When Audiences Go To The Movies Out Of Moral Obligation : Code Switch : NPR

When Audiences Go To The Movies Out Of Moral Obligation : Code Switch : NPR: Just before Red Tails dropped last year, George Lucas went on The Daily Show and said that he had a hard time getting studios to bankroll and distribute his film about the Tuskegee Airmen, the pioneering black fighter pilots from World War II.

"It's because it's an all-black movie," Lucas said. "There's no major white roles in it at all. ... I showed it to all of them and they said, 'No. We don't know how to market a movie like this.' "

"I'm saying, if this doesn't work, there's a good chance you'll stay where you are for quite a while," he said of black-themed films. "It'll be harder for you guys to break out of that [lower-budget] mold."

Whether you think Lucas was earnest or cynical in rallying the troops, black filmgoers responded: Church and community groups planned outings to see Red Tails in the theater to prove that there was, in fact, a big market for big-budget, "positive" portrayals of black life. And in a surprise, it won its opening weekend.

Interview: Mahzarin Banaji And Anthony Greenwald, Authors Of 'Blindspot' : Code Switch : NPR

Interview: Mahzarin Banaji And Anthony Greenwald, Authors Of 'Blindspot' : Code Switch : NPR: Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banaji was once approached by a reporter for an interview. When Banaji heard the name of the magazine the reporter was writing for, she declined the interview: She didn't think much of the magazine and believed it portrayed research in psychology inaccurately.

But then the reporter said something that made her reconsider, Banaji recalled: "She said, 'You know, I used to be a student at Yale when you were there, and even though I didn't take a course with you, I do remember hearing about your work.' "

The next words out of Banaji's mouth: "OK, come on over; I'll talk to you."

Appreciation of a Media Man With a Passion for Diversity - Higher Education

Appreciation of a Media Man With a Passion for Diversity - Higher Education: When South Dakota native Allen Neuharth got his chance to pursue his passion of being a news executive, he did so on a national scale as a trailblazer—reinventing news and newsrooms in the 1970s and 1980s with a relentless zeal and madness to his method that today still leaves many people amazed.

While making money was for sure at the center of his agenda as head of Gannett Co. Inc., Neuharth aggressively promoted his broad agenda as a nontraditional media mogul, forcing his rivals and peers to think outside the box or risk being consumed by his generosity with the company’s money he used to acquire dozens of small and mid-size papers and promote affirmative action and racial and gender diversity.

'Imagine A Future: My Black Is Beautiful' Documentary Debuts During The Tribeca Film Festival

'Imagine A Future: My Black Is Beautiful' Documentary Debuts During The Tribeca Film Festival: It was only a year ago that Procter & Gamble’s My Black Is Beautiful (MBIB), an organization that celebrates the diverse beauty of African-American women and fosters self-esteem, launched the initiative "Imagine A Future."

The program, a collaboration with Black Girls Rock, aims to create opportunities for young black girls throughout the country by providing resources that foster a greater sense of confidence. And they aren't just talking a few hundred or a few thousand girls -- the goal is to reach one million young women over the next two years.

Now, Procter & Gamble is strengthening this herculean task with a dose of Hollywood. The mega consumer goods company and executive producer Beverly Bond have created a documentary called "Imagine A Future: My Black Is Beautiful," which debuted Sunday afternoon at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Poverty in America: Millions of families too broke for bank accounts - In Plain Sight

Poverty in America: Millions of families too broke for bank accounts - In Plain Sight: Sabino Fuentes-Sanchez hid $25,000 all around his house because he didn't trust banks. Lasonia Christon receives her Wal-Mart salary on a pre-paid debit card. Kim James was homeless for most of the past decade in part because she had no place to save money.

There are plenty of reasons people still live all-cash lives, but the sheer number who do it might surprise you. At a time when the majority of Americans use online banking, and some even deposit checks using their cellphone cameras, roughly eight percent of America's 115 million households don’t have a checking or savings account, according to census data compiled by the FDIC.

The numbers are far higher among minorities: More than 20 percent of African-Americans and Hispanics are essentially left out of the American banking system.

Frozen in the cash-only past, they face myriad “kick-them-while-they-are-down” situations where getting money costs money. Banks typically charge $6 to cash checks. Want to secure an apartment? Fee-based money orders are the only option. Without credit cards, they must turn to triple-digit interest rate payday loans for emergencies.

‘Central Park Five’ Activists Want Columbia Law Professor Fired for Role in Infamous Case - Higher Education

‘Central Park Five’ Activists Want Columbia Law Professor Fired for Role in Infamous Case - Higher Education: Twenty-four years after five Black and Latino teenagers were wrongfully imprisoned and convicted for raping and beating a White female jogger in Central Park, hundreds of activists converged in the park Saturday to demand that the city settle a lawsuit filed by the men now known as the “Central Park Five.”

Holding signs and chanting, the activists also called attention to an online petition that is currently circulating, calling on Columbia University to fire part-time law professor Elizabeth Lederer who along with Linda Fairstein were the lead prosecutors who handled the botched 1989 case.

“Elizabeth Lederer was among those who destroyed the lives of these young men by moving forward with her case even though there was no credible evidence, except coerced confessions demanded by police officers,” says Charles Johnson, a community activist and an alumnus of the Ivy League school. “It’s scary to think that she is now training the next generation of lawyers. She really needs to go.”

Bumphus Takes Center Stage at AACC Conference - Higher Education

Bumphus Takes Center Stage at AACC Conference - Higher Education: ...In continuing with the theme of celebrating and recognizing exemplary service, Dr. John Roueche presented Dr. Walter Bumphus with the 2013 Diverse Champions Award, which recognizes higher education leaders who have shown unwavering commitment to equal opportunity and access for all. Bumphus is currently the president and CEO of AACC, yet David Pluviose, executive editor of Diverse: Issues In Higher Education, declared that Bumphus “has served in virtually every community college leadership position with distinction.”

Roueche, president of the Roueche Graduate Center at National American University and the former director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Community College Leadership Program, was the inaugural recipient of the Diverse Champions Award in 2012 and introduced Bumphus as a “champion for the underserved (and) the at-risk.” Roueche added, “You champion diversity. … You champion equality and opportunity.”

Sweden’s Closet Racists - NYTimes.com

Sweden’s Closet Racists - NYTimes.com: ...And these are our fingers, which recently wrote a very public letter to Sweden’s justice minister, Beatrice Ask, after she went on the radio to defend racial profiling of passengers on Stockholm’s subway.

On March 7, the minister told a nationwide audience: “One’s experience of ‘why someone has questioned me’ can of course be very subjective,” suggesting that racially profiled subway passengers were overreacting and that their anger was irrational. Without missing a beat, she continued, “There are some who have been previously convicted and feel that they are always questioned, even though you can’t tell by looking at a person that they have committed a crime.”

It was an interesting choice of words — “previously convicted.” Because that’s exactly what we are. All of us who are guilty until proved innocent. We Swedes who do not fit the outdated blond, blue-eyed stereotype of what a true Swede should look like. We whose personal experience makes us doubt our country’s international reputation of being a paradise, with equal opportunities for everyone.

We remember the shame and the slights.

AP Exclusive: $10M gift to spur rebuilding of slave quarters at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello - The Washington Post

AP Exclusive: $10M gift to spur rebuilding of slave quarters at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello - The Washington Post: WASHINGTON — One-time slave quarters will be recreated at Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monticello, and more of the Declaration of Independence writer’s living quarters will be restored using a $10 million gift from a philanthropist who has a keen interest in the nation’s history.

Mulberry Row, the community where slaves lived on the Virginia plantation, will be reconstructed with the funds. Monticello officials plan to rebuild at least two log buildings where slaves worked and lived and will restore Jefferson’s original road scheme on the plantation. The gift will also fund the restoration of the second and third floors of Jefferson’s home that are now mostly empty and will replace aging infrastructure.

