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I'm looking into different law schools in my area (which is south Texas) and I've read that it is hard to get into UT Austin. When I looked at the website, I noticed that they list things like "race and ethnicity," "history of overcoming eco/socio disadvantages" and "geographic diversity" under factors considered for admission. Does that mean that because I'm a middle class white guy I won't have a good change getting in? My grades, resume....why is it that it's that one aspect the school looks for, that could make or break my future... | did you grow up in south east texas?? you do have a point~~! | It depends on what you call intelligence, and the environmental influences involved. If you have taken the tests before, you are more likely to do better--this doesnt necessarily mean you have gotten smarter. Also, a person might score really well on the test, but the test doesnt measure common sense or emotional maturity, which many could consider to be factors of intelligence also. | eng_Latn | 19,800 |
Defend the School System in an Inclusionary Violation Lawsuit | Three different federal laws – the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 – make it illegal for schools to discriminate against students with disabilities, and require the inclusion of students with disabilities in the least restrictive environment. | Picking a good elementary school is hard if you don't know how to do it. This will show you how. | eng_Latn | 19,801 |
The US Supreme Court has challenged the consideration of a student's race in public university admissions policies. | The court heard an appeal brought by a white student denied a place at the University of Texas in 2008.
A ruling for Abigail Fisher could affect so-called affirmative action programmes elsewhere, analysts say.
The Supreme Court upheld the use of race in admissions in a 2003 ruling, but the court has become more conservative in the past nine years.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who wrote the decision on the 2003 University of Michigan case, has since retired.
Her successor, Samuel Alito, opposes the use of racial preferences in admissions.
Justice Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts asked probing questions about details of the University of Texas admissions policy and when race could become a deciding factor between otherwise similar applicants.
The chief justice also asked the university's lawyers how judges would be able to tell when the college achieved a "critical mass" of diversity on campus.
He added later in the session: "I'm hearing a lot about what it's not. I would like to know what it is."
Justice Anthony Kennedy, often seen as a deciding vote between the court's liberal and conservative justices, has also never voted in favour of racial preference, the Associated Press reports.
"What you're saying is what counts is race above all," Justice Kennedy said on Wednesday.
Liberal justices, including Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Stephen Breyer asked questions that some say suggested support of affirmative action.
Correspondents say that even if the court does not uphold the Texas admissions policy, striking down broader consideration of race in university admissions appeared unlikely.
The University of Texas updated its admissions policy after the 2003 Supreme Court ruling to consider race without using quotas.
Students in Texas high schools are automatically admitted to the university if they are in the top 8% of their class in terms of academic achievement.
The threshold was previously 10% and Ms Fisher's grades did not put her in that category.
Race and other factors can be considered as factors in admissions to any remaining spots - approximately 25% of the annual student intake.
Ms Fisher, along with another woman who has since dropped out of the case, filed a complaint arguing that the university's race-conscious policy violated their civil and constitutional rights.
She was never admitted to the University of Texas and has since graduated from Louisiana State University.
"If any state action should respect racial equality, it is university admission," Ms Fisher's lawyers said in their written submission to the court.
A federal appeals court has already backed the University of Texas admissions programme, saying it was allowed under the Supreme Court's Michigan decision.
Justice Elena Kagan, previously involved in the case as US solicitor general, has recused herself from the proceedings.
That leaves eight justices to decide the case, and a 4-4 tie would uphold the decision of the lower appeals court.
Private universities, including elite institutions such as Harvard and Columbia, have filed briefs to the court arguing that their national recruitment policies make it impossible for them to assure diversity without legal backing for racial preference, Reuters reports. | Not the words Waymo’s legal team wanted to hear from a judge in San Francisco on Wednesday, but hear them it did as it was scolded for not having enough evidence to prove its claims.
That case, if you’ve not been following, is that Uber stole trade secrets from Waymo - a company spun out of Google’s self-driving division. For the full background on that, I'd suggest reading this piece, as I’m keen to focus now on the new things we learned in court.
This was the first time lawyers for both Uber and Waymo were able to square up against each other, and the question for the hearing was whether or not a preliminary injunction should be put in place immediately to prevent Uber from using or developing the disputed technology while the trial continued.
