Black Female Exercise Groups: Fighting Weight and Winning

Black Female Exercise Groups: Fighting Weight and Winning: With hard work, determination, friendship and sometimes faith, a group of black women have mounted a successful, national battle against obesity that's helping women in communities all over the country.

Surprised? That's expected. Recent media coverage of obesity among black women provides a near-constant diet of stereotypes and hopelessness, while giving sisters a public scolding for supposedly choosing to be fat.

A study conducted at Cardiff University in England, for example, reported that black girls are "less sensitive to the effects of physical activity" when it comes to weight loss. CBS News, the Los Angeles Times and U.S. News & World Report, among other outlets, jumped on the story -- each failing to question the accuracy of self-reported data gathered from 13-year-olds or why the researchers identified the girls solely by race without at least discussing their ethnic origins, since there is no genetic basis for skin color.

Michelle Rhee: Poverty Must be Tackled But Never Used as an Excuse

Michelle Rhee: Poverty Must be Tackled But Never Used as an Excuse: A recent ad campaign we launched at StudentsFirst to raise awareness around the weak academic performance of U.S. students compared to their global peers drew all kinds of reactions. Many people were shocked to learn we're among the worst performing nations in the world in math and said they wanted to help bring about change. But some said our lagging scores weren't all that surprising, or even terribly disappointing, given high poverty levels in America. I find that response so troubling. Poverty presents huge challenges in our schools. But expectations of academic success for a child should never hinge on the circumstances of his or her birth. Our schools can't fix all of society's problems, but what happens in classrooms everyday can make a huge difference in the life outcomes of all children. As such, our schools can and should be held accountable for ensuring all students are learning.

With Diversity Still Lacking, Industry Focuses on Retention - NYTimes.com

With Diversity Still Lacking, Industry Focuses on Retention - NYTimes.com: FOR many in the advertising business, the results of the 2010 census were a tipping point in terms of highlighting the growing importance of minority consumers. It showed that there were more than 50 million Latinos in the United States, nearly 40 million African-Americans and almost 15 million Asians. Nine million people identified themselves as belonging to more than one race.

But many advertising agencies and media companies still lack diversity within their own ranks, especially at the higher rungs of the corporate ladder. While the industry has made some efforts to recruit minority employees for more entry-level positions, it has struggled to retain that talent at the executive level.

Football Classics bring the HBCU experience — and their marching bands — to big-time arenas. - Higher Education

Football Classics bring the HBCU experience — and their marching bands — to big-time arenas. - Higher Education: Black college football teams do not play in bowl games. The only venues that come close to duplicating a bowl atmosphere are the annual classic games that are played during the regular season at a variety of locales across the U.S.

Black college football got major media attention for the first time in 1968 when Grambling State University, coached by the legendary Eddie Robinson, played Morgan State in the Invitational Football Classic at Yankee Stadium in New York City. The game drew more than 64,000 people. This was proof that Black college football, under the right circumstances, could be financially viable. The proceeds from that game — $200,000 — helped to bankroll a local academy and a scholarship fund to help inner-city youth pay for college.

Over the years, other “classic” games have come on the scene and the results have been mixed. Some remain viable while others have fallen by the wayside.

Research Initiative to Examine Asian American and Pacific Islander Student Success | Diverse

Research Initiative to Examine Asian American and Pacific Islander Student Success | Diverse: The Asian and Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund and the National Commission on Asian-American and Pacific Islander Research in Education (CARE) have secured $2 million in foundation grants to fund one of the largest research projects to explore Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) college student success.

The funding announcement came late last month during the Asian and Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund (APIASF) third annual education summit in Washington D.C. More than 200 people attended, including college and university presidents, scholars, and foundation leaders. APIASF and CARE announced the Partnership for Equality in Education through Research (PEER) project, a three-year $2 million initiative funded by The Kresge Foundation, USA Funds, and The Walmart Foundation.

Clark Atlanta suspends band performances | Diverse

Clark Atlanta suspends band performances | Diverse: ATLANTA — Clark Atlanta University has suspended performances by its marching band following an allegation of possible hazing.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, citing a university statement, reported Saturday on its website (bit.ly/OPIjNG) that Clark Atlanta did not say when the alleged hazing incident might have taken place, how many band members may have been involved or the extent of the possible hazing. Whether police are involved also is unclear.

An expected performance by the marching band, the Mighty Marching Panthers, at Clark Atlanta’s first home football game was scrapped. Atlanta’s Benjamin E. Mays High School marching band was to perform instead.

A Florida A&M drum major’s death last year that investigators attributed to hazing raised the attention that colleges and universities around the country give to such allegations.

A Holistic Quandary | Diverse

A Holistic Quandary | Diverse: At selective colleges and universities across the United States, admissions officers decide the fate of students seeking higher education.

Historically, those decisions have been based on standardized test scores and high school academic performance. But that didn’t always yield the most diverse student body, so other attributes have been and continue to be considered, including race and ethnicity.

Despite efforts on the part of admissions officers to institute a fair evaluation process — increasingly with the use of technology and social media — the selection process has come under fire once again. This fall, the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to consider the case of Fisher vs.Texas, and the process of holistic review appears to be at the crux of the debate.

Debate pits students from Howard, Morehouse against each other in ‘Game Before the Game’ | Diverse

Debate pits students from Howard, Morehouse against each other in ‘Game Before the Game’ | Diverse: Before the Howard University and Morehouse College football teams squared off last Saturday at RFK Stadium for the AT&T Nation’s Football Classic, debate teams from both HBCUs tackled some tough topics during the “Game Before the Game.”

The verbal showdown featured fiery rhetoric, sharp witticisms and even a few personal barbs as both teams sought to score points with an enthusiastic crowd.

The near-capacity audience at Howard’s Cramton Auditorium was so engrossed in the debate that many ignored repeated pleas to hold their applause until each debater finished his or her spiel.

If any one thing distinguished the debate, it was the fact that when the teams had to argue against something that enjoys widespread support among African-Americans, or conversely, for something that is widely rejected by African-Americans, they did so from a perspective that emphasized themes of empowerment and enfranchisement.

Black women join Sister Circles to boost health and wellness in midlife - The Washington Post

Black women join Sister Circles to boost health and wellness in midlife - The Washington Post: ...That’s the goal of the Prime Time Sister Circles, a 12-week program focused on helping African American women in midlife improve their nutrition and fitness, and deal with stress. And just as important, participants say, the Sister Circles provides them with emotional and spiritual support akin to a long, tight hug.

“I’m at a turning point where I’m actually beginning the next chapter of my life,” says Allison Smith, an engineering technician and single mother who recently turned 40. “I’m pulling a lot from the different sisters — how they handle stress and their experiences. And in learning from others, I’m learning how to deal with my own.”

The Prime Time Sister Circles are the brainchild of Marilyn Gaston, 73, a former assistant surgeon general and Gayle Porter, 66, a clinical psychologist. The two teamed up to write “Prime Time: The African American Woman’s Complete Guide to Midlife Health and Wellness.” The book, which came out in 2001, offers black women guidelines to deal with issues that often arise in middle age.

Arthur Shores, Martin Luther King, Jr. And The Story Of The Letter From The Birmingham Jail

Arthur Shores, Martin Luther King, Jr. And The Story Of The Letter From The Birmingham Jail: Throughout our nation’s worst racial tensions, Birmingham Civil Rights attorney Arthur Davis Shores was a pioneer who dared to step into the white man’s courtroom, bravely representing civil rights cases for some 25 years before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. arrived in Birmingham in 1963 with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. A quiet gentleman with a deep Christian faith, Shores worked tirelessly for equal rights. Shores was notably one of the attorneys who smuggled scraps of paper from Dr. King’s jail cell -- the now infamous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” In this excerpt from 'The Gentle Giant Of Dynamite Hill: The Untold Story of Arthur Shores and his Family’s Fight for Civil Rights,' his daughters Helen Shores Lee and Barbara S. Shores write of their father’s involvement in this historic moment in civil rights’ history.