Celebrating Black Beauty and Advocating Diversity - NYTimes.com

Celebrating Black Beauty and Advocating Diversity - NYTimes.com: TYPICALLY, cause-marketing efforts involve profit-making companies partnering with charities to raise money. But Procter & Gamble, with its seven-year-old My Black Is Beautiful initiative, is introducing a project that is surprisingly ambitious even by the consumer goods giant’s standards.

On Sunday, Procter & Gamble will present a screening of “Imagine a Future” in conjunction with the Tribeca Film Festival. The film, which aims to empower African-American women, features Janet Goldsboro, a teenager from Dover, Del.

“I didn’t look like what I saw in a magazine,” Ms. Goldsboro says about her childhood in the documentary. “I look different from all my cousins. I had dark features, dark hair, dark eyes, big nose and big lips, and I used to get made fun of because of how I looked.”

She says that she is “into boys” — and that their remarks can sting.

White Out: Media Heap Suspicion On Brown People In Boston Marathon Bombing

White Out: Media Heap Suspicion On Brown People In Boston Marathon Bombing: WASHINGTON -- Hours after the Boston Marathon bombing, there was already Internet chatter that a "Saudi national" was the suspect. Police raided the apartment of Abdulrahman Ali Alharbi, a 22-year-old student from Saudi Arabia, as he was recovering from the blasts in a Boston hospital.

Next, CNN's John King raised the alarm about a more elusive "dark-skinned male" who the TV reporter said was in custody on Wednesday.

The following day, the New York Post got more specific. It slapped pictures of two young men on its front page, calling them "Bag Men" and identifying them as persons of interest to federal authorities. One was Salah Barhoum, 17, a Moroccan American middle-distance runner.

And then there was news that a man in Bronx, N.Y., who was born in Bangladesh was beaten up for supposedly being "a f*cking Arab" by a group of men who wanted retribution for the marathon bombing.

Report: Half of black students in Maryland attend segregated schools - The Washington Post

Report: Half of black students in Maryland attend segregated schools - The Washington Post: More than half of black students in Maryland attend schools where the vast majority of students are non-white and poor, according to a report released Thursday that documents intensifying segregation patterns in public schools over two decades.
Fifty-four percent of black students were enrolled in schools where at least 90 percent of students were racial and ethnic minorities in 2010, up from about a third in 1989.

In Prince George’s County, where white enrollment decreased from 28 to 4 percent in that time, nine of 10 black students attend a school where at least 90 percent of students are minorities, and nearly four of 10 students go to what the report calls “apartheid schools” where 99 percent of students are minorities.

“We are seeing a lot of racial change...and not much effort to do anything about it,” said Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project, based at the University of California at Los Angeles, that published the report.

Man assaults Muslim woman following reports of ‘dark-skinned’ Boston bombing suspect | The Raw Story

Man assaults Muslim woman following reports of ‘dark-skinned’ Boston bombing suspect | The Raw Story: A Muslim woman in Boston says that she was attacked by a white man on on Wednesday morning because he was apparently enraged by the Boston Marathon bombings and convinced, despite a lack of evidence, that the perpetrators were Muslim.

Heba Abolaban told Malden Patch that she and her friend, who were both wearing hijabs, were walking on Commercial Street with their children when a white male in his thirties punched her in her left shoulder.

“He was screaming ‘Fuck you Muslims! You are terrorists! I hate you! You are involved in the Boston explosions! Fuck you!’” she recalled. “Oh my lord, I was extremely shocked.”

“I did not say anything to him,” she added. “Not even that we aren’t terrorists… he was so aggressive.”

After about two minutes of confrontation, the man left and Abolaban called her husband and police.

She said the police were “kind and helpful,” but no arrests had been made.

Administrator Set Solid Course for Twin Rising Stars - Higher Education

Administrator Set Solid Course for Twin Rising Stars - Higher Education: On the eve of her retirement as director of the Center for Academic Transitions at Alamo Community College in San Antonio, María del Rosario Castro, or just “Rosie Castro,” has not only helped underserved students navigate the often barrier-fraught landscape of academia, but she’s nurtured, trained and inspired two of the Democratic Party’s rising political stars, her identical-twin sons, Julian Castro and Joaquin Castro. Julian, the youngest mayor of a top 50 city, San Antonio, and Joaquin, a newly minted Texas congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives, spent their teen years accompanying mom to rallies and working campaigns. As a first-generation college graduate, an activist in the Raza Unida Party in the 1970s, a member of several boards, a community advocate and a leader in academia, Rosie set the bar high for her two sons, who both attended Stanford University and Harvard Law School, then returned home for a career in public service. Here the higher ed administrator turned famous political mom talks education and policy with Diverse.

Texas teacher claims she couldn’t have fondled black student because she’s racist | The Raw Story

Texas teacher claims she couldn’t have fondled black student because she’s racist | The Raw Story: A teacher in Texas has invoked her own racism in a defense against charges that she fondled an African-American student in her first grade class at Northwest Preparatory Academy Charter School in Humble.

According to a criminal complaint obtained by the Houston Chronicle, the 7-year-old girl said that 61-year-old Esther Irene Stokes sent all of the other students out of the room on March 1 and then touched her “private part” on the outside of her clothes.

“The victim said that she was in the classroom alone with the teacher and that the teacher touched her on the outside of her clothes, on what she called her ‘private part,’ her vaginal area,” Humble Police Department Detective J. Blanchard explained on Tuesday.

Creative Classes: An Artful Approach To Improving Performance : NPR

Creative Classes: An Artful Approach To Improving Performance : NPR: Over the years, there have been a lot of claims about the benefits of the arts on the mind: Listening to Mozart makes you smarter; playing an instrument makes you better at math. One program — funded in part by the federal government — is putting these theories to the test. The , spearheaded by the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, is using an intensive arts curriculum to try and improve eight low-performing schools.

They're located in Denver; New Orleans; Des Moines, Iowa; and on a reservation in Montana, among other places, and they all serve students from poor families. Some were considered to be the lowest-performing schools in their states.

"They were schools where kids seemed defeated and resigned," says the committee's executive director, Rachel Goslins. "There wasn't a lot of motion or purpose or energy in the halls. They were schools that had failed for a long time."

Leaders Urge Colleges to Expand Sports Programs for Students With Disabilities - Higher Education

Leaders Urge Colleges to Expand Sports Programs for Students With Disabilities - Higher Education: The world watched as Oscar Pistorius eased his prosthetic racing legs into the starting blocks on the track at the Olympics last summer, taking the first steps to making history as the first amputee to race with “able-bodied” competitors.

Many watched out of curiosity, having never seen it done. Some with disabilities watched because, with every step, he was bringing their dreams closer to reality.

National education leaders, in reiterating a message already cemented by the Rehabilitation Act, told colleges in January they needed to be working on creating sports programs or adapting current ones to provide an equal opportunity for students with disabilities to play.

HBCU Presidents Cite Personalized Recruiting, Intrusive Counseling Among Best Practices - Higher Education

HBCU Presidents Cite Personalized Recruiting, Intrusive Counseling Among Best Practices - Higher Education: WASHINGTON — When Michael Sorrell assumed the presidency at Paul Quinn College, one of the first things he did was examine what successful small colleges were doing to achieve their results.

The exploration led him to visit similarly sized institutions throughout the country, from Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., where they “give you one year to prove you can cut it,” to Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., a school that has a 90 percent retention rate and a high rate of alumni giving.

“You don’t get to Walla Walla by accident,” Sorrell said. “But it was worth the trip.”

After the campus visit, Paul Quinn began to adopt some of the most successful strategies that he discovered, from personalized recruiting like other institutions use to recruit athletes, to “intrusive counseling,” in order to turn things around.

Stunting From Malnutrition Affects 1 In 4 Kids Worldwide : The Salt : NPR

Stunting From Malnutrition Affects 1 In 4 Kids Worldwide : The Salt : NPR: Babies and toddlers in the poorest parts of the world are getting better fed.

