Latinos Said to Bear Weight of a Deportation Program - NYTimes.com

Latinos Said to Bear Weight of a Deportation Program - NYTimes.com: A deportation program that is central to the Obama administration’s immigration enforcement strategy has led disproportionately to the removal of Latino immigrants and to arrests by immigration authorities of hundreds of United States citizens, according to a report by two law schools using new, in-depth official data on deportation cases.

The report also found that about a third of around 226,000 immigrants who have been deported under the program, known as Secure Communities, had spouses or children who were United States citizens, suggesting a broad impact from those removals on Americans in Latino communities.

National Science Foundation Reports Low Minority Representation on STEM Faculties

National Science Foundation Reports Low Minority Representation on STEM Faculties: While the number of minority students who have earned doctorates in science, engineering and health has steadily risen over the past two decades, minority doctoral holders are still poorly represented as faculty members within the ranks of American academe.

That’s the key finding of a new brief from the National Science Foundation, or NSF, titled “Academic Institutions of Minority Faculty with Science, Engineering and Health Doctorates.”

“Both minority doctorate numbers and minority faculty numbers remain low, especially in the leading research institutions,” the brief states. “Data on SEH doctorate recipients show that Blacks, Hispanics, and American Indians/Alaska Natives, as a group, earned about 3,300 SEH doctorates from U.S. universities in 2008, 9 percent of all SEH doctorates. Asians earned about 10,900 SEH doctorates in 2008, 31 percent of all SEH doctorates, most of which (81 percent) were earned by temporary visa holders.”

Mentoring Program Serves Young Women in Business

Mentoring Program Serves Young Women in Business: A new program to boost the number of women in corporate boardrooms is tapping 100 executives from top businesses in New York to mentor young women.

The effort to increase the number of high-level female executives was announced Monday at a New York City event hosted by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Executives from IBM, Citigroup, Time-Warner and Macy's will volunteer for the program, which will start next month and will be open to women who are between two and seven years out of college.

Partnership for New York City chief executive officer Kathryn Wylde, who took part in the announcement, said that though there are many women in business, they don't have the same professional networks that help young male executives on the rise.

RX for Success: Xavier Ranks Among the Top Producers of Black Students Accepted by Medical School

RX for Success: Xavier Ranks Among the Top Producers of Black Students Accepted by Medical School: Even on the sixth anniversary of the hurricane that buckled the Crescent City in 2005, left much of Xavier University of New Orleans under water and its faculty and students scattered by the rushing winds, Dr. JW Carmichael didn’t expect to be talking that morning about Katrina. For him it was a horrific storm that nearly drowned a hundred dreams as his students prepared their applications for medical school.



But on Katrina’s anniversary, Carmichael and his team of two pre-med advisors were off and running, readying this year’s 359 new pre-med majors for where they planned to land in the year 2015 — medical school — and inching Xavier’s juniors and seniors closer to taking and acing the penultimate exam of their undergraduate career — the Medical College Admission Test, or MCAT.

Groups Mobilize To Stop Cuts for Minority-Serving Schools

Groups Mobilize To Stop Cuts for Minority-Serving Schools: Many of the nation’s leading higher education groups — from community colleges to the National Collegiate Athletic Association — are urging Congress to reject a House of Representatives plan that would cut spending for Black, Hispanic-serving, tribal and other minority-serving colleges by more than 40 percent next year.

A coalition of 37 organizations says the 2012 plan from a House spending panel would make “drastic cuts” that will have “a disastrous effect on minority students’ college participation and completion” at a time when the federal government wants to raise college success rates.

“Cuts of this magnitude would devastate the campuses that receive this funding and the students who depend on it,” the group said in letters to all House and Senate members.

Director: We can change the world – The CNN Freedom Project: Ending Modern-Day Slavery - CNN.com Blogs

Director: We can change the world – The CNN Freedom Project: Ending Modern-Day Slavery - CNN.com Blogs: A powerful, new documentary film depicting the horrifying and dangerous practices of human trafficking and modern slavery on a global scale airs this weekend on CNN.

Oscar-nominated director Robert Bilheimer says the movie could be key to unlocking public awareness and calls for action.

"People do not recoil from this. They are angered by it and horrified by it. I think it's genuinely possible that we can move the dime on this, that we can put this in the forefront of the public consciousness. That's all you need," he said.

Filmed on five continents over four years, "Not My Life" shows survivors and anti-traffickers with dignity and compassion, and depicts the unspeakable practices of traffickers.

"Not My Life" features inspiring testimony from survivors; depictions of trafficking, exploitation, and slavery in all parts of the world including forced labor in Africa, street begging and garbage picking in India, sexual trafficking in the United States and Southeast Asia, and various forms of child enslavement and abuse in both North and South America.

When Color Is Reflected in a Janitor’s Outfit - Studied - NYTimes.com

When Color Is Reflected in a Janitor’s Outfit - Studied - NYTimes.com: ...According to a new study by an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Tufts, Stanford and the University of California, Irvine, people judge other people’s race using cues that extend well beyond skin color and facial features. “Looking white” or “looking black” is freighted with cultural perceptions and social prejudice.

The study involved experiments in which participants were asked to determine the race of different faces, which were scaled in 13 skin tones along a spectrum from black to white. In some cases, the person was shown with a business suit on; in others, with a blue-collar janitorial outfit. The question was whether people wearing janitor attire would more likely be viewed as black. The answer: Yes.

Using a mouse-tracking analysis, researchers found that even when users decided a man dressed as a janitor was white, the speed and path in which they moved their mouse to the “white” button was slower and veered closer toward the “black” button than when the same man was dressed in a business suit. The more racially ambiguous the face, the more pronounced the results.

College Diversity Nears Its Last Stand - NYTimes.com

College Diversity Nears Its Last Stand - NYTimes.com: ...Diversity is the last man standing, the sole remaining legal justification for racial preferences in deciding who can study at public universities. Should the Supreme Court disavow it, the student body at the University of Texas and many other public colleges and universities would almost instantly become whiter and more Asian, and less black and Hispanic.

A judicial retreat from diversity would be deeply symbolic, too. The term — a gauzy, unobjectionable way to talk about the combustible topic of race — has had a remarkable run. If the diversity rationale falls apart in university admissions, it could start to test the societal commitment to it in other arenas, notably private hiring and promotion.

Atlanta students' inspirational journey to MLK Jr. monument – USATODAY.com

Atlanta students' inspirational journey to MLK Jr. monument – USATODAY.com: WASHINGTON – The students from the Coretta Scott King Young Women's Leadership Academy in Atlanta live in one of the geographical centers of the civil rights movement. The Rev. Bernice King, daughter of their school's namesake and Martin Luther King Jr., visits so regularly that the girls call her a big sister.

But even with that exposure, the nine middle- and high-school girls arriving in Washington on Friday morning on Amtrak could barely contain their giggles as they began what will be a historic weekend.

