Off the Beaten Path

Off the Beaten Path: ...The number of nontraditional college students — defined as students not attending college right after high school or who must work while attending — has seen steady growth since the 1980s as more people already working or raising a family decide to get a degree. A report by the National Center for Education Statistics in 2002 said 73 percent of all undergraduates were nontraditional students.

Some 81 percent of Black and American Indian students have at least one characteristic of a nontraditional student; 76 percent of Hispanic, 67 percent Asian and 66 percent of Whites do as well, according to the American Council on Education.

And for the 2008-2009 school year, a for-profit institution that seemingly caters to this population — the University of Phoenix — enrolled more new students than any other program in the country.

That could spell trouble for traditional programs slow to adapt to nontraditional needs. With the graduating class of 2008, the University of Phoenix’s online campus overtook Florida A&M and Howard universities as the top producer of bachelor’s degrees awarded to African-Americans.

According to U.S. Census figures, in 2005, there were 17.5 million college students. About 37 percent of them were 25 years old or older. Projections by NCES show more growth for the nontraditional crowd than for those entering college following high school graduation over the next few years.

Jena 6 Cases Near Conclusion

Jena 6 Cases Near Conclusion: Five of six Black teens accused of beating a White high school classmate in a case that led to the biggest civil rights protest in decades will plead guilty in a deal expected to be finalized this week, Louisiana court officials involved with the case told The Associated Press on Wednesday.


The six students were initially charged with attempted murder in the 2006 attack on Justin Barker and became known as the “Jena Six,” after the town where the beating took place.

Charges against Carwin Jones, Jesse Ray Beard, Robert Bailey Jr., Bryant Purvis and Theo Shaw were reduced to aggravated second-degree battery.


Court officials, who asked not to be identified because the agreement was not yet public, told the AP that those five will plead to lesser charges Friday but would not be specific. Officials also would not talk about penalties.

DREAM Act Rally Provides Visual Reminder of What’s at Stake for Undocumented Students

DREAM Act Rally Provides Visual Reminder of What’s at Stake for Undocumented Students: The commencement ceremony on this hot Washington, D.C., afternoon was an emotional one for many of the students gathered. They weren’t being recognized for years of hard work to achieve their dreams. It was recognition of the dreams denied to them — undocumented immigrants who could not attend college — that elicited tears.



Gathered for a mock graduation ceremony, nearly 500 immigrant students and their supporters descended on the nation’s capital earlier this week to bring attention to the plight of undocumented students and rally for passage of the DREAM Act.



Sponsored by the United We DREAM Coalition, the ceremony was part of a growing campaign in which students nationwide participated in local commencement exercises to garner support for the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, a bill that would provide a path to citizenship for many undocumented students brought to the country by their parents.

Some Progress for Missouri University on Diversity; Agreement With Hispanic Board Signed

Some Progress for Missouri University on Diversity; Agreement With Hispanic Board Signed: More than three years after being condemned by an independent auditor as one of the worst universities for faculty diversity and overall racial inclusivity the auditor had ever seen, the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) reports some improvement in its diversity profile.



In 2006, only three of the university’s 115 full professors were Black and one was Latino, the Associated Press reported. Today, with associate and full professor combined, there are two Latino professors and 11 African-American professors, university officials say.



University of Missouri-Kansas City Chancellor Leo E. Morton, and Alfonso Z�rate, chair of the university’s Hispanic Advisory Board, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) Wednesday to establish a framework to address the persisting racial issues, such as increasing the number of underrepresented minorities, financial aid assistance for students that qualify, and improving efforts to recruit and retain minority faculty.

Nightlife Area's Dress Code Seen As Discriminatory

Morning Edition, June 25, 2009 · It's standard practice for nightclubs to enforce dress codes, banning t-shirts, sneakers or hats. But in Kansas City, Mo., a new entertainment district has established some pretty strict rules that some claim discriminate against young African Americans and Latinos. And now the city is trying to encourage business development downtown, while ensuring patron's civil rights.

It's almost midnight on a steamy Saturday evening, and Kansas City's new Power and Light District is teeming with people. About a dozen new bars, restaurants and clubs are clustered around one block – which has a central, open-air plaza. A lot of people are here for the first time.

But not everyone is having a good time.

"I don't look like everybody else here — plaid shirt, Abercrombie and Fitch, they probably think I'm some Mexican from LA," says Mark Vasquez, who was just turned away at the entrance. He's here from Houston with his brother – who was wearing the same outfit, but got in: a black t-shirt, dark jeans, and sneakers.