What's the proof? Stunting in kids – a sign of poor nutrition early in life — has dropped by a third in the past two decades, UNICEF Monday. But there's a long way to go. Globally, a quarter of kids under the age of 5 were stunted in 2011. That's roughly 165 million children worldwide, with nearly 75 percent of them living in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, the report says.

The progress has been most dramatic in East Asia and Latin America, where stunting has decreased by a whopping 70 and 50 percent, respectively. Even very poor countries, like Ethiopia and Nepal, have quickly made progress against malnutrition and stunting.

"People were always skeptical that you could reduce the number of malnourished children quickly without greatly improving a country's economy," , who leads the nutrition division for UNICEF, tells The Salt. "It's very doable, and it doesn't cost $100 per child. It's relatively cheap."

Movie Review - Ken Burns' 'Central Park Five' : NPR

Movie Review - Ken Burns' 'Central Park Five' : NPR: Ken Burns has said that no matter what subjects he tackles in his documentaries — baseball or jazz, Mark Twain or the Civil War — they always seem to boil down to two things: "race and place."

That's certainly true with his latest film, The Central Park Five, which tells of the violent assault and rape of a female jogger in 1989. The place was New York City — and because of citywide racial tensions at the time, the story was seized upon by New York tabloids and national TV newscasts alike.

The victim was white — and the five teenagers accused of brutalizing her were black and Latino. It made for frenzied, heated news coverage — and, as the late Ed Koch, former mayor of New York, explains in the film, both race and place were key factors in the attention this case received.

Fewer African-Americans Playing Baseball at HBCUs Due to Economics, Opportunities - Higher Education

Fewer African-Americans Playing Baseball at HBCUs Due to Economics, Opportunities - Higher Education: Last weekend, millions of people packed movie theaters to see 42, the long awaited biopic based on the life of Jackie Robinson. More than 55 years after breaking Major League Baseball’s color barrier and over 40 years after his death, Robinson’s story of rising above racism both on and off the baseball diamond generally is viewed as one of the highlights of the 20th century.

Away from the flashing lights of Hollywood, down the East Coast and throughout the South, historically Black colleges are still competing in baseball, just as they did in Robinson’s day. But the state of HBCU baseball has changed dramatically, even within the last quarter-century.
Although Robinson completed his storybook college athletic career at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), Black student-athletes in his time were almost exclusively limited to Black colleges. Even as Black athletes began to participate in sports in majority institutions in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, White athletes were slow to filter into HBCU sports. That’s still the case in 2013, but baseball is one of the exceptions to that rule.

Poll: 9 out of 10 undocumented Latinos would pursue citizenship

Poll: 9 out of 10 undocumented Latinos would pursue citizenship: Eighty five percent of Latino undocumented immigrants have family members who are U.S. citizens, and over two-thirds (68 percent) have been living in the U.S. for more than a decade, according to a new Latino Decisions poll of Latino undocumented immigrants. Moreover, 71 percent are in households that own cars, 62 percent have at least one U.S.-born child, and 15 percent reported owning their own home.

More importantly, the poll finds that 87 percent of undocumented Latinos – almost 9 out of 10 – say they would pursue citizenship if the law changed to allow a process for them to eventually apply for citizenship.

“Latino undocumented immigrants – have deep roots in America, with strong family and social connections to U.S. citizens, painting a portrait of a community that is very integrated into the American fabric, and hopeful of a chance to gain legal status and ultimately citizenship,” according to Latino Decisions, who interviewed over 400 Latino adult immigrants in either English or Spanish who were not citizens nor residents. The poll was conducted on behalf of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) and America’s Voice Education Fund.

Robinson Day Brings Pang of Guilt to MLB — But Are Times Just Different? - Higher Education

Robinson Day Brings Pang of Guilt to MLB — But Are Times Just Different? - Higher Education: As a minor barrier breaker myself, I honor Jackie Robinson.

Today is the 66th anniversary of the breakthrough in our nation’s pastime.

I didn’t play shortstop for the Brooklyn Dodgers. My barrier was in broadcast journalism. In 1989, I was the host of NPR’s “All Things Considered” for two years. I was the first Asian-American male and first-Filipino-American to host a national news program.

Since then, let me know if you’ve seen or heard all the Asian-American males in similar roles.

In that sense, as important as a breakthrough can be, sustaining the momentum is equally as important. That’s called progress, and it’s harder to come by than you think.

Just look at baseball today. Nearly three generations after Robinson, the number of Black players in the major leagues is just around 8.5 percent. By MLB’s own estimate, that’s half of what it was from the mid-70s through the mid-90s.

According to the Player Diversity Report (released on 11/13/12), the diversity of the player profile on 40-man Major League rosters was 62 percent Caucasian, 28 percent Hispanic, 8 percent African-American, 1 percent Asian and 0.2 percent American Indian.

Leaders in HBCU Community Have Long Debated Institutional Role of Student-Athlete - Higher Education

Leaders in HBCU Community Have Long Debated Institutional Role of Student-Athlete - Higher Education: Following Jesse Owens’ spectacular record-breaking four-gold-medal performance at the 1936 Olympics and Joe Louis’s capture of the heavyweight boxing title in 1937, a number of African-American coaches and journalists argued that African-American colleges should increase their financial support of athletics in hopes of producing more athletes who demonstrated the ability of the race.

Typical of those calls were sentiments of James D. Parks, a respected track coach at Lincoln (Pa.) University, who criticized the fact that Black colleges had failed to ever produce an Olympian. He acknowledged the financial restraints of the schools, but decried their lack of tracks and track coaches. Parks concluded that Black colleges “do not seem to realize that the development of even a single Owens or (Ralph) Metcalfe would bring more national and international renown to their institutions than a thousand of their so-called football classics (they( play among themselves.” Parks believed that by training champion athletes, Blacks earned a patriotic reputation and that their failure to do so suggested that African-Americans were unable to produce cable patriotic men.

Advocates Say Ethnic Studies Misunderstood, Needlessly Under Fire - Higher Education

Advocates Say Ethnic Studies Misunderstood, Needlessly Under Fire - Higher Education: Ron Scapp, president of the National Association for Ethnic Studies, exited the airplane headed to his annual board meeting last Thursday in Fort Collins, Colo., ready to galvanize ethnic studies program chairs from colleges across the country.

He said he felt a sense of urgency because there were too many headlines in the news recently that might have detrimental consequences for ethnic studies programs across the board.

To outsiders, a federal judge’s recent decision upholding aspects of a controversial Arizona law that took aim at the Mexican-American curriculum taught at the Tucson Unified School District has nothing to do with the association or college-based ethnic studies programs.

Judge A. Wallace Tashima’s decision confirmed that it was OK for Arizona to ban a curriculum that promotes the overthrow of the U.S. government, promotes racial or class resentment and advocates for ethnic solidarity rather than the treatment of students as individuals in a public school setting.

For Scapp, the judge’s ruling can be viewed as an attack on ethnic studies because, he said, it is based upon a flawed definition that “undermines American values. Ethnic studies embrace the full gamut of American history,” Scapp said.

Jackie Robinson Anniversary: Why Are Black MLB Players in Decline?

Jackie Robinson Anniversary: Why Are Black MLB Players in Decline?: Less than a week before Major League Baseball (MLB) prepares to celebrate the 66th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color line, Commissioner Bud Selig announced the formation of a 17-member diversity task force that will address African-American participation.

In a telephone interview with the New York Times Selig states, "I really think our history is so brilliant when it comes to African-Americans. You think about the late 1940s, the 1950s — wow. And you look at that and you say to yourself, 'Why did it not continue, and what could we do to make sure it does continue?'" in response to why such a commission matters now.

Baseball Creates Committee to Study Decline of Blacks in the Majors - NYTimes.com

Baseball Creates Committee to Study Decline of Blacks in the Majors - NYTimes.com: Commissioner Bud Selig said Tuesday that he was creating a 17-member diversity task force to study and address the issue of on-field participation by African-Americans in Major League Baseball.

“I don’t want to miss any opportunity here,” Selig said in a telephone interview from his office in Milwaukee. “We want to find out if we’re not doing well, why not, and what we need to do better. We’ll meet as many times as we need to to come to meaningful decisions.”