Commentary: Making Progress amid Growing Enrollment Disparities at Selective Colleges | Diverse

Commentary: Making Progress amid Growing Enrollment Disparities at Selective Colleges | Diverse: The percentage of Black students doubled during the Black Campus Movement to diversify higher education in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Since 1976, the Black enrollment has more than doubled once again, from 943,000 to 2,269,000 in 2008. The Black share of the overall enrollment in American higher education increased from about 5 percent in 1965 to 10 percent in 1976 to 14 percent in 2008.

Without question, more Black and Latino students are in college in 2012 than 40 years ago. In terms of the total pie, non-Whites have a larger piece than ever before. They are walking into historically White colleges and universities (HWCUs) in unprecedented numbers.

This is progress.

This fits nicely into the positive ending of a story of racial progress that Americans like to tell. This is a pleasant speaking point for the engineers of the current affirmative action policies when scolded for not doing enough.

We should be pleased with today’s bird’s eye view of the racial makeup of our student body, specifically when we can imagine the lack of color birds saw forty years ago. Based on their share of high school graduates (14.5 in 2004) and the American population (12.8 in 2008), the total enrollment figure of 14 percent seems to tell us that Blacks are well represented in the student body of higher education.

'White Graduates Only' Party Planned For 1973 Class Reunion In Louisiana Sparks Outrage (VIDEO)

'White Graduates Only' Party Planned For 1973 Class Reunion In Louisiana Sparks Outrage (VIDEO): A letter that lists a "white graduates only" party as one of the activities planned for a class reunion has sparked outrage after it was leaked online.

For nearly 40 years, graduates from the St. Martinville, La., Senior High School Class of 1973 have been holding racially segregated class reunions.

But this year, ABC affiliate KATC reports that the graduates decided to change that tradition, making the reunion a non-segregated affair.

However, a letter announcing the change included an after party for "white graduates only."

Michael Kreamer, who is the principal of the Louisiana school, said he found the letter distressing.

"I'm just a little disappointed that something like this comes up," he told KATC. "I don't think that it looks good for the school, but again as I said it has nothing to do with St. Martinville Senior High. So I hope people don't take that the wrong way."

New Charter Schools Thrive in Harlem, but Some Parents Are Feeling Left Out - NYTimes.com

New Charter Schools Thrive in Harlem, but Some Parents Are Feeling Left Out - NYTimes.com: ...Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has made school choice a foundation of his education agenda, and since he took office in 2002, the city opened more than 500 new schools; closed, or is in the process of closing, more than 100 ailing ones; and created an environment in which more than 130 charter schools could flourish. No neighborhood has been as transformed by that agenda as Harlem.

When classes resume on Thursday, many of its students will be showing up in schools that did not exist a decade ago. The idea, one that became a model for school reform nationwide, was to let parents shop for schools the same way they would for housing or a cellphone plan, and that eventually, the competition would lift all boats.

But in interviews in recent weeks, Harlem parents described two drastically different public school experiences, expressing frustration that, among other things, there were still a limited number of high-quality choices and that many schools continued to underperform.

Montgomery County to forge ties with Ethiopian city - The Washington Post

Montgomery County to forge ties with Ethiopian city - The Washington Post: County Executive Isiah Leggett will be taking a different kind of vacation this month when he visits Gondar, Ethiopia — Montgomery County’s newest sister city.

After addressing a crowd Sept. 22 at the Pan African Festival at Veterans Plaza in downtown Silver Spring, Leggett will board a plane the next day with about 40 community leaders to visit Gondar for nine days, said Bruce Adams, director of the county executive’s Office of Community Partnerships.

Leggett also will be joined on the trip by board members of the nonprofit Montgomery Sister Cities, which organizes the county’s sister cities projects. Because the county partners with Montgomery Sister Cities, the group relies on donations and does its own fundraising. Each of the attendees on the preliminary trip in January and the upcoming trip this month, including Leggett, took vacation time and paid for their own way, without any cost to taxpayers.

Fort Ward’s residents’ journey from Civil War to civil rights - The Washington Post

Fort Ward’s residents’ journey from Civil War to civil rights - The Washington Post: Walk through the 34 acres of Fort Ward Park in Alexandria’s West End and beneath the drying late-summer grasses and moss-laden trees lies some of the most overlooked history in this famously history-proud town.

The remains of the Civil War fort, an important Union outpost, are well-marked and documented. But less is known about the African American residents who, starting in the 1880s, bought land, built homes, raised their children and buried their dead there.

After a half-century of neglect, the city government is moving toward formal recognition of those who bridged the period between the Civil War and the modern civil rights era. A three-year archaeological investigation found 40 unmarked graves, the city announced last week, as well as 25 sites detailing life in the neighborhood known as The Fort or Seminary.

A handsome brochure was published two months ago, oral histories have been collected and posted online, and a new series of historical markers that tell the African American story is expected to be erected within weeks. The creation of a plan to control the future of the park is next on the city’s agenda.

Freeman Hrabowski's UMBC legacy grows as he celebrates 20 years as president - baltimoresun.com

Freeman Hrabowski's UMBC legacy grows as he celebrates 20 years as president - baltimoresun.com: The melody of the president's voice, the intensity of his movements gripped Jeremy Brickey's attention, cutting through the monotony of freshman orientation at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Honestly though, he thought Freeman A. Hrabowski III had to be "full of it." Who brings that kind of dynamism to rote encounters with students? Two years later, Brickey asked to meet with Hrabowski, this time to discuss his fraternity's return to campus after a suspension for serving alcohol to minors and pledging academically ineligible members.

Surprise No. 1: The UMBC president remembered him. Surprise No. 2: Hrabowski didn't seemed concerned with the fraternity. Instead he wanted to know what experiences made Brickey who he was. Did he think he had matured into a man?

The student mentioned he had published an autobiographical piece in the campus literary journal. Hrabowski called for a copy from his secretary and read it as they sat there. He appeared to be skimming, but his questions suggested he was absorbing every word.

Marian Wright Edelman: The Racial Divide: Will It Widen Or Close?

Marian Wright Edelman: The Racial Divide: Will It Widen Or Close?: I often say to people who come to the Schomburg that the crisis of today is a consequence of not one, but two generations born after the Civil Rights Movement who have been deliberately kept from their history.

-- Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad, June 2012

When Dr. Khalil Muhammad speaks, people listen. He is a scholar, historian and the director of the New York Public Library’s renowned Schomburg Center for Research in black Culture. Dr. Muhammad knows a lot about the importance of being mindful of learning from history. When he spoke about equality of opportunity to 1,800 young leaders at a Children’s Defense Fund’s Haley Farm leadership training session in June, he explained that our nation is testing the old saying “those who can’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Montgomery's First Female African-American District Judge - Local News - Washington, DC - Washington D.C. - NBCNews.com

Montgomery's First Female African-American District Judge - Local News - Washington, DC - Washington D.C. - NBCNews.com: A first for Montgomery County, Md.: Karla N. Smith, 42, was sworn-in Thursday as a Montgomery County District Court judge. She's the first African-American woman to have the position.

Previously, Smith was a prosecutor in the Montgomery County state's attorney's office.

Family, friends and several state and county leaders attended the swearing-in ceremony at the judicial center in Rockville.