Bernice King and Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., former Freedom Rider and one of King's disciples, met the girls on the platform at Union Station to help them start a trip that will include Sunday's dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial. The star-studded four-hour event will feature President Obama, Aretha Franklin and civil rights leaders.

Grandmaster Maurice Ashley promotes chess for children in D.C. - The Washington Post

Grandmaster Maurice Ashley promotes chess for children in D.C. - The Washington Post: A good chess match can be hard to find for an international grandmaster, so Maurice Ashley has spent most of his career growing his own competition.

Since becoming the first African American to win the elite title in 1999 according to the U.S. Chess Federation, the Jamaican-born New Yorker has traveled the country to promote the game of kings as a game for children.

He came to Washington this week to square off against 30 young chess players simultaneously on 30 chessboards in an exhibition organized by the District-based U.S. Chess Center.

“It’s great to see these kids who think they have a chance,” he said before heading in to face anxious students in school uniforms lined up in front of checkered boards. More and more kids do, he said. “I don’t give them any games, though. They have to beat me.”

Alabama Immigration Law Partially Blocked

Alabama Immigration Law Partially Blocked: Most provisions of a harsh Alabama immigration law were blocked by a federal appeals court on Friday, ending their enforcement until the court can determine whether the law violates the Constitution.

The law, H.B. 56, allows police and some government officials to demand proof of legal status if they have "reasonable suspicion" a person may be in the country illegally. While Alabama police will still be able to detain people they determine are in the country illegally, they will no longer be allowed to stop people they believe to be undocumented immigrants based on "reasonable suspicion."

The decision came after a lawsuit was brought by the Justice Department, contending that the law pre-empted federal immigration law and could lead to racial profiling. The law was upheld by a federal judge in September, allowing it to go into effect.

N.Y. State Presses City on English Language Learners - NYTimes.com

N.Y. State Presses City on English Language Learners - NYTimes.com: New York City schools are broadly failing to meet the needs of many of their thousands of students who are still learning English, and they must improve or they may face sanctions, state education officials announced Wednesday.

“Clearly the services are poor, and the best indication of that are the student outcomes,” John B. King Jr., the state education commissioner, said in a news conference by video link from Albany.

As a measure of the problem, he said, in 2010 only 7 percent of the city’s English language learners were found to have graduated on time and ready for college and careers. In the lower grades, 12 percent were proficient in English and 35 percent in math, well behind city averages.

“These numbers are not acceptable,” Dr. King said. “We can’t leave so many students behind academically without access to college and career opportunities.”

Commentary: We Have a Monument – But What Else?

Commentary: We Have a Monument – But What Else?: At the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial recently, Georgetown Professor Christopher Metzler talked with some fifth- to eighth-grade students.

“Their knowledge of Dr. King was superficial at best,” he told me. “They said he stopped discrimination from happening. That’s the extent of it, and I find that deeply troubling.”

At least, they didn’t confuse Dr. King with being a medical doctor.

As the memorial gets its official unveiling on Sunday, the 30-foot monument seems to dwarf some bitter realities. Many people, including the young, have less of an understanding of what King stood for than we care to admit. Far worse is that, overall, America’s record, in terms of society’s achieving Dr. King’s dream, puts us nowhere near anyone’s notion of a “Promised Land.”

More than 40 years after his death, we still get the dream part. We just haven’t been able to translate it into a full reality.

Stephen Anderson, Ex NYPD Cop: We Planted Evidence, Framed Innocent People To Reach Quotas

Stephen Anderson, Ex NYPD Cop: We Planted Evidence, Framed Innocent People To Reach Quotas: ...Hundreds of hours of tape reveal how bosses threatened street cops if they don’t make enough stop-and-frisk arrests, “but also tell them not to take certain robbery reports in order to manipulate crime statistics,” according to the Voice. “The tapes also refer to command officers calling crime victims directly to intimidate them about their complaints.” (The popular public radio show, This American Life, did an in-depth feature on the padded stats in the Brooklyn precinct and the organized intimidation of the officer who was trying to blow the whistle.)

According to the DPA, the NYPD has recently come under fire recently for the arrests of more than 50,000 people last year for low-level marijuana offenses – 86% of whom are black and Latino – making marijuana possession the number one offense in the City. The group is also critical of the NYPD’s controversial stop-and-frisk practice.

The marijuana arrests, the group says, are the result of “illegal searches” by the NYPD, as part of stop-and-frisks.

Duke Endowment Awards $35 Million to Johnson C. Smith University

Duke Endowment Awards $35 Million to Johnson C. Smith University: The North Carolina-based Duke Endowment announced Wednesday that it is awarding $35 million to Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU). The gift, which is slated to fund a $25 million Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM initiative, is believed to be one of the largest donations awarded to a historically Black college or university, officials say.

In addition, $5.5 million will be used to renovate the university’s Duke residence hall, and $4.5 million will fund student scholarships, the Charlotte Observer reported.

“I know there are the Harvards and the Dukes and the Yales,” JCSU president Ronald Carter told the Charlotte Observer. “But you know what, we have a blue ocean that is waiting for Johnson C. Smith University, and the Duke Endowment has made it possible to sail.”

Commentary: Derrick Bell’s ‘Working Faith’ for Academic Justice

Commentary: Derrick Bell’s ‘Working Faith’ for Academic Justice: When Derrick Bell passed away last week, the academy and the world did not merely lose a prodigious scholar, an exquisite legal mind and a magnetic personality. Injustice, racism, discrimination and sexism in higher education all lost one of its most zealous, longtime enemies. Diversity lost one of its fiercest patrons.

While conservatives and liberals moved American higher education in the post-Civil Rights/Black Power years to a discourse based on assumptions of significant racial progress for all, post-racism, and/or a color blind society, Bell tried to pull us back to the center of truth. When academics echoed the death or failing fitness of racism, Bell showcased its permanence. When intellectuals rejoiced over the moral overtures of White Americans, Bell maintained that they have generally only made overtures for self-interest.

White House Social Outreach to Asians, Pacific Islanders Expanding

White House Social Outreach to Asians, Pacific Islanders Expanding: As it begins its third year, the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (WHIAPPI) plans to expand its reach into more communities in need of federal programs and protections, officials say.

Those efforts will build upon those by the Initiative in helping to create and implement plans improving AAPI access to educational, health and economic services.

WHIAAPI executive director Kiran Ahuja notes that, when President Barack Obama re-established the Initiative and the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in October 2009, “we didn’t just face a small hill of problems, we faced a massive mountain of challenges. But we’ve clearly started to climb and make real progress for people across the country. We’ve opened doors for hundreds of thousands of people who need programs and services now more than ever.”