Judge William Alsup, something of a fan favourite for his ability to cut through legalese and technical jargon, pushed for a substantial part of the hearing and as much documentation as possible to be made public.
Because of this, I and other reporters were given a glimpse into what Waymo believes was a grand plot to steal its innovation.
Here’s how Waymo’s legal team put it:
But when Uber responded, its lawyers said:
Amid the impassioned tit-for-tat, Judge Alsup had the following questions for Waymo:
And from Uber, he wanted to know:
There is someone missing in all this, of course.
Waymo has not been able to search Mr Levandowski’s personal laptop - or even question him about it - as he is invoking his Fifth Amendment rights, the part of US law that means people can not be forced to incriminate themselves.
So now the next steps are:
Finally, we might see Travis Kalanick, Uber’s chief executive, take the stand.
“No-one is hiding at Uber,” the company said.
__________
Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC
You can reach Dave securely through encrypted messaging app Signal on: +1 (628) 400-7370 | eng_Latn | 19,802 |
Kenya's Supreme Court has said that the government should abide by a lower court's decision to give teachers a pay rise of at least 50%. | The teachers' pay body had argued that it cannot afford the increase awarded by the industrial court.
The dispute over teachers' pay goes back 18 years, with a pay deal struck in 1997 only partially fulfilled.
The government has not yet reacted and it is still not clear where the new money will come from.
The BBC's Abdinoor Maalim in Nairobi says the teachers were happy about the court's decision, which means that the lowest paid teacher should now get $240 (£150) a month.
Teachers had threatened to strike if the pay rise is not included in their next salary payment. | The Milwaukee educator said in a letter to parents that the students would write a paper defending the white supremacy group.
The teacher, who is African-American, emphasised the goal was to teach seventh-graders to write persuasively.
The school withdrew the assignment, adding it believed there was no malicious intent involved.
Parents contacted the Business and Economics Academy of Milwaukee (BEAM) after receiving the letter outlining the essay for when class resumed in January.
"This paper will be a persuasive paper defending Klan members on trial," said the assignment for the students, who are between 12-14 years old. They had recently watched To Kill a Mockingbird.
The teacher noted that it was not meant to "teach the students the Klan was correct in their behaviour, but rather to teach the students to write persuasively", according to the school's statement.
BEAM - which, like other charter schools, is supported by public money, but operates outside the local state school system - has removed the teacher while it conducts an investigation into the incident.
"BEAM feels that the objective of teaching students how to write persuasively is important," the school said in a statement on its website.
"However, we feel that the choice of topic is inappropriate for a 7th grade class. A new topic will be selected for the assignment."
The incident comes amid fears over US race relations and the emergence of the fringe "alt-right" group, which includes neo-Nazis, white supremacists and anti-Semites. | eng_Latn | 19,803 |
how many 1 in 67? | 17\n1, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21,31,41,51,61. | equal rights/affirmative action while noble in thought are actually divisive in that there is one side that gets screwed over the other. It is a joke and I can't believe that there are still occurances from what you described. I really feel for you man. hope your luck changes. | eng_Latn | 19,804 |
why was affirmative action defeated in Michigan? | two reasons\n\n1. there are a lot of people who didn't like it.\n\n2. the way things where worded when this ban was advertised made it sound like it was to keep affirmative action. so if some didn't read the ballot closely they might have vote against AA when they wanted to keep it. | I understand you are just afraid we are going to take your desk jobs....its OK we will let you take out the trash. | eng_Latn | 19,805 |
Why are girls exempt from registering for selective service? | because their menstration cycles attracts bears and then we would have to fight ragheads and bears at the sametime | Who says they are? Check your spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure - you may fit in that catagory yourself !!! | eng_Latn | 19,806 |
