commitment to compete.”

You might hear that charge from the dean of students, but Williams is the athletic director at the huge, public university in north Georgia. His main job is supervising a department with nearly 300 athletes, some 40 coaches and overseeing a budget of more than $8 million. But his perspective is bigger than sports.
“We operate an athletic program, but, foremost, we want to see our students as achievers and as leaders,” said Vaughn.

Integration Worked. Why Have We Rejected It? - NYTimes.com

Integration Worked. Why Have We Rejected It? - NYTimes.com: AMID the ceaseless and cacophonous debates about how to close the achievement gap, we’ve turned away from one tool that has been shown to work: school desegregation. That strategy, ushered in by the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, has been unceremoniously ushered out, an artifact in the museum of failed social experiments. The Supreme Court’s ruling that racially segregated schools were “inherently unequal” shook up the nation like no other decision of the 20th century. Civil rights advocates, who for years had been patiently laying the constitutional groundwork, cheered to the rafters, while segregationists mourned “Black Monday” and vowed “massive resistance.” But as the anniversary was observed this past week on May 17, it was hard not to notice that desegregation is effectively dead. In fact, we have been giving up on desegregation for a long time. In 1974, the Supreme Court rejected a metropolitan integration plan, leaving the increasingly black cities to fend for themselves.

Young illegal immigrants, unwilling to accept life in the shadows, declare themselves publicly - The Washington Post

Young illegal immigrants, unwilling to accept life in the shadows, declare themselves publicly - The Washington Post: ...From California to Georgia to New York, children of families who live here illegally are “coming out” — marching behind banners that say “undocumented and unafraid,” staging sit-ins in federal offices, and getting arrested in the most defiant ways — in front of the Alabama Capitol, outside federal immigration courts and detention centers, in Maricopa County, Ariz., home of the sworn enemy of illegal immigrants, Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

In “outing” their families as well as themselves, they know they risk being deported.

But as states pass ever more stringent anti-illegal immigration laws — and critics denounce their parents as criminals — these young people say they have no choice.

Graduation “gap” widens in Maryland - College, Inc. - The Washington Post

Graduation “gap” widens in Maryland - College, Inc. - The Washington Post: A progress report from the Education Trust, a Washington nonprofit committed to narrowing achievement gaps, shows that graduation rates for low-income and minority students have gone down in Maryland over the past five years, while the completion rate for all students has gone up.

It’s not the sort of momentum Maryland needs to narrow the gap; ideally, the completion rate for all students would rise, and the rate for poor and minority students would rise even faster.

Between 2005 and 2010, the EdTrust report states, the graduation rate for all students in the University System of Maryland rose one point to 63 percent. In the same years, the completion rate for low-income students dipped three points to 48 percent. The rate for underrepresented minorities slipped three points to 43 percent.

Dennis Mahon’s Prosecutors Request 63 Years In Prison | TPMMuckraker

Dennis Mahon’s Prosecutors Request 63 Years In Prison | TPMMuckraker: If federal prosecutors get their way next week, an aging white supremacist who bragged about being a serial bomber and who was convicted earlier this year of sending explosives to a city office in Arizona will never see the outside world again.

A jury in Phoenix found Dennis Mahon guilty in February on three charges related to the 2004 bombing in Scottsdale that injured three city employees, including the director of the Office of Diversity and Dialogue.

Now, with Mahon’s sentencing scheduled for Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Arizona, prosecutors are asking Judge David Campbell to send the 61-year-old bomber to prison for the next 63 years, which would effectively mean he would die behind bars.

Militias, Hate Groups Grow in Response to Minority Population Boom - ABC News

Militias, Hate Groups Grow in Response to Minority Population Boom - ABC News: The number of radical hate groups and militias has exploded in recent years in reaction to the changing makeup of America, and new census figures showing the majority of babies born in 2011 were non-white could fuel those simmering tensions, experts who track hate groups warned.

"White supremacist groups have been having a meltdown since the census bureau predicted that non-Hispanic whites would lose the majority by 2050," said Mark Potok, spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups. "The demographic change in this country is the single most important driver in the growth of hate groups and extremist groups over the last few years."

The data released this week revealed a tipping point in the country's demographic shift. For the first time in the country's history, more minority children were born than white children, setting the stage for an eventual non-white majority in America's population.