In describing her mission as a judge, Smith told News 4, “I think the most important thing for a judge is to strive to make sure that every person who walks through the doors of the courtroom has a fair day in court, that they feel they’ve been heard whether or not their outcome is good or not. But that they feel that I got to say my peace, what I had to say was heard, I was respected , I was treated fairly. So, for me, that’s the most important piece.“

Justice for Voters in Texas and Florida - NYTimes.com

Justice for Voters in Texas and Florida - NYTimes.com: Republicans in Texas and Florida have been in the vanguard of the pernicious, widespread efforts to suppress voting by Hispanics and blacks. Fortunately, federal courts are seeing these efforts for what they are: a variation on the racist laws that disenfranchised millions before those tactics were outlawed by the Voting Rights Act.

A three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday unanimously rejected Texas’s voter ID law, which required court approval to take effect. The court described the law, known as SB 14, as “the most stringent in the country.” 

Under the law, voters who do not have a driver’s license might have to pay $22 to get documents necessary to obtain a state ID card, and some would need to travel 250 miles round-trip to get the card. The court said, “Undisputed record evidence demonstrates that racial minorities in Texas are disproportionally likely to live in poverty and, because SB 14 will weigh more heavily on the poor, the law will likely have retrogressive effect,” reducing the number of minority voters.

CNN Camerawoman "Not Surprised" by Peanut-Throwing | The Maynard Institute for Journalism Education

CNN Camerawoman "Not Surprised" by Peanut-Throwing | The Maynard Institute for Journalism Education: Patricia Carroll, the CNN camerawoman who was assaulted with peanuts and called an animal by two attendees at the Republican National Convention, told Journal-isms on Thursday that "I hate that it happened, but I'm not surprised at all."

Carroll, who agreed to be named for the first time, said she does not want her situation to be used for political advantage. "This situation could happen to me at the Democratic convention or standing on the street corner. Racism is a global issue," she said by telephone from Tampa.

Carroll said no one took the names of the attendees who threw peanuts at her Tuesday on the convention floor and told her, "This is what we feed animals." She alerted fellow camera operators, producers and CNN security. The head of the delegation — she was not certain of the state — told her the perpetrators must have been alternates, not delegates.

Commentary: Hampton University, Hair, and Freedom of Expression

Commentary: Hampton University, Hair, and Freedom of Expression: In 2001, Hampton University implemented a policy for its Black male business school students: no cornrows, dreadlocks or braids. In the past few weeks, controversy over the policy has resurfaced.

From the institution’s perspective, the ban is preparing the students for the corporate world. The dean of the business school believes that graduates with cornrows, dreadlocks or braids will not be able to gain employment due to standards of appearance and dress that are expected within the corporate setting. He is correct in many cases.

There have been several corporations that have been in hot water over their policies banning cornrows and locks as these policies specifically target African-Americans. In addition, there are unspoken and unwritten policies and practices that hold Blacks back from higher level positions when they do not conform to Eurocentric ways of grooming and dressing.

Why The Internet Doesn't Recognize The Accents In A Name

Why The Internet Doesn't Recognize The Accents In A Name: The Internet doesn’t like me — or, at least, it doesn’t care much for my name. My first name consists of two words and I have accent marks in both my first and last names, which seems to complicate my online life considerably. When trying to purchase an airline ticket or sign up for an email newsletter, I’m never completely certain whether it will go through, or how my name will come out of the transaction, but I’m usually pretty sure it won’t be right.

Turns out it’s not me. Rather it’s the archaic remnants of how computers came to be programmed in the U.S. during the mid-twentieth century. When standards for exchanging data between computers such as ASCII were created, the workforce consisted mostly of white males. They created programs still widely used today recognizing certain symbols and names — accent marks are not typically among them.

Young Latinas asked to trade sports for chores

Young Latinas asked to trade sports for chores:... In addition to cultural barriers, many times young Latinas can’t afford to participate in sports. According to a recent survey by the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health, a school pay-to-play fee was charged for 61 percent of sports participants and the average fee was $93. Twenty-one percent of the children had to pay a fee of $150 or more. Including additional team fees and other costs, the average cost for sports participation was $381.

These fees may keep many young Latinas from engaging in school sports. Teens from lower-income families participate in sports in much lower rates than teens from higher-income families. Cristina Gil, 21, says that her father was unsupportive when she wanted to play sports. “He didn’t see it as something he should spend money on.” For Rivera, it was the cost and the lack of parental involvement because her parents were always working. “They were never around nor had the money to register us when we were younger.”

Annals of Behavioral Medicine, Online First™ - SpringerLink

Annals of Behavioral Medicine, Online First™ - SpringerLink: Racial/ethnic disparities in birth weight persist within the USA.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the association between maternal everyday discrimination and infant birth weight among young, urban women of color as well as mediators (depressive symptoms, pregnancy distress, and pregnancy symptoms) and moderators (age, race/ethnicity, and attributions of discrimination) of this association.
Methods
A total of 420 women participated (14–21 years old; 62 % Latina, 38 % Black), completing measures of everyday discrimination and moderators during their second trimester of pregnancy and mediators during their third trimester. Birth weight was primarily recorded from medical record review.
Results
Path analysis demonstrated that everyday discrimination was associated with lower birth weight. Depressive symptoms mediated this relationship, and no tested factors moderated this relationship.
Conclusions
Given the association between birth weight and health across the lifespan, it is critical to reduce discrimination directed at young, urban women of color so that all children can begin life with greater promise for health.

Low Birth Weight Linked To Discrimination Against Moms-To-Be: Study

Low Birth Weight Linked To Discrimination Against Moms-To-Be: Study: Smoking, poor nutrition and even working late have been cited among the top reasons why babies might be born with low birth weight, but a team of researchers from Yale say healthcare isn't the only cause.

According to a study published in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine, Valerie Earnshaw and her colleagues at Yale found that racism against the more than 1,000 black and Latina girls they surveyed resulted in lower birth weight babies as well.

The contributing factor, they say, was the depression that resulted from the mothers-to-be's experience with discrimination, including being treated with less respect than other people, receiving poorer service or being called names.

Hispanic Education And Employment: Aligning College Degrees With Workforce Needs

Hispanic Education And Employment: Aligning College Degrees With Workforce Needs: As the Obama administration aims to reach their college graduation goals by the end of the decade, attention turns to the over 50 million Hispanics in the U.S.

As the largest minority population in the country, Latinos college graduation rates will play a key role in the nation's quest to become the world leader in college completion by 2020. Hispanic students will need to earn 5.5 million certificates or degrees over the next several years for the U.S. to meet Obama's goal, according to Excelencia in Education's initiative, "Ensuring America's Future by Increasing Latino College Completion,". Excelencia in Education is a Washington, D.C.-based education research organization.

Socio-economic factors, however, limit Latino access to college and graduation rates.

RNC Attendee Allegedly Threw Nuts At Black CNN Camerawoman, Said ‘This Is How We Feed The Animals’ | TPM2012

RNC Attendee Allegedly Threw Nuts At Black CNN Camerawoman, Said ‘This Is How We Feed The Animals’ | TPM2012: An attendee at the Republican National Convention in Tampa on Tuesday allegedly threw nuts at a black camerawoman working for CNN and said “This is how we feed animals” before being removed from the convention, a network official confirmed to TPM.

The CNN official declined to confirm specific details of the incident to TPM but generally confirmed an account posted on Twitter by former MSNBC and Current anchor David Shuster: “GOP attendee ejected for throwing nuts at African American CNN camera woman saying ‘This is how we feed animals.’”

It is not clear whether the alleged culprit was a delegate or attending the convention in some other capacity.

At a black middle-class picnic in D.C., racism in election campaign hardly goes unnoticed - The Washington Post

At a black middle-class picnic in D.C., racism in election campaign hardly goes unnoticed - The Washington Post: ...A study published in the March issue of the American Journal of Public Health pointed to a correlation between racism and depression among black men, especially those who try to deal with the stress alone — through “stoicism and emotional control.”