universities/college admission | I ,NOT BEING RACIST OR INSENISTIVE TO ANYONES EDUCATIONAL WANTS/NEEDS BUT I FIND YOUR QUESTION EXTREMLY OFFENSIVE. WHY WOULD ANY UNIVERSITY/COLLEGE NEED AFRICAN,ASIAN OR CAUCASION BASED THE COLOR OF YOUR SKIN. | I would provide them with pre-addressed, pre-stamped envelopes. Assuming you have already asked you professor's for their recommendations, and they have agreed, you should let them know NOW that the deadline is 1 December, and contact them again on the 28th to confirm that they have been sent. You are running a little late here, if people don't know they need to write a letter for you.\n\nAdmissions departments are usually generous with time for this deadline (although they aren't always generous with your own application!) | eng_Latn | 19,807 |
Is it illegal to hire someone that doesn't necessarily meet all posted requirements? I'm looking for a law that states this fact if it is true. Can anyone help???? Thanks!!! | No of course it is not. \n\nThe company itself sets the requirements for the position, and they can change or prioritize those requirements.\n\nThey can decide, based on their knowledge of the position, the work environment, and their need, whether a candidate is 'qualified' or not to perform that job.\n\nPerhaps other qualities of the candidate make him or her an excellent choice based on life and work experiences? Maybe they have additional skills to bring to the company that they didn't even know they could get? Maybe the candidate agrees to take training to get up to speed? \n\nFor example, if a company posts that they require a B.A. in finance, and they receive an application with 20 years relevant experience and excellent references, but the person didn't get a degree in that field, or maybe has no degree at all, but is willing to get one? \n\nWhy would it be illegal to give people a chance? | I am so glad someone else mentioned this! I think it's terrible the way some people spell and the grammar they use. It just makes you wonder: What did they learn in school? Spell check works sometimes, but not for everything. A majority of the words that are misspelled are not difficult words, either - just ordinary, everyday words! | eng_Latn | 19,808 |
The signature of the leading edge is also influenced by the density change between the cooler air from the downdraft and the warmer environmental air . | The signature of the leading edge is also influenced by the density change between the cold air from the downdraft and the warm environmental air . | Claiming lead from Justice Ruth Ginsburg 's minority opinion , which invited the Congress to take action by amending the law , the Democrats announced their intention to intervene : House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller said that a bill was to be passed to avoid future court rulings in line with Ledbetter , clearly putting that `` a key provision of the legislation will make it clear that discrimination occurs not just when the decision to discriminate is made , but also when someone becomes subject to that discriminatory decision , and when they are affected by that discriminatory decision , including each time they are issued a discriminatory paycheck '' , as said by Rep. Miller . | eng_Latn | 19,809 |
There are two levels of protection-all signatories must apply the lower level of protection to qualifying languages . | There are two levels of protection . | Claiming lead from Justice Ruth Ginsburg 's minority opinion , which invited the Congress to take action by amending the law , the Democrats announced their intention to intervene : House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller said that a bill was to be passed to avoid future court rulings in line with Ledbetter , clearly putting that `` a key provision of the legislation will make it clear that discrimination occurs not just when the decision to discriminate is made , but also when someone becomes subject to that discriminatory decision , and when they are affected by that discriminatory decision , including each time they are issued a discriminatory paycheck '' , as said by Rep. Miller . | eng_Latn | 19,810 |
NEW: Both sides praise the decision .
A judicial panel says South Carolina's voter ID law does not discriminate .
However, it says the law cannot go into effect until next year .