African cave yields paint from dawn of humanity - The Washington Post

African cave yields paint from dawn of humanity - The Washington Post: A hundred thousand years ago, not long after Homo sapiens emerged as a species, a craftsman — or woman — sat in a cave overlooking the Indian Ocean, crushed a soft rusty red rock, mixed it inside a shell with charcoal and animal marrow, and dabbed it on something — maybe a face, maybe a wall.

Before the person left, he or she stacked the shell and grindstones in a neat pile, where they lay undisturbed for a hundred millennia.

Unearthed in 2008 and described Friday in the journal Science, these paint “toolkits,” researchers say, push deeper into human history the evidence for artistic impulses and complex, planned behavior. Previously, the oldest evidence of ochre paint was found at another site in South Africa dated to about 60,000 years ago.

NPR Faces More Criticism Over Diversity

NPR Faces More Criticism Over Diversity: A year after NPR's controversial firing of Juan Williams, Joel Dreyfuss, a founding member of the National Association of Black Journalists, is charging that the network still has a huge "diversity problem."

In an open letter to the network's new CEO, Dreyfuss praised Gary Knell for for his reaction to the political fallout of a tumultuous year, but warned that that NPR's management and staff are still overwhelmingly white.

"Don't mistake the fiery exit of Williams as just a nasty personnel matter gone nuclear," he wrote. "His departure was a sad commentary on the monochromatic vision of many liberal institutions -- a disease that NPR has not escaped."

POEA probes plight of Maryland mentors | ABS-CBN News | Latest Philippine Headlines, Breaking News, Video, Analysis, Features

POEA probes plight of Maryland mentors | ABS-CBN News | Latest Philippine Headlines, Breaking News, Video, Analysis, Features: The Philippines' top labor export regulator has launched an investigation against Maryland's Prince George's County Public Schools (PGCPS) and its Filipino recruiter for allegedly violating the country's recruitment rules that placed about 800 Filipino teachers in jeopardy.

Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) chief Carlos Cao Jr. said they are suspending the PGCPS and Manila-based Arrowhead Manpower Resources Inc. from recruiting workers from the Philippines pending the investigation.

"We find strong prima facie evidence of violation," he said. "There exists reasonable ground to believe the continued deployment to employer Prince George's County Public Schools in Maryland will result to further exploitation of our overseas workers."

The US Labor Department earlier imposed a 2-year ban on PGCPS in hiring foreign teachers.

Graduates of Elite New York City Public Schools Tutor Students Seeking Admission - NYTimes.com

Graduates of Elite New York City Public Schools Tutor Students Seeking Admission - NYTimes.com: ...For more than a decade, the number of black and Hispanic students scoring high enough to be offered a seat at the city’s specialized high schools has been on the decline.

Last February, just 12 black and 13 Hispanic students were admitted to Stuyvesant High School, which had 3,287 students. At Brooklyn Technical High School, which is the largest of the elites and offered seats last school year to more black and Hispanic students than any other specialized high school, the percentages are dropping. During the 2010-11 school year, black students were about 11 percent of the school’s 5,140 students, a drop from 21 percent in 2002.

From Ricky Ricardo To Dora: Latinos On Television : NPR

From Ricky Ricardo To Dora: Latinos On Television : NPR: While Spanish has long had a recurring bit role on English-language television, it has slowly but surely become an integral part of the American soundtrack. Think Desi Arnaz on I Love Lucy, Freddie Prinze on Chico And The Man, Sofia Vergara on Modern Family. As part of our series, Two Languages, Many Voices: Latinos in the U.S., here's a look at a few highlights from the past six decades.

Immigrant Parents Rely On Kids For Help Online : NPR

Immigrant Parents Rely On Kids For Help Online : NPR: ...Of course, it's not unusual for younger generations to help adults with strange and challenging new technology. But when you add in the language barrier, that help becomes a crucial family responsibility. Vikki Katz, a professor at Rutgers University, has studied the way immigrant kids help their parents with technology.

"A lot of the resources immigrant families need the most are online, and sometimes they are only online," Katz says — things like visa forms and school applications and important everyday things, too, like finding a local business.

A Spanish speaker in Los Angeles looking for an orthopedist might go to Google.com and type in "oficina ortopedista Los Angeles." The top result is in Madrid.

"There's no excuse for us not doing a better job with this," says Trystan Upstill, an engineer at Google.

Poor kids still lose race despite better scores - Class Struggle - The Washington Post

Poor kids still lose race despite better scores - Class Struggle - The Washington Post: It has become fashionable for our most selective colleges to worry about becoming as representative of American diversity as suburban country clubs.

College admissions experts conferring at the University of Southern California this year were so alarmed that they suggested our most prestigious campuses add space for another 100 students in each class and fill those slots with low-income kids.

Why are our choosiest colleges so dominated by affluent white or Asian students? The explanations are many: not enough financial aid, inadequate preparation in inner-city high schools, poor students’ discomfort mixing with rich kids.

But a new study by researchers from the University of Michigan and the University of Arizona suggests something different. Great high schools and families like those in the Washington area may be at fault, at least in part. In the last 32 years, low-income students have significantly raised the grades and test scores that affect college admissions, but have made little headway because students from affluent families have improved even more.

Ken Salazar urges more Latino-themed national parks, sites - The Washington Post

Ken Salazar urges more Latino-themed national parks, sites - The Washington Post: With the nation’s Latino population booming and now the country’s largest minority group, the Obama administration’s top Hispanic official is concerned that the federal government is not giving enough attention to Hispanic history and culture.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in the past year has pushed the National Park Service to identify more sites or properties related to the histories of women and minorities that could be added to the National Register of Historic Places or be preserved as national parks or historic landmarks.

Report Provides Close Look at Diversity among Asian American, Pacific Islander Students

Report Provides Close Look at Diversity among Asian American, Pacific Islander Students: As immigration and population growth continue to reshape the demographic landscape of the United States, college and university leaders should pay closer attention to the growing number of their Asian-American and Pacific Islander students.

That was the crux of the message delivered Tuesday on Capitol Hill in conjunction with the release of the 2011 report of the National Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islander Research in Education, or CARE.

Among other things, the report, titled The Relevance of Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders in the College Completion Agenda , provides a more nuanced picture of the enrollment and degree completion rates of Asian-American and Pacific Islander students. Panelists contended that this group of students often gets lumped together as “Asians” and are often regarded as likely to do well in college because of notions of academic giftedness that are wrongly ascribed to all students of Asian descent.

Robert Johnson, First Black American Billionaire, Proposes Plan To Reduce Black Unemployment

Robert Johnson, First Black American Billionaire, Proposes Plan To Reduce Black Unemployment: As Congress moves toward a test vote on the Obama administration's jobs package, RLJ Companies CEO Robert Johnson is pushing a proposal that he says marshals the capacity of the nation's biggest companies to significantly reduce black unemployment.