The first meeting, Selig said, would be Wednesday in Milwaukee, with Dave Dombrowski, the president of the Detroit Tigers, serving as chairman of the committee. The committee includes several other front-office executives, but also Bernard Muir, the athletic director at Stanford; Frank Marcos, the senior director of baseball’s scouting bureau; and the former Mets

Quietly, American Indians are reshaping cities and reservations | Tampa Bay Times

Quietly, American Indians are reshaping cities and reservations | Tampa Bay Times: MINNEAPOLIS — Nothing in her upbringing on a remote Indian reservation in northern Minnesota prepared Jean Howard for her introduction to city life during a visit here eight years ago: an outbreak of gunfire, followed by the sight of people scattering.

She watched, confused, before realizing that she should run, too. "I said: 'I'm not living here. This is crazy,' " she recalled.

Not long afterward, however, Howard did return, and found a home in Minneapolis. She is part of a continuing and largely unnoticed mass migration of American Indians, whose move to urban centers over the past several decades has changed both reservations and cities.

Though they are widely associated with rural life, more than seven of 10 Indians and Alaska Natives now live in a metropolitan area, according to Census Bureau data released this year, compared with 45 percent in 1970 and 8 percent in 1940.

The trend mirrors the pattern of millions of African-Americans who left the rural South during the Great Migration of the 20th century and moved to cities in the North and West. But while many black migrants found jobs in meat-packing plants, stockyards and automobile factories, American Indians have not had similar success finding work.

Birmingham Church Bombing Victims' Families Split Over Congressional Gold Medal Honor

Birmingham Church Bombing Victims' Families Split Over Congressional Gold Medal Honor: BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Relatives of four black girls killed when Ku Klux Klan members bombed an Alabama church are split over how to mark the crime 50 years later, with some favoring a congressional medal honoring the victims and others seeking financial compensation.

Sisters of two victims said Friday they favor a proposed Congressional Gold Medal honoring the girls and don't want money for the decades of suffering endured by their families, differing with relatives of two other girls.

Dianne Braddock vividly recalls the day the powerful blast killed her 14-year-old sister, Carole Robertson, and she said a national honor would help her heal far more than any amount of money.

"I think the congressional medal brings the country together and makes a statement about where we are as a nation," said Braddock, of Laurel, Md.

National Urban League's State Of Black America Finds Uneven Progress In The Pursuit... -- WASHINGTON, April 10, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

National Urban League's State Of Black America Finds Uneven Progress In The Pursuit... -- WASHINGTON, April 10, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --: WASHINGTON, April 10, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --The National Urban League's (www.nul.org) State of Black America report released today concludes that despite social and economic gains, the African-American equality gap with whites has changed little since 1963—the year of the Great March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the height of the civil rights movement.

​To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Great March, this year's State of Black America—Redeem the Dream: Jobs Rebuild America includes a 50-year retrospective analysis conducted through the lens of The Equality Index®. The report shows that while the African-American condition has improved, including achievements in educational attainment and employment, this progress has occurred largely within the Black community. Double-digit gains in education, employment and wealth contrast sharply with the single-digit gains made in those same areas compared to whites.

Hispanics help revive heartland town in Iowa - TODAY.com

Hispanics help revive heartland town in Iowa - TODAY.com: In 1990, just 20 Hispanics lived in Ottumwa, Iowa. Today, the heartland town has come to mirror the increased diversity around the country, as Hispanics now account for 11% of the population of the small town of nearly 25,000.

Originally drawn by blue-collar jobs and opportunities for better lives, Latino immigrants migrated to this quiet town during the 1990s and played a key role in reversing its population and economic decline.

“I think Hispanics are part of the mix of the revival of Ottumwa,” Himar Hernandez, one of the community’s first Hispanics, told TODAY's Natalie Morales in a segment that aired Friday.

“They were new so they were bringing new ideas, and new perspectives, and it got everybody energized with the thinking that there's hope for Ottumwa,” he said.

African-American passengers sue US Airways for asking them to change out of hoodies | The Raw Story

African-American passengers sue US Airways for asking them to change out of hoodies | The Raw Story: In a complaint filed in California Central District Court on Wednesday, two African-American passengers are suing US Airways after an employee told them it was airline policy not to wear jeans and hooded sweatshirts in first class.

According to the complaint obtained by AlterNet, an employee told MacCraig Warren and Miles Warren that “everyone in first class is required to wear slacks, button up shirts and no baseball caps” and asked them to “change from jeans into slacks, a button-up shirt and told plaintiffs to remove their baseball caps.”

The Warrens expressed concern to a white first-class passenger, Michael Heffernan, that they might be late for the flight due to changing to comply with the dress code, but then saw Hefferman and a friend also wearing jeans and a hooded sweatshirt while sitting in first class.

Phillips Andover Girls’ Leadership Debated - NYTimes.com

Phillips Andover Girls’ Leadership Debated - NYTimes.com: ANDOVER, Mass. — When the elite Phillips Academy here went coed in 1973, some worried that women would quickly take over this venerable institution, the alma mater of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Samuel Morse and Humphrey Bogart, not to mention both Presidents George Bush.
 In short order, the number of girls in the student ranks did roughly equal the number of boys. The faculty today is more than half female. And until her retirement last summer, the head of school was a woman, for nearly two decades.

And yet some of the young women — and men — at the 235-year-old prep school feel that Andover, as it is commonly called, has yet to achieve true gender equality. They expressed this concern several weeks ago in a letter to the student newspaper, The Phillipian, and like a match to dry tinder, it set off a raging debate that engulfed the campus.

Minority Engineering Forum Examines College Affordability - Higher Education

Minority Engineering Forum Examines College Affordability - Higher Education: During a research and policy forum organized Thursday by the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME) group, officials convened panel discussions to explore college affordability. Members of Congress attending the annual forum pledged their support for the STEM education funding as well as for the longtime minority engineering student scholarship and support organization.

“My colleagues and I have been working on a bill that I’ve just introduced last week that addresses the critical disparities in student achievement in math and science especially at the middle and high school level,” said U.S. Rep. Marcia L. Fudge (D-Ohio).

In addition to Fudge, U.S. Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), U.S. Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.), U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fl.), U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.), and U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) spoke at the Annual NACME Research and Policy Forum. Held at the Rayburn Office Building on Capitol Hill, the forum was entitled “Confronting the New American Dilemma: Research, to Policy, To Action.”

Incredibly, Rejected Asian Americans Start New “Historical Asian American College and University” Movement - Higher Education

Incredibly, Rejected Asian Americans Start New “Historical Asian American College and University” Movement - Higher Education: Hun Loo “Lincoln” Gong, a self-made billionaire who designed the first chip that enabled laptops to automatically read both Apple and PC software in Chinese and English, was rejected from Harvard in 1981.

He has never forgotten that, nor the fact that it’s impossibly difficult for Asian Americans to get beyond the limitations of top institutions with increasingly high percentages of Asian American students.

“Schools just don’t want to go beyond 30-40 percent Asian,” said Gong. “It’s true for private schools like Harvard or even public schools like UC Berkeley. But think what kind of student body you can have with all those Asian American rejects.”

That’s when the light went off in Gong’s head.

“I never forgot when I was rejected from Harvard, I got a scholarship to attend Lincoln University in Pennsylvania,” Gong said. He didn’t realize it was a historically black school at the time, but applied because his immigrant father would only let him go to a school named after the family hero.

At Lincoln, Gong learned about the purpose of historically black universities, and how they served a real need when blacks were excluded from colleges before the Civil War.

Obama Administration’s 2014 Education Budget Proposal Boosts Pell Grant, Seeks Interest Rate Changes - Higher Education

Obama Administration’s 2014 Education Budget Proposal Boosts Pell Grant, Seeks Interest Rate Changes - Higher Education: ...Rather than rely on a funding formula that some have called outdated, the administration is proposing a new framework that rewards colleges that enroll and graduate Pell-eligible students and keep tuition increases manageable.