The judges say they compared South Carolina's law to those in other states . | Washington (CNN) -- A federal court panel in Washington Wednesday ruled in favor of South Carolina's voter photo ID law, but said it cannot go into effect until next year because there's too little time to implement the new law for this November's election. The three-judge panel said South Carolina's law does not discriminate against racial minorities as the Justice Department and other opponents had argued. The ruling further clouds the issue, which has resulted in conflicting rulings on whether requiring voters to present an identification card bearing the person's photograph is discriminatory. In "pre-clearing key sections of the South Carolina statute, the judges compared the law with those of other states, including Texas, where a federal court panel rejected a photo ID requirement for voting," wrote the opinion's author, D.C. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Latino voter registration efforts running out of time in Pennsylvania . "In sum, our comparison of South Carolina's act to some other states' voter ID laws ... strongly buttresses the conclusion that South Carolina's law has neither a discriminatory effect nor a discriminatory purpose," he wrote. Circuit judges John Bates and Colleen Kollar-Kotelly joined with concurring opinions. The judges said the new law would require voters to be informed of and educated about the law's requirements, which would not be possible before the November 6 elections. Therefore, the panel rejected trying to implement the provisions for the upcoming balloting. The judges noted that about 95% of South Carolina registered voters possess the approved photo IDs. That includes 96% of whites and 92% to 94% of African-American voters. Despite the disparity, the court found that state election officials had included a "sweeping reasonable impediment provision" that eliminates any disproportionate effect or material burden on voters. The judges took note of the requirement in the Texas law, which has been blocked in court, requiring many citizens to get a birth certificate that costs $22. And in Texas, unlike South Carolina, many counties lack a place for voters to obtain qualifying photo identification cards. The court found no comparable issues in the South Carolina law. The Justice Department, although on the losing end of the ruling, issued a statement expressing satisfaction with much of the opinion. Judge blocks Pennsylvania voter ID law for November election . "The Department of Justice is pleased that the court has denied "preclearance" of the South Carolina law for the 2012 elections," said Justice Department civil rights spokeswoman Dena Iverson. "With regard to future elections, the department welcomes the court's agreement that South Carolina's law required broad modifications in order to respond to the serious concerns raised by the attorney general that the law as written would exclude minority voters." South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson declared victory in the case, calling the ruling "a major victory for South Carolina and its election process." "It affirms our voter ID law is valid and constitutional under the Voting Rights Act," he said. "We will work diligently to implement this law for all future elections." Holder, Michelle Obama weigh in on voting rights at DC dinner . | (CNN) -- The hacker group LulzSec has alarmed police in Arizona this week after releasing sensitive information about officers. The group said they posted the information in response to Arizona's controversial immigration law. "We are releasing hundreds of private intelligence bulletins, training manuals, personal email correspondence, names, phone numbers, addresses and passwords belonging to Arizona law enforcement," the group said in a statement. "We are targeting AZDPS (Arizona Department of Public Safety) specifically because we are against SB 1070 and the racial profiling anti-immigrant police state that is Arizona." The Arizona Highway Patrol Association said the release of the documents is unsafe for officers. "Law enforcement officials go to many lengths to protect their identities," states Jimmy Chavez, president of the organization "These individuals maliciously released confidential information knowing the safety of DPS employees, and their families, would be compromised." The controversial bill, Arizona Senate Bill 1070, passed last year but was quickly challenged in court by the Justice Department. The measure would have required local police, while enforcing other laws, to question the immigration status of anyone they suspected of being undocumented. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit placed an injunction on parts of the measure in April saying that those parts overstepped Arizona's authority. In its lawsuit, the Justice Department challenged only six of the Arizona law's provisions, meaning others went into effect in July. Among the provisions given the go-ahead were a ban on "sanctuary cities," or municipalities with laws or policies that render them relatively safe for undocumented immigrants. A provision making it illegal to hire day laborers if doing so impedes traffic and a provision dealing with sanctions for employers who hire illegal immigrants also went into effect. CNN's Anna Rhett Miller and Alta Spells contributed to this report . | eng_Latn | 19,811 |
Concordia Language Villages director: Travel ban hurts hiring of summer-camp staff | For many, this is their first experience in the United States. They are introduced to the time-honored tradition of songs and s'mores around the campfire.
In turn, they share their family stories and cultural traditions with campers who have never traveled to Egypt, Germany or Argentina.
Friendships that cross continents are forged at camp. The international camp staff return to their home countries with an increased understanding of typical American life; and there's nothing more typical than sleepaway camp for the average American family in summer.
The American Camp Association confirms that more than 11 million Americans enroll in a residential or day camp each year.
This is citizen diplomacy at its best, made possible by the U.S. State Department's J-1 Exchange Visitor program that has a category specially designed for camp counselors.
Since 1979, Concordia Language Villages has taken advantage of this opportunity to bring counselors from around the world to share their love of language and culture with young people eager to explore something new and different.