"First it's like nothing on my shirt, you can't come in with a blank shirt, and then when a lot of people are showing that, they let them in with blank shirts," he says. "They say my shirt is too long."

Vasquez probably should have been admitted. The dress code here bans sleeveless shirts on men, excessively baggy or sagging clothing, work boots, and sports attire, when liquor is being served.

"I didn't think dress codes were an issue until the Power and Light District," says Dan Winter, of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas and western Missouri. He's been steadily fielding complaints since the downtown district opened last year. "You can't put a major attraction like that, right next to the center of the African-American community and expect them to feel comfortable restricting what they wear, and only what they wear, really."

Prince George's County Board of Education May Name Upper Marlboro School After Obama - washingtonpost.com

Prince George's County Board of Education May Name Upper Marlboro School After Obama - washingtonpost.com: President Obama's name would grace a new Prince George's County elementary school a few miles from the White House under a proposal scheduled for a vote tonight, barely five months after he took office.

If the Prince George's Board of Education approves the plan, Barack Obama Elementary School would be the first in the Washington region named after the president. The school is under construction outside the Capital Beltway in Upper Marlboro and is slated for completion by year's end.

Minority-serving Institutions Battle for Budget Consideration

Minority-serving Institutions Battle for Budget Consideration: For minority-serving institutions coping with the greatest recession in decades, there may be major gains for those who earn the title of “Hispanic-serving agricultural college or university.”

Already called “HSACU” among government relations experts, the designation may pay off big for some Hispanic-serving institutions. The 2008 Farm Bill created six new small programs for such colleges and universities, and the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities is asking Congress for $260 million in total start-up funding for next year.

With university endowments down and states cutting back on public-college funding, such new pots of money, however small, are attracting interest among college leaders. In addition to this battle, minority-serving institutions are asking Congress to fund a new — but as yet unfunded — program to address the digital divide at Black colleges, HSIs and tribal colleges.

Books By Martin Luther King Jr. To Be Republished

Four books that have been long out of print by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. will be published again under a deal with Beacon Press brokered by King’s youngest son, Dexter King.

In a statement, Dexter King called the deal “a historic partnership.”

“Beacon Press will be a dedicated public outlet for his work and will help bring his urgently needed teachings of nonviolence and human dignity, and his dream of freedom and equality to a new global audience,'' said King, chair of his father’s estate.

Beacon, a department of the Unitarian Universalist Association, publishes books on social justice, human rights and racial equality. Among the authors it has published are James Baldwin, Derrick Bell, Cornel West, Howard Thurman, Marian Wright Edelman and Roger Wilkins.

On Jan. 18, 2010, the federal holiday observing what would have been King’s 80th birthday, the Boston-based publisher will release new editions of several of King’s most important works, which have been unavailable for nearly two decades, including:

Stride Toward Freedom, first published in 1958, is King’s memoir of the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 and 1956.

Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, first published in 1967, is King’s last book and an analysis of the state of American race relations and the movement after a decade of U.S. civil rights struggles.

Trumpet of Conscience, first published in 1968, contains five lectures King gave in 1967.

Strength to Love, first published in 1963, is a volume of his most well-known homilies and the book in the civil rights leader’s briefcase when he was killed on April 4, 1968.

Education Chief to Warn Advocates That Inferior Charter Schools Harm the Effort - NYTimes.com

Education Chief to Warn Advocates That Inferior Charter Schools Harm the Effort - NYTimes.com: The Obama administration has made opening more charter schools a big part of its plans for improving the nation’s education system, but Education Secretary Arne Duncan will warn advocates of the schools on Monday that low-quality institutions are giving their movement a black eye.

“The charter movement is putting itself at risk by allowing too many second-rate and third-rate schools to exist,” Mr. Duncan says in prepared remarks that he is scheduled to deliver in Washington at the annual gathering of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

In an interview, Mr. Duncan said he would use the address to praise innovations made by high-quality charter schools, urge charter leaders to become more active in weeding out bad apples in their movement and invite the leaders to help out in the administration’s broad effort to remake several thousand of the nation’s worst public schools.

Among Many Peoples, Little Genomic Variety - washingtonpost.com

Among Many Peoples, Little Genomic Variety - washingtonpost.com:

...All of Earth's people, according to a new analysis of the genomes of 53 populations, fall into just three genetic groups. They are the products of the first and most important journey our species made -- the walk out of Africa about 70,000 years ago by a small fraction of ancestral Homo sapiens.