Elsewhere, funding for historically Black colleges and universities and Hispanic-serving institutions would remain unchanged at $313 million and $221 million, respectively. Support for these programs also would continue at current levels:

n Tribal colleges: $55 million.

n Predominantly Black colleges and universities: $24 million.

n HBCU graduate institutions: $59 million.

n Alaska-Native and Native Hawaiian-serving institutions: $28 million.

n Asian American and Pacific Islander-serving colleges: $8 million.



College access programs such as TRIO and GEAR UP would continue at current levels, funded at $840 million and $302 million, respectively, the budget states.

Native American Moyers guest: ‘Indians have no cultural power’ | The Raw Story

Native American Moyers guest: ‘Indians have no cultural power’ | The Raw Story: In a preview clip from this weekend’s “Moyers and Company”, Native American author Sherman Alexie discussed how it feels to be born in the United States, but not of it.

The Blasphemy author talked about the curious sense of cultural dislocation that comes from being an alien in one’s own culture, a struggle that he feels keenly when it comes to discussions of stereotypes like the ones portrayed in the “Indian” mascots of athletic teams.

“At least half the country thinks the mascot issue is insignificant. But I think it’s indicative of the ways in which Indians have no cultural power,” he said. “We’re still placed in the past. So we’re either in the past or we’re only viewed through casinos.”

Jim Gile, Kansas Official, Drops N-Word | TPM LiveWire

Jim Gile, Kansas Official, Drops N-Word | TPM LiveWire: A local government official in Kansas uttered a racial slur at a meeting last week but subsequently denied that it was due to racism, citing the homes he's built for "colored people."

During a meeting of the Saline County, Kan. Commission last Tuesday, a discussion over whether to hire an architect to design repairs to local bridges turned heated. Commissioner Jim Gile argued that the county should hire an architect rather than "nigger-rigging it," a remark that prompted laughter from others in the room, according to the Salina Journal. When Gile was asked what he said, he replied, "Afro-Americanized."

"He's like that congressman from Alaska," Commission Chairman Randy Duncan said, referring to Rep. Don Young (R-AK).

Segregated Prom: NAACP Lobbies Wilcox County, Ga., School Board Over Racial Segregation

Segregated Prom: NAACP Lobbies Wilcox County, Ga., School Board Over Racial Segregation: Leaders of the Georgia NAACP have urged education authorities in the state to end a school's practice of allowing racially segregated proms.

"These children want to go to prom together. I cannot understand that in the year 2013 there are segregated proms in Wilcox County," said Edward DuBose, President of the Georgia NAACP.

The children in question are the students of Wilcox County High School, which has a longstanding practice of having both separate proms and homecomings for black and white students. The proms are not organized or endorsed by the school.

The NAACP asked the school board Tuesday to change their policy of not sponsoring proms, which would allow the segregated proms to continue, and sponsor one official prom for everyone, according to WALB.

County commissioner apologizes for ‘n*gger rigging’ remark | The Raw Story

County commissioner apologizes for ‘n*gger rigging’ remark | The Raw Story: Saline County Commissioner Jim Gile in Kansas has apologized for using a racial epithet during a meeting on April 2.

The Salina Journal reported that Gile later apologized for using the expression “n*gger-rigging it” while discussing a repair project. He claimed he actually intended to say the phrase “jury-rigged” but accidentally sputtered out the racial slur.

“I am not a prejudiced person,” Gile said. “I have built Habitat homes for colored people.”

A group of people called for Gile to resign on Tuesday, according to KSAL. One woman said the phrase “tells of a time of hatred and ugliness in our nation, and it hurts my heart” while another woman alleged “what comes from a man’s mouth, comes from his heart.”

Alzheimer’s Study Finds Same Variant Genes in Blacks - NYTimes.com

Alzheimer’s Study Finds Same Variant Genes in Blacks - NYTimes.com: African-Americans have a slightly higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease than people of largely European ancestry, but there is no major genetic difference that could account for the slight excess risk, new research shows.

The results are from one of the only large studies ever done on Alzheimer’s in African-Americans. Researchers identified the same gene variants in older African-Americans that they had found in older people of European ancestry. But they found that African-Americans with Alzheimer’s disease were slightly more likely to have one gene, ABCA7, that is thought to confer risk for the disease.

Another gene, APoE4, long known to increase Alzheimer’s risk in older white people, was present in about the same proportion of African-Americans with Alzheimer’s as it is in people of European ancestry.

Diverse Conversations: Top 20 Historically Black Colleges and Universities of 2012-’13 - Higher Education

Diverse Conversations: Top 20 Historically Black Colleges and Universities of 2012-’13 - Higher Education: I have written here before about the academic powerhouses that exist in the form of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. I believe these schools need to place increased emphasis on inclusion of all students, regardless of race, in order to stay relevant in the increasingly broad educational spectrum. That being said, the facts remain that HBCUs are an integral part of the nation’s higher education system, particularly when it comes to bright futures for African-American students.

There are several “top” lists that use complicated algorithms and formulas to determine which of the 105 HBCUs are the best from year to year. My list is less scientific; I based my picks on a combination of graduation statistics, available financial aid, world-renowned academic programs, strides in diversity, and a variety of other factors.

Blacks' Election-Day Waits Nearly Double Those Of Whites, But Why? : It's All Politics : NPR

Blacks' Election-Day Waits Nearly Double Those Of Whites, But Why? : It's All Politics : NPR: On Election Day 2012, black voters waited on average nearly twice as long to vote as did white voters, while the wait time for Hispanic voters fell in between those two groups.

So say the available data, according to Massachusetts Institute of Technology political scientist . He decided to see what he could learn by examining statistics on Election Day waits and sums up his findings in a research paper titled "."

Stewart says the national average wait for white voters was 12 minutes, while that same metric for African-Americans was 23 minutes. For Hispanics, it was 19 minutes.

Although it would be easy to jump to the conclusion that some form of discrimination might have been at work, Stewart suggests that other factors could be at play, such as geography.

Workplace Diversity Hindered By Failure To Communicate, Study Says

Workplace Diversity Hindered By Failure To Communicate, Study Says: Workplace diversity continues to elude many white male managers, according to a new survey by the Greatheart Leader Labs in Seattle. But the reason why diversity stalls isn't as black-and-white as you may think, the report says.

In a survey of roughly 700 managers at eight major companies, including Alcoa, Bank of America, Intel, Exelon, Marsh & McLennan Companies, PepsiCo, Wal-Mart Stores and PWC, participants were asked to anonymously rate the diversity effectiveness among white male leaders in their companies. 45 percent of white men gave a positive rating, while only 21 percent of women and people of color agreed. According to the survey results, wide gaps were also found in the perception of white men's abilities to coach and improve the performance of diverse employees (33 points difference); build strong, diverse teams (36 points); promote diverse talent on merit (36 points); and include diverse voices in decision making (40 points.)

And though respect proved to be consistent across the board, the gaps in diversity stemmed from one issue, study authors concluded -- a failure to communicate.

Terrance Dean: Cutting Welfare Benefits of Tennessee's Underperforming Children Is an Injustice

Terrance Dean: Cutting Welfare Benefits of Tennessee's Underperforming Children Is an Injustice: If I do not speak for a majority of Tennesseans I will be remiss to express how saddened, outraged, and disappointed I am with the legislatures who deem it necessary to enact a bill to cut the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, welfare benefits, of parents whose children are under-performers in Tennessee schools. This cannot be the reality of the 21st century of which lingers in the not so distant past the horrors of the Jim Crow South.

How appalling that white male constituents who make up the majority of the legislative body will enact a bill that sharply affects the majority of Tennesseans on welfare, who just so happen to be minorities and people of color. But, what's even more appalling is that many of those who will be impacted by this bill are minority children of color -- helpless, defenseless, and voiceless children who are the bi-products of Tennessee schools. Unfortunately, they are the real victims here.