About 900 staff join the 15 Language Villages each summer. Of that number, about 135 are international staff from 30 countries on six continents.
We cannot afford to have these international exchange opportunities limited to a defined number of countries or for those of a certain religious or socioeconomic background. The recently imposed travel ban by the Trump administration has fostered an unreasonable sense of fear and anxiety for those applying for international camp jobs, no matter where they live in the world.
Our country is strengthened through more dialogue with the world, than less. Our ambassadors around the globe state that exchange programs are the most cost-effective investment in strengthening our national security.
Exchange participants consistently report that they completed their programs with a better impression of the United States. A Department of State program evaluation shows that 94 percent of high school exchange students from Muslim-majority countries said that their stay in the United States gave them a more favorable view of the American people and culture.
To understand America, it's best to experience it. And where better to start than at summer camp?
Schulze is the executive director of Concordia Language Villages, the language- and cultural-immersion camps sponsored by Concordia College in Moorhead. She is board chair emeritus of the Alliance for International Exchange, a Washington-based organization that promotes educational and cultural exchange. | The Trump administration had sought to phase out the program starting last month, but two previous federal rulings stalled its efforts. Neither of those rulings — by judges in New York and San Francisco — ordered the government to resume accepting new applications for protection under DACA, making Bates' ruling the strongest one so far.
"Each day that the agency delays is a day that aliens who might otherwise be eligible for initial grants of DACA benefits are exposed to removal because of an unlawful agency action," Bates wrote.
In February, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the administration's appeal of the San Francisco ruling.
The American Civil Liberties, one of the plaintiffs in the two cases that Bates reviewed, called the ruling "a huge blow to the Trump administration's bottom line."
"DACA is constitutional, deal with it," the ACLU said.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who launched one of the first legal actions against the administration's decision last year, also welcomed the ruling, calling it on Twitter a victory for Dreamers and "for everyone who has boldly fought in court."
This is a developing story. Refresh this page for updates. | eng_Latn | 19,812 |
Donna Brazile: Martin Luther King Jr. knew it was immoral to be silent in the face of injustice .
She says he believed that the right to vote was fundamental to equality in a democracy .
Legislation in the 1960s finally secured voting rights for African Americans, Brazile says .
She says many Americans may see their voting rights threatened by photo ID laws . | (CNN) -- Every third Monday in January we gather as Americans to commemorate the values and beliefs -- as well as the ultimate sacrifice -- of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His tireless advocacy for civil rights, equal protection under the law, labor rights, and for the ultimate realization of our essential creed that we are "one nation, endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" is taught in every school in America, and is now enshrined in a memorial on the National Mall. Dr. King believed so strongly not only in these values, but also in the moral imperative to heed the "fierce urgency of now." He knew that in the face of injustice no moral man or woman can stay silent -- and he paid for it with his life. He was a "drum major for justice" He inspired us -- not just with his eloquent sermons, rich in purpose; or his speeches, inspiring and provocative -- but he challenged us with his dream, his daring imagination: to see an America where all of God's children would be equal; all of God's children would have a seat at the table. Dr. King, along with other men and women of his generation did not just see the barriers. They believed in the opportunities that could be realized if we could just move beyond racial inequality and injustice. He truly believed that we had to "take the first step in faith, even when you don't see the whole staircase." Just take the first step. I've written and spoken about Dr. King many times, but this year, one area of his crusade seems particularly worthy of remembrance: the fight for the ballot. Prior to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, African-Americans and many others faced regular and malicious restrictions to the free exercise of their constitutionally protected right to vote, especially in my native South. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and grandfather clauses: many insidious techniques were used by certain states to restrict, confuse, and write off, marginalize and disenfranchise so many eligible citizens from voting simply because of the color of their skin. Southern governors and those in Washington comfortable with the status quo hid behind arguments about "states rights." Yet these laws were little more than legislated racism and all knew the real goal behind their unequal effects. In a 1957 speech titled "Give Us The Ballot," Dr. King spoke plainly about the imperative of equal voting rights. "So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind — it is made up for me. I cannot live as a democratic citizen, observing the laws I have helped to enact — I can only submit to the edict of others." For Dr. King, the right to vote was sacrosanct and foundational. It is the very essence of our social contract. Free elections create legitimacy. They imply the consent of the governed. He knew that unfair elections laws did not just hurt minorities or the working poor, they rendered hollow the very essence of American government. It's a message that's as true today as it was then. The 47-year old Voting Rights Act has stood the test of time, but there are new obstacles to the ballot springing up in today's America. Around the country, conservatives in state legislatures are attempting to put fresh roadblocks in the path of this most basic right. The latest vogue in anti-suffrage legislation is mandatory photo ID laws. From Tennessee to Texas, from Wisconsin to Pennsylvania, conservative Republicans and their allies are implementing laws that undermine, even flout, the Voting Rights Act. The Justice Department has begun to challenge these laws, opposing new efforts in South Carolina and Florida. Laws in other states that have deep histories of discrimination, such as Texas and Mississippi, are also being examined. But many states, refusing to pass neutrally applicable laws, have vowed instead to sue the federal government in court. These laws disproportionately impact minority communities -- groups much more likely than white voters to lack photo identification for reasons as simple as the fact that they may not own a car and use the city bus to get to work. According a study published in 2006 by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, as many as 23 million American citizens -- that's 11% of those of voting age -- lack the government-issued photo ID many of these laws demand. Keep in mind, this is not just a racial issue. Older Americans are less likely to have these IDs, as are lower-income Americans. College students, who already face challenges based on their seasonal residency, will face an even greater burden than they did previously. Dr. King demanded that all Americans be given the ballot. We must demand today that we keep it. Demand to keep the ballot because our laws must be made by all of us. Demand to keep the ballot because an election where 23 million can't vote is an election that undermines democracy. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Donna Brazile. | (CNN) -- Two months after a controversial facial recognition technology program was launched in Ohio without public notice, state Attorney General Mike DeWine conceded Monday he should have let Ohioans know that their images from driver's licenses were being used by law enforcement in criminal investigations. "If I had to do it over again, would we have announced it when we did it? Yeah, we would have. And I'll take responsibility for that," DeWine said at a news conference. Although DeWine said he should have gone public with the program sooner, he gave no indication that the state would change or stop using the program. He did announce that an advisory board will be created to review the system's usage and to suggest policy changes to avoid misuse of the program. The program allows police to quickly compare a photograph of a suspect or crime victim to an electronic pool of mug shots and driver's license photos in the Ohio database. Comparisons are made of facial measurements from one image to the next in search of a match. Similar programs are already being used in dozens of other states, according to a statement from DeWine. Ohio law enforcement agencies began using the facial recognition technology in June, the attorney general's statement said. DeWine's concession that he should have let the public know about the program sooner was immediately met with criticism. "The time for press conferences and advisory boards was months ago," Gary Daniels, associate director of the ACLU of Ohio, said in a statement. "This system needs to be shut down until there are meaningful, documented rules in place to keep this information secure, protect the privacy of innocent people, and prevent government abuse of this new tool." The facial recognition technology was developed in 2010 and has been used 2,677 times by Ohio law enforcement since its unofficial release in June, according to DeWine's statement. There was no indication how many of those uses had solved cases. "When a wanted offender is identified quickly, it can prevent additional crimes and even save lives, and that is what this new technology aims to do," DeWine said. In addition to easily identifying suspects, the technology assists law enforcement officials in identifying homicide victims, missing persons who suffer from Alzheimer's, dementia or amnesia, and human trafficking victims, he added. But the ACLU's Daniels argued, "Without specific limits on what government can do with this technology, its use will inevitably and eventually spread to Ohioans who are not criminal suspects." Misuse of the facial recognition technology is a felony offense, according to the Attorney General's statement. | eng_Latn | 19,813 |
College students vote to make the American flag ‘optional’ | The UC Davis student senate has made it optional to display the American flag at its meetings, stirring up controversy on campus and conservative blogs.
Senate Bill 76 passed Thursday, said Michael Gofman, a student senator who opposed the change.