Johnson has dubbed his idea the "RLJ Rule." It calls on U.S. Fortune 1000 companies to voluntarily consider a more diverse pool of qualified candidates when filling senior level job openings and hiring contractors. Johnson has described it as the business version of the National Football League's Rooney Rule, a 2003 mandate that required teams consider diverse candidate pools when filling senior positions.

A Look At Iowa's First Majority Hispanic Town : NPR

A Look At Iowa's First Majority Hispanic Town : NPR: One place the Hispanic population is growing is in the overwhelmingly white state of Iowa. The latest census figures show the Hispanic population, while only 5 percent of the state, has almost doubled since 2000.

 And one small town — West Liberty — is the first in Iowa to have a majority Hispanic population.

Downtown West Liberty, Iowa, is quintessentially Midwestern American, both quaint and historic, with brick buildings lining brick streets. A typical stroll involves walking past the bank, a renovated theater, a hair salon, restaurants and stores.West Liberty Mayor Chad Thomas says that unlike a lot of other small Midwestern towns that are dying, West Liberty is alive.

"I see a lot of businesses that are open, and not vacant storefronts," Thomas says. "Probably half of the businesses are Hispanic-owned.

Justice Breyer Honors Federal Judge Responsible for Helping Desegregate Virginia Schools

Justice Breyer Honors Federal Judge Responsible for Helping Desegregate Virginia Schools: Unlike politicians, judges cannot let popularity influence their decisions, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer said Thursday.

“Congress is the expert on popularity,'' Breyer told an invitation-only gathering of lawyers, judges and academics at the University of Richmond School of Law.

Breyer spoke at a ceremony dedicating the law school's moot courtroom in memory of the late U.S. District Judge Robert R. Merhige Jr., whose orders to desegregate Virginia's public schools in the early 1970s were highly unpopular among some Whites. Merhige required 24-hour security for a while. A cottage on his property was burned, and his dog was killed.

Breyer did not specifically mention those incidents in his speech, but he did cite the 1957 Little Rock Central High School desegregation crisis as an example of the courts—and, in this case, President Dwight D. Eisenhower—taking a stand that was unpopular among some at the time.

U.S.-Mexico Border Journalism Project Continues To Train Hispanics in Writing and Reporting

U.S.-Mexico Border Journalism Project Continues To Train Hispanics in Writing and Reporting: ...As an aspiring multimedia journalist, Perez was thrust from the classroom and into the larger El Paso community covering the sometimes violent, always exciting life of people on both sides of the United States-Mexico border.

“I really liked the fact that it (Borderzine) gave students the opportunity to go out there and write about what they had been learning,” says Perez, 33, now a staff reporter for the Statesman-Journal, the daily newspaper in Salem, Ore.

With an initial $15,000 seed grant from the Ford Foundation and soon afterward a four-year $400,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Borderzine is approaching its fifth anniversary with much to celebrate about its efforts to train aspiring Hispanic journalists using the populations on both sides of the nation’s 2,000-mile border with Mexico as its practical classroom.

Oakland Schools Expanding Free-Meal Programs - NYTimes.com

Oakland Schools Expanding Free-Meal Programs - NYTimes.com: On a recent Saturday morning, some 60 teachers and nurses from the Oakland Unified School District gathered at Tilden Education Complex for a daylong seminar on nutrition education.

...Recent figures from the United States Census Bureau revealed that Alameda County has a higher percentage of residents living in poverty than any of the other eight counties in the Bay Area. The county has high unemployment and low family incomes, and nearly 70 percent of students in the Oakland school district now qualify for free or reduced-priced meals at school.

California Measure Allows Tuition Aid for Illegal Immigrants - NYTimes.com

California Measure Allows Tuition Aid for Illegal Immigrants - NYTimes.com: SACRAMENTO (AP) — Illegal immigrants can now apply for state-financed scholarships and aid at state universities after Gov. Jerry Brown announced Saturday that he had signed the second half of a legislative package focused on such students.

The bill is the second half of the California Dream Act. Mr. Brown signed the first half of the package in July, which approved private scholarships and loans for students who are illegal immigrants.

Under current law, illegal immigrant students who have graduated from a California high school and can prove they are on the path to legalize their immigration status can pay resident tuition rates. The bill would allow these students to also apply for state aid.

Celebrating Desmond Tutu at 80 - CNN.com

Celebrating Desmond Tutu at 80 - CNN.com: Nobel laureate and peace activist Desmond Tutu celebrated his 80th birthday on Friday. The retired Anglican archbishop from South Africa was a key member of his country's anti-apartheid movement and has campaigned to fight AIDS, poverty and racism.

Chicago Program Aims to Create More Black and Hispanic Teachers - NYTimes.com

Chicago Program Aims to Create More Black and Hispanic Teachers - NYTimes.com: The gap between the number of minority teachers in Chicago’s public schools and minority student enrollment has widened over the last decade, but one school is working to change that by preparing the next generation of teachers.

At Wells Community Academy High School, where the racial breakdown of students is almost evenly split between African-Americans and Hispanics, more than 60 students are participating in a teacher training program that gets them to the front of the classroom years before most aspiring teachers.

Students enrolled in the Chicago Urban Teacher Academy at Wells participate in a four-year curriculum — in partnership with National Louis University — designed to focus on best practices in teaching. One day a week students work in classrooms at one of three nearby elementary schools — Peabody, Talcott or Moos. As soon as November, first-year students start conducting lessons, and will continue to do so throughout the four years.

Is Michelle Obama's 'Let's Move' Campaign Benefiting Black Children?

Is Michelle Obama's 'Let's Move' Campaign Benefiting Black Children?: With all eyes on POTUS and his long-awaited jobs speech, first-lady Michelle Obama's campaign against childhood obesity could be easily overlooked. A team of researchers from the University of Michigan have been keeping a close eye on the program, however, evaluating how on target it is in meeting its 2030 goal: to solve the epidemic of childhood obesity and return the country to it's pre-1970s rate of 5 percent.

In a recent University of Michigan study, published online in Obesity Journal, researchers evaluated the balance of prevention and treatment required to achieve The White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity's goal.

Nearly half of African-American youth report pressure to have sex: survey | LifeSiteNews.com

Nearly half of African-American youth report pressure to have sex: survey | LifeSiteNews.com: A new survey of African-American youth has found that almost half report considerable pressure to have sex. The results, which were derived from the answers of 1,500 youth ages 13-21, will be featured in the October issue of ESSENCE magazine, out on newsstands today.

“I was elated that Essence, a secular Black magazine, choose to even run the story along with the data,” said the founder of BlackGenocide.org Rev. Clenard Childress Jr. “The multiple images and lyrics and instruction [young African-Americans’] minds are exposed to can only result in ill advised sexual behavior.”