School 'Discipline Gap' Explodes As 1 In 4 Black Students Suspended, Report Finds

School 'Discipline Gap' Explodes As 1 In 4 Black Students Suspended, Report Finds: For years, education advocates have highlighted the dire importance of closing the achievement gap of academic performance between students of different ethnic and socioeconomic groups. Now, another group of advocates is drawing attention to the discipline gap of unequal punishments to different groups of students.

The Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the University of California, Los Angeles Civil Rights Project, released two reports on Monday that show the increasing gap between suspension rates of black and white students. One million -- or one in nine -- middle school and high school students were suspended in 2009-2010, including 24 percent of black students and 7.1 percent of white students.

 Most of the suspensions came not in response to violent behavior, but for minor infractions such as dress code violations or lateness. The research also found that suspensions increase the likelihood kids will drop out of school and commit crimes.

Diverse Docket: Judge Sides With Yale in Discrimination Suit - Higher Education

Diverse Docket: Judge Sides With Yale in Discrimination Suit - Higher Education: A federal judge in Connecticut has rejected race and gender discrimination claims by an African-American doctor who was terminated from Yale University’s obstetrics and gynecology residency program, finding that the university had a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its action.

The suit came from Dr. Anthony Craig, who was one of three African-Americans among the six residents admitted to the program in 2008. They were selected from a field of 363 candidates, Yale said in court filings.

Craig signed a one-year employment contract with Yale’s medical school. During his first months, he received sharply negative performance evaluations, with some attending physicians failing him and with others reporting that they would be uncomfortable with his treating their patients unsupervised.

National Urban League Calls Attention to Financial Aid Issues From African-American Perspective - Higher Education

National Urban League Calls Attention to Financial Aid Issues From African-American Perspective - Higher Education: Tapped by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to contribute to the Reimagining Aid Delivery & Design (RADD) project, the National Urban League (NUL) has released “Education Transforms Lives: Postsecondary Affordability Survey and Focus Groups,” a survey paper that largely discusses the views of African-Americans on financial aid and college access. The paper is intended to bring the views of African-Americans to the Gates Foundation-sponsored effort to shape reform of the U.S. college financial aid system, according to NUL officials.

“We know that we bring a needed voice to the conversation—on behalf of students who—due to income level, financial aid literacy, and historic underrepresentation—are most in need of higher education financial aid and support services,” says Chanelle Hardy, the National Urban League senior vice president for policy and executive director.

“As time passes, the salary gap between high school graduates and those with associates or bachelor’s degrees continue to grow—particularly for African-American and Latino students,” notes Hardy, who is one of the NUL report’s three co-authors.

Harris Wofford: Back to Birmingham

Harris Wofford: Back to Birmingham: Today, the 45-year anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., is a good time to remember the historic events in Birmingham that started 50 years ago in that city which became the crucible of the civil rights crusade King led in the middle of the 20th century.

And on that date now, in 2013, it's an honor to be going back to Birmingham with Alma Powell, the chair of the America's Promise Alliance. She is returning to her hometown to launch a new stage of the campaign for children and youth that Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton started, with General Colin Powell as chair, at the Presidents' Summit in Philadelphia in 1997.

I write as one who was in at the beginning of that campaign for the Five Promises pledged to youth at the Summit in Philadelphia, and before that as one deeply involved in the civil rights movement after the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56, and its growth in significant part by Martin Luther King's turn to the Gandhian strategy of non-violent direct action.

Benjamin Todd Jealous: No Country for 'Black Teens'

Benjamin Todd Jealous: No Country for 'Black Teens': One year later, the Trayvon Martin tragedy still stings -- and some people are still throwing salt on the open wound. Last week George Zimmerman's brother, Robert Zimmerman, posted a tweet comparing Trayvon Martin to De'Marquis Elkins, a 17-year-old black teenager charged with fatally shooting a one-year-old baby.

The tweet showed a photo of Elkins side by side with a photo of Martin, both making inappropriate gestures, with the caption "A picture speaks a thousand words. Any questions?"

Zimmerman's follow-up tweet read "Lib[eral] media [should] ask if what these [two] black teens did [to] a [woman and her baby] is the reason [people] think blacks might [be] risky." The implication was that Trayvon Martin's actions on the night he was murdered were equivalent to the killing of an innocent child.

Lawmakers Vote To Pardon The Scottsboro Boys

Lawmakers Vote To Pardon The Scottsboro Boys: MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- The legacy of the "Scottsboro Boys" is secure: The nine black teens were wrongly convicted more than 80 years ago in one of America's most infamous racial tragedies. Alabama is now moving to repair its own legacy, and correct past injustices, with a bill to allow posthumous pardons for the group.

On Thursday, the state House voted 103-0 in favor of legislation setting up a procedure to pardon the teens, who were falsely accused of rape by two white women in 1931. The Senate had passed the bill earlier, 29-0. Gov. Robert Bentley has indicated he will sign it.

"This is great for Alabama. It was long overdue," said Democratic state Rep. Laura Hall of Huntsville, who sponsored the bill in the House.

The Senate sponsor, Republican Arthur Orr, said it was unfortunate that the pardons are coming after all the Scottsboro Boys have died – but the bill lets Alabama write a "better final chapter."

Nelson Mandela Discharged From The Hospital

Nelson Mandela Discharged From The Hospital: JOHANNESBURG — Former President Nelson Mandela was discharged from a hospital on Saturday following treatment for pneumonia, the presidency said in news that cheered South Africans who had waited tensely for health updates on a beloved national figure.

Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader who spent 27 years in prison for opposing white racist rule, was robust during his decades as a public figure, endowed with charisma, a powerful memory and an extraordinary talent for articulating the aspirations of his people and winning over many of those who opposed him. In recent years, however, 94-year-old Mandela became more frail and last made a public appearance at the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament, where he didn't deliver an address and was bundled against the cold in a stadium full of fans.

'The Tonight Show' Battle Between Jay Leno And Jimmy Fallon Proves Late Night TV Is Still A White Men's Club

'The Tonight Show' Battle Between Jay Leno And Jimmy Fallon Proves Late Night TV Is Still A White Men's Club: The role of female talk show hosts in late-night TV broadcast network history, all 50-plus years of it, can be summed up in two words: Joan Rivers. It takes just another two – Arsenio Hall – to do the same for minorities.

There's no indication that's going to change in the latest round of musical chairs involving "Tonight" and "Late Night." All the NBC, ABC and CBS showcase jobs at 11:30 p.m. Eastern and later appear likely to remain securely in white men's hands.

Jay Leno is handing off to Jimmy Fallon, with speculation tagging Seth Meyers as his likely successor. Meanwhile, David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel, Craig Ferguson and Carson Daly are sitting pretty, without the faintest drumbeat of a pair of advancing high heels to signal a threat.

There have been alternatives bandied about – Chelsea Handler, black comedian-writer Aisha Tyler – but no hints they or others are getting traction.

Effects Of Desegregation Busing Battles Linger In Boston

Effects Of Desegregation Busing Battles Linger In Boston: BOSTON -- Last fall, Ginnette Powell traveled from her home in Boston's Dorchester section to her old middle school in South Boston – a journey of just two miles, but one that covered a huge emotional distance. Finally, she was able to leave the painful past behind.

Powell endured the explosive battle over desegregation in Boston in the 1970s. Tears come to her eyes when she talks about how it took her decades to return to the place where she never felt safe as an African-American seventh-grader.

"It was scary because of what you were going into, getting bricks thrown at your bus. I remember the bus windows being broken," said Powell, now 48.

Nearly four decades later, Powell's native city also is still working to move forward from the legacy of the school busing crisis. Last year, Mayor Thomas Menino created an advisory group whose aim was to work toward putting students back in neighborhood schools. And last month, school officials agreed to do away with the last vestiges of the desegregation-based school assignment system, beginning in 2014.