The bill amends bylaws that required the United States flag to be on display at every senate meeting of the Associated Students, University of California, Davis. The revised bylaws give senate members the option to petition for the display of the flag 24 hours before each meeting. The ASUCD senate pro tem ultimately has authority to decide whether the U.S. flag will be displayed, according to the revision.
The resolution says that since “the concept of United States of America and patriotism is different for every individual, it should not be compulsory that the flag is in view at all times during Senate meetings.”
Jose Antonio Meneses, who introduced the resolution, said the changes were meant to ensure the student government is following federal law, which he says doesn’t allow an organization to mandate displaying the flag.
“It wasn’t political in any way,” Meneses said. “But because it is the United States flag ... it’s a touchy subject to talk about. We want to make sure we are not sued.”
Gofman disagreed, saying all governing bodies within the U.S. – including a student senate – should display the flag.
“It was a purely political issue from the start,” Gofman said.
The student government decision drew attention from internet blogs, many conservative – including Fox News Insider, the Daily Caller and The Blaze. Some stories say the flag has been “banned,” “banished” or “dropped.”
Meneses said that while he supports freedom of speech, many of the stories are inaccurate.
“It’s not a ban on the flag,” he said.
He cited a 1943 U.S. Supreme Court decision that found West Virginia could not compel students to salute the flag or recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
“The opinion in that case is that you can’t force people to pledge your allegiance, by (the flag) being there; by extension, you are pledging your allegiance to a symbol that you don’t relate to or that you don’t equate yourself with,” he said Monday.
He said the flag has never been on display during his two years on the student senate, and no one asked about it or the bylaw requirement until now.
A Facebook post by Gofman the day before the meeting prompted offers of flag donations from veterans groups and fraternities. Gofman plans to introduce a resolution that would allow any member of the senate to bring and display an American flag at any meeting.
There is not enough patriotism, especially at UC Davis, said Gofman, who describes himself as a first-generation American.
“I have a much closer connection to places outside of America,” he said. “I understand what the alternative looks like. I don’t think members of the senate know what it is like to live in a totalitarian country.”
Gofman said he wasn’t aware there was a resolution making the display of the flag mandatory.
“Once it was brought up, I was shocked and embarrassed about it not being followed,” he said.
The controversy over the resolution has generated a lot of negative email to the student senate.
Gofman said that much of the email is from alumni saying they are upset with the decision and don’t plan to donate to the school again.
In a statement on Facebook, Gofman condemned two of the emails, one he characterized as “racist” and the other as threatening the physical safety of the senators who voted against the bill.
“This is unacceptable behavior,” he said.
Meneses said much of the hate mail is based on incorrect facts.
“When I introduced the bill, I didn’t know it would be controversial,” he said. | SANITY RETURNS TO THE ACADEMY: Fresno State Reports Own Professor for ‘Trump Must Hang’ Tweet. | eng_Latn | 19,814 |
Judge's Order Sets Up Potential New Block Against Census Citizenship Question | Updated at 7:51 p.m. ET A new order by a federal judge in Maryland sets up a potential new block against the Trump administration's plans to add a citizenship question to forms for the upcoming 2020 census. The latest development in the legal battle over the hotly contested question could complicate the Census Bureau's plans to finalize census questionnaires and start printing paper forms for the national head count by July 1. Three federal judges, including U.S. District Judge George Hazel of Maryland, have already issued rulings that block the question, "Is this person a citizen of the United States?" But a ruling by the Supreme Court, which is expected to weigh in soon, could lift those blocks while leaving two allegations made in the Maryland-based lawsuits unresolved. The Trump administration says it wants to include the question on census forms to better enforce part of the Voting Rights Act. Plaintiffs' attorneys argue that files recently discovered on the hard drives of a deceased Republican redistricting strategist, Thomas Hofeller, show that the administration intended to use responses to the question to give Republicans and non-Hispanic white people a political advantage during the drawing of new voting districts after the 2020 census. "The court's willingness to reconsider its prior decision on the equal protection claim underscores the game-changing significance of the Hofeller files," said plaintiffs' attorney Shankar Duraiswamy of the