Interview: Maya Angelou, Author Of 'Mom & Me & Mom' : NPR

Interview: Maya Angelou, Author Of 'Mom & Me & Mom' : NPR: Maya Angelou has lived a life so expansive and extraordinary that, even after seven autobiographies, she still has more stories to tell. Her latest book, Mom & Me & Mom, explores her relationship with her mother, Vivian Baxter. When Angelou was young, Baxter sent Angelou and her brother away to be raised by their grandmother; years later, she called them back to live with her again, the start of a sometimes fractious but eventually very loving relationship.

Angelou says her familial relationships, particularly with her mother, have been crucial in defining her life. "I'm Maya Angelou — whatever that means to whomever it means — because my mother loved me, and my grandmother loved me, and my brother loved me," she says. "And they all told me I could do whatever I wanted to do."

Confederate Flag At Old NC Capitol Raises Ire, WIll Come Down

Confederate Flag At Old NC Capitol Raises Ire, WIll Come Down: RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A Confederate battle flag hung inside the old North Carolina State Capitol last week to mark the sesquicentennial of the Civil War is being taken down after civil rights leaders raised concerns.

The decision was announced Friday evening, hours after the Associated Press published a story about the flag, which officials said was part of an historical display intended to replicate how the antebellum building appeared in 1863. The flag had been planned to hang in the House chamber until April 2015, the 150th anniversary of the arrival of federal troops in Raleigh.

“This is a temporary exhibit in an historic site, but I’ve learned the governor’s administration is going to use the old House chamber as working space,” Cultural Resources Secretary Susan Kluttz said Friday night. “Given that information, this display will end this weekend rather than April of 2015.”

Beleaguered? Not Teachers, Poll on ‘Well-Being’ Finds - NYTimes.com

Beleaguered? Not Teachers, Poll on ‘Well-Being’ Finds - NYTimes.com: Recent battles over school funding, performance evaluations and tenure have given rise to public perceptions of a beleaguered teaching corps across the United States.

But a new analysis of polling data from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index that examines “well-being” as measured by a number of indicators, including physical and emotional health, job satisfaction and feelings of community and safety, found that teachers ranked second only to physicians.

In addition, teachers ranked above all other professions in answers to questions about whether they “smiled or laughed yesterday,” as well as whether they experienced happiness and enjoyment the day before the survey.

The findings initially may seem surprising given widespread reports that teachers are unhappy and demoralized. Just last month, the MetLife Survey of the American Teacher grabbed headlines when it showed that job satisfaction had dropped to a 25-year low among teachers.

White men have much to discuss about mass shootings - The Washington Post

White men have much to discuss about mass shootings - The Washington Post: magine if African American men and boys were committing mass shootings month after month, year after year. Articles and interviews would flood the media, and we’d have political debates demanding that African Americans be “held accountable.” Then, if an atrocity such as the Newtown, Conn., shootings took place and African American male leaders held a news conference to offer solutions, their credibility would be questionable. The public would tell these leaders that they need to focus on problems in their own culture and communities.

But when the criminals and leaders are white men, race and gender become the elephant in the room.

Timothy Dluhos Supporters Threaten New York Post Reporter Candice Giove For Uncovering EMT's Racist Tweets

Timothy Dluhos Supporters Threaten New York Post Reporter Candice Giove For Uncovering EMT's Racist Tweets: After New York Post reporter Candice Giove confronted New York City EMT Timothy Dluhos about his secret, racist "Bad Lieutenant" Twitter account, the 34-year-old broke down in tears.

"TWEET JUSTICE" was delivered, and Dluhos-- who tweeted about "coloreds," "chinks," called Mayor Bloomberg "King Heeb," and bragged about his Nazi paraphernalia-- was suspended from his $93,000-a-year job.

Now supporters of Dluhos have unleashed a series of vile tweets directed at Giove, in some instances wishing physical harm upon the reporter.

(Article continues -WARNING: GRAPHIC LANUGAGE)

Bob Teague WNBC Reporter Who Helped Integrate TV News, Dead at 84 - NYTimes.com

Bob Teague WNBC Reporter Who Helped Integrate TV News, Dead at 84 - NYTimes.com: Bob Teague, who joined WNBC-TV in New York in 1963 as one of the city’s first black television journalists and went on to work as a reporter, anchorman and producer for more than three decades, died on Thursday in New Brunswick, N.J. He was 84. The cause was T-cell lymphoma, his wife, Jan, said.

Mr. Teague, who lived in Monmouth Junction, N.J., established a reputation for finding smart, topical stories and delivering them in a sophisticated manner. Though he later criticized TV news as superficial and too focused on the appearance of reporters and anchors, his own good looks and modulated voice were believed to have helped his longevity.

Mal Goode became the first black network TV reporter in 1962. He was assigned to the ABC News United Nations bureau because network executives feared his presence in the main studio would be too disruptive, TV Guide reported.

Early-onset Baldness in African-American Men May Be Linked to Prostate Cancer

Early-onset Baldness in African-American Men May Be Linked to Prostate Cancer: PHILADELPHIA — Baldness was associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer among African-American men, and risk for advanced prostate cancer increased with younger age and type of baldness, according to data published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

“We focused on African-American men because they are at high risk for developing prostate cancer and are more than twice as likely to die from prostate cancer than other groups in the United States,” said Charnita Zeigler-Johnson, Ph.D., research assistant professor at the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. “Although this is a high-risk group for poor prostate cancer outcomes, no published study had focused on evaluating baldness as a potential risk factor in a sample of African-American men.”

Zeigler-Johnson and her colleagues identified 318 men with prostate cancer and 219 controls among participants who enrolled in the Study of Clinical Outcomes, Risk and Ethnicity (SCORE) between 1998 and 2010. All of them were African-American and had varying degrees of baldness. They obtained information on type of baldness (none, frontal and vertex) and other medical history using a questionnaire.

Black Unemployment Driven By White America's Favors For Friends

Black Unemployment Driven By White America's Favors For Friends: There's a comforting-to-white-people fiction about racism and racial inequality in the United States today: They're caused by a small, recalcitrant group who cling to their egregiously inaccurate beliefs in the moral, intellectual and economic superiority of white people.

The reality: racism and racial inequality aren't just supported by old ideas, unfounded group esteem or intentional efforts to mistreat others, said Nancy DiTomaso, author of the new book, The American Non-Dilemma: Racial Inequality Without Racism. They're also based on privilege, she said -- how it is shared, how opportunities are hoarded and how most white Americans think their career and economic advantages have been entirely earned, not passed down or parceled out.

The way that whites, often unconsciously, hoard and distribute advantage inside their almost all white networks of family and friends is one of the driving reasons that in February just 6.8 percent of white workers remained unemployed while 13.8 percent of black workers and 9.6 percent of Hispanic workers were unable to find jobs, DiTomaso said.

Don Young Uses 'Wetbacks' To Describe Latinos (AUDIO)

Don Young Uses 'Wetbacks' To Describe Latinos (AUDIO): Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) turned heads on Thursday, using a racial slur to describe Latinos.

Addressing the United States' jobs situation in a radio interview with KRBD-FM, Young admitted that technology has impacted the market. In the process, he chose the term "wetbacks" to describe the workers his father employed.

“My father had a ranch; we used to have 50-60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes,” Young said. “It takes two people to pick the same tomatoes now. It’s all done by machine.”

A little less than two weeks ago, word broke that Young is under investigation for alleged ethics violations that include failure to report gifts on financial disclosure forms and lying to federal officials. The Anchorage Daily News reported Thursday that Young told reporters the FBI has already found him "totally innocent of" any charges.