'New tradition' for Georgia students: Their first racially integrated prom – Schools of Thought - CNN.com Blogs

'New tradition' for Georgia students: Their first racially integrated prom – Schools of Thought - CNN.com Blogs: As Quanesha Wallace remembers, it was around this time last year when the idea first came up at Wilcox County High School. It was nothing big, just chatter about prom, school, what comes next, what they'd change.

If things were different, someone said, we'd all go to the same prom.

For as long as anyone could remember, students in their South Georgia community went to separate proms, and homecoming dances, too. White students from Wilcox County attend one. Black students, another. They’re private events organized by parents and students, not the school district. Schools have long been desegregated, but in Wilcox County, the dances never changed.

The friends all agreed they'd go to an integrated prom, Quanesha said, and when they asked, others said, "Yeah, I'd go, too."

"We are all friends," Quanesha's friend, Stephanie Sinnot, told CNN affiliate WGXA-TV in Macon, Georgia. "That's just kind of not right that we can't go to prom together."

How Affirmative Action Became an Upper-Middle Class Benefit - The Daily Beast

How Affirmative Action Became an Upper-Middle Class Benefit - The Daily Beast: The Court is grappling this term with the constitutionality of preferential admissions at the University of Texas, and recently announced that it will review next fall the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) that amends the Michigan Constitution to prohibit preferential treatment based upon “race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin” in admissions, employment or public contracts.

Regardless of when and how the Supreme Court rules on the pending challenges to affirmative action, here are three takeaways:

One, opposition to affirmative action does not necessarily translate into opposition to Barack Obama. Two, interest groups that opposed racial preferences in the 1970s may now be among its backers. Three, liberal support for affirmative action as we know it may be ebbing, as “diversity” has become a shorthand for race.

As David Leonhardt put it in the New York Times, “low-income students, controlling for race, receive either no preference or a modest one, depending on which study you believe.” In other words, affirmative action is now another upper-middle class benefit.

Wheeling kids take immigration reform to high profile lawmakers - chicagotribune.com

Wheeling kids take immigration reform to high profile lawmakers - chicagotribune.com: Wheeling school kids recently took their proposals for comprehensive immigration reform straight to the top.

Seventh-grade students from Wheeling-based Community Consolidated School District 21 made a presentation on April 4 to Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-8th), state Sen. Matt Murphy (R-Palatine), state Rep. Elaine Nekritz (D-Des Plaines), Chicago Ald. Joe Moreno (1st) and Greg Bales, who attended for democratic Sen. Dick Durbin.

The Jack London Middle School's immigration reform proposal called it "simply not fair" that, if passed, the federal DREAM Act would require two years of military service or college attendance. The DREAM Act is a proposal to grant legal status to undocumented students who grew up in the United States.

"I was surprised by that," Duckworth said of the kids' ideas. "Their thinking is logical. It has a sound basis, but I don't agree with them."

Writer of Times Op-Ed on Racism in Cuba Loses Job - NYTimes.com

Writer of Times Op-Ed on Racism in Cuba Loses Job - NYTimes.com: MEXICO CITY — The editor of a publishing house in Cuba who wrote a critical article in The New York Times opinion section about persistent racial inequality on the island, something revolutionaries proudly say has lessened, has been removed from his post, associates said on Friday.

The author, Roberto Zurbano, in an article published March 23, described a long history of racial discrimination against blacks on the island and said “racial exclusion continued after Cuba became independent in 1902, and a half century of revolution since 1959 has been unable to overcome it.” 

On Friday, The Havana Times blog reported that Mr. Zurbano had told a gathering of Afro-Cuban advocates that he had been dismissed from his post at the publishing house of the Casa de las Americas cultural center, leaving the implication that the dismissal was connected to the article. Other associates said Mr. Zurbano told them he had been removed but would continue working there.

Glenn Singleton at SIIS 2013

Glenn Singleton at SIIS 2013: SALT LAKE CITY—April 4, 2013—School Improvement Network, the leader in educator effectiveness resources, today announces that Glenn Singleton, president of Pacific Educational Group, will speak at the School Improvement Innovation Summit 2013 on courageous conversations about race to empower systematic reform within schools and systems.

“We are very pleased to be having Glenn Singleton join us for the School Improvement Innovation Summit this year,” said Chet Linton, CEO and president of School Improvement Network. “Creating an environment where all students and educators can thrive is a struggle for schools across the nation, yet it is fundamental to making every teacher effective and every student college and career ready. Summit attendees who participate in Mr. Singleton’s presentation will gain valuable insights on how to bridge these difficulties in their own schools and systems to create an environment where all educators and students can perform at their best.”

Segregated Prom: Wilcox County, GA. High School Students Set Up First Integrated Prom

Segregated Prom: Wilcox County, GA. High School Students Set Up First Integrated Prom: A group of high school students in Wilcox County High School, GA., are taking a stand against their school's practice of holding racially-segregated proms by organizing the first-ever integrated prom in the school's history.

Stephanie Sinnot, Mareshia Rucker, Quanesha Wallace, and Keela Bloodworth are lifelong friends, who say they do everything together. Stephanie and Keela are white; Mareshia and Quanesha are black, which means that they would not have been able to attend prom together, they told WSAV

"We are all friends," Stephanie told WSAV. "That's just kind of not right that we can't go to prom together."

The school holds separate proms for white and non-white students. Homecoming is also normally segregated, with separate courts for each race.

Diversity Not Just a Human Resources Function Anymore - Higher Education

Diversity Not Just a Human Resources Function Anymore - Higher Education: Many business organizations today are experiencing “diversity fatigue.” This is due to disappointing results from all of the diversity initiatives and programs that human resources managers have in place.

At the same time, some businesses are experiencing great success with diversity. The difference often lies in the basic assumptions about diversity, what it means and what it can achieve.

The responsibility for managing diversity and inclusiveness in an organization typically falls within the human resources function. Many organizations today have human resources professionals at the executive level that hold the title of chief diversity officer or chief people officer. This person works with HR managers, function and line managers and executives to create an organizational vision to increase diversity and create a work climate that leverages diversity to achieve higher performance.

Undocumented Youth Reaching for Higher Education - Higher Education

Undocumented Youth Reaching for Higher Education - Higher Education: Carlos Rao waited four years after graduating from high school before going to college because he mistakenly believed undocumented immigrants like him were barred from attending. He’s been waiting even longer for Congress to adopt one of the many on-again, off-again proposals for immigration reform it has debated but never adopted. That legislation might grant him and millions of other immigrants legal resident status.

Each time a proposal failed, Rao, who had been working for below minimum wages in dead-end jobs, lost hope that his life would ever change.

“It was a really depressing time period,” he said. “That’s not what I wanted for my life.”

Rao is now completing his studies toward an associate degree in architecture at Miami Dade College and is planning to graduate this spring. He’s still waiting for the immigration laws to change, but these days he’s brimming with hope. He’s one of hundreds of thousands of young immigrants, many of them college students, who have applied for permission to legally stay and work in the U.S. for two years without the threat of deportation under a new program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.

Head Start Families Left With No Good Options Due To Sequestration

Head Start Families Left With No Good Options Due To Sequestration: The ripple effects of sequestration are taking hold. And among the first and most affected are hundreds of lower-income parents forced to game out major life adjustments to accommodate cuts to Head Start.

Across the country, administrators of Head Start -- the federal preschool educational, health and nutritional program for disadvantaged children -- have begun taking drastic measures to meet the 5-percent cut as mandated under the sequester. Unlike other agencies that have used budget dexterity to temporarily put off those cuts, Head Start has been forced to deal with budget gaps now because the school year ends this spring.

What's resulted is a series of operational changes that have left needy families even further in the lurch.

In Palm Beach County, for instance, Head Start has ended its bus service, forcing families for 2,300 children to find their own methods of transportation.

Towson community frustrated with negative attention over racial issues - baltimoresun.com

Towson community frustrated with negative attention over racial issues - baltimoresun.com: Hundreds of students, alumni and professors at Towson University gathered Tuesday to declare that the school stands for tolerance and diversity, and that a student who has attracted international news coverage for advocating racial segregation does not represent them.