Black men 40 and younger were “more depressed, experienced more discrimination and had a stronger allegiance to norms encouraging them to restrict their emotions than men more than 40-years old,” according to researcher Wizdom Powell Hammond, assistant professor of health behavior at the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. “[W]hen black men felt strongly about the need to shut down their emotions, then the negative effect of discrimination on their mental health was amplified.”

There are few places available for frank discussion about racism — a word that is often dismissed these days as representing a figment of the black imagination. Not even Obama, the first black president, has been able to seriously broach the subject.

CCNY Minority Scholars Program Nurtures Ph.D. Aspirations

CCNY Minority Scholars Program Nurtures Ph.D. Aspirations: Stacyann Morgan got into biomedical engineering through a simple Google search. She got through an undergraduate program in the emerging field thanks to a federally-funded program that provided multi-layered support to Black and Latino students at City College of New York.

Starting in 2001, the National Institutes of Health funded the Minority Scholars Program at the fabled urban college in a bold attempt to graduate Black and Latino graduates who would pursue Ph.D.s, particularly in biomedical engineering, which combines mechanical engineering and medicine to create innovations in diagnosing and treating diseases.

Back-to-back NIH grants paid the tuition of participating students and provided stipends, summer research slots and, in the last five years, mentors and tutors who were Ph.D. candidates in biomedical engineering. The stipends of $9,000 to $10,000 a year allowed the students to attend City College full-time without having to work. To stay in the program, students had to maintain a 3.0 grade point average.

Former MLK Speechwriter, Counsel is First Diversity Scholar at University of San Francisco

Former MLK Speechwriter, Counsel is First Diversity Scholar at University of San Francisco: Not many people in America can make this claim: I knew Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., personally.

Clarence B. Jones can. Jones not only knew King, he was a close adviser to the distinguished civil rights leader.

Putting his first-hand knowledge of American segregation and the Civil Rights movement to use, the former speechwriter and legal counsel to King will teach 40 undergraduate students at the University of San Francisco this fall as the school’s first diversity scholar.

Students enrolled in the 15-week course titled “From Slavery to Obama” will focus on the beginning and ending of slavery, the segregation era, King and other civil rights events. The class, which began last Thursday, will also feature discussions on today’s 49th anniversary of the March on Washington. Jones assisted King to draft the infamous “I Have a Dream” speech delivered in the nation’s capital. Jones was one of King’s closest advisers.

Highland Beach: A historic refuge from racism finds itself at a crossroads - The Washington Post

Highland Beach: A historic refuge from racism finds itself at a crossroads - The Washington Post: On an overcast Sunday afternoon, Patricia Taylor insisted on taking her family to Highland Beach, one last time before school started, to picnic on the sandy shore of the Chesapeake Bay.

Taylor, 53, remembers making the trip to that historic African American enclave near Annapolis so many times as a child that she and her siblings occasionally grumbled, “Oh, Lord, do we have to go this weekend?”

These days, however, she longs for more company.
“I just wish more people would come and enjoy it,” she said as she minded hamburgers on a red brick grill on the small beach. “People’s lives are so different now. Everyone is so busy just trying to pay bills. There is no time to sit around anymore.”
For generations, tiny Highland Beach was a summer haven for affluent black Washingtonians seeking refuge from segregation. Now its residents are struggling to maintain its identify while young people with no memory of Jim Crow lose their connection to what made the community so special.

Fear of a Black President - Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic

Fear of a Black President - Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic: The irony of President Barack Obama is best captured in his comments on the death of Trayvon Martin, and the ensuing fray. Obama has pitched his presidency as a monument to moderation. He peppers his speeches with nods to ideas originally held by conservatives. He routinely cites Ronald Reagan. He effusively praises the enduring wisdom of the American people, and believes that the height of insight lies in the town square. Despite his sloganeering for change and progress, Obama is a conservative revolutionary, and nowhere is his conservative character revealed more than in the very sphere where he holds singular gravity—race.

Neil Armstrong Dead At Age 82

 Neil Armstrong Dead At Age 82: According to NBC News, Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, has died at age 82.

He died at 2:45 p.m. on Saturday, suffering complications following his recent cardiac bypass surgery.

On July 20, 1969, Armstrong and his partner Buzz Aldrin made history as the first people to ever walk on the moon. From the New York Times article applauding the achievement:

Two Americans, astronauts of Apollo 11, steered their fragile four-legged lunar module safely and smoothly to the historic landing yesterday at 4:17:40 P.M., Eastern daylight time.

Neil A. Armstrong, the 38-year-old civilian commander, radioed to earth and the mission control room here:

"Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."

Education Poll Finds Consensus among Americans on K-12 Learning Standards, Closing Achievement Gap

Education Poll Finds Consensus among Americans on K-12 Learning Standards, Closing Achievement Gap: Charter schools, free public education for the children of undocumented immigrants and work readiness among college graduates are among the top education issues on which the nation is split, according to researchers behind a new poll released this week by Gallup, Inc. and Phil Delta Kappa International.

But there is widespread agreement on the need to close the so-called achievement gap, and general support for the Common Core Standards that are meant to bring more uniformity to academic expectations in the nation’s public schools, according to the poll, formally known as the “PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools” and themed “A Nation Divided.”

Commentary: Closing Racial Divide Creates New Opportunities for Colleges

Commentary: Closing Racial Divide Creates New Opportunities for Colleges: Findings from our most recent research show clear signs that race relations on U.S. campuses are better than they have been for years. As we detail in our new book, Generation on a Tightrope: A Portrait of Today’s College Students, over the last four decades, students of color have grown more confident that their college is not viewing them through a color-tinted lens. White students are embracing diversity in large numbers, having grown up as members of the most diverse generation in U.S. history. And a majority of undergraduates —Black and White, Asians and Hispanics —have close friends of other races and support intergroup relationships.

But that doesn’t mean our work — as a nation or as higher-education leaders — is done. It means we can now explore in a more nuanced fashion what diversity should mean for higher education and for each of the nation’s campuses.

N.Y.P.D. Muslim Surveillance Program Never Generated Leads - NYTimes.com

N.Y.P.D. Muslim Surveillance Program Never Generated Leads - NYTimes.com: After the Associated Press disclosed the N.Y.P.D.’s Muslim surveillance program, the Times board editorialized against it from a civil liberties perspective. It seemed the police were spying on Muslims—sending plainclothes officers to monitor Muslims at mosques, on college campuses, taking photographs of Muslim-owned businesses, listening to conversations—with no “reason to think anything wrong was going on.” The board acknowledged that “under a federal court decree, it is permissible to collect information from public sources” but argued that “going to public places apparently selected on the basis of religion” was “another matter.”

Now it turns out the spying program is not only constitutionally suspect, but also ineffective. The A.P. reported today that in more than six years of spying on Muslims the police department’s so-called Demographics Unit “never generated a lead or triggered a terrorism investigation.”

Drug war’s racial disparity moves NAACP to embrace marijuana legalization | The Raw Story

Drug war’s racial disparity moves NAACP to embrace marijuana legalization | The Raw Story: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), one of the nation’s oldest civil rights groups, said at its Colorado-Montana-Wyoming state conference on Thursday that its members support Colorado’s marijuana legalization ballot initiative.

“We are committed to changing policies that result in a disproportionate number of African-Americans and other people of color being introduced into the criminal justice system,” NAACP chapter president Rosemary Harris Lytle said, according to a media advisory.

“With this endorsement, NAACP activists in Colorado take a significant step: calling for equity, justice and more effective policy — such as the proposal to regulate marijuana like alcohol in our state,” she added. “The flawed drug policies that so negatively impact our communities must be replaced with policy that is not disproportionately punitive based on race but that helps us get to the root causes of drug use and abuse in America.”