Earl Wright, LAPD Officer, Wins $1.2 Million After Enduring Vulgar Racial Harassment Within Department

Earl Wright, LAPD Officer, Wins $1.2 Million After Enduring Vulgar Racial Harassment Within Department: LOS ANGELES - A black LA police officer was awarded $1.2 million by a jury Tuesday for being the target of vulgar racial harassment by a white supervisor and other officers.

Officer Earl Wright, a 23-year LAPD veteran, alleged that the department did not take his complaints seriously, which caused him to be hospitalized and miss seven months of work because of stress and anxiety.

In one instance detailed in the lawsuit documents, Wright was given a 20-year anniversary cake with a fried chicken leg and slice of watermelon on top. The cake was presented to him by Sgt. Peter Foster, a white officer who supervised the Community Relations Office in Central Division, the Los Angeles Times reports.

In another instance, when Wright asked Foster for permission to leave work early, Foster responded, "Why? You gotta go pick watermelons?"

Nelson Mandela back in the hospital with lung infection

Nelson Mandela back in the hospital with lung infection: Former South African President Nelson Mandela is back in the hospital due to a recurrence of a lung infection, the South African government said on Thursday morning.

"We appeal to the people of South Africa and the world to pray for our beloved Madiba and his family and to keep them in their thoughts," said South African President Jacob Zuma, in a statement. "We have full confidence in the medical team and know that they will do everything possible to ensure recovery."

Zuma said that the anti-apartheid leader was admitted to the hospital just before midnight and that he was receiving "the best possible expert medical treatment and comfort."

In Memorium: Pauline Knight Ofosu - Higher Education

In Memorium: Pauline Knight Ofosu - Higher Education: To most students and teachers on campuses across the nation, the name Pauline Knight Ofosu would draw a blank stare if they were asked to identify her. Such is the fate of people who make history that is forgotten generations later.

That ignorance of contemporary American history did not cause Ofosu to feel that the efforts of her and her one-time college classmates in the 1960s were in vain. They knew they had a profound impact of America history—forever.

Pauline Knight was a junior at Nashville’s Tennessee A & I State College (TSU) when, in1961, she joined a group of TSU classmates and students from other colleges to peacefully protest racial segregation on buses like Greyhound Trailways and in their bus stations.

Known as the Freedom Riders, the students cut classes to board the interstate buses in Nashville destined for New Orleans and points in between to test whether state and local governments were honoring a U.S. Supreme Court ruling barring racial discrimination in interstate commerce.

Spelman College - Women of Color Leadership Conference

Spelman College - Women of Color Leadership Conference: The most successful leaders think strategically. They've skillfully mastered the art of building wealth, entrepreneurship and paying it forward. They're powerful, critical-thinkers, with a drive for excellence in their professional and personal lives; and they embrace the importance of empowerment and service. Most importantly, many of these successful leaders are women! Join us as some of today’s most dynamic, innovative and respected leaders share their blueprint for success through effective strategic leadership. Learn more I About the Conference

College, Connected: Online Enrollments at HBCUs Continue To Grow - Higher Education

College, Connected: Online Enrollments at HBCUs Continue To Grow - Higher Education: In the past decade, the rate of growth in online enrollments has been “extremely robust,” but holding steady, according to the report, Changing the Course: Ten Years of Tracking Online Education in the United States. When the Babson Survey Research Group of Babson College, a private institution in Massachusetts, and the College Board released the report in January, close to 70 percent of administrators surveyed said that online education was critical to the future of their institution. In 2002, that number was less than half.

At the same time, the number of students enrolling in at least one online course in fall 2011—more than 6.7 million—increased by 570,000 over the previous year. The increase may signal why advocates of online learning say they are optimistic about the potential of technology and distance education to offset declining enrollment among traditional students with older, nontraditional ones. It may also mean new opportunities to reach and teach more students and to generate needed revenue for colleges and universities.

High Court Takes On a New Affirmative Action Case - Higher Education

High Court Takes On a New Affirmative Action Case - Higher Education: WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s decision to hear a new case from Michigan on the politically charged issue of affirmative action offers an intriguing hint that the justices will not use a separate challenge already pending from Texas for a broad ruling bringing an end to the consideration of race in college admissions.

To be sure, the two cases involve different legal issues. The University of Texas dispute, with arguments already completed and a ruling possible soon, centers on the use of race to fill some slots in the school’s freshman classes. The Michigan case asks whether a voter-approved ban on affirmative action in college admissions can itself violate the Constitution.

But the broadest possible outcome in the current Texas case overruling the court’s 2003 decision that allows race as a factor in college admissions would mean an end to affirmative action in higher education and render the new Michigan lawsuit irrelevant.

Supreme Court accepts second case on race-based college admissions - The Washington Post

Supreme Court accepts second case on race-based college admissions - The Washington Post: The Supreme Court decided Monday to dive deeper into the issue of affirmative action in university admissions, agreeing to review a lower court’s decision to overturn Michigan’s voter-approved initiative banning the use of race in college acceptance decisions.

The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit struck down the ban, approved by 58 percent of the state’s voters in 2006. It is similar to bans in several other states, including California and Florida.

The high court accepted Michigan’s appeal of the 6th Circuit opinion and will hear the case in the term that begins in October. The case will be heard by just eight justices; the court noted that Justice Elena Kagan recused herself.

The court earlier this term considered a challenge to the admissions process at the University of Texas, which considers race as one factor in choosing part of its freshman class. The justices heard oral arguments in that case in October and has not issued a decision.

Some had thought the court might hold the Michigan case until it rendered the Texas ruling, but the cases offer different issues.

Jean-Claude Toviave Convicted Of Forcing Children To Work As Slaves In His Michigan Home

Jean-Claude Toviave Convicted Of Forcing Children To Work As Slaves In His Michigan Home: DETROIT — A former tennis pro accused of fraudulently bringing four children from the African nation of Togo to the U.S. and forcing them to work as slaves in his Michigan home was sentenced Monday to more than 11 years in federal prison.

Jean-Claude Toviave, who didn't apologize when provided the opportunity to speak at his sentencing hearing in Detroit, also was ordered to pay two of the children $60,000 each.

Prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Arthur Tarnow to sentence Toviave to the maximum sentence within the guidelines, and he did, handing down a 135-month sentence, with credit for about two years of time served.

"I can't get a read on you," Tarnow told Toviave. "I can't tell if you understand what you did was really wrong."

The four children emigrated from Togo in 2006 with fraudulent immigration paperwork that listed them as being Toviave's biological children, which they are not.

Remembering a Giant of African Literature - Higher Education

Remembering a Giant of African Literature - Higher Education: It was not surprising that the passing of Chinua Achebe, the celebrated Nigerian-born writer, last week would stir numerous scholars as well as many others around the world to pay tribute to the Nobel Prize-winning author.

Best known for his first novel, Things Fall Apart, Achebe is regarded as a pioneer in modern African literature. His novels and essays critiqued post-colonial Nigerian politics and society as well as examined the impact of the West on Africa. Published in 1958, Things Fall Apart is said to be the most widely read work of African fiction, having sold more than 12 million copies. It has been translated into 50 languages.

On Thursday, March 21, the 82-year-old author died at a Boston-area hospital following a brief illness. At the time of his death, Achebe had been the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor at Brown University and he had recently published a memoir of his experience during the 1967-70 Biafran civil war in Nigeria.

Gun deaths shaped by race in America

Gun deaths shaped by race in America: Gun deaths are shaped by race in America. Whites are far more likely to shoot themselves, and African Americans are far more likely to be shot by someone else.

The statistical difference is dramatic, according to a Washington Post analysis of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A white person is five times as likely to commit suicide with a gun as to be shot with a gun; for each African American who uses a gun to commit suicide, five are killed by other people with guns.