American Girl Moves Past Slavery, Introduces New African-American Doll

American Girl Moves Past Slavery, Introduces New African-American Doll: If you're familiar with the American Girl franchise, then you certainly know "Addy Walker," the single African-American character in the company's Historic Collection, and a former slave. Albeit educational, Addy's story -- of escaping slavery and looking for her father and brother who’ve been sold away -- is interesting entertainment for the eight-and-over set American Girl created it for.

Their latest character, Cecile Rey, "a bold, confident girl from a well-to-do African-American family," tells a different story. In a series of six books, set in 1850s New Orleans, Cecile Rey and her friend, Marie-Grace Gardner, form what American Girl calls "a unique bond through their shared love of music," and go on to help their community during the yellow fever epidemic that sweeps through New Orleans in 1853.

Early To Sleep, Early To Rise Lowers Obesity Risk For Kids: Study

Early To Sleep, Early To Rise Lowers Obesity Risk For Kids: Study: We already know that kids who don't get enough sleep are at a higher risk of putting on extra weight -- but a new study suggests that the time you go to bed and wake up could also make a difference.

A study of 2,200 Australian children and teens ages 9 to 16 shows that kids who go to bed late and wake up late have a 1.5 times higher risk of being obese than kids who go to bed early and wake up early.

However, researchers did note that the kids who slept late got the same amount of sleep in total as the kids who slept early, meaning that "the timing of the sleep is even more important," said study researcher Carol Maher, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow with the University of South Australia.

Perry’s Hunting Camp Puts Focus on U.S. Map’s Race-Based Names - NYTimes.com

Perry’s Hunting Camp Puts Focus on U.S. Map’s Race-Based Names - NYTimes.com: The onetime name of Gov. Rick Perry’s Texas hunting camp is currently the most famous example of an egregious race-based place name, but it is not the only one.

Consider Runaway Negro Creek, which flows near a state park outside Savannah, Ga. The name is printed on nautical charts, but park rangers find it so uncomfortable to use, they try to avoid saying it.
It is one of several hundred places that have the word “Negro” in their names and still exist on government maps and in the local vernacular in dozens of states.

They are vestiges of racial attitudes that not that long ago made it acceptable to label a piece of property once leased by Gov. Rick Perry’s family as Niggerhead, which had been painted in block letters on a large rock at the entrance to the rural northern Texas hunting camp. The word was once so common it was used as a brand name for everyday items like soap, canned shrimp and tobacco.

VCU Launches Project on Massive Resistance

VCU Launches Project on Massive Resistance: Virginia Commonwealth University is launching an oral-history project that explores the Massive Resistance policy in Virginia during the 1950s and ‘60s.

The project will record the stories of hundreds of schoolchildren denied an education by the closure of the state's public schools in defiance of the Supreme Court's order to desegregate.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports (http://bit.ly/oQtZxR) that the university is teaming up with the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Commission to track down former students from five localities that closed their schools. The commission oversaw Virginia's observance of the 50th anniversary of the public school closings.

White House Black College Leader Urges Development of HBCU Online Programs

White House Black College Leader Urges Development of HBCU Online Programs: WASHINGTON, D.C. — HBCUs and the online learning community need to become “more married” to reach more African-American students and reverse the United States’ continual slippage from its former position as the most degreed nation in the world.

That was the heart of the message delivered Thursday by Dr. John Wilson, executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

“We need a quality-based game-changer, and online education can help,” Wilson told an audience of about 50 during his keynote speech at the 2011 United States Distance Learning Association Public Policy Forum.

Wilson noted that of the 105 HBCUs throughout the nation, fewer than 20 have online degree programs.

NHL diversity: An idea that needs to be heard - The Washington Post

NHL diversity: An idea that needs to be heard - The Washington Post: An idiot fan tossed a banana peel at a black player during an NHL preseason game a couple of weeks ago and, well, that’s hockey. When it comes to the sport that opened its regular season Thursday night, the playing surface isn’t the only thing that’s all white. Why would a racist act surprise anyone in a culture that doesn’t care about diversity?

Those were the prevailing thoughts in some corners after the incident in London, Ontario, involving Wayne Simmonds, but the truth is that’s not today’s NHL. The league embraces inclusiveness, and actually has for some time. It wants more color throughout its ranks.

Nobel Peace Prize: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee And Tawakkul Karman Awarded

Leymah Gbowee of Liberia, left; Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, center; and Tawakul Karman of Yemen, right, were recognized for their nonviolent activism.

 Nobel Peace Prize: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee And Tawakkul Karman Awarded: The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to three women "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work".

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee And Tawakkul Karman all received the honour, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced on Friday.

Johnson-Sirleaf, the Liberian president, is Africa's first democratically elected female president. The Nobel committee said she had "contributed to securing peace in Liberia, to promoting economic and social development, and to strengthening the position of women."

Leymah Gbowee was recognised for mobilising and organising women "across ethnic and religious dividing lines to bring an end to the long war in Liberia, and to ensure women's participation in elections".

And Tawakkul Karman, the woman said to be leading pro-democracy protests in Yemen, was given the award for playing "a leading part in the struggle for women's rights and for democracy and peace" in her country..

The committee said it hoped the award would help end the suppression of women "that still occurs in many countries, and to realise the great potential for democracy and peace that women can represent."

Death of Ore. teen linked to white supremacists - CBS News

Death of Ore. teen linked to white supremacists - CBS News: PORTLAND, Ore. — The paths of a teenager who called his mother daily and two white supremacists fleeing a murder scene in Washington state crossed in Western Oregon's Willamette Valley less than a week ago.

The teenager who had thoughts of joining the ministry was found dead, the victim of "homicidal violence." The two people who commandeered his car — subjects of a manhunt in the death of a Washington state woman and disappearance of her husband — threw up their hands in surrender to police on Wednesday.

An Oregon sheriff called their weeklong road trip by down the West Coast "a vicious, vile reign of terror." After days of searching on land and air, a California Highway Patrol trooper with a lingering doubt about the white sedan with Oregon plates arrested David Joseph Pedersen and his girlfriend, Holly Grigsby.

Derrick Bell, Law Professor and Racial Advocate, Dies at 80 - NYTimes.com

Derrick Bell, Law Professor and Racial Advocate, Dies at 80 - NYTimes.com: Derrick Bell, a legal scholar who worked to expose the persistence of racism in America through his books and articles and his provocative career moves — he gave up a Harvard Law School professorship to protest the school’s hiring practices — died on Wednesday in New York. He was 80.

Mr. Bell, a resident of the Upper West Side, died of carcinoid cancer at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital at 114th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, said his wife, Janet Dewart Bell.

Mr. Bell was the first tenured black professor at Harvard Law School and later the first black dean of a law school that is not historically black. But he was perhaps better known for resigning from prestigious jobs than for accepting them.

In his 20s, while working at the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, he was told to give up his membership in the N.A.A.C.P., which his superiors believed posed a conflict of interest. Instead, he quit the Justice Department, ignoring the advice of friends to try to change things from within.