ACT Scores Steady but Show Signs of Small Progress - ABC News

ACT Scores Steady but Show Signs of Small Progress - ABC News: ...Still, overall readiness scores remain much lower in science and math compared to English and reading. Nationally, just 46 percent of students of the record 1.66 million who took the exam met the national benchmark in math, as did 31 percent in science, compared to 67 percent in English and 52 percent in reading.

Also alarming are continued and widening gaps between racial groups. The average composite score for white students was 22.4, up from 22.1 in 2008. Average scores for Asians have risen even faster, from 22.9 to 23.6. But the average composite score for black students remains substantially lower and has risen just 0.1 points, from 16.9 to 17.0.

Composite scores for Hispanic students were 18.9, up from 18.7 both a year ago and in 2008.

While 42 percent of Asians and 32 percent of whites met college-readiness benchmarks in all four subject areas, just 13 percent of Hispanics and 5 percent of black students did so.

ACT Reports Finds Most in 2012 High School Class Not College Ready

ACT Reports Finds Most in 2012 High School Class Not College Ready: As high school graduates from the Class of 2012 prepare to begin their first year of college, a new report released Wednesday by ACT says the vast majority of those students are not academically ready for the college experience.

The lack of college readiness is particularly pronounced among Hispanic and African-American students, according to the report, titled “The Condition of College & Career Readiness: 2012,” which looked at readiness in English, reading, math and science.

Experts chimed in and said the results – while not surprising or new – serve as further evidence that America’s K-12 system is broken and in need of solutions that range from blending college with high school to decreased reliance on test scores and increased efforts to ensure that a high school diploma actually signifies college readiness.

U.S. Military Battling White Supremacists, Neo-Nazis In Its Own Ranks

U.S. Military Battling White Supremacists, Neo-Nazis In Its Own Ranks: FAYETTEVILLE, N.C., Aug 21 (Reuters) - They call it "rahowa" - short for racial holy war - and they are preparing for it by joining the ranks of the world's fiercest fighting machine, the U.S. military.

White supremacists, neo-Nazis and skinhead groups encourage followers to enlist in the Army and Marine Corps to acquire the skills to overthrow what some call the ZOG - the Zionist Occupation Government. Get in, get trained and get out to brace for the coming race war.

If this scenario seems like fantasy or bluster, civil rights organizations take it as deadly serious, especially given recent events. Former U.S. Army soldier Wade Page opened fire with a 9mm handgun at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin on Aug. 5, murdering six people and critically wounding three before killing himself during a shootout with police.

The U.S. Defense Department as well has stepped up efforts to purge violent racists from its ranks, earning praise from organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has tracked and exposed hate groups since the 1970s.

How Well You Sleep May Hinge on Race - NYTimes.com

How Well You Sleep May Hinge on Race - NYTimes.com: ...The idea that race or ethnicity might help determine how well people sleep is relatively new among sleep researchers. But in the few short years that epidemiologists, demographers and psychologists have been studying the link, they have repeatedly come to the same conclusion: In the United States, at least, sleep is not colorblind.

Non-Hispanic whites get more and better-quality sleep than people of other races, studies repeatedly show. Blacks are the most likely to get shorter, more restless sleep.

What researchers don’t yet know is why.

“We’re not at a point where we can say for certain is it nature versus nurture, is it race or is it socioeconomics,” said Dr. Michael A. Grandner, a research associate with the Center for Sleep and Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania. But when it comes to sleep, “there is a unique factor of race we’re still trying to understand.”

For First Time, Latinos Represent Largest Minority Group In Colleges : The Two-Way : NPR

For First Time, Latinos Represent Largest Minority Group In Colleges : The Two-Way : NPR: In a new study, The Pew Hispanic Center says that for the first time ever, Hispanics have become the largest minority group in the country's college campuses.

It's a report that marks many firsts for the ethnic group, which has been making great strides in education since 1972.

Among them: For the first time, there were more than 2 million latinos ages 18 to 24 enrolled. They reached a record 16.5 percent of all college enrollment. Hispanics make up a little more than a quarter of 18- to 24-year-olds enrolled in two-year colleges.

In its press release, Pew reports:

"In the nation's public schools, Hispanics also reached new milestones. For the first time, one-in-four (24.7%) public elementary school students were Hispanic, following similar milestones reached recently by Hispanics among public kindergarten students (in 2007) and public nursery school students (in 2006). Among all pre-K through 12^thgrade public school students, a record 23.9% were Hispanic in 2011.

"The new milestones reflect a number of continuing upward trends. Between 1972 and 2011, the Latino share of 18- to 24-year-old college students steadily grew—rising from 2.9% to 16.5%. During the same period, among all public school students, the Latino share grew from 6.0% to 23.9%. In both cases, rapid Latino population growth has played a role in driving Latino student enrollment gains over the past four decades."

Generating Tribal Energy

Generating Tribal Energy: For former University of New Mexico Regent Sandra Begay-Campbell, moving from the sunny Southwest to frigid Grand Rapids, Mich. to pursue a college degree was not just shocking to her physically, but emotionally, too. “I stuck out like a sore thumb,” she says in front of a crowd of graduate students, professors and administrators at the National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education held in May of this year in New York. She lasted only one semester and returned to her hometown community college, which suited her better and paved the way for her to transfer to the University of New Mexico’s main campus to earn a degree in civil engineering.

64% of New Yorkers in Poll Say Police Favor Whites - NYTimes.com

64% of New Yorkers in Poll Say Police Favor Whites - NYTimes.com: A significant majority of New Yorkers say the Police Department favors whites over blacks, according to a new poll by The New York Times.

That position, reaching levels seen in 2001 during the administration of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, runs particularly strong among black New Yorkers, 80 percent of whom say the police favor one race over the other. A plurality of white residents — 48 percent — agree.

Concern about police favoritism comes at a time of widespread publicity over the department’s extensive practice of stopping, questioning and, in many instances, frisking people on the city’s streets. Last year, the police made nearly 700,000 stops; about 85 percent of the stops involved blacks or Hispanics.

Hispanics set school, college enrollment records

Hispanics set school, college enrollment records | ajc.com: WASHINGTON — The Pew Hispanic Center reports young Hispanics have reached a couple of education milestones.  Last year, more than 2 million Hispanics ages 18 to 24 were enrolled in college and nearly a fourth of all pre-K through 12th grade public school students last year were Hispanic.

Pew Hispanic Center says Latinos were 16.5 percent of all graduate and undergraduate students, the largest minority group on all college campuses and the largest minority group among four-year college and university students.

A record 24 percent of all pre-K through 12th grade public school students were Hispanic, helped by the elementary school student body also becoming almost one quarter Hispanic. Pre-K and kindergarten students already had reached that milestone.

The Pew Hispanic Center credits Hispanic population growth and higher high school completion rates.

Annual DuBois Institute Forum Tackles Black Joblessness

Annual DuBois Institute Forum Tackles Black Joblessness: This past Thursday, Harvard University's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute convened its annual Hutchins Forum on Martha’s Vineyard that featured a panel of economists and other experts exploring the joblessness crisis in the African-American community. Among those joining moderator Charlayne Hunter-Gault were Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., the director of the Du Bois Institute and TheRoot.com editor-in-chief; Dr. Roland G. Fryer Jr., a Harvard University economist; and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers.

TheRoot.com reported that more than 200 people, including scholars and celebrities, attended the forum at the Old Whaling Church in the Edgartown section of the Martha’s Vineyard island.

Harvard’s Fryer focused his attention of the state of education for Black and Latino children.