Where a person lives matters, too. Gun deaths in urban areas are much more likely to be homicides, while suicide is far and away the dominant form of gun death in rural areas. States with the most guns per capita, such as Montana and Wyoming, have the highest suicide rates; states with low gun ownership rates, such as Massachusetts and New York, have far fewer suicides per capita.
Suicides and homicides are highly charged human dramas. Both acts shatter families, friends and sometimes communities. But the reactions are as different as black and white, and those differences shape the nation’s divided attitudes toward gun control.

Not Enough Girls Are Getting Into The City's Specialized High Schools: Gothamist

Not Enough Girls Are Getting Into The City's Specialized High Schools: Gothamist: The standardized exam that determines entry to New York's specialized city high schools has recently gotten flack for racial discrimination, but it's not just minority students who are having trouble gaining entry to schools like Stuyvesant High School and Bronx High School of Science. It turns out that boy students outnumber girl students by a significant percentage at all eight specialized high schools, even though studies show that at that age females tend to perform better in school than males.

Nearly 60 percent of the students Stuyvesant, for instance, are male, and boys make up a whopping 67 percent of the student body at the High School for Mathematics, Science and Engineering at City College. And since these schools tend to put a heavy emphasis on math and science, which are subjects girls tend to drop off in once they get to college, academics are worried this will have an impact on getting females into careers like engineering. "“It is very suspect that you don’t have as many girls as boys in New York City’s specialized schools," Janet Hyde, a psychology professor at University of Wisconsin, told the Times. "In a global economy we need to identify the best scientists and mathematicians."

Young Immigrants, Seeking Deferred Action Help, Find Unexpected Path - NYTimes.com

Young Immigrants, Seeking Deferred Action Help, Find Unexpected Path - NYTimes.com:  When Angy Rivera, an illegal immigrant, was a young girl in New York City, she was sexually abused by her mother’s boyfriend. He was eventually convicted and imprisoned, but only recently did Ms. Rivera find out that her cooperation with investigators had qualified her for a special benefit: a visa for victims of serious crimes.

Many young illegal immigrants across the country have similarly learned in recent months that they could be eligible for little-known visas that would allow them to put years of worrying about deportation behind them, immigration lawyers said.

These discoveries have come about as an unintended consequence of an immigration policy adopted last June by President Obama that allows young illegal immigrants, under certain conditions, to apply for the right to remain in the country temporarily and work.

For Blacks in Cuba, the Revolution Hasn’t Begun - NYTimes.com

For Blacks in Cuba, the Revolution Hasn’t Begun - NYTimes.com: CHANGE is the latest news to come out of Cuba, though for Afro-Cubans like myself, this is more dream than reality. Over the last decade, scores of ridiculous prohibitions for Cubans living on the island have been eliminated, among them sleeping at a hotel, buying a cellphone, selling a house or car and traveling abroad. These gestures have been celebrated as signs of openness and reform, though they are really nothing more than efforts to make life more normal. And the reality is that in Cuba, your experience of these changes depends on your skin color.

The private sector in Cuba now enjoys a certain degree of economic liberation, but blacks are not well positioned to take advantage of it. We inherited more than three centuries of slavery during the Spanish colonial era. Racial exclusion continued after Cuba became independent in 1902, and a half century of revolution since 1959 has been unable to overcome it.

Mexican New Yorkers Are More Likely to Live in Poor Households - NYTimes.com

Mexican New Yorkers Are More Likely to Live in Poor Households - NYTimes.com: People of Mexican descent in New York City are far more likely to be living in poor or near-poor households than other Latinos, blacks, whites or Asians, according to a study to be released on Thursday.

Nearly two-thirds of the city’s Mexican residents, including immigrants and the native-born, are living in low-income households, compared with 55 percent of all Latinos; 42 percent of blacks and Asians; and 25 percent of whites, said the report by the Community Service Society, a research and advocacy group in New York City that focuses on poverty.

The rates are even more pronounced for children: About 79 percent of all Mexicans under age 16 in New York City live in low-income households, with about 45 percent living below the poverty line — significantly higher percentages than any other major Latino group as well as the broader population.

Interview: Tom Dunkel, Author Of 'Color Blind: The Forgotten Team That Broke Baseball's Color Line' : NPR

Interview: Tom Dunkel, Author Of 'Color Blind: The Forgotten Team That Broke Baseball's Color Line' : NPR: In 1947, Jackie Robinson famously broke the color line in baseball when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, ending racial segregation in the major leagues.

That moment was a landmark for racial integration in baseball, but there's another moment few may be aware of, and it happened more than a decade before Robinson, in Bismarck, N.D.

Tom Dunkel writes about this Bismarck team in his new book, Color Blind: The Forgotten Team That Broke Baseball's Color Line.

Legendary baseball players such as Satchel Paige, Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe, and Quincy Trouppe left the Negro Leagues to play ball for the team.

One man formed the team, Dunkel tells weekends on All Things Considered guest host Don Gonyea. Neil Churchill, a successful automobile dealership owner in Bismarck, paid out of his own pocket to put together the best baseball team that he could — regardless of race.

School Closures Pit Race And Poverty Against Budgets : NPR

School Closures Pit Race And Poverty Against Budgets : NPR: In Chicago, parents are fighting to prevent the city from closing 54 public schools. The Chicago Teachers Union is planning a rally against the cost-cutting proposal next week.

School closings are nothing new, but in a growing number of districts around the country, what was once seen as a local decision to close schools has now morphed into a politically charged campaign.

People opposed to school closings have almost never organized beyond their own neighborhoods, let alone marched on Washington, until recently.

Helen Moore, a community organizer from Detroit, joined more than 200 protesters from 18 cities in January to call for a moratorium on school closings nationwide.

"I came here to demand. I ain't asking for not a damn thing," she said at a rally in Washington, D.C. "I'm telling you that I'm demanding an education for our children. They are our schools, they are our children, it is our money."

Finding The Trends

In cities like Detroit and Flint in Michigan, Oakland in California, Chicago, New York City and Philadelphia, schools are closing because they're half-empty. The reason they're half-empty has intrigued researchers like Emily Dowdall with The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Latinitas create their own positive images in media

Latinitas create their own positive images in media: Ten years ago at the University of Texas, students Laura Donnelly Gonzalez and Alicia Rascon were asked to create media that empowered Latinos.

“Both of us noticed the lack of magazines that were inclusive of young Latinas and presented positive images of young Latinas, so we decided to develop Latinitas Magazine in that class,” Gonzalez says.

Rascon felt there were serious issues in her community that needed to be addressed and that girls were really lacking resources. “I felt that media was a perfect outlet to empower girls, help break some of the stereotypes, and help represent our community,” she says.

So Gonzalez and Rascon started clubs, camps, and workshops where girls could learn how to be media makers. Their current signature program is called “Club Latinitas,” an after-school program based in media, technology, and culture. One project that embodies their program, Gonzalez says, is a research assignment on el Día de los Muertos in which the girls created their own altars through Power Point. Through the process, the participants learned how to use computer software while learning something new about Mexican culture.

White Supremacist Eyed In Murder Of Tom Clements | TPMMuckraker

White Supremacist Eyed In Murder Of Tom Clements | TPMMuckraker: A white supremacist prison gang member has been identified as a suspect in the killing of Colorado Department of Corrections chief Tom Clements, according to anonymous federal and state officials who spoke with The Denver Post.

Clements was shot and killed Tuesday evening while answering the front door of his home in Monument, Colo.

A Department of Corrections employee, also speaking to the Post on condition of anonymity, said officials are investigating the possibility that the killing was a “hit” ordered by the gang. A gang leader in prison, known as a “shot caller,” could order a member to kill someone, the source said.

“What’s not known is whether this was ordered or a crime of opportunity,” the employee told the newspaper.