Study: Worst hospitals treat larger share of poor - USATODAY.com

Study: Worst hospitals treat larger share of poor - USATODAY.com: The nation's worst hospitals treat twice the proportion of elderly black patients and poor patients than the best hospitals, and their patients are more likely to die of heart attacks and pneumonia, new research shows.

Now, these hospitals, mostly in the South, may be at higher risk of financial failure, too. That's because the nation's new health care law punishes bad care by withholding some money, says the lead author of the study published Wednesday in the journal Health Affairs.

"These hospitals are going to have a much harder time in the new funding environment," said Dr. Ashish Jha of the Harvard School of Public Health, who led the study. "I worry they're going to get worse over time and possibly even fail. I worry that we're going to see a bunch of that happening over next three to five years."

Civil rights 'dean' Joseph Lowery celebrates 90th birthday – USATODAY.com

Civil rights 'dean' Joseph Lowery celebrates 90th birthday – USATODAY.com: One of the last icons of America's civil rights battles turns 90 Thursday, and hundreds of his relatives, friends and fans will celebrate with him at Atlanta Symphony Hall on Sunday.

The Rev. Joseph Lowery, "the dean of the civil rights movement," who worked with Martin Luther King, will have Happy Birthday sung to him by Stevie Wonder. Lowery will receive in-person birthday wishes from fellow legends Andrew Young, former United Nations ambassador and ex-mayor of Atlanta; Democratic Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a former Freedom Rider and an organizer of the March on Washington in 1963; and the Rev. C.T. Vivian, a King lieutenant and former student organizer.

Lowery will be honored in a musical presentation, His Words — Our Gift, featuring singer Jennifer Holliday and actress Cicely Tyson.

DREAM Advocates: Guarded Optimism on New Immigration Policy

DREAM Advocates: Guarded Optimism on New Immigration Policy: A recently issued immigration directive from the Obama administration could pave the way for more undocumented students to stay in the United States but falls short of the much-discussed DREAM Act offering such youth a pathway to citizenship, experts say.

“This is a very small down payment on the DREAM Act,” says Dr. Antonio Flores, president and CEO of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities. “And the DREAM Act is a small down payment on comprehensive immigration reform,” he told Diverse.

The administration in late August said it would no longer focus on undocumented students and other low-priority immigration offenders for deportation, instead choosing to focus primarily on those with criminal records. Undocumented students are largely K-12 and college students who illegally came into the U.S. as children with their parents.

Should Alabama Schools Help Catch Illegal Immigrants? - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com

Should Alabama Schools Help Catch Illegal Immigrants? - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com: The decision by Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn of Federal District Court in Birmingham to uphold most provisions of the state’s far-reaching immigration enforcement law has upended Hispanic communities in Alabama. Among other measures, the ruling requires schools to ascertain the immigration status of children at registration time.

Since the announcement of the decision on Sept. 28, school officials have noticed that more Hispanic students are missing from classrooms. On Sept. 30, about 5 percent of the state's Hispanic schoolchildren -- 1,988 students -- were absent.

Penalties For 'Worst' Hospitals Could Hurt Minorities : Shots - Health Blog : NPR

Penalties For 'Worst' Hospitals Could Hurt Minorities : Shots - Health Blog : NPR: Rating the best hospitals has become commonplace, with U.S. News & World Report, various research firms and lots of websites routinely issuing rankings.

Now some health researchers have come up with a way to evaluate which hospitals are the worst. In a paper just published in the policy journal Health Affairs, three researchers classified 3,229 hospitals by quality, using Medicare's reports of how often each hospital followed recommended guidelines of care for basic things like giving heart attack patients aspirin upon admission.

Next, the researchers evaluated the hospitals by how much they spent providing care. Combining the two ratings, they identified 178 low-quality, high-cost institutions. With refreshing bluntness, they designated those as the "worst" hospitals.

Civil rights leader Shuttlesworth dies - TODAY News - TODAY.com

Civil rights leader Shuttlesworth dies - TODAY News - TODAY.com: BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, who was bombed, beaten and repeatedly arrested in the fight for civil rights and hailed by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. for his courage and tenacity, has died. He was 89.

Relatives and hospital officials said Shuttlesworth died Wednesday at a Birmingham hospital. A former truck driver who studied religion at night, Shuttlesworth became pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1953 and soon emerged as an outspoken leader in the struggle for racial equality.

"My church was a beehive," Shuttlesworth once said. "I made the movement. I made the challenge. Birmingham was the citadel of segregation, and the people wanted to march."

In his 1963 book "Why We Can't Wait," King called Shuttlesworth "one of the nation's most courageous freedom fighters ... a wiry, energetic and indomitable man."

Mayor William Bell ordered city flags lowered to half-staff until after Shuttleworth's funeral. Bell, who is black, said he would not be mayor if not for leaders like Shuttlesworth.

"Dr. Shuttlesworth means so much to this city and his legacy will continue for generations," he said.

Education Week: Study Finds Minority Students Get Harsher Punishments

Education Week: Study Finds Minority Students Get Harsher Punishments: Black and Hispanic students are far more likely to be kicked out of school when they break the rules, including some that often have nothing to do with keeping students safe, according to a new report from a civil rights research and advocacy group.

And school discipline records are too often seen as a measure of how safe a school is and not often enough as a gauge of how healthy a school is academically, said Daniel J. Losen, the report’s author and the senior education law and policy associate at the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at the University of California, Los Angeles. But he said there is no evidence that banishing some students will improve the education of classmates still in school, while studies have show that punishing students increases their risk of dropping out.

The report, slated to be released today in Washington, is the latest in a series of actions intended to draw attention to school discipline practices that some consider overly harsh or punishments that are meted out disproportionately among students of different races, genders, and ethnic groups.

Affirmative-Action Case Could Be Campaign Issue : NPR

Affirmative-Action Case Could Be Campaign Issue : NPR: A Texas affirmative action case that has the potential to rewrite law on how or whether public colleges and universities may consider race and ethnicity as a factor in admissions could be headed for the U.S. Supreme Court, and soon.

Though the court, which opened its fall term this week, has not yet agreed to hear Fisher v. the University of Texas at Austin, constitutional experts on both sides of the issue say they believe the case will be scheduled for a hearing this year or next spring, just as the presidential election season heats up.

The Obama administration weighed in early this year with an amicus brief in support of the University of Texas policy.

New Technology Helps Hispanics Trace Their Roots - NYTimes.com

New Technology Helps Hispanics Trace Their Roots - NYTimes.com: Programs such as NBC's "Who Do You Think You Are?" and PBS' "Faces of America" are helping fueling the trend in genealogy. But for many Hispanics, tracing the family tree hasn't been so easy.