One group is the African. It contains the descendants of the original humans who emerged in East Africa about 200,000 years ago. The second is the Eurasian, encompassing the natives of Europe, the Middle East and Southwest Asia (east to about Pakistan). The third is the East Asian, the inhabitants of Asia, Japan and Southeast Asia, and -- thanks to the Bering Land Bridge and island-hopping in the South Pacific -- of the Americas and Oceania as well.

The existence of this ancient divergence has long been known.

What is new is a subtle but important insight into what happened on a genomic level as the human species spilled across the landscape, eventually occupying every habitable part of the planet.

A Quest to Be Heard - washingtonpost.com

A Quest to Be Heard - washingtonpost.com: ...He walked fast, knowing that time is against him. The old black farmers whose case he comes to Washington to discuss were getting older, dying off, and they still had not been repaid for the years of discrimination to which the government had subjected them. A few weeks before, when President Obama had released his proposed budget, he had included $1.25 billion for the 70,000 farmers with outstanding claims -- an amount that as far as Boyd was concerned was $1.25 billion short.

He paused at the entrance to the congressman's office, smoothed a wrinkle out of his jacket and cleared his throat.

"National Black Farmers Association," he added after a moment.

Eight-and-a-half years, and he was still introducing himself.

Earlier that day, Boyd had been just another farmer trying to get soybean seed in the ground during the short window that is planting season. He picked up his cousin and a hired hand just after daybreak to begin working on a 116-acre tract of land, hustled back to his house to change into a pinstriped suit and black cowboy boots, and grabbed a cup of coffee and a copy of the congressional directory.

Holder Urges New Hate Crimes Law

Holder Urges New Hate Crimes Law: WASHINGTON – Attorney General Eric Holder said this week that recent killings show the need for a tougher U.S. hate crimes law to stop “violence masquerading as political activism.”

“Over the last several weeks, we have witnessed brazen acts of violence, committed in places that many would have considered unthinkable,” Holder told the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.

He cited separate attacks over a two-week period that killed a young soldier, an abortion provider, and a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Federal agents and prosecutors are already involved in local investigations of each attack.

The violence, Holder said, “reminds us of the potential threat posed by violent extremists and the tragedy that ensues when reasoned discourse is replaced by armed confrontation.”

Senate Unanimously Approves Resolution Apologizing for Slavery - washingtonpost.com

Senate Unanimously Approves Resolution Apologizing for Slavery - washingtonpost.com: The Senate unanimously passed a resolution yesterday apologizing for slavery, making way for a joint congressional resolution and the latest attempt by the federal government to take responsibility for 2 1/2 centuries of slavery.

'You wonder why we didn't do it 100 years ago,' Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), lead sponsor of the resolution, said after the unanimous-consent vote. 'It is important to have a collective response to a collective injustice.'

The Senate's apology follows a similar apology passed last year by the House. One key difference is that the Senate version explicitly deals with the long-simmering issue of whether slavery descendants are entitled to reparations, saying that the resolution cannot be used in support of claims for restitution. The House is expected to revisit the issue next week to conform its resolution to the Senate version.

Americas Promise Alliance - Our Work

Americas Promise Alliance - Our Work: Our Work

With more than 300 national partner organizations and their local affiliates, the Alliance is uniquely positioned to mobilize Americans to act. Through hands-on, multi-sector collaboration, we are changing the way organizations do business, and magnifying their power to make a sustainable difference for young people. We have made a top priority of ensuring that all young people graduate from high school ready for college, work and life through an on-going Dropout Prevention initiative. Our work involves raising awareness, encouraging action and engaging in advocacy to provide children the key supports we call the Five Promises:

* Caring adults such as parents, teachers, mentors, coaches and neighbors
* Safe places that offer constructive activities when young people are not in school
* A healthy start and healthy development
* An effective education that prepares young people for college and work
* Opportunities to help others through service

Commentary: Breaking the 'pipeline' to prison - CNN.com

Commentary: Breaking the pipeline to prison - CNN.com: "(CNN) -- One of the most dangerous threats facing black America right now is quietly stealing our children at a young age.

Incarceration is becoming the new American apartheid, and poor children of color are the fodder.

So many poor black babies in rich America enter the world with multiple strikes against them: born without prenatal care, at low birthweight and to a poor, and poorly educated, teenage single mother and an absent father.

At crucial points in their development after birth through adolescence, more risks pile on, making a successful transition to productive adulthood significantly less likely and involvement in the criminal justice system significantly more likely.

This is America's pipeline to prison, a trajectory that is funneling tens of thousands of youths down life paths that lead to marginalized lives, imprisonment and, often, premature death.