Whistle-blower Shares Secret Audio at NYPD Trial -- Daily Intelligencer

Whistle-blower Shares Secret Audio at NYPD Trial -- Daily Intelligencer: The latest whistle-blower cop to secretly record his commanding officer shared a recording in court on Thursday, in which his superior tells him to stop "male blacks, 14 to 20." It's in the context of a tense conversation between Officer Pedro Serrano, who testified Thursday in the ongoing trial over the NYPD's stop-and-frisk program, and his superior officer, Deputy Inspector Christopher McCormack, in the Bronx. Serrano has been testifying that he faced retaliation for for not doing enough street stops, which is why he made the recording when he went to complain to McCormack about a poor performance review. What he wound up capturing speaks to the issue at the heart of the trial: whether the NYPD targets people for street stops based on their skin color, in violation of their civil liberties.

Chinua Achebe, Nigerian Author Of 'Things Fall Apart,' Dies : The Two-Way : NPR

Chinua Achebe, Nigerian Author Of 'Things Fall Apart,' Dies : The Two-Way : NPR: NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton reports from Lagos, Nigeria, on the death of one of Africa's greatest contemporary writers. Quoting his publisher, AP, CNN, and the BBC are reporting Chinua Achebe has died.

Chinua Achebe who taught at colleges in the United States made literary history with his 1958 best-seller Things Fall Apart, a sobering tale about Nigeria at the dawn of independence.

Achebe, 82, played a critical role in establishing post-colonial African literature and is known to students all over the continent for his seminal novel, Things Fall Apart. Achebe's masterpiece has graced countless school and college syllabuses and is translated into fifty languages worldwide.

It is often cited as the most read book in modern African literature and has sold more than 12 million copies.

Achebe also was an essayist and an outspoken critic of successive Nigerian governments, poor leadership and institutionalised corruption. He passed up national honors in protest.

NIH Clearing Path for Underrepresented Groups to Obtain Grants - Higher Education

NIH Clearing Path for Underrepresented Groups to Obtain Grants - Higher Education: The powerful National Institutes of Health has unveiled a new plan to boost the success rate for research grant applicants from historically underrepresented groups.

The effort, outlined in documents posted on the NIH web page and discussed in brief interviews with several academic leaders concerned with the low applicant success rate, envisions the agency investing millions of dollars into efforts to boost the number and grant-readiness of students from historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups and institutions. It commits the agency to starting a National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN).

The effort also envisions greater oversight and coordination of the grant application and approval process, especially in the critical peer study groups and the oversight councils. The NIH also plans to hire a chief diversity officer, a first for the agency. That person would have a rank in the bureaucratic agency that makes him or her a direct reporter to the NIH director.

Graduation Rates Improve for 2013 March Madness Field - Higher Education

Graduation Rates Improve for 2013 March Madness Field - Higher Education: Graduation rates for athletes competing in the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament rose significantly over last year, and gaps along racial lines narrowed slightly, but not nearly enough to declare a victory over disparities in academics.

That was the heart of the message that a leading collegiate sports scholar delivered Thursday during what has become a pre-March Madness routine for the annual release of a report meant to call attention issues of academic equity.

Dr. Richard Lapchick, founder and
director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics In Sport, or TIDES, at the University of Central Florida, said the “good news” from his new report — titled Keeping Score When It Counts: Graduation Success and Academic Progress Rates for the 2013 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament Teams — is that the overall Graduation Success Rate, or GSR, for male basketball student-athletes increased in 2013 to 70 percent from 67 percent last year.

Expert Applauds Colleges’ Greater Sensitivity Toward American Indians - Higher Education

Expert Applauds Colleges’ Greater Sensitivity Toward American Indians - Higher Education: BERKELEY, Calif. — Although many pop culture representations still marginalize American Indians nowadays, the tide is steadily shifting among higher education institutions — and for the better, says a longtime educator and expert in indigenous topics.

Karen Biestman, associate dean and director of Stanford University’s Native American Cultural Center, applauds the growing tendency of colleges to do away with Indian mascots, for example.

“If you’re going to be inclusive of all students on campus, you cannot do so by commodifying someone’s name or heritage,” says Biestman, who has held teaching and administrative roles involving American Indians at Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley for 30 years, combined. “A chant or the use of someone’s name doesn’t honor that person or that group of people. It’s not an honor; it’s commodifying.”

The US Capitol Is Full of White Supremacists | Mother Jones

The US Capitol Is Full of White Supremacists | Mother Jones: When a statue of civil rights icon Rosa Parks was unveiled in the Capitol's Statuary Hall in late February, it joined an exclusive club. The collection includes generals and statesmen, inventors and priests—as well as some of the most notorious leaders of a five-year armed insurrection that left 600,000 people dead in the name of protecting white Americans' rights to own black Americans as slaves. What all the people portrayed in Statuary Hall have in common, with few exceptions, are two things: They are white, and they are men.

There is one Latino represented in the collection today. There are six American Indians, one Hawaiian, and zero African Americans. (Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. are both featured as part of a separate collection.) If it were any less diverse it would look like the Senate. But if the Architect of the Capitol is uncomfortable with the composition of its collection, it has an odd way of showing it. The biographies of the collection's most notorious members make no mention of their hard-earned legacies perpetuating and reinforcing a culture of white supremacy.

Dance wants all students to graduate bilingual - baltimoresun.com

Dance wants all students to graduate bilingual - baltimoresun.com: Baltimore County schools Superintendent Dallas Dance plans to issue digital devices to middle- and high-school students and wants all children in the school system to graduate bilingual, believing it will make them globally competitive, he said in the county's first state of the schools address Thursday.

"Earning a Baltimore County public schools diploma needs to have greater meaning," he told a crowd at Valley Mansion in Cockeysville.

The superintendent hopes to see kindergartners learning world languages and older students carrying electronic devices within the next five years, he said in an interview Thursday. He said he's unsure of what type of electronic tools that students would get because technology changes so quickly.

Budget cuts to hit Native American schools the hardest

Budget cuts to hit Native American schools the hardest: The mandatory, across-the-board budget cuts from the federal sequestration are causing little noticeable effect on most school campuses, but schools for Native Americans are already feeling the pinch.

Jacquelyn Power and her students have been living with less since last November. Power is both superintendent and principal of the tiny Blackwater Community School on Arizona's Gila River Indian Reservation, one of about 1,300 school districts nationwide that receives federal Impact Aid for schools that can't collect local property taxes. So they're preparing for a hard school year, perhaps one of the hardest since the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs built Blackwater in 1939.

"We have this amazing little school that is beating the odds," she said, "but you can't continue to keep it up with no funding."

BBC News - Yityish Aynaw: First black Miss Israel will go to the ball

BBC News - Yityish Aynaw: First black Miss Israel will go to the ball: When Yityish Aynaw arrived in Israel as a 12-year-old, winning beauty contests and dining with presidents was as far from her thoughts as her native Ethiopia is from her adopted land.

Her mother had just died, leaving her an orphan - her father had died years earlier. So her mother's parents, who were among thousands of Ethiopian Jews already living in Israel, arrived in Addis Ababa to fetch Yityish and her older brother.

In their new home, they had to learn Hebrew from scratch.

"It wasn't easy because I couldn't speak the language and I was put into a regular class without any help," Aynaw, now 21, told the BBC World Service.

At 'Stop-And-Frisk' Trial, Cops Describe Quota-Driven NYPD : NPR

At 'Stop-And-Frisk' Trial, Cops Describe Quota-Driven NYPD : NPR: Police officers testifying at a federal trial challenging New York City's stop-and-frisk policy say they were ordered to increase their number of arrests, summons and 250s — the code for stop, question and frisk.

Some 5 million street stops of mostly black and Latino men have taken place in the city in the last decade.

The city contends that the policy has helped make New York safer, leading to record-low crime rates, and that stop-and-frisks take place in areas where crime is often minority on minority. The plaintiffs argue the policy pressures police officers to increase their street stops and that supervisors and union reps cared only about numbers.