NAACP protest Laurel Police - baltimoresun.com

NAACP protest Laurel Police - baltimoresun.com: The Prince George's County branch of the NAACP is planning a protest outside the Laurel Police Department for Monday at 6:30 p.m., said chapter President Bob Ross.

The planned protest comes in the wake of a $3 million civil suit filed against the city and Laurel Police officer Pfc. Juan Diaz-Chavarria stemming from an Aug. 2 incident outside Laurel Station Bar & Grill, during which an officer was seen on a cell phone camera apparently striking a man in handcuffs.

The suit was filed three days after footage of the incident aired on a local news broadcast.

Ross said protesters are calling for Diaz-Chavarria to be placed on administrative leave while the Laurel Police's internal investigation, which was opened immediately by Laurel Police Chief Richard McLaughlin, is concluded.

Presidential Debate Moderators: Gwen Ifill 'Livid' At Snub, Chorus Of Protests Continues Over Diversity

Presidential Debate Moderators: Gwen Ifill 'Livid' At Snub, Chorus Of Protests Continues Over Diversity: Increasingly, it seems like the only people happy with the upcoming presidential debate moderators are the four lucky people who have been chosen. Friday brought another round of complaints from every corner about the choices the Commission on Presidential Debates made.

First, there is the still-simmering question of the lack of racial diversity in the selection of Jim Lehrer, Bob Schieffer, Candy Crowley and Martha Raddatz. On Friday, the National Association of Black Journalists and the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank aimed at improving the economic status of people of color, both spoke out publicly at the lack of African-American or Latino moderators.

A Mother Tries To Atone For A Deadly Hate Crime : NPR

A Mother Tries To Atone For A Deadly Hate Crime : NPR: At 40, Julie Sanders is a mother of three from Portland, Ore. But when she was 16, Sanders belonged to a white supremacist group — and one night in 1988, she witnessed a murder. Since then, she's kept the event a secret from most of her friends and family.

Before she sat down to talk about the incident with her friend Randy Blazak at StoryCorps, Sanders says, she had rarely talked about her past at all. She started out by recalling what her life was like in her teen years.

"I was on a search for people who wanted me around. My parents didn't," she says. "And there was nothing about me that felt special. So, when I met these friends, it didn't matter if I was pretty or funny. None of that mattered. They liked me — because I was white.

Federal Court Rules Florida’s Shortening Of Early Voting Discriminates Against Blacks | TPMMuckraker

Federal Court Rules Florida’s Shortening Of Early Voting Discriminates Against Blacks | TPMMuckraker: A panel of federal judges ruled late Thursday that a Florida law that limits the number of early voting days cannot be implemented in several counties because it would have an adverse impact on minority turnout.

Several counties in Florida are covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires certain areas with a history of racial discrimination to have changes to their election laws and procedures precleared by either a federal court or the Justice Department.

The three judge panel ruled that minorities “will be disproportionately affected by the changes in early voting procedures because they disproportionately use early in-person voting.”

“In sum, Florida is left with nothing to rebut either the testimony of the defendants’ witnesses or the common-sense judgment that a dramatic reduction in the form of voting that is disproportionately used by African-Americans would make it materially more difficult for some minority voters to cast a ballot than under the benchmark law,” the court ruled.

Karl Fleming, 1927-2012: Intrepid Newsweek reporter covered civil rights movement | Nation/World | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

Karl Fleming, 1927-2012: Intrepid Newsweek reporter covered civil rights movement | Nation/World | Detroit Free Press | freep.com: Karl Fleming, a former Newsweek reporter who helped draw national attention to the civil rights movement in the 1960s -- and risked his life covering it with perceptive stories about its major figures and the inequalities that fueled it -- died Saturday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 84.

The cause was related to a number of respiratory ailments, said his son Charles Fleming.

Born and bred in the Jim Crow South, Fleming worked his way through small North Carolina newspapers to become chief of Newsweek's Atlanta bureau in 1961. In the next few years, he covered some of the most dramatic clashes that churned the South as the fight over racial injustice escalated.

He was nearly shot in 1962 during riots at the University of Mississippi after James Meredith's admission as the first African-American student.

LSAMP Program Has Key Role in Minority STEM Degree Attainment

LSAMP Program Has Key Role in Minority STEM Degree Attainment: You can tell from the way Dr. Al-Aakhir Ahad Rogers speaks about his work as a senior processing engineer at Draper Laboratory that he loves his career.

A 2011 recipient of a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of South Florida, Rogers, 30, regularly shares his passion for his profession with elementary school students. He explains to them how he makes sensory components used in items that range from laptop computers and gaming devices to airbags and seismographic equipment.

When he tells the students he makes gyroscopes, he uses an example they can all relate to — the Wii.

“I tell them I can make a device for a joystick,” Rogers said in a recent interview with Diverse.

BBC News - Baltimore invites immigrants - no questions asked

BBC News - Baltimore invites immigrants - no questions asked: The US city of Baltimore is turning to immigrants to help reverse its dwindling population.

While several states and cities across the US have instituted strict and sometimes controversial laws - particularly aimed at undocumented aliens - Baltimore is actively inviting immigrant families to settle here without questioning how they came into the country.

Critics question whether the policy will encourage illegal immigrants to flock to the city.

BBC Mundo's William Marquez explores how the growing Latino community is finding a home and a future in this Maryland city.

Overt Discrimination in Ohio - NYTimes.com

Overt Discrimination in Ohio - NYTimes.com: If you live in Butler or Warren counties in the Republican-leaning suburbs of Cincinnati, you can vote for president beginning in October by going to a polling place in the evening or on weekends. Republican officials in those counties want to make it convenient for their residents to vote early and avoid long lines on Election Day.

But, if you live in Cincinnati, you’re out of luck. Republicans on the county election board are planning to end early voting in the city promptly at 5 p.m., and ban it completely on weekends, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer. The convenience, in other words, will not be extended to the city’s working people. 

The sleazy politics behind the disparity is obvious. Hamilton County, which contains Cincinnati, is largely Democratic and voted solidly for Barack Obama in 2008. So did the other urban areas of Cleveland, Columbus and Akron, where Republicans, with the assistance of the Ohio secretary of state, Jon Husted, have already eliminated the extended hours for early voting.

Al Freeman Jr., Actor Prominent in Civil Rights Era, Dies at 78 - NYTimes.com

Al Freeman Jr., Actor Prominent in Civil Rights Era, Dies at 78 - NYTimes.com: Al Freeman Jr., a star among a generation of black actors that emerged during the civil rights era, who made his mark in both drama and race relations with his portraits of some of the movement’s most forbidding personalities — angry young men in the 1960s plays of James Baldwin and LeRoi Jones, Malcolm X in a television drama, and the black separatist Elijah Muhammad in Spike Lee’s 1992 movie “Malcolm X” — died on Thursday in Washington. He was 78.

His death was announced by Howard University, where he had been chairman of the theater arts department since 2005. No cause was disclosed.

Mr. Freeman’s lucid fury and psychological insight made him a favorite of literary black playwrights in the 1960s. He made his Broadway debut in 1960in “The Long Dream,” a stage adaptation of a novel by Richard Wright, playing a black undertaker’s son who discovers his father’s complicity in the racial oppression at the heart of small-town life.

Perspective: Young Black Men Chart Their Way as STEM Professionals

Perspective: Young Black Men Chart Their Way as STEM Professionals: When sitting in a room with three Black men under the age of 30, all engineers for major corporations, all proud HBCU graduates, it seems hard to believe that African-Americans account for fewer than five percent of engineering bachelor’s degrees awarded.

Chris Lesesne, 26, attended Morehouse College before receiving a master’s in aeronautical engineering from George Washington University. Now an aerospace engineer for GE Aviation, he says, “There are the rare occasions when you question whether or not you feel included in a field/organization dominated by White males,” he said, adding that it is important colleagues see him “as an engineer first.”