Some of those attending the student-planned rally said they were deeply frustrated and angry with news media attention to student Matthew Heimbach's White Student Union and the nighttime patrols that he said are aimed at fighting crime.

As they marched through Towson's campus, they sought to portray an image of inclusion and tolerance — one they say is far more representative of the majority of the university.

Diverse Docket: Basketball Player Loses Scholarship, Court Case - Higher Education

Diverse Docket: Basketball Player Loses Scholarship, Court Case - Higher Education: A former basketball player who lost her athletic scholarship for poor performance on the court has also lost a court case accusing Central Michigan University of discrimination because she is White and heterosexual.

The 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals unanimously refused to reinstate Brooke Heike’s equal protection suit against CMU, her coach, the athletic director and a financial aid official.

The three-judge panel found insufficient evidence to support the allegations and said the university provided adequate due process by granting Heike a hearing on its decision not to renew her scholarship.

The court recognized great deference to the discretion of coaches, saying, “A coach’s decisions about who plays, how much playing time each player gets and whether a player remains part of the team at the end of a seasons are, by their nature, based on a vast array of subjective, individualized assessments.”

Lego Pulls 'Jabba's Palace' Set Following Racism Accusations, Says Criticism Not The Reason

Lego Pulls 'Jabba's Palace' Set Following Racism Accusations, Says Criticism Not The Reason: Lego is planning to pull its Jabba The Hutt-themed set off the shelves this year, but it wants you to know that recent accusations of racism are not the reason why.

Birol Kilic, head of the Turkish Cultural Association of Austria responsible for the accusations, doesn't appear to agree. He told NBC News that after his group met with the toymaker last week, the company promised to pull the product from shelves by the end of this year. Kilic’s organization argued earlier this year that the set resembled the a former mosque in Istanbul, the Jami al-Kabir mosque in Beirut and a minaret.

Because Jabba The Hutt is a villain in the Star Wars films, the group claimed the alleged close resemblance reinforced negative stereotypes about Muslims.

“This does not belong in children’s bedrooms,” Kilic told NBC. “And the minaret-like tower features machine guns. Children will become insensitive to violence and other cultures.”

Slur has a complex translation in Latino community - latimes.com

Slur has a complex translation in Latino community - latimes.com: When Boyle Heights shop owner Arturo Macias hears fellow Latinos use the Spanish word for “wetback,” he doesn't necessarily take offense.

Macias, who crossed illegally into the U.S. through Tijuana two decades ago, has heard the term mojado for much of his life and sees it less as an insult than a description of a common immigrant experience.

“As a country of immigrants,” he says in Spanish, “in one way or another, we’re all mojados.”

Macias is very offended, however, when he hears a white person use it. That distinction befuddles his 20-year-old daughter Karina.

“It definitely is a term to divide people,” she said. “You can't use it as a term of endearment at all, whether it's someone outside of your culture or not.”

The slew of apologies that followed news that Alaska’s congressman had used the term during a radio interview last week brought the term into the national debate. But in Latino communities, it also highlighted how the word’s context and power has changed through the generations.

Zoo Celebrates African-American Families on Easter Monday | NBC4 Washington

Zoo Celebrates African-American Families on Easter Monday | NBC4 Washington: An historic tradition marked Easter Monday 2013 in the nation’s capitol.

Thousands of people turned out for African-American Day at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo. The festivities included animal demonstrations, live entertainment, relay-style games and visits from the Easter Panda.

The zoo started hosting the event in 1891 when African-Americans were not allowed to attend the Easter Egg Roll at the White House. The event has grown over the years to include all families and visitors in the metro area.

Zoo officials told WTOP.com that they expected at least 20,000 visitors to attend the free event.

Racial bias feeds the school-to-prison pipeline | The Raw Story

Two students set off fire alarms in the same school district. One of them, an African-American kindergartner, is suspended for five days; the other, a white ninth-grader, is suspended for one day.

•An African-American high-schooler is suspended for a day for using a cellphone and an iPod in class. In the same school, a white student with a similar disciplinary history gets detention for using headphones.

•Two middle-schoolers push each other; the white student receives a three-day, in-school suspension, while the native American student is arrested and suspended, out of school, for 10 days.

Civil rights groups have been saying for years that school discipline is not meted out fairly, citing examples like these reported last year from around the country by the US Department of Education.

High rates of suspensions and expulsions for certain groups – particularly African-Americans, Hispanics, and those with disabilities – are evident in data gathered nationally by the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR).

Suspicion in DA Murder Shifts to Aryan Brotherhood

Suspicion in DA Murder Shifts to Aryan Brotherhood: Two days after a Texas district attorney and his wife were found shot to death in their home, authorities have said little about their investigation or any potential suspects.

But suspicion in the slayings shifted to a white supremacist gang with a long history of violence and retribution that was also the focus of a December law enforcement bulletin warning that its members might try to attack police or prosecutors.

Four top leaders of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas were indicted in October for crimes ranging from murder to drug trafficking. Two months later, authorities issued the bulletin warning that the gang might try to retaliate against law enforcement for the investigation that led to the arrests of 34 of its members on federal charges.

Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife were found dead Saturday in their East Texas home. The killings were especially jarring because they happened just a couple of months after one of the county’s assistant district attorneys, Mark Hasse, was killed in a parking lot near his courthouse office.

African-American named new highest-ranking uniformed officer at NYPD | theGrio

African-American named new highest-ranking uniformed officer at NYPD | theGrio: The new highest-ranking uniformed officer at the NYPD said Friday the community must work together with police to keep the city safe.

Philip Banks III was named the chief of department this week, replacing Joseph Esposito, who retired after more than a decade in the post. Banks was previously in charge of community affairs, and said his years there have helped him understand the city and its needs.

“We have to keep this city safe. And when I say we, I don’t mean just the New York City police department. It’s not just an ‘us’ job. It’s everybody in New York City,” he said.

Banks, 50, whose father was also a police officer, joined the nation’s largest police department in July 1986 in Brooklyn and worked his way up the ranks. He takes over as third in command behind Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and First Deputy Commissioner Rafael Pineiro during a challenging time for the NYPD.

In time for Easter, a new exhibit explores Christianity’s African Roots | theGrio

In time for Easter, a new exhibit explores Christianity’s African Roots | theGrio: This Easter, over two billion Christians around the world will celebrate “the Resurrection of Christ,” and a large percentage of them will be Black. According to a 2007 Pew Report, 78% of Blacks in America identify as Protestant while a 2011 report by Pew notes that nearly 24% of Christians live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Christianity’s explosion across Africa led many to call for the Vatican to select a successor to Pope Benedict from the Continent with Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson among the suggested shortlist. This said, many think of Christianity as “the White man’s religion.”

The Christian faith occupies a complicated, often racialized place in the history of Blacks all over the globe because of how it was abused by White colonists and slave traders to subjugate Blacks. “Christianity was a double-edged sword [for African-Americans],” says Dr. Lawrence H. Mamiya, Professor of Religion and Africana Studies at Vassar College and co-author of The Black Church in the African American Experience.

100 percent of Urban Prep seniors college-bound for 4th year in row | theGrio

100 percent of Urban Prep seniors college-bound for 4th year in row | theGrio: Urban Prep Academy is continuing its record of success.

For the last three years, all graduation seniors from the charter school’s Englewood campus have been college bound. This year, the inaugural graduating class of the West Campus has accomplished the same goal.

In all, 167 seniors, all African American males, have been accepted to a four-year college or university.

“What this 100 percent proves beyond a doubt is that it need not be the exception but it should be the expectation for every child in the city of Chicago,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said at a ceremony where the final students exchanged their red uniform neckties with the red-and-gold striped ones that signify their college-bound status.

Urban Prep founder Tim King said he was exceedingly proud of the young men.

“It’s really heartwarming. It’s really an inspiration,” said Tim King. “These guys are an inspiration to all of us because they show you what can happen when you really work hard and do the right thing. I feel great. There are no words to describe how powerful and wonderful it is to be a part of Urban Prep.”