In opening statements, the city said there were safeguards in place and these were simply performance goals. Not so, said Jonathan Moore, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.

"This is about quotas. At the end of the day, it's about quotas," he said. "That's why there is such an epidemic in these communities of people getting stopped and frisked — because the police are told to get numbers, and they are not interested in the numbers of radio runs or how they help. They are interested in arrests, summons and 250s."

Joe Rickey Hundley, Delta Passenger Accused Of Slapping Toddler, Pleads Not Guilty

Joe Rickey Hundley, Delta Passenger Accused Of Slapping Toddler, Pleads Not Guilty: ATLANTA -- A man accused of slapping a toddler on an Atlanta-bound flight and using a racial slur has pleaded not guilty to assault in federal court.

Joe Rickey Hundley, of Hayden, Idaho, appeared in court Wednesday. Authorities say he used racial slur when telling a fellow passenger to quiet her baby and slapped the child. The incident unfolded Feb. 8 aboard a Delta Air Lines flight from Minneapolis.

Hundley's attorney, Marcia Shein, says the 60-year-old man has admitted to using the racial slur. She told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (http://bit.ly/XZLSXT) Hundley was traveling to Atlanta to take his only child off of life support after his son overdosed on insulin. She says Hundley was distraught during the flight.

Hundley is scheduled to appear again in court April 9.

CNN, MSNBC Criticized Over Lack Of Diversity In Recent Reshuffles

CNN, MSNBC Criticized Over Lack Of Diversity In Recent Reshuffles: Several commentators have recently noticed that, for all of the turnover in cable news these days, one thing is constant: the faces being shuffled around all seem to be white.

CNN chief Jeff Zucker recently toasted Jake Tapper, who has just started his show on the network, as "the face of the new CNN."

Richard Prince, the veteran journalist and longtime campaigner for diversity in the media, took to his "Journal-isms" column and wondered, "Why Is the Network's 'Face' Invariably White?" Television critic Eric Deggans also chimed in with a column entitled, "Cable News Is Still Unbearably White."

Prince and Deggans have a point: CNN, which recently let go of its most high-profile anchor of color, Soledad O'Brien, replaced her with a white man, Chris Cuomo. In the afternoons, Wolf Blitzer gave up one of his hours to another white man, Tapper. Though Zucker met with both the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalist to try to address their concerns, there has been no overt sign from CNN that it is considering bringing on any more anchors of color.

West Virginia paper’s anti-LGBT column wants death for ‘n*ggers, spics, kikes and wops’ | The Raw Story

West Virginia paper’s anti-LGBT column wants death for ‘n*ggers, spics, kikes and wops’ | The Raw Story: A newspaper in West Virginia is defending its decision to publish a reader’s racist and homophobic comments, which called for “queers” to be put to death along with “n*ggers, spics, kikes and wops.”

WCHS-TV reported on Wednesday that the Lincoln Journal had come under fire for printing a transcript of a reader’s voice mail comments in the “Gripe and Gratitudes” section of the paper.

The reader referenced a recent report about how the Lincoln County Board of Education had terminated lesbian teacher Kelli Burns from her job at Guyan Valley Middle School teacher after she accused board officials of forcing students to write complaints that she had tried to “turn them gay.”

Paternalism and Temple’s Enduring Black Studies Crisis - Higher Education

Paternalism and Temple’s Enduring Black Studies Crisis - Higher Education: Back in November, I blogged on the crisis in the Department of African-American Studies (DAAS) at Temple University. I would like to update you on what happened.

In the summer of 2012, Teresa Soufas, the dean of the College of Liberal Arts, rejected the department’s nomination for chair, distinguished dance professor Kariamu Welsh, to replace retiring long-time chair, Nathaniel Norment. It was a bitter pill for the department to swallow. Then, allegedly, the dean denied the department’s request for a line to hire an outside chair (a denial the dean said never happened). To top it off, Soufas placed the department in receivership, and appointed as interim chair, Jayne Drake, a White vice dean with no background in African-American studies.

In effect, as the doctoral program celebrates its 25-year anniversary, the department sits in the dreaded receivership, with no autonomy.

Calloway, UNCF Pitch in to Aid Emancipated Youth - Higher Education

Calloway, UNCF Pitch in to Aid Emancipated Youth - Higher Education: t was engrained in Vanessa Bell Calloway from the beginning: If you have, you give. A mother who stayed active in her community had the eyes of a young Calloway on her at all times, listening, taking in her philanthropy. It was all about her community, and as Calloway has matured into a successful actress, that sense has never left her.

“I was always brought up in a household that it didn’t matter how much you had, you had to donate your time, your services,” Calloway says.

It was her work in the community that brought Calloway into an alliance with the United Negro College Fund. UNCF continued to water the seed Calloway’s mother planted in her as a child and gave her the sense of urgency needed to make a change in someone else’s life. That change came in the form of Calloway’s foster daughter, Jhamasa Noel Lewis-Adams.

Teachers facing achievement gap try cross-race connections | Minnesota Public Radio News

Teachers facing achievement gap try cross-race connections | Minnesota Public Radio News: ST. PAUL, Minn. — All the bleak statistics about Minnesota's achievement gap became personal to fifth-grade teacher Jen Engel, when she realized that gap was playing out in her own classroom.

"It stares you right in the face. It's real."

Engel teaches at Echo Park Elementary School in Burnsville, where about half of the students are racial minorities, many of them struggling academically. The 43-year-old, who is white, has heard about the factors that can contribute to the racial achievement gap, including poverty, unstable living conditions and troubled families.

But she says those are no excuses for educators.

So Engel is one of several teachers who are learning how to be what educators describe as "culturally responsive" to her students as part of a Twin Cities program offered by St. Mary's University of Minnesota, whose main campuses are in Winona and Minneapolis.

Teaching Degree Minority Enrollment Lags, Study Shows - NYTimes.com

Teaching Degree Minority Enrollment Lags, Study Shows - NYTimes.com: Despite major changes in the racial makeup of American public school students, the people training to be teachers are still predominantly white.

According to a study being released Wednesday by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, which represents colleges and universities with teacher certification programs, 82 percent of candidates who received bachelor’s degrees in education in 2009-10 and 2010-11 were white.

By contrast, census figures show that close to half of all children under 5 in 2008 were members of a racial or ethnic minority.

“We’re finding that college-bound minority students have so many career options,” said Sharon P. Robinson, the president of the association. “We have to develop some specific recruitment strategies to attract our share of those students into those teacher education programs.”

Even in programs that award teaching certificates to candidates who do not obtain full education degrees, 76 percent of the students are white.

Hispanic segregation is dropping, but not for Mexicans

Hispanic segregation is dropping, but not for Mexicans: New research shows that the segregation of Hispanics from whites in communities across the USA has declined significantly for every Hispanic group except the largest: Mexicans.

Mexicans make up 60% of the nation's more than 50 million Hispanics and are so dominant they drown out distinct characteristics of non-Mexicans, according to a report out Wednesday from the US2010 project, which researches changes in American society.

Segregation is one measure of how well immigrants are assimilating into U.S. society and is part of the conversation in the debate over immigration. For decades, Hispanic segregation was not declining.

"We thought Hispanic segregation stayed the same because we couldn't see the rest of the picture," says Brown University sociologist John Logan, director of US2010 and co-author of the report. "This seeming stability masks important differences, because every group except Mexicans has become less segregated since 1990."

Do schools for ‘the gifted’ promote segregation?