Morehouse does not have an engineering program; students who want to study engineering can choose to participate in a cooperative program that allows them to complete their engineering program at a partnering engineering school.

Canton High Students Suspended On First Day Of School For Wearing 'Gang Related' Shoes

Canton High Students Suspended On First Day Of School For Wearing 'Gang Related' Shoes: Nearly 100 Canton High School students received in-school suspensions on their first day last Wednesday after sporting neon-colored shoes, neon shoe strings and other “gang related” colors.

Principal Shirley Sanders told the Clarion-Ledger she does not know what prompted so many students to violate the dress code — outlined in an information packet distributed at registration — on the first day of school.

Sanders described the number as “unusually high,” and said some students were also inappropriately dressed on Thursday, but the number was “significantly lower.”

Despite being placed in in-school suspension, the students were permitted to contact their parents to bring them proper attire, WLBT reports.

According to the Clarion-Ledger, Canton’s dress code has been in place for several years, and requires students wear navy shirts, khaki pants or skirts and black or dark-colored shoes or white tennis shoes.

Chavis Carter 'Suicide' Reenactment Video Released By Jonesboro Police

Chavis Carter 'Suicide' Reenactment Video Released By Jonesboro Police: The Arkansas police department investigating the mysterious death of Chavis Carter, who suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the head while handcuffed in the back of a police car, has released a video recreation of what it believes could have happened the night Carter was killed.

Jonesboro police say the 21 year old shot himself not long after being pulled over and detained on July 29, after two police searches uncovered a small amount of marijuana but no weapon.

Carter was placed in the rear of a squad car. Not long after, police say one of two officers on the scene smelled smoke, opened the car’s rear door and found Carter slumped over and bloodied.

The police say a small handgun and a spent cartridge were found in the backseat with Carter.

Chasing a 'dream': Immigrant youth seek legal status - U.S. News

Chasing a 'dream': Immigrant youth seek legal status - U.S. News: ...Some 937,000 people brought here as children might immediately qualify for the program, which was outlined in a government memorandum in mid-June. Another 426,000 age 15 and under could, too, if the program remains in place, according to a recent analysis by the Immigration Policy Center and a consulting firm. The states with the highest number of likely recipients are California, Texas, Florida, New York and Illinois.

The initiative appears to be a bid on President Obama’s part to provide temporary relief to those eligible for the Dream Act, legislation aimed at those brought to the U.S. as children that has stalled in Congress. The program has been cautiously welcomed by advocates as a first step toward immigration reform, but criticized by others as an amnesty that could become permanent.

“This is the kind of thing Congress is supposed to decide and yet what the White House has done is unilaterally implement its own amnesty program,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank. “The idea that this is just a temporary halt in deportation and what not is complete baloney. These people are all going to get employment authorization documents, work cards and social security numbers, and supposedly it’s for only two years.

Cat scans more likely for white children | theGrio

Cat scans more likely for white children | theGrio: White children are more likely than black or Hispanic children to be given CT — or “Cat” — scans when arriving at hospital emergency rooms with minor head trauma, a study has found.

Children with the most troubling symptoms, like changes in mental functioning or signs of skull fracture, received CT scans at relatively high rates regardless of race, the researchers reported. But among children at low risk of trauma, 17 percent of non-Hispanic whites received scans while only 10 percent of black and Hispanic children did.

The study, published this month in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, suggests that white children may be getting unnecessary scans and may be exposed to unnecessary radiation.

Louisiana Court In Racially Charged Power Struggle, Again : NPR

Louisiana Court In Racially Charged Power Struggle, Again : NPR: A power struggle on the Louisiana Supreme Court is headed to federal court this week. Lawyers are seeking to reopen an old voting rights case that gave the Deep South state its first black Supreme Court justice. What's at stake in the racially charged fight is whether Louisiana will now have its first African-American chief justice.

Justice Bernette Johnson joined the Louisiana Supreme Court in 1994, elected to a special seat created to remedy racial disparities in Louisiana's justice system. Now, she's the lone black Supreme Court justice in a state where nearly one-third of residents are black.

Johnson thought she was next in line on the seven-member panel to be chief justice, based on seniority. But some of her colleagues say that's not the case.

Eyeing Latinos, NBC News Snuggles Up To Telemundo : NPR

Eyeing Latinos, NBC News Snuggles Up To Telemundo : NPR: Every morning at 11:45, NBC News officials hold a conference call with their counterparts at sister networks to sort through stories of interest. Among those on the line are executives at CNBC, MSNBC and The Weather Channel; digital news editors; and executives at Telemundo, a Spanish-language broadcast network.

NBC News Senior Vice President Alexandra Wallace helps lead the call. She says she relies on Telemundo to keep tabs on stories and events that matter to Hispanics, whether in the U.S. or abroad.

"The great thing about Telemundo news is they are flagging us now to stories that we might have heard about, but probably haven't heard about," Wallace says. "That is a really valuable resource for us. There are things that [take] three weeks to work up to The New York Times. It's very nice to hear about them two days after they start being discussed."

Survey: Nearly One in Four HBCUs Offer Full, Blended Online Degree Programs

Survey: Nearly One in Four HBCUs Offer Full, Blended Online Degree Programs: Historically Black colleges and universities continue their modest pace of increasingly embracing online learning programs as a vehicle for reaching more potential students, especially so-called non-traditional students, those who are usually older and working, according to the 2012 HBCU Online & Blended Degree Programs study from the Howard University Distance Learning Lab.

The study, the only one of its kind focusing on web-based education programs at HBCUs, is based on an analysis of the 105 HBCU Web sites. Among its key findings:

• In June 2012, there were 24 online or blended degree programs being offered by HBCUs, up from 19 such programs in November 2011.
• Public HBCUs offered three times more online or blended degree programs than private HBCUs—18 to six.
• Nearly half (11 of 24) of the HBCUs offered their programs with “strategic partners”—that is, private vendors that provide the bulk of the up-front money required to market, promote and operate the programs. In return, the vendor firms get a share of the student tuition revenue.

Being a minority at America’s best high school - Class Struggle - The Washington Post

Being a minority at America’s best high school - Class Struggle - The Washington Post: Yes, Virginia, Thomas Jefferson High School For Science and Technology Had a Hispanic Student Body President With a Learning Disability

If you Google “Anita Kinney,” you’ll find a prolific cancer researcher at a Utah university. That Anita Kinney is a genius. I’ve followed her career and lived in her daunting shadow for many years. She’s always ranked higher than me in search engine results — except for my brief brush with Internet celebrity in 2006, when Jay Mathews catapulted me to the top of the “Anita Kinney” rankings by quoting me on the front page of The Post.

The story was about my fellow classmates from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ) who were rejected from Ivy League schools.

In more recent news, the NAACP and an advocacy group called Coalition of The Silence (COTS) filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education alleging that Fairfax County Public Schools is discriminating against black, Latino and disabled students through its admissions process for Thomas Jefferson.

Deggans: Where's the diversity among presidential debate moderators? - Tampa Bay Times

Deggans: Where's the diversity among presidential debate moderators? - Tampa Bay Times: Here's the thing about diversity in public life: Once you have some of it, folks demand a lot more.

That's why I'm a little surprised to see the Commission on Presidential Debates offer a slate of moderators for four presidential and vice presidential contests this year that ups the ante of gender diversity, while leaving racial diversity in the dust.

Gwen Ifill, the African-American anchor who handled two previous vice presidential debates ably, was nowhere to be seen on the list of moderators announced Monday. Instead, the commission tapped Ifill's PBS colleague Jim Lehrer, Bob Schieffer of CBS, Candy Crowley of CNN and Martha Raddatz of ABC.