Now that's changing for America's largest minority group as a wealth of genealogical data, including a landmark 1930 census in Mexico, is going online. Discovering information about one's great-great grandparents and other relatives could be keystrokes away for many of the nearly 32 million Mexican-Americans — a group long left out of the sleuthing done largely by European-Americans and some African-Americans.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, long America's largest aggregator of genealogical records, this year completed its more than three-year-old project to create a searchable digital index of Mexico's massive 1930 census. It has also made the information available to the Internet genealogy company, Ancestry.com.

Supreme Court Weighs Rights Of Parochial-School Teachers : NPR

Supreme Court Weighs Rights Of Parochial-School Teachers : NPR: The United States Supreme Court hears arguments Wednesday in a major case testing the rights of teachers in religious schools. At rock bottom, the issue is who is a minister and when, if ever, that individual is exempt from the nation's civil rights laws.

Civil rights statutes do provide some exceptions for religious institutions. The laws allow religious organizations to prefer their own believers in hiring, for instance, and they allow churches and other religious organizations to require their employees to adhere to certain religious tenets. But what happens when a parochial school fires a teacher because she invokes her rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the law that bars discriminating against the disabled? The answer to that question could have huge implications.

Report shows minority students suspended at higher rates – USATODAY.com

Report shows minority students suspended at higher rates – USATODAY.com: U.S. public schools suspend black, Hispanic and disabled students at much higher rates than others, according to a new report by a Colorado-based civil rights group.

The report by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) says that frequent suspensions and expulsions should "raise questions about a school's disciplinary policies, discrimination, the quality of its school leadership and the training of its personnel."

The report follows several recent studies in which advocacy groups have questioned harsh school disciplinary policies. Most notably, the Council of State Governments, a Kentucky-based research organization, looked at suspension and expulsion rates for Texas public schools and found in July that nearly six in 10 students had been suspended or expelled at least once between seventh and 12th grade.

The latest findings "strongly suggest a need for reform," according to the NEPC, based at the University of Colorado-Boulder's School of Education. The center is a left-leaning think tank that studies racial justice in K-12 education.

Arkansas Scholar’s Learning Project Helps Boost Academic Performance of Elementary, Middle School Students

Arkansas Scholar’s Learning Project Helps Boost Academic Performance of Elementary, Middle School Students: The diagonal line in Arkansas separating academic and economic strivers from those less likely to make the grade — and then land a decent job — runs roughly from Texarkana in the southwest to Blytheville in northeast. “The wealthiest people live above that line,” said Dr. James Jennings, a history professor and education department chairman at Hendrix College in Conway, Ark.

He had drawn that line in 2006, based on his first-hand and empirical knowledge of parents, students, teachers, schools and the long-haul impact of unabated poverty in the 41 Arkansas counties that are part of the Mississippi Delta, an area below that diagonal line.

Perspective: Hispanic Students at a Crossroads

Perspective: Hispanic Students at a Crossroads: As the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, or HACU, celebrates its 25th anniversary and prepares to gather in San Antonio for its annual conference and gala (October 29-31), the nation is facing a transformational moment that cries for greater and wiser investments in education—particularly in Hispanic higher education—to meet the challenge of regaining the global lead in college degree attainment. The stakes could not be higher.

However, the talk inside the Washington, D.C., beltway seems to ignore the dual national reality of a wider gap in degree completion—compared to other industrialized countries—and persistent Hispanic higher education under-attainment, especially in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, disciplines.

After Ruling, Hispanics Flee an Alabama Town - NYTimes.com

After Ruling, Hispanics Flee an Alabama Town - NYTimes.com: The vanishing began Wednesday night, the most frightened families packing up their cars as soon as they heard the news.
They left behind mobile homes, sold fully furnished for a thousand dollars or even less. Or they just closed up and, in a gesture of optimism, left the keys with a neighbor. Dogs were fed one last time; if no home could be found, they were simply unleashed.
Two, 5, 10 years of living here, and then gone in a matter of days, to Tennessee, Illinois, Oregon, Florida, Arkansas, Mexico — who knows? Anywhere but Alabama.
The exodus of Hispanic immigrants began just hours after a federal judge in Birmingham upheld most provisions of the state’s far-reaching immigration enforcement law.
The judge, Sharon Lovelace Blackburn, upheld the parts of the law allowing state and local police to ask for immigration papers during routine traffic stops, rendering most contracts with illegal immigrants unenforceable and requiring schools to ascertain the immigration status of children at registration time.

Undocumented Students Face Obstacles Even After College

Undocumented Students Face Obstacles Even After College: When Rhode Island became the 13th state to allow in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants at public colleges, supporters heralded the move as one that would give students the kind of advanced education they need to succeed in the workforce.

But students who are not here legally may still face a major obstacle even with the benefit of a college degree: Many have no immediate pathway to legal status and, under current federal immigration law, employers cannot legally hire them.

"I know of students who have graduated magna cum laude and top honors in their colleges, but right now they're working minimum wage in restaurants," said Antonio Albizures-Lopez, 20, who came to the U.S. from Guatemala when he was 1.

Leading Black Artists Featured at Corcoran Gallery

Leading Black Artists Featured at Corcoran Gallery: WASHINGTON — Works by leading Black artists in the contemporary art realm go on view Saturday at Washington's Corcoran Gallery of Art to tackle issues of racial, sexual and historical identity.

The exhibit, “30 Americans,” will be on view through February. It features 31 artists, including Jean-Michel Basquait, Hank Willis Thomas, Kehinde Wiley and others. The 76 works come from Miami-based collectors Don and Mera Rubell.

Corcoran Director Fred Bollerer said it marks an effort to undertake more daring exhibitions that examine serious issues and provoke debate. The Corcoran created two companion exhibits featuring 12 new, provocative works by Thomas called

“Strange Fruit” that includes images harkening back to slavery and 25 photographs by Gordon Parks.

“It's a challenging show,” Bollerer said. “It's meant to be a challenging show.”

Education Secretary Arne Duncan Unveils Proposal Giving Responsibility to States to Identify Weak Teacher-Preparation Programs

Education Secretary Arne Duncan Unveils Proposal Giving Responsibility to States to Identify Weak Teacher-Preparation Programs: Washington, D.C. — Teacher-preparation programs should be judged based on the academic growth of the students being taught by their graduates.

That is the crux of a proposal unveiled by the Obama administration in an attempt to identify and support effective preparation programs and, conversely, to weed out weak programs that don’t improve.

“We don’t do enough to identify those (programs) that are not succeeding and help them get better or intervene so that they no longer produce teachers for our children,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in releasing the proposal during a recent panel discussion titled “A New Approach to Teacher Education Reform and Improvement.”

New House Bill Cuts Funds for HBCUs, Others

New House Bill Cuts Funds for HBCUs, Others: Federal funds for minority-serving colleges and universities are on the chopping block for next year as the House of Representatives is proposing deep cuts or outright elimination of many of these programs for the government’s 2012 fiscal year.