Do schools for ‘the gifted’ promote segregation?: From Brown vs. Board of Education to Connecticut’s landmark case, Sheff v. O’Neill, to the language of the Connecticut constitution, the law has been clear. Children have a constitutionally guaranteed right to a public education that is not impaired by isolation based on race, ethnicity, national origin or disability. Therefore, it is unconstitutional to develop and fund education programs that intentionally or unintentionally limit access to educational opportunities based on racial or ethnic backgrounds, or disabilities.

Yet recently, it was announced that schools exclusively for “gifted” children will be opening in Windham, New London and Bridgeport. Whether intended or not, the proposal takes Connecticut back to the ugly era of school segregation.

These three districts plan to pull what they characterize as “gifted” children from their schools and create separate schools “to highlight and encourage the potential” of these particular students. The schools are modeled after the Renzulli Academy in Hartford, named for University of Connecticut professor Joseph Renzulli, and serving “gifted” children in kindergarten and in fourth through ninth grades.

Women Making Greater Strides Toward Executive Office - Higher Education

Women Making Greater Strides Toward Executive Office - Higher Education: On paper, there’s every indication that this woman was destined to be leading a university. A good chunk of Dr. Marie Foster Gnage’s career in higher education was filled with migrations from one position to the next, each elevating her to the next career rung at institutions from Mississippi to New Jersey.

Fresh out of graduate school, she started out on the faculty side as an instructor at Alcorn State University before moving to Florida A&M University in Tallahassee and up to an assistant professor of English. Then she decided to give community college administration a try, first becoming a department chair at Central Florida Community College in Ocala, Fla. Landing that position, which also allowed her to teach, kept her moving on the administration track. She enjoyed the work and the new challenges each position brought, but even then, there was no real plan for where any of them would lead.

Report finds ‘many obstacles to achieving equality’ for black federal employees - The Washington Post

Report finds ‘many obstacles to achieving equality’ for black federal employees - The Washington Post: Imagine Uncle Sam officiating a track meet where one team has a clear inside lane, while the others have to jump one hurdle after another.

That’s the image invoked by an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission report that cites “many obstacles to achieving equality for African Americans in the federal workforce.”

One big problem is federal agencies do too little to enforce laws and regulations against racial bias within their own shops.
Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which oversees federal workplace issues, said “one of the most significant problems is that federal agencies simply do not follow the law. Too few agencies have comprehensive diversity and inclusion plans required by Executive Order 13583, and too many agencies fail to comply with EEOC directives. In addition, the EEOC itself has suffered from long-term underfunding and understaffing over the past decade, and these problems will now be exacerbated by sequestration.”

Creating a More Successful College Experience for Black Students - Higher Education

Creating a More Successful College Experience for Black Students - Higher Education: In order for Black students, who are traditionally marginalized and excluded, to enter higher education and succeed, they need to learn how to participate fully in the academic environment. Oftentimes these students start college, but leave during the first semester because they feel as if they cannot make it in the White-dominated college environment.

They enter the environment mostly under prepared, and their dreams of earning a degree quickly fade as the realization of higher education’s expectations upon them are difficult, if impossible to meet and they end up becoming part of the some 30% of minority college students who enter college but do not earn their degrees.

Burke and Johnston suggest that in order to tame the violent flames of inequity in educational accessibility, we first need to begin to prepare students early for a postsecondary academic environment. This does suggest that teachers in elementary, middle and high school need to expect that all of their students will enter postsecondary education and teach accordingly. Next, they suggest that college faculty need to transform their experiences and expectations by including the Black students and engaging them during instruction.

Latino Blueprint Offers New Ideas for Financial Aid Policy - Higher Education

Latino Blueprint Offers New Ideas for Financial Aid Policy - Higher Education: With the Higher Education Act (HEA) up for renewal this year, a leading Hispanic education organization is seeking to shake up current thinking about federal policy with a collection of new ideas that would re-imagine student financial aid for college.

In a new report, Excelencia in Education proposes to allow students to change the financial aid formula for work-study, allow students to use financial aid for remedial courses and require that students file financial aid forms at the same time they apply to college.

“Effective financial aid policy means more than just money,” says Deborah Santiago, Excelencia in Education vice president for policy and research. “It also means re-imagining aid to serve students well.”

'White Student Union' Members Defend CPAC Segregation Comments (VIDEO)

'White Student Union' Members Defend CPAC Segregation Comments (VIDEO): Two members of the White Student Union at Towson University in Maryland aren't backing down after advocating for racial segregation and defending slavery at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday.

K. Carl Smith of Frederick Douglass Republicans was giving a presentation at CPAC about how Republicans could reach out more effectively to minorities. Scott Terry, a member of the White Student Union, began challenging Smith about the inclusion of blacks in the GOP's tent, in an exchange captured by the liberal blog ThinkProgress that quickly spread around the Internet.

As seen in the video, Smith responds by citing a letter Frederick Douglass wrote in which he forgave his former owner. Terry interrupted and said, "For giving him shelter and food?" Several people in the audience gasp, though ThinkProgress notes there are also cheers. Terry muttered, "Why can't we just have segregation?" after the exchange, ThinkProgress reported.

Greek Soccer Star Banned for Life for Nazi Salute (He Says He Was Just Sayin’ Hey to a Friend) | TPM News

Greek Soccer Star Banned for Life for Nazi Salute (He Says He Was Just Sayin’ Hey to a Friend) | TPM News: A 20-year-old Greek soccer player has been banned for life from Greece’s national teams for throwing up a Nazi salute after scoring a game-winning goal on Saturday.

Giorgos Katidis maintains he didn’t know what the Nazi salute meant, and was merely pointing at a teammate in the stands. (Hitler.) According to the Guardian, he described himself as “not a fascist” on Twitter before deleting his account.

Katidis’ coach Ewald Lienen (incidentally: a German) defended his player’s total lack of self-awareness, historical knowledge, and general brainpower, saying it was very likely that this adult human being who had grown up in the world had no idea what a Nazi salute looked like or stood for.

What “most likely” happened, according to Lienen, is that Katidis saw a picture of the move on the Internet one night while performing a Google Image search for “cool moves to do —no context,” then blindly copied it.

Lawsuit Over NYPD's 'Stop And Frisk' Program Heads To Court : NPR

Lawsuit Over NYPD's 'Stop And Frisk' Program Heads To Court : NPR: A major lawsuit challenging the New York Police Department's use of warrantless stops in high-crime neighborhoods goes to federal court Monday.

Critics say the NYPD's practice — known as stop and frisk — is an unconstitutional invasion of privacy. But defenders say it is legal and has helped make New York City safer than it's been in 50 years.

The case, Floyd, et al. v. City of New York, et al., is a class-action suit, so the stories of the plaintiffs are all different. But they do have some basic things in common.

"I remember squad cars pulling up. They just pulled up aggressively, and the cops came out with their guns drawn," says Nicholas Peart, one of the plaintiffs. "I think it left me embarrassed, humiliated and upset — all three things rolled up into one."

"[They] threw me up against the wall, took everything out of my pockets, threw it on the floor, dumped my bag on the floor, my books and everything," says David Ourlicht, another plaintiff. "I had the guns to the back of my head. Like, I didn't want to look up or move because there were so many guns drawn. It's scary."

El N.B.A.: Insulting Latino Names or Smart Marketing? - NYTimes.com

El N.B.A.: Insulting Latino Names or Smart Marketing? - NYTimes.com: Every March the N.B.A. reaches out to the country’s fastest growing minority with Noche Latina, a campaign to celebrate Hispanic heritage. And every March some bloggers criticize the league for its most visual and commercial aspect: the jerseys worn by certain teams. Instead of translating team names like Heat (Calor) or Bulls (Toros), the N.B.A. simply puts a definite article in front, for a Spanglish touch, with El Heat and Los Bulls.

“Does the N.B.A. really think fans would be baffled by ‘Los Toros,’ ” asked one blogger. “It’s like saying, ‘Yeah, I speako Espanol.’ La N.B.A. can do better.”