Education Olympics: How Does the U.S. Rank? | PBS NewsHour

Education Olympics: How Does the U.S. Rank? | PBS NewsHour: he United States left the 2012 London Olympics with 104 medals in tow. But how do we stack up against the world when it comes to education?

According to this infograph by Certification Map, the U.S. -- which leads in gold medal count -- is ranked seventh in high school graduation rates, trailing countries like Germany, Japan and Great Britain.


Fourth to last place was not always the case, reports American Graduate partner station WAMU's Kavitha Cardoza. The United States used to lead in high school graduation rates, but as developed countries continued to improve, our progress plateaued around 76 percent.

What makes education in the U.S. different from the rest of the world?

"Schools have diluted their academic mission, by emphasizing the social experience: sports, proms and clubs," said Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution.
Loveless doesn't dispute that those activities teach qualities such as creativity and teamwork. "But it doesn't boost your knowledge of mathematics or literature so there's a price to pay," he said. "When you do the statistical analysis of what countries are growing rapidly now, they tend to be the countries that have an education system that's focused on academic skills."

Saudi Arabia To Build Women-Only Industrial City

Saudi Arabia To Build Women-Only Industrial City: In a bid to reconcile strict gender-segregation laws with a desire to increase employment opportunities for women, Saudi Arabia is planning to construct a new industrial "city" exclusively for female workers, Russian news agency RT reports.

According to Asian News International (ANI), the municipality, which will be built in the Eastern Province city of Hofuf, is the "first of several" women-only cities planned for the conservative kingdom.

Women in Saudi Arabia require a male guardian's consent for a host of activities including marriage, divorce or travel. The Guardian notes that segregated schools, universities and offices are already common in the country.

Imane Boudlal To Sue Disney Over Wearing Muslim Head Scarf At Work

Imane Boudlal To Sue Disney Over Wearing Muslim Head Scarf At Work: A former hostess at a Disneyland restaurant is suing Disney for not allowing her to wear her Muslim head scarf, or hijab, at work.

The suit is expected to be filed Monday in Los Angeles on behalf of Imane Boudlal, a Morocco-born U.S. citizen, the Associated Press reports.

The dispute started when Boudlal, who worked at the Storyteller Cafe in Disney's Grand California Hotel, realized she could wear her hijab to work after studying for her US citizenship exam. After having worked at the restaurant for two and a half years, in August 2010, she started wearing her hijab to work.

When she did, she says she was told to take it off or work "backstage" where customers wouldn't see her. In the days following, she was sent home at least seven times without pay for wearing her hijab to work, the OC Weekly reported.

UN: Gender discrimination costs Asia-Pacific economies tens of billions per year | The Raw Story

UN: Gender discrimination costs Asia-Pacific economies tens of billions per year | The Raw Story: Discrimination against women hampers progress in alleviating world poverty and costs Asia-Pacific economies tens of billions of dollars a year, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday.

“Gender discrimination blocks progress. Equality makes it possible to achieve huge breakthroughs,” Ban told an international meeting for young female leaders during a visit to his native South Korea.

Women make up a fraction of all chief executives of the world’s biggest companies, fewer than one in ten national leaders are female and fewer than one in five parliamentarians are women, he said in a speech.

“The lack of women’s representation — of women’s empowerment — affects individual women’s rights — and it holds back whole countries,” Ban said.

One recent UN study, he said, showed that limits on women’s economic participation cost the Asia-Pacific region nearly $90 billion a year in lost productivity.

Reaching for the Stars

Reaching for the Stars: Dr. Mae Jemison may have her feet firmly planted on the ground these days, but the world’s first woman astronaut of color continues to reach for the stars. Jemison was recently successful in leading a team that has secured a $500,000 federal grant to make interstellar space travel a reality.

The Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence (named After Jemison’s mother) was selected in June by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to receive seed funding to form 100 Year Starship (100YSS™), an independent, non-governmental, long-term initiative that aims to ensure that the capabilities for human interstellar flight exist as soon as the next 100 years. The winning 100YSS™ proposal, titled “An Inclusive, Audacious Journey Transforms Life Here on Earth and Beyond,” was created by the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence with team members Icarus Interstellar and the Foundation for Enterprise Development.

Civil Rights Project Mobilizes 444 Scholars Behind Effort To Uphold UT-Austin Admissions Policy

Civil Rights Project Mobilizes 444 Scholars Behind Effort To Uphold UT-Austin Admissions Policy: Unless selective universities are allowed to consider race when admitting students, the institutions won’t be able to create the kind of diverse classrooms needed to prepare students for jobs and leadership roles in an increasingly multiracial society and global marketplace.

That is the crux of one of the major arguments being advanced in a 40-page brief signed by more than 400 scholars in support of the University of Texas at Austin’s defense of race-conscious affirmative action. The case is set to go before the U.S. Supreme Court this fall.

Developing the brief and getting the 444 researchers to sign off on it was no light feat, according to the organizers. The process started in February the day after the Supreme Court agreed to hear the UT Austin case, when UCLA Civil Rights Project Director Gary Orfield sent out an electronic query to several researchers asking if they wanted to help put together a brief.

US Female Olympians Have Won More Medal Points Than All But Four Countries | Mother Jones

US Female Olympians Have Won More Medal Points Than All But Four Countries | Mother Jones: As we enter the last weekend of the 2012 London Olympics, American sports fans—especially women's sports fans—should be feeling pretty darn good. On Thursday, the US women's soccer team defeated Japan to secure their third consequtive gold medal victory. Seventeen-year-old Claressa Shields took home the United States' first gold in women's boxing in the event's inaugural year. And we are still reliving Gabby Douglas's historic victory in gif form at least once a day. So it seems like a good time to take stock of just how far we've come since the first "boys-only" modern Olympics in Athens in 1896—and just how impressive America's female Olympians are.

'The Olympian': A Story Of The First Black Gold Medalist

'The Olympian': A Story Of The First Black Gold Medalist: Craig Williams walked through the gates of Eden Cemetery, the oldest African American cemetery in the U.S., one fall day in 2007. Even though the Collingsdale, Pa., cemetery contains the bodies of several black luminaries -- including civil rights leader Octavius Valentine Catto and opera singer Marian Anderson -- Williams didn't come for any of these big names.

He was there to see John Taylor, the first African American to win Olympic gold.

Taylor was a college graduate and a star athlete, recognized for his success even by then president Theodore Roosevelt. But in 1908, the same year he medaled at the Olympic games in London, he died of typhoid pneumonia.

And with his death, much of Taylor's story was lost.

Since then, his Olympic feats and much of what we know about his life have been relegated to history books and university archives. Even in this famous cemetery where he is buried, Taylor's legend remained unknown. An index card in the cemetery’s file helped Williams find Taylor's grave -- where his family's tombstone leaned crookedly in the unkempt grass.

Olympics-Bannister hopes Games help UK racial tolerance | Agricultural Commodities | Reuters

Olympics-Bannister hopes Games help UK racial tolerance | Agricultural Commodities | Reuters: One of Britain's most revered athletes, Roger Bannister, said the success of the London Games had helped restore a sense of national pride and greater tolerance in multi-racial Britain.

The 2012 Olympics were held a year after riots swept through Tottenham in north London, initially sparked by the police shooting of a 29-year-old black man, and then spread to other cities across Britain.

Bannister, who won fame in 1954 by running the first sub-four-minute mile, said the Olympics and the success of British team had given people a reason to celebrate and come together.

"The Olympics have elevated national pride and made the modern society of Great Britain much more cohesive and more at ease with itself," Bannister told Reuters in a telephone interview on Sunday as the Games came to a close.