Nationally, one in three black boys and one in 17 black girls born in 2001 is at risk of imprisonment during their lifetime.

It's time to sound a loud alarm about this threat to American unity and community, act to stop the growing criminalization of children at younger and younger ages, and tackle the unjust treatment of minority youths and adults in the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems with urgency and persistence.

Colin Powell, foot soldiers battle America's dropout 'catastrophe' - CNN.com

Colin Powell, foot soldiers battle America's dropout 'catastrophe' - CNN.com: ...The number sounds shockingly low, but it's actually not far off the national average. A 2008 study by America's Promise Alliance, a group founded by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, concluded that only 52 percent of students in the nation's 50 largest school systems graduate in four years. About 57 percent of Hispanic and 53 percent of African-American students graduate with a regular diploma in four years, according to the study, which puts the national graduation rate at 70 percent.

'Finishing high school is absolutely basic to being a success at any place in our society. We can't afford this,' Powell said.

"If we lose these youngsters from our educational system, it doesn't mean they're all going to jail," Powell said. "It just means they're not going to have the same earning potential as they would if they finished school. And ultimately that will affect them, and it will affect the nation."

Government Intervention Needed on School Segregation, Experts Say

Government Intervention Needed on School Segregation, Experts Say: Reversing the resegregation of many of the nation’s school districts may require congressional leadership and the president’s attention, said lawyers, policymakers and educators assembled on Capitol Hill Friday to discuss policies that would encourage more integrated schools.

The policy briefing, “New Initiatives for Integrated Education in the Obama Era: Reversing the Resegregation of the Past Two Decades,” drew about 75 attendees and gave several scholars the opportunity to share papers and research studies.

“Congress hasn’t done anything positive to help the desegregation of schools since the 1970s,” said the panel’s moderator, Dr. Gary Orfield, a professor from the University of California, Los Angeles and co-director of the Civil Rights Project /Proyecto Derechos Civiles.

At the end of the 1960s, Southern public schools were among some of the nation’s most integrated because of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. However, today, the region is experiencing an increasing amount of resegregated school districts.

NAACP demands apology for ex-election leader's posting - WIS News 10 - Columbia, South Carolina |

NAACP demands apology for ex-election leader's posting - WIS News 10 - Columbia, South Carolina |: COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) - The state NAACP is demanding an apology from a former South Carolina official whose Internet posting suggested a gorilla that escaped from the Columbia zoo was an ancestor of first lady Michelle Obama.

NAACP president Lonnie Randolph said Monday that former Election Commission chairman Rusty DePass has not offered a 'proper' apology. Randolph says the NAACP isn't giving DePass undue attention, rather decrying racially charged commentary against the Obamas.

Minutes after the gorilla's escape was reported, DePass posted: 'I'm sure it's just one of Michelle's ancestors - probably harmless.'

The Facebook posting was captured on a South Carolina politics blog, and DePass later said that it was a joke about statements Obama has made about evolution.

Prominent black conservative and South Carolina national committeeman for the Republican National Committee Glenn McCall says he's spoken with DePass about the comment.

Minority kids grow to majority in some counties - USATODAY.com

Minority kids grow to majority in some counties - USATODAY.com: Young Americans who are minorities outnumber young whites in almost one of every six U.S. counties. It's a demographic wave that is transforming more parts of the nation and raising questions about who is a minority.

An analysis of the under-20 population shows that minority youths are the majority in 505 counties and that 60 counties have reached that milestone in this decade.

declines in the number of white kids," says Kenneth Johnson, demographer at the University of New Hampshire's Carsey Institute who analyzed Census data. "This isn't about immigration anymore."

The multiplying effect of diversity is rapid. In 2008, 34% of U.S. residents were minorities, but 48% of babies born in the USA were minorities. The number of white youths has dropped 5.3% since 2000 while the young minority population grew 15.5%. "It will be hard to define who is a minority in the future," says Robert Lang, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech.

Study Finds Possible Link Between Childhood Deaths and Stimulants for ADHD - washingtonpost.com

Study Finds Possible Link Between Childhood Deaths and Stimulants for ADHD - washingtonpost.com: Children taking stimulant drugs such as Ritalin to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder are several times as likely to suffer sudden, unexplained death as children who are not taking such drugs, according to a study published yesterday that was funded by the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institute of Mental Health.

While the numbers involved in the study were very small and researchers stopped short of suggesting a cause and effect, the study is the first to rigorously demonstrate a rare but worrisome connection between ADHD drugs and sudden death among children. In doing so, the research adds to the evolving puzzle parents and doctors face in deciding whether to treat children with medication.