law firm Covington & Burling in a written statement. Kelly Laco, a spokesperson for the Justice Department, which is representing the administration, declined to comment on Hazel's order. The plaintiffs — led by a group of residents of Maryland, Arizona, Texas and other states, as well as the Texas-based community group La Unión del Pueblo Entero — have argued that by adding the question, the administration intended to discriminate against immigrant communities of color and that administration officials conspired to violate those communities' constitutional rights. Census Bureau research shows that including the citizenship question is highly likely to scare households with noncitizens from taking part in next year's head count of every person living in the U.S., as required by the Constitution. Critics of the question worry that could lead to an undercount in the population numbers that will determine how political representation and federal funding are distributed around the country through 2030. "It was a disgraceful plan with consequences that will have wide ranging impact for the next decade," said plaintiffs' attorney Denise Hulett of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund in a statement. Hazel previously decided that the discrimination and conspiracy allegations — brought first by plaintiffs represented by MALDEF and Asian Americans Advancing Justice — did not have enough supporting evidence. But in a court order released Wednesday, Hazel said that the plaintiffs' request for a reconsideration of their claims "raises a substantial issue." The judge did not provide any additional details. His order said to expect an accompanying opinion to be released soon. The Maryland cases have been appealed to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which would have to agree to send the cases back to Hazel before he could issue a new ruling to block the citizenship question. The 4th Circuit has already set a schedule to review the discrimination claim this month. But the federal appeals court has not yet set a hearing date. Last week, attorneys led by the ACLU in one of the New York-based lawsuits over the question asked the Supreme Court to delay issuing its ruling until a lower court can review new allegations of a Trump administration cover-up of the real motive for the question. Census Bureau officials warn that any delay in resolving the legal fate of the citizenship question risks jeopardizing final preparations for the census, which include the printing of 1.5 billion paper forms, letters and other mailings. | NPR's Scott Simon speaks with Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton about the 2020 Census, its effects on his community and on the state of Arizona. | eng_Latn | 19,815 |
Supreme Court Rules On Two Closely Watched Discrimination Cases | A divided Supreme Court Wednesday ruled in cases concerning alleged discrimination. One involves racial redistricting in Alabama, and the other concerns the rights of a UPS driver who became pregnant. | Host Renee Montagne talks with Kurt Metzger, director of the Michigan Metropolitan Information Center at Wayne State University in Detroit, about the impact of yesterday''s Supreme Court decision on census sampling for cities. The Court ruled that statistical sampling may not be used to determine a state''s number of Congressional seats. The census will be taken the traditional way -- by phone calls and door-to-door visits. However, officials in some cities claim their populations are being undercounted, and statistical sampling would provide a more accurate count. | eng_Latn | 19,816 |
Florida Court Discussion | Host Bob Edwards talks with Jon Mills, Dean of the University of Florida Law School about the issues before the Florida Supreme Court which may determine the presidency of the United States. | School officials in Seattle and Louisville, Ky., named in the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 desegregation ruling were encouraged by the separate and deciding opinion of Justice Anthony Kennedy. Though voting with the majority, he wrote that race could still be an element of a school district's racial diversity plan. | eng_Latn | 19,817 |
Census Legal Battle Continues | The legal fight over a citizenship question the Trump administration wants on the 2020 census is not over. A federal judge in Maryland is now reviewing the question's alleged "discriminatory" origins. | California lawyer wants to rid the Golden state of Oreos. | por_Latn | 19,818 |
The DOJ Is Suing Georgia Over Restrictive New Voting Law | The Justice Department is suing Georgia over the state's restrictive new voting law. The suit alleges its purpose, restricting ballot access for Black voters, is in violation of the Voting Rights Act. | Alabama closed 31 part-time driver's license offices last week due to budget cuts. That leaves many rural residents without a place to obtain driver's licenses — licenses that double as voter IDs. | eng_Latn | 19,819 |
Same-Sex Marriage and Civil Rights | Advocates for same-sex marriage often describe their work as a civil rights struggle. But commentator Robert Franklin would