Christian Head, Black UCLA Medical School Doctor, Files Lawsuit After Alleged Gorilla Depiction

Christian Head, Black UCLA Medical School Doctor, Files Lawsuit After Alleged Gorilla Depiction: A faculty professor who filed a racial discrimination suit against UCLA, saying that the school ignored racial slights against him over his career, has taken to YouTube to air his grievances.

In a six-minute YouTube video, Dr. Christian Head, an otolaryntologist at the UCLA's medical school, says he was the subject of repeated criticism during an annual event in which residents performed mocking roasts of their professors.

"In the final slide was a photo…of a gorilla, on all fours, with my head Photoshopped onto the gorilla with a smile on my face," Head says in the video. "And a Caucasian man, completely naked, sodomizing me from behind, and my boss' head Photoshopped onto the person smiling."

Head later complained to his superiors at the hospital, but says he was told "if you want tenure, [and] make a big stink about this, they're going to crush you."

NYPD announces stop-and-frisk training changes after lawsuit ruling | 7online.com

NYPD announces stop-and-frisk training changes after lawsuit ruling | 7online.com: NEW YORK -- Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly on Thursday announced changes to officer training and supervision amid a growing public outcry and a federal lawsuit claiming the stop, question and frisk policy at the nation's largest department amounts to racial profiling.

Kelly sent a letter to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn detailing the changes. Quinn, a likely candidate for mayor, has been a vocal critic of the policy. Last year, more than 630,000 people were stopped, mostly black and Hispanic men. About half are frisked, and only about 10 percent are arrested.

Kelly said in the letter that the steps were meant to increase public confidence in the tactic and that the New York Police Department has reiterated its policy that prohibits racial profiling.

Colliding into Class Issues on Campus

Colliding into Class Issues on Campus: Jourdan Shepard, a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, created a lively blogosphere debate with his online post decrying the expectation that students will aspire to elitism and classism at the historically Black all male college. “Every August, a new freshman class walks through the gates of the school and into the campus gymnasium only to have their older brothers try to transform them into Black elites,” Shepard wrote late last year as the Morehouse correspondent for NewsOne.com, an online aggregator of news targeted at Black Americans. “Yes, Morehouse does tell their freshmen what is expected, but the bravado has seemed to overshadow the greater good. This is a problem.”

What drew Shepard’s ire is the sense of elitism and entitlement among a certain group of students on strutting across his campus green. According to a growing body of scholarly literature, class stratification on college campuses may well be an immutable barrier that increasingly divides affluent students from their less well-off classmates, threatening the long-cherished ideal that a college education serves as the great equalizer of society.

Colorado Springs 2nd Grader Dressed As Martin Luther King, Jr. In Black Face Paint, Gets In Trouble

Colorado Springs 2nd Grader Dressed As Martin Luther King, Jr. In Black Face Paint, Gets In Trouble: A Colorado Springs second-grader at Meridian Ranch Elementary school found himself in hot water Wednesday when he was pulled out of class for dressing like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. while also wearing black face paint.

KRDO first reported that Sean King dressed up as MLK, Jr. for a school project. The boy's mother told KRDO that it was "wax museum day" for the second grade class and that each child was assigned a historical figure to dress up as.

King showed up for school on Wednesday doing a Martin Luther King impersonation, wearing a black suit, tie, mustache and black face paint -- his parents were with him, as were all the students' parents, to watch the day's presentation. But before things could get started, the school's principal told the second-grader that he needed to wash his face, according to KWGN, leaving Sean confused.

ATF Bureau Honors First African-American Officer Killed In Line Of Duty | WAMU 88.5 - American University Radio

ATF Bureau Honors First African-American Officer Killed In Line Of Duty | WAMU 88.5 - American University Radio: Federal law enforcement officials with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) yesterday honored the first African-American federal agent killed in the line of duty after Reconstruction.

William Henderson Foote was a deputy collector with the U.S. Treasury in Mississippi in 1883. A forerunner of today's ATF special agents, Foote enforced liquor laws and arrested moonshiners who were more inclined to kill his kind, so-called 'revenuers,' than be taken into custody.

It was an already harsh job made nearly impossible because of who Foote was," said Todd Jones, acting ATF director.

"Being the deputy collector to collect taxes in Yazoo City, Miss. was a tough gig," said Jones during a ceremony in Washington, D.C. May 14. "But being African-American in post-Reconstruction south who has a gun and a badge with federal arrest authority? An incredible story of courage."

Report Highlights Institutions That Educate Latinos in Health Care Fields

Report Highlights Institutions That Educate Latinos in Health Care Fields: A select group of colleges and universities were hailed in a new report Wednesday for being the top producers of Latino graduates in the health care field.

Leaders from government, higher education and the private sector said the matter concerns more than just building a diverse workforce, but rather making sure that patients from diverse backgrounds – in this case, Latinos -- get the best health care possible.

“We believe that better communication with health care professionals allows the community to get better information to be able to make better decisions, and that leads to better results,” said Russell Bennett, vice president of Latino Health Solutions with United Healthcare.

“When populations are of a different culture or speak a different language, we feel that we must help provide that communication in the right language and right cultural context,” Bennett said.

Missouri Guardsman Investigated For Alleged Racist Ties Linked To Terrorism Probe | TPMMuckraker

Missouri Guardsman Investigated For Alleged Racist Ties Linked To Terrorism Probe | TPMMuckraker: For the second time this year, officials with the Missouri National Guard are investigating whether a white supremacist has been serving in their midst.

In March, officials accused a Missouri guardsman of participating in neo-Nazi activities while also serving in the military’s honor guard, which routinely helped pay last respects at funerals for veterans who fought in WWII. The sergeant was fired from the honor guard after former coworkers said he kept a picture of Adolf Hitler in his living room and tried to recruit them to the white supremacist movement.

Now, the military is investigating whether another guardsman, an Iraq War veteran, might have traveled to Florida to train a group of white supremacists who were accused earlier this month of planning to start a race war and arrested as part of a domestic terrorism probe.

Texas Led Nation In Workplace Discrimination Complaints In 2011, EEOC Report Says

Texas Led Nation In Workplace Discrimination Complaints In 2011, EEOC Report Says: The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received more complaints of workplace discrimination from workers in Texas than from any other state last year, with 10 percent of all complaints filed there, according to a report made public by the agency on Monday.

During the 2011 fiscal year, nearly 10,000 of the record 99,947 federal charges of workplace discrimination received by the EEOC were filed in Texas, according to the report. The most common complaints within the state were "retaliatory charges," or those alleging that the employer fired, demoted or otherwise retaliated against an employee because he or she fought against discrimination in some way, such as going to the EEOC.

The second and third most common complaints were claims of race and gender bias, respectively, followed by national origin bias claims and religious discrimination claims.

Census: Minority babies are now majority in United States - The Washington Post

Census: Minority babies are now majority in United States - The Washington Post: For the first time in U.S. history, most of the nation’s babies are members of minority groups, according to new census figures that signal the dawn of an era in which whites no longer will be in the majority.

Population estimates show that 50.4 percent of children younger than 1 last year were Hispanic, black, Asian American or in other minority groups. That’s almost a full percentage point higher than the 49.5 percent of minority babies counted when the decennial census was taken in April 2010. Census Bureau demographers said the tipping point came three months later, in July.

Chuck Brown dies: The ‘Godfather of Go-Go’ was 75 - The Washington Post

Chuck Brown dies: The ‘Godfather of Go-Go’ was 75 - The Washington Post: Chuck Brown, the gravelly voiced bandleader who capitalized on funk’s percussive pulse to create go-go, the genre of music that has soundtracked life in black Washington for more than three decades, died May 16 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He was 75.

The death, from complications from sepsis, was confirmed by his manager, Tom Goldfogle. Mr. Brown had been hospitalized for pneumonia.

Known as the “Godfather of Go-Go,” the performer, singer, guitarist and songwriter developed his commanding brand of funk in the mid-1970s to compete with the dominance of disco.

Like a DJ blending records, Mr. Brown used nonstop percussion to stitch songs together and keep the crowd on the dance floor, resulting in marathon performances that went deep into the night. Mr. Brown said the style got its name because “the music just goes and goes.”

Why education inequality persists — and how to fix it - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

Why education inequality persists — and how to fix it - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post: ...The report finds that a black or Hispanic student is nearly four times more likely to be enrolled in one of the city’s poorest performing high schools than an Asian or white, non-Hispanic student. According to review of 2009-10 data, none of the city’s strongest schools are located in the poorest neighborhoods of Harlem, the South Bronx, and central Brooklyn. Schools with the highest scores are found in northeastern Queens, the and the Upper East Side. As a result of New York City policies, black, Latino and low-income students have very limited access to those schools.

Districts with higher poverty rates have fewer highly educated, experienced teachers and less stable teaching staffs. Students from low-income New York City families of all ethnic groups have little chance of being tested for gifted-and-talented program eligibility. Few black and Hispanic students are selected for the city’s top exam schools, such as Stuyvesant and the Bronx High School of Science.

Carlos Fuentes, Mexican Novelist, Dies at 83 - NYTimes.com

Carlos Fuentes, Mexican Novelist, Dies at 83 - NYTimes.com: Carlos Fuentes, Mexico’s elegant public intellectual and grand man of letters, whose panoramic novels captured the complicated essence of his country’s history for readers around the world, died on Tuesday in Mexico City. He was 83.

His death was confirmed by Julio Ortega, his biographer and a professor of Hispanic studies at Brown University, where Mr. Fuentes taught for several years. No cause was given. 

Mr. Fuentes was one of the most admired writers in the Spanish-speaking world, a catalyst, along with Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa and Julio Cortazar, of the explosion of Latin American literature in the 1960s and ’70s known as “El Boom.” He wrote plays, short stories, political nonfiction and more than a dozen novels, many of them chronicles of tangled love, that were acclaimed throughout Latin America.

Forum Highlights Efforts to Boost Academic Achievement among Minority Males

Forum Highlights Efforts to Boost Academic Achievement among Minority Males: When it comes to making a difference in educational outcomes for young men of color, it’s better to be in the trenches than at the podium.

That was the heart of the message that Eagle Academy Foundation president and CEO David Banks delivered recently at the National Press Club.

“We got a lot of people writing books. We got a lot of people speaking out from policy,” Banks said at the College Board event titled “Young Men of Color: Charting a Way for Educational Success.”

“We don’t have a lot of people on the front lines,” Banks said. Banks was invited to share his experience as one of several co-founders of Eagle Academy for Young Men in New York City—the first in a network of all-boys public schools in New York and one of several schools throughout the nation seen as exemplary for making a difference in getting more minority males into higher education.

Commentary: Young, Black and Attending College in Small Town, USA

Commentary: Young, Black and Attending College in Small Town, USA: I had always dreamed about leaving Richmond, Ky., the small town in which I was raised. I dreamed of pulling myself out of the sinking sand of poverty, drug addictions and an overall absence of people who looked like me. It seemed like the faster I moved, the harder it became to find a sturdy foundation and a face like mine to pull me out.

I am the face of Small Town, USA. I ran out of there kicking and screaming to the University of Louisville for my undergraduate degree, just to find myself right back after graduation in the city I had run away from. As I now find myself working in higher education in a rural setting not too different from the one I knew as a youngster, I look at the African-American student population and those students in similar settings around the U.S. and realize that there is a desperate need for support and community for these Black collegiate students.

Northwestern U. Scholars Mobilized in Countering Blog Attack on Black Studies

Northwestern U. Scholars Mobilized in Countering Blog Attack on Black Studies: In five hastily conceived paragraphs, a White conservative blogger threw cold water on the warmly received dissertations presented by three African-American Ph.D. candidates at an academic conference last month.

Naomi Schaefer Riley, an affiliate scholar of the Institute for American Values, a New York-based conservative think tank, ripped into the scholarly research of the Northwestern University doctoral students after reading summaries of their work in story by a Chronicle of Higher Education reporter. Calling the dissertations “a collection of left-wing victimization claptrap,” Riley, then a contributor to the Chronicle’s “Brainstorm” blog, cited them as evidence that the entire Black studies discipline should be eliminated.

The three students’ research was presented at “A Beautiful Struggle: Transformative Black Studies in Shifting Political Landscapes — A Summit of Doctoral Programs,” put on by Northwestern University’s Department of African American Studies in mid-April.

University of Michigan Hosts ‘Title IX at 40’ Conference

University of Michigan Hosts ‘Title IX at 40’ Conference: Among a broad range of topics covered at the three-day conference, one of the most pressing is the need to increase interest in and improve access to sports for girls and women of color.

A conference marking the 40th anniversary of Title IX, the landmark legislation that prohibits gender-based discrimination at educational institutions that receive federal funds, proved a time for enthusiasm about how much progress has been made while also noting the huge barriers to equality that still exist. The presenters and attendees explored topics ranging from injuries to policy to research.

Injustices of Stop and Frisk - NYTimes.com

Injustices of Stop and Frisk - NYTimes.com: The pressure is increasing on the New York City Police Department to reform its stop-and-frisk program under which New Yorkers, nearly all innocent of any crime, were stopped by the police close to 700,000 times last year.

The department said recently that it was instructing precinct commanders to review the legality of all stop-and-frisk reports, according to a report by WNYC. But such reviews — which should have been done all along — will be meaningless unless independent investigators actually interview officers to determine the proportion of stops based on reasonable suspicion, as required by law, and the percentage based on improper racial profiling, in which blacks and Hispanics are singled out. 

The statistics are getting worse by the year. Last week, the New York Civil Liberties Union released a report — based on the department’s data — showing the number of street stops had grown to 685,724 in 2011 from about 97,000 in 2002, the year Mayor Michael Bloomberg took office. On Friday, the Police Department released data showing that the stops have occurred at an even higher pace for the first three months of this year.

Louis H. Pollak Obituary: View Louis Pollak's Obituary by The Daily Record

Louis H. Pollak Obituary: View Louis Pollak's Obituary by The Daily Record: PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Louis H. Pollak, a federal judge who helped work on the pivotal school-desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education, and later served as dean of two Ivy League law schools, has died. He was 89.

Pollak, a U.S. district judge, died Tuesday at his home in Philadelphia's West Mount Airy neighborhood, Michael Kunz, clerk of federal district court, said Thursday.

"He was brilliant in issues of jurisprudence. However, that was tempered with a humility that is not often seen in persons of his standing in the legal profession," Kunz said, noting that Pollak's legal career extended across more than six decades, including a 1948-1949 stint as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Wiley B. Rutledge.

From 1950 to 1955, Pollak and William T. Coleman worked with Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in writing briefs about school desegregation cases that culminated in the 1954 ruling that said state laws requiring separate public schools for black and white students were unconstitutional.

Finding a Match and a Mission, to Help Blacks Battle Cancers - NYTimes.com

Finding a Match and a Mission, to Help Blacks Battle Cancers - NYTimes.com: A month after his 2009 graduation from Yale Law School, Seun Adebiyi learned he had not one but two lethal blood cancers and began an odyssey to find a bone-marrow donor. Mr. Adebiyi, 28, who came to this country from Nigeria as a child, made appeals through Yale, on radio stations, in a YouTube video and even on a trip to Nigeria to ask law students to volunteer.

But finally, his doctor called, saying that a Nigerian woman in this country had donated her baby’s umbilical cord blood to a “cord-blood bank” and that the stem cells in it were a close enough match. After his own marrow — the source of his cancers — was wiped out, those cells were infused into him at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He has been in remission since. 

Now he is trying to repay that debt, with an effort that experts say may save the lives of both Nigerians and black Americans. In February, he helped start Nigeria’s national bone-marrow registry, the first in Africa outside South Africa. He is now raising money to start a cord-blood bank there.

Segregation in New York City’s Public Schools - Graphic - NYTimes.com

Segregation in New York City’s Public Schools - Graphic - NYTimes.com: The landmark decision that outlawed segregation, Brown v. Board of Education, was handed down 58 years ago this week. In its wake, school systems undertook desegregation efforts that peaked in the 1980s. Since then, schools across the country have been going through a process of de facto resegregation. In New York, efforts over the years to reduce the segregation of schools have had little effect.

At Explore Charter School, a Portrait of Segregated Education - NYTimes.com

At Explore Charter School, a Portrait of Segregated Education - NYTimes.com: IN seventh-grade English class, sun leaked in through the windows. Horns bleated outside. The assignment was for the arrayed students to identify a turning point in their lives. Was it positive or negative? They hunched over and wrote fervidly.

Floriande Augustin, a first-year teacher at the school, invited students to share their choices. Hands waved for attention. One girl said it was when she got a cat, though she was unsure why. Another selected a car crash. A third brought up the time when her cousin got shot and “it was positive because he felt his life was crazy and he went to college so he couldn’t get shot anymore.”

The lesson detoured into Martin Luther King Jr. and his turning points. Ms. Augustin listed things like how his father took him shopping for shoes and they were made to wait in the back. How a bus driver told him to relinquish his seat to a white passenger and stand in the rear. How he wasn’t allowed to play with his white friends once he started school, because he went to a black school and his white friends went to a white school.

Obituary: Photographer Willie Middlebrook documented African American life - latimes.com

Obituary: Photographer Willie Middlebrook documented African American life - latimes.com: Willie Robert Middlebrook, a photographer who sought to enlarge public perceptions of the African American community through painterly depictions of its people and places, died Saturday at Brotman Medical Center in Culver City. He was 54.

The cause was complications of a stroke suffered last month, said his daughter, Jessica Middlebrook.

Middlebrook's death came just a week after the unveiling at the new Expo/Crenshaw Metro station of one of his largest public installations, a series of 24 mosaic panels based on his photographs. He was known for what he called photographic paintings, well-composed photos that he made more evocative by brushing the negatives with developing fluid, a method later replaced by digital enhancement.

Swim lessons help minority children break cycle - CNN.com

Swim lessons help minority children break cycle - CNN.com: ...Josh was not alone in the black community. According to USA Swimming, 70% of African-American children cannot swim, compared with nearly 60% for Hispanic children and 42% for white children. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, African-American children between the ages of 5 and 14 are three times more likely to drown than white children in the same age range.

As Butts tried to make sense of her son's tragedy, she realized she had passed her own inexperience to her son. Her father had witnessed a drowning when he was young and instilled in her a fear of water.

A Pioneering Army Sergeant Fights to Keep Her Job - NYTimes.com

A Pioneering Army Sergeant Fights to Keep Her Job - NYTimes.com: COLUMBIA, S.C. — When Command Sgt. Maj. Teresa L. King was named the first female commandant of the Army’s elite drill sergeant school in 2009, proponents of gender equality in the military hailed the news as a watershed.

But it did not take long for the grumbling to start. Students who flunked out of the school complained that she set unfair standards. Some of her own instructors said she rigidly enforced old-fashioned rules. Traditionalists across the service asked: how could a woman with no experience in combat manage the Army’s only school for training the trainers who prepare recruits for war? 

She says she tried to ignore the criticism, but her superiors did not. Last November, they suspended Sergeant Major King, forbidding contact with students or staff and opening an investigation into what they called the “toxic” environment at the school. As that review dragged on, she says she felt like a criminal: isolated, publicly humiliated and so despondent that friends worried that she might hurt herself.

National science test shows only slight improvement - The Washington Post

National science test shows only slight improvement - The Washington Post: National tests measuring science knowledge among eighth-graders show slight improvement compared with those of two years earlier,but one-third of all students still lack a basic understanding of the physical, life and earth sciences, according to a federal study made public Thursday.

The tests showed that black and Hispanic students had made slightly more progress than white students, making a tiny dent in the persistent achievement gaps between the racial groups.

Commentary: Black Studies - The Never-Ending (Beautiful) Struggle

Commentary: Black Studies - The Never-Ending (Beautiful) Struggle: Much has been written about a former (recently fired) Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE) blogger’s racist, dismissive, and uninformed rant against the discipline of Black Studies—particularly a group of Northwestern University graduate students—but very little scrutiny has been afforded the article that inspired the toxic torrent in the first place.

That would be “Black Studies: ‘Swaggering into the Future’: A New Generation of Ph.D.'s Advances the Discipline,” written by Chronicle reporter Stacey Patton.

As one who earned the Ph.D. in African American Studies at Temple University, over a decade ago, I have some thoughts on the direction of the discipline beloved by so many ... and reviled—and misunderstood—by far too many others.

Stop and Frisk Practices | New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) - American Civil Liberties Union of New York State

Stop and Frisk Practices | New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) - American Civil Liberties Union of New York State: he NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices raise serious concerns over racial profiling, illegal stops and privacy rights. The Department’s own reports on its stop-and-frisk activity confirm what many people in communities of color across the city have long known: The police are stopping hundreds of thousands of law abiding New Yorkers every year, and the vast majority are black and Latino.

An analysis by the NYCLU revealed that more than 4 million innocent New Yorkers were subjected to police stops and street interrogations from 2004 through 2011, and that black and Latino communities continue to be the overwhelming target of these tactics. Nearly nine out of 10 stopped-and-frisked New Yorkers have been completely innocent, according to the NYPD’s own reports.

'Freeman': A Liberated Slave In Search Of Family | WAMU 88.5 - American University Radio

'Freeman': A Liberated Slave In Search Of Family | WAMU 88.5 - American University Radio: ...In Freeman, Pitts explores the turbulent and violent time after the official end of war and assassination of President Lincoln. He draws from historical classifieds to emphasize the steadfast efforts of freed slaves looking to reconnect with their loved ones. Pitts tells NPR's Audie Cornish that most people weren't aware of what was going on at the time.

"To me, it's such a fascinating and little known fact that all of these African-Americans newly freed slaves went to such lengths to reconstitute their marriages and reconstitute their families," he says.

"Nobody really talks about this, but you've got — 20 years after the war — people placing ads and walking across counties and states. And I just liked the idea of using real ads to emphasize that this was a real story. These were real people who were looking for their loved ones."

Arizona - Sheriff to Face Civil Rights Suit Over Claims That Include Profiling - NYTimes.com

Arizona - Sheriff to Face Civil Rights Suit Over Claims That Include Profiling - NYTimes.com: The federal authorities said Wednesday that they planned to sue Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County and his office over claims of civil rights violations, including the racial profiling of Latinos. The Justice Department has been seeking an agreement requiring the sheriff’s office to train officers in how to make constitutional traffic stops, collect data on people arrested in traffic stops and reach out to Latinos to assure them that the department is there also to protect them. Sheriff Arpaio has denied the claims of racial profiling and has said that allowing a court monitor would mean that every policy decision would have to be cleared through an observer and would nullify his authority. Justice officials told a lawyer for the sheriff on April 3 that his refusal of a court-appointed monitor was a deal-breaker that would end settlement negotiations and result in a federal lawsuit. A “notice of intent to file civil action” came Wednesday from Thomas Perez, an assistant attorney general, in a letter to a lawyer for the sheriff.

Census Analysis Shows Shifts in New York City's Makeup - NYTimes.com

Census Analysis Shows Shifts in New York City's Makeup - NYTimes.com: Reversing a trend that had held for decades, more Dominicans left New York City than arrived since 2000, a new census analysis found. And a surge of Mexican immigrants nearly bumped them ahead of South Americans into third place among Hispanic groups.

Mexicans are also poised to overtake Puerto Ricans and Dominicans among mothers giving birth in the city. Birthrates among Mexican immigrants in North Corona, Queens, are nearly as high as among Orthodox Jews in central Brooklyn, who have one of the highest birthrates of any group in the city. During the last decade, Hispanic residents of North Corona had the highest natural population increase — births over deaths — in the city.

Immigrant Mothers To Be Deported Beg ICE To Let Them Stay In US With Their Children (VIDEO, PHOTOS)

Immigrant Mothers To Be Deported Beg ICE To Let Them Stay In US With Their Children (VIDEO, PHOTOS): There may not be anything more painful than a mother having to say goodbye to her child.

And yet that is the predicament that many mothers, including Carmen and Maria, are facing. After both women pleaded with immigration officials to be allowed to stay with their children, Maria was granted an extension but Carmen was ordered out of the country, CBS reports in the video above.

Carmen, who has lived in the US for 22 years, now has a monitoring brace on her ankle until her flight back to Peru in three weeks.

She and her 14-year-old son, Brian, made tearful pleas to Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) to allow her to stay. “I feel depressed, nervous, sometimes scared… I don’t want to lose her, I want to be next to her, step by step," Brian said.

Coming to the Defense of Black Students

Coming to the Defense of Black Students: When school systems recognize that many of their Black students are falling behind, they frequently bring in consultants to help right the situation. Often that person is Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu.

Kunjufu should be a very familiar name to educators and African-American parents. He is the founder and president of African American Images, a Chicago-based publishing company that also sponsors dozens of workshops for educators and parents.

He also is the author of more than 30 books, including Countering the Conspiracy to Destroy Black Boys (2004), 200 Educational Strategies to Teach Children of Color (2009), Raising Black Boys (2007) and Restoring the Village, Values, and Commitment: Solutions for the Black Family, all published by African American Images. Kunjufu holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Illinois State University and a Ph.D. in business administration from Union Graduate School in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Baltimore prosecutors' office sued - baltimoresun.com

Baltimore prosecutors' office sued - baltimoresun.com: A 61-year-old white woman, who says she was wrongfully fired from the Baltimore prosecutors’ office after 25 years on the job, has filed an employment discrimination lawsuit alleging age, race and gender discrimination in the 2010 termination.

Antoinette E. Swiec, of Baltimore, is seeking $400,000 in compensation from the Baltimore state’s attorney’s office on each of two counts, claiming she was fired because the predominantly young, African American division she worked for wanted her out.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court Monday, and was to be served on Baltimore State’s Attorney Gregg Bernstein, though the firing occurred under his predecessor, Patricia C. Jessamy. Bernstein took office in 2011.

New York Fire Department Gains Minority and Female Applicants - NYTimes.com

New York Fire Department Gains Minority and Female Applicants - NYTimes.com: For the past two years, Fire Department recruiters have complied aggressively with a court-mandated effort to diversify the department by increasing the number of minority applicants.

Their efforts seem to have paid off. Of the 42,161 applicants who took the firefighter exam this spring, 19,260 were nonwhite and 1,952 were women — both all-time highs for groups traditionally underrepresented in the department, the fire commissioner, Salvatore J. Cassano, said on Tuesday. 

Of the roughly 10,000 firefighters in New York, 6 percent are Hispanic, 3 percent are black, and 1 percent are Asian, fire officials said. There are 28 female firefighters. The number of minority and female applicants who took the spring test was roughly double the number who took it in 2007, the last time the test was given.

“This is a huge step forward,” said Michele J. Maglione, assistant commissioner for recruitment. “We just opened the door to thousands of New Yorkers.

Summit: Future U.S. Innovation Tied to Reshaping K-12 Education, Reforming Immigration Policies

Summit: Future U.S. Innovation Tied to Reshaping K-12 Education, Reforming Immigration Policies: ARLINGTON, Va. – To foster more innovation in the future, business needs to help reshape K-12 education to grow better thinkers, and the United States should reform its immigration policy to attract and keep talent from various parts of the world.

Those were two of the main points that business leaders made Tuesday during the inaugural “Innovation Summit” hosted by The Atlantic Magazine.

“Now, universities are training many people around the globe and (the United States) is forcing them to go home,” said Boeing CEO James McNerney. “Great for them, other countries and the global economy. But it cuts off that flow that has led to populating our companies and institutions with great people.

Learning the New Economic Reality

Learning the New Economic Reality: The dean’s message on the website of Howard University’s School of Business imparts a clear message: “As we continue in our quest to maintain academic excellence, we must adjust to the changing economic environment. The recent downturn in the global economy continues to [have an] impact on opportunities for our students and many of our alumni,” Dr. Barron Harvey wrote, adding that the business school is taking “aggressive steps” to stay competitive, including increasing its focus on international programs and entrepreneurship.

Harvey’s candid assessment illustrates a proactive stance that many historically Black business schools have taken during this period of economic uncertainty.

Naomi Schaefer Riley, Chronicle Of Higher Education Blogger, Fired For Calling Black Studies 'Claptrap'

Naomi Schaefer Riley, Chronicle Of Higher Education Blogger, Fired For Calling Black Studies 'Claptrap': The Chronicle of Higher Education dismissed one of its bloggers after outcry over a blog post she wrote questioning the legitimacy of black studies as an academic discipline.

Naomi Schaefer Riley, a lecturer and author who wrote for the Chronicle's blog, Brainstorm, was let go after readers pushed back on an essay she published last week titled "The Most Persuasive Case For Eliminating Black Studies? Just Read the Dissertations." Riley's essay responded to a sidebar of a story in the Chronicle which profiled several up-and-coming black studies scholars in the process of writing dissertations. Riley looked at the titles of the dissertations -- on subjects like the role of race in housing policy and the history of black midwifery in the United States -- and called them "left-wing victimization claptrap."