The bill from leaders of the Republican-led Appropriations Committee would terminate U.S. Education Department programs for tribal colleges and predominantly Black institutions while making significant cuts in programs for historically Black colleges and Hispanic-serving institutions.

The bill is generating strong opposition in the MSI community. “This is counterintuitive to our national goals,” said Edith Bartley, government affairs director at UNCF. “We can’t allow cuts to these basic capacity-building programs,” she told Diverse.

Civil Rights Movement Education 'Dismal' In American Schools, Study Shows

Civil Rights Movement Education 'Dismal' In American Schools, Study Shows: "Dismal."

Likely not a word ever preferred in an educational setting, but the description the Southern Poverty Law Center found appropriate to assess the state of education about the civil rights movement in the U.S.

Findings from a study -- "Teaching the Movement: The State of Civil Rights Education 2011" -- released this week by the SPLC's Teaching Tolerance program show that nearly three-quarters of states fail at teaching the civil rights movement. An indicator: just 2 percent of high school seniors in 2010 could fully answer a basic question about the Supreme Court's landmark decision in the historic Brown v. Board of Education case.

When given the following quote and asked the following question:

“To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority … that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. … We conclude that in the field of public education separate but equal has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” —1954

Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home - Harvard Book Store

Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home - Harvard Book Store: ...Hill details how the current housing crisis, resulting in the devastation of so many families, so many communities, and even whole cities, imperils every American’s ability to achieve the American Dream.

Hill takes us on a journey that begins with her own family story and ends with the subprime mortgage meltdown. Along the way, she invites us into homes across America, rural and urban, and introduces us to some extraordinary African American women. As slavery ended, Mollie Elliott, Hill’s ancestor, found herself with an infant son and no husband. Yet, she bravely set course to define for generations to come what it meant to be a free person of color. On the eve of the civil rights and women’s rights movements, Lorraine Hansberry’s childhood experience of her family’s fight against racial restrictions in a Chicago neighborhood ended tragically for the Hansberry family. Yet, that episode shaped Lorraine’s hopeful account of early suburban integration in her iconic American drama A Raisin in the Sun.

Fire Dept. Has Not Done Enough to Recruit Minorities, Judge Finds - NYTimes.com

Fire Dept. Has Not Done Enough to Recruit Minorities, Judge Finds - NYTimes.com: A federal judge said on Friday that New York City had not done enough to recruit blacks and other minorities to be firefighters.

Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis gave his findings after a civil trial in August in Brooklyn. The Justice Department had sued on behalf of a fraternal organization for black firefighters.

The judge’s memorandum said that, despite progress on diversity in recent recruiting, the New York Fire Department had not committed enough time or resources to reverse a long history of discrimination against blacks. Judge Garaufis is expected to spell out a remedy in a separate ruling.

'Elizabeth And Hazel': The Legacy Of Little Rock : NPR

'Elizabeth And Hazel': The Legacy Of Little Rock : NPR: In September 1957, in the wake of the Supreme Court decision that outlawed racially segregated schools, the governor of Arkansas posted the National Guard at the front door of Little Rock Central High School. Despite the local school board's agreement to integrate classes, he was determined to prevent black students from entering the building on the first day of school.

Fifteen-year-old Elizabeth Eckford was the first of a group that came to be known as the Little Rock Nine. She was met by a mob of white segregationists, many of them students, who screamed, spat and threatened her.

News cameras and photographers were all over that day, but there is one picture in particular that came to represent that incident to the world: that of Eckford with her back to an advancing crowd, with one young white woman screaming at her — another teenager named Hazel Bryan. In later weeks, President Dwight Eisenhower sent federal troops to escort the children to school.

"Here is where, in most documentaries, the music swells and the credits roll," author David Margolick tells NPR's Audie Cornish. But there was more to the story, of course, and Margolick's book Elizabeth and Hazel picks up where most leave off.

Book review: “Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness?” and “Sister Citizen” - The Washington Post

Book review: “Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness?” and “Sister Citizen” - The Washington Post: I am just old enough to remember when having someone call you black, rather than Negro, was considered a serious slur. Still, when it did occur, my parents taught me, even then, to say “thank you” in response. This turned out to be a highly effective way to disarm the insult and the insulter. In this way, I learned the power of not letting others decide how I would be defined. I did not need James Brown to tell me to be black and proud. Decades later, Americans are still struggling with racial definitions. Is the president black or biracial? Are we Latino or Hispanic? Is the n-word an insult or an affectionate term? What does it mean to be authentically black? And does any of that matter anymore? Didn’t the 2008 election signal that the country that elected its first black president is now post-racial?

Two new books take radically different approaches to these questions of race introspection — one academic, the other anecdotal. Both are mature and serious works that seek to get us past our laziest assumptions about race. Each managed to expand my notion of what it means to be black in America, and why it matters.

White Mississippi teen pleads not guilty in black man’s death | The Raw Story

White Mississippi teen pleads not guilty in black man’s death | The Raw Story: A white Mississippi teenager pleaded not guilty on Friday to a capital murder charge stemming from the fatal hit-and-run of a black man in a motel parking lot.

A judge ordered Deryl Dedmon, 19, to stand trial on January 9 and gave prosecutors until November 1 to decide if they will seek the death penalty in the case, court administrator Karla Watkins said.

Dedmon is accused of running down James Craig Anderson, a 49-year-old Nissan autoworker who was returning to his car before dawn on June 26 when he was confronted by a group of white teenagers in a motel parking lot.

Video of the incident, caught by a hotel security camera, has been played on cable television news, and the FBI was investigating the case as a possible civil rights violation, which can include hate crimes.

Hispanic Students Absent From Alabama Schools Following Controversial Immigration Law

Hispanic Students Absent From Alabama Schools Following Controversial Immigration Law: Hispanic students have started vanishing from Alabama public schools in the wake of a court ruling that upheld the state's tough new law cracking down on illegal immigration.

Education officials say scores of immigrant families have withdrawn their children from classes or kept them home this week, afraid that sending the kids to school would draw attention from authorities.

There are no precise statewide numbers. But several districts with large immigrant enrollments – from small towns to large urban districts – reported a sudden exodus of children of Hispanic parents, some of whom told officials they planned to leave the state to avoid trouble with the law, which requires schools to check students' immigration status.

More Latinos identify as Native American, census shows - CNN.com

More Latinos identify as Native American, census shows - CNN.com: When Ana Maria Tekina-eiru Maynard filled out her census form last year, she checked the box for Latino, and for the first time, she also checked the box for Native American.

It had taken her more than 30 years -- plus research and genetic testing -- to discover her ties to the indigenous Tainos of Puerto Rico, to claim her identity and re-learn what she thought she knew of her history.

She's not the only one. Since 2000, the number of Hispanics who identified themselves as Native American grew from 407,073 to 685,150, according to the 2010 census.