Another complained, “Why the league would go to such lengths to pander to a certain demographic, yet insult everyone’s intelligence during the process … Toros vs. Espuelas sounds intriguing … and also conveys a more committed stance to the Noche Latina theme.”

Gender Bias Seen in Visas for Skilled Workers - NYTimes.com

Gender Bias Seen in Visas for Skilled Workers - NYTimes.com: The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to hear testimony Monday afternoon arguing that the H-1B visa program, which covers highly skilled temporary foreign workers, often in high-tech fields, discriminates against women.

Karen Panetta, the vice president for communications and public awareness for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in the United States of America, will testify that “the vast majority of H-1B workers are men,” according to her prepared remarks.

Ms. Panetta’s testimony points to “a serious gender imbalance in science, technology, engineering and math” as part of the reason that these H-1B visas in high-tech fields skew disproportionately toward men. But she also adds, “If a major immigration program effectively discriminated based on race or national origin, would that be O.K.?”

Study: Female Science Professors Underrepresented on Corporate Scientific Advisory Boards - Higher Education

Study: Female Science Professors Underrepresented on Corporate Scientific Advisory Boards - Higher Education: Research universities can play a proactive role in reducing the discrimination female professors confront in commercial science activities from starting new firms to serving on corporate scientific advisory boards, a forthcoming study on female underrepresentation on corporate scientific advisory boards (SABs) contends.

In the study, From Bench to Board: Gender Differences in University Scientists’ Participation in Corporate Scientific Advisory Boards, co-authors Dr. Waverly Ding of the University of Maryland-College Park, Dr. Fiona Murray of MIT and Dr. Toby E. Stuart of the University of California Berkeley write that there are “specific areas in which university administrators may have some leverage to remediate the gender gap” that are documented by the co-authors in their analysis. The co-authors assert that universities can boost the visibility and experience of female professors by facilitating their involvement with the school’s technology transfer office.

Theater Talkback: How to Offend a White Person - NYTimes.com

Theater Talkback: How to Offend a White Person - NYTimes.com: For years people have tried to find a slur for white Americans as evocative and offensive as the N-word is for African-Americans. And, frankly, there aren’t many classics to choose from. Honky, whitey, cracker, hillbilly: they all fall flat.

The problem is, “white” refers to so many different types of people that a reference to it as skin color has no negative historical relevance in this country. Sure, calling someone white implies that he or she is a bad dancer, not cool or watches too much “Downton Abbey.” But to find something even close to the power of the N-word you have to use well-known slurs that refer specifically to heritage or race. I’m lucky. I’m half Greek and the only slur I could find about my people was “olive picker,” which, honestly, I think is nice. At least it means I’m employed.

I was thinking about this because I have play, “Honky,” that opened on March 14 at Urban Stages. It’s a dark comedy about a commercial that glorifies black gang violence in an effort to sell basketball shoes to white teens. When a black teenager is murdered for the shoes, the shoe designer, who is black, promises revenge.

Game Of Change: Pivotal Matchup Helped End Segregated Hoops : NPR

Game Of Change: Pivotal Matchup Helped End Segregated Hoops : NPR: During the March Madness of 1963, playing was infused with politics. The NCAA matchup between Loyola University of Chicago and Mississippi State helped put an end to segregated basketball. Loyola's win 50 years ago became known as the "game of change."

At the time, college basketball was still predominantly white, with usually no more than two or three black players appearing on the floor at any one time. But in '63, the Loyola Ramblers' starting lineup featured four black players.

During the opening round of the NCAA tournament, the Ramblers blew past their opponent. The next showdown would be with the Mississippi State Maroons, now known as the Bulldogs. Loyola captain Jerry Harkness, an African-American, says that's when the hate mail started pouring in.

A Debt-Free Approach to Graduate Education for African-Americans - Higher Education

A Debt-Free Approach to Graduate Education for African-Americans - Higher Education: African-Americans bear a disproportionate amount of consumer debt in our nation’s economy. The wealth gap between African-Americans and average Americans continues to widen. One way to close that gap is through higher education.

The pursuit of graduate education increases the likelihood of even greater earning potential; however, more student loan debt can be a barrier to African-American students’ pursuit of graduate enrollment and completion and adversely impact their financial futures.

In a recent presentation to attendees of the American Association of Blacks in Higher Education’s (AABHE) Annual Conference, husband and wife finance gurus Bradley and Bonita Vinson exhorted that financial empowerment is the key to financial success. As the proprietors of Vinson Financial Consulting Services and creators of Your Personal Economy Financial Empowerment Seminars, Bradley and Bonita shared the fallacy of credit, the harmful effects of debt, how to get out of debt, and offered debt-free options to pursue when seeking advanced degrees.

Behind Soda Industry’s Win, a Phalanx of Sponsored Minority Groups - NYTimes.com

Behind Soda Industry’s Win, a Phalanx of Sponsored Minority Groups - NYTimes.com: The decision by a New York State judge striking down the Bloomberg administration’s ban on large, sugary drinks this week was not just a high-profile victory for the soda companies in their pitched battle against anti-obesity policies that are aimed at their products. It was also a victory for the industry’s steadfast, if surprising, allies: advocacy groups representing the very communities hit hardest by the obesity epidemic.

Dozens of Hispanic and African-American civil rights groups, health advocacy organizations and business associations have joined the beverage industry in opposing soda regulation around the country in recent years, arguing that such measures — perhaps the greatest regulatory threat the soft-drink industry has ever faced — are discriminatory, paternalistic or ineffective. 

Many of these groups have something else in common: They are among the recipients of tens of millions of dollars from the beverage industry that has flowed to nonprofit and educational organizations serving blacks and Hispanics over the last decade, according to a review by The New York Times of charity records and other documents.

In Montgomery schools, achievement gap widens in some areas, drawing criticism - The Washington Post

In Montgomery schools, achievement gap widens in some areas, drawing criticism - The Washington Post: he achievement gap that separates white and Asian students from black and Latino students has grown wider in Montgomery County in several measures of academic success, according to a report released Tuesday.

The 130-page report points to progress in five of 11 performance indicators in recent years. The school system improved on gaps in school readiness and high school graduation, for example. But disparities widened in advanced-level scores for state math exams in third, fifth and eighth grades. There were mixed results in two categories.

The report, by the County Council’s Office of Legislative Oversight, presents a complex portrait touching on race, disability and income in one of the nation’s higher-performing school systems — and Maryland’s largest. It comes as budget tensions ratchet up in Montgomery, with the achievement gap emerging as a flash point for some elected leaders concerned about groups of students being left behind even as the county spends about 50 percent of its operating budget on the school system.

Sequestration: HBCUs Cast a Worried Eye at Title III and Student Aid Funding - Higher Education

Sequestration: HBCUs Cast a Worried Eye at Title III and Student Aid Funding - Higher Education: For years, Historically Black Colleges and Universities or HBCUs have boasted that they can do more with less. But sequestration could reduce the coffers of institutions that already have few resources.

Across-the-board cuts in federal spending would reduce Title III funds by 5 percent. In fiscal 2011, 95 of the schools received approximately $237 million in Title III Part B funds. The money underwrites a host of programs: student services, faculty and staff development, construction and improvement of campus facilities, and outreach programs that prepare students for college

Work study and other student aid would take a similar hit. The latter could have students scrambling to make tuition—a crucial source of revenue for the country’s 105 HBCUs.

Marybeth Gasman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who studies HBCUs, said the schools would be hard-pressed to come up with extra money for those programs.

“(HBCUs) would have to immediately start looking for other funding in order to keep some of their student-success-related programs working at full speed,” she said.

Gasman also blogs for Diverse Issues in Higher Education.

School ‘resegregation’ cited in study - The Washington Post

School ‘resegregation’ cited in study - The Washington Post: Latino students, the largest minority group in Northern Virginia, are attending increasingly segregated schools, according to a report released Tuesday that examines enrollment patterns across the state over the past two decades.

Nearly four out of five Latino students were enrolled in predominantly minority schools in 2010, according to the analysis by the Civil Rights Project, based at the University of California Los Angeles. About 7 percent of those students went to schools where fewer than 10 percent of students were white and a large majority of students came from poverty.

“When we look at school enrollment today, it’s no longer a black and white story; it’s a very multiracial one,” said Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and lead author of the report. “But alongside that growing diversity, there are also persistent patterns of segregation.”
The analysis is the first in a series of 12 reports examining school segregation in Northeastern and mid-Atlantic states more than 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education made school segregation illegal.

Arizona's Law Banning Mexican-American Studies Curriculum Is Constitutional, Judge Rules

Arizona's Law Banning Mexican-American Studies Curriculum Is Constitutional, Judge Rules: A court upheld most provisions of an Arizona state law used to prohibit a controversial Mexican-American Studies curriculum in Tucson on Friday.

The ruling dealt a blow to supporters of the suspended classes, who had hoped the courts would overturn a 2010 law championed by Arizona conservatives determined to shut down the unconventional courses.

“I was really surprised at the decision,” Jose Gonzalez, a former teacher of Tucson's suspended Mexican-American Studies classes, told The Huffington Post. “But as a student and teacher of history, I know in civil rights cases like this there’s always setbacks.”

The experimental Tucson curriculum was offered to students in different forms in some of the local elementary, middle and high schools. It emphasized critical thinking and focused on Mexican-American literature and perspectives. Supporters lauded the program, pointing to increased graduation rates, high student achievement and a state-commissioned independent audit that recommended expanding the classes.

Students Discuss STEM Involvement at N.C. A&T Forum - Higher Education

Students Discuss STEM Involvement at N.C. A&T Forum - Higher Education: North Carolina A&T held its fifth annual Urban Education Institute March 7-9. The theme for the convention was Improving STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) Success in Communities of Color. The three-day event drew educators from universities such as Harvard, Rutgers and Howard as well as more than 100 high school students from all over North Carolina to discuss strategies for drawing more minorities into STEM-related fields of study.

After two days of sitting in plenary sessions with experts like Penn State’s Jose Fuentes and Syracuse’s George M. Langford, the students took center stage as the program drew to a close. Six students, ranging from a high school freshman to second-year graduate school students, spoke about their experiences in STEM studies and shed some light on where they felt the future of their field might be headed.

High school senior Gerrell Bynum’s initiation into STEM studies came out of a desire to know how the video games he loved worked.

A century after Harriet Tubman died, scholars try to separate fact from fiction - The Washington Post

A century after Harriet Tubman died, scholars try to separate fact from fiction - The Washington Post: After her death exactly a century ago, Harriet Tubman was relegated to the ranks of children’s literature — more legend than woman, remembered as a Moses who ushered her people to freedom.

Tubman’s bravery during the Civil War was overlooked, while her exploits in the network of forests, private homes and other hiding places that made up the Underground Railroad have often been exaggerated by those wishing to tell a story of courage amid the savagery of slavery.

Today, though, American scholars are developing a deeper understanding of this onetime slave and Maryland native.
“Much like Lincoln, she’s ready for a new rendition,” said Kate Clifford Larson, author of a 2003Tubman biography. “She should be remembered in all of her full dimensions, as a mother, as a daughter, as a wife who got replaced and a woman who [later] married a man who was 20 years younger than she was.” By rediscovering the woman behind the legend, historians aim to offer a better understanding not only of slavery, but also of the power of an individual to make a difference.

Harriet Tubman park to be on Maryland land she worked as a slave - baltimoresun.com

Harriet Tubman park to be on Maryland land she worked as a slave - baltimoresun.com: Abolitionist Harriet Tubman's struggle to help roughly 70 slaves escape to freedom using the Underground Railroad was remembered on Saturday at the groundbreaking of a Maryland state park in her honor.

An escaped slave herself, Tubman toiled in bondage on the land that will soon be the 17-acre Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park on the Eastern Shore.

Construction of the park on open marshland and forests in Dorchester County marks the 100-year anniversary of the abolitionist leader's death.

It also coincides with the opening of the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway, a 125-mile drive with more than 30 historical stops related to Tubman's early life and the Underground Railroad. Highlights include the Mason-Dixon Line, a one-room school, a historic village store with artifacts from the 1800s and, eventually, the new Harriet Tubman park itself.

Police Chief's Polygraph Targets Racist Applicants - ABC News

Police Chief's Polygraph Targets Racist Applicants - ABC News: A police chief hired to rebuild a tiny Tennessee department dismantled by scandal is using a lie-detector test to keep racists off his force.

Coopertown Police Chief Shane Sullivan took over the department in November, becoming the 11th chief in as many years. He was hired on the heels of a series of police scandals that for a few months left Coopertown with no police at all. Years before that, a mayor was voted out of office after the local prosecutor accused him of racism and running a notorious speed trap.

Law enforcement experts say Sullivan's polygraph approach is unusual, though some departments use the devices for other purposes during the application process. Others try to root out bias in other ways. One polygraph expert warned that lie detectors can't accurately predict racism for reasons that include people's inability to recognize their own racism.

Report Shows Bleak Progress in Improving African Women’s Health

Report Shows Bleak Progress in Improving African Women’s Health: LONDON — Women are responsible for up to 80 percent of all food production in Africa, but they bear a disproportionately large share of the global burden of disease and death, according to a World Health Organization report launched in London on Friday, coinciding with International Women’s Day.

“The African region is making very slow progress towards improved women's health," said Dr. Luis Gomes Sambo, World Health Organization's director for Africa.

WHO's new report, “Addressing the Challenges of Women’s Health in Africa,” surveys a range of statistical information about women’s health in Africa, and the picture it paints is bleak.

Maternal mortality is a major concern. The region accounts for more than half of all maternal deaths worldwide. In sub-Saharan Africa a woman’s lifetime chance of dying as a result of childbirth is 1 in 42. Compare that to Europe, where the rate is about 1 in 2,900.

ABOUT INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY (8 March)

International Women's Day has been observed since in the early 1900's, a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialized world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies.

1908
Great unrest and critical debate was occurring amongst women. Women's oppression and inequality was spurring women to become more vocal and active in campaigning for change. Then in 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights.

1909
In accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, the first National Woman's Day (NWD) was observed across the United States on 28 February. Women continued to celebrate NWD on the last Sunday of February until 1913.

1910
n 1910 a second International Conference of Working Women was held in Copenhagen. A woman named a Clara Zetkin (Leader of the 'Women's Office' for the Social Democratic Party in Germany) tabled the idea of an International Women's Day. She proposed that every year in every country there should be a celebration on the same day - a Women's Day - to press for their demands. The conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, representing unions, socialist parties, working women's clubs, and including the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament, greeted Zetkin's suggestion with unanimous approval and thus International Women's Day was the result.

What is International Women’s Day? ( video) - CSMonitor.com

What is International Women’s Day? ( video) - CSMonitor.com: After more than 100 years, International Women’s Day draws millions to commemorate the advancements made in human rights and to discuss the challenges women continue to face in politics, education, employment, and other areas of daily life.

However, International Women’s Day originally commemorated the working rights protests led by female garment workers. Many seem to forget the holiday’s ties to the working rights movement in the United States and the Socialist Party.

The origins of the holiday can be traced back to March 8, 1857, when garment workers in New York City staged a protest against inhumane working conditions and low wages, according to the United Nations. The police attacked the protesters and dispersed them, but the movement continued and led to the creation of the first women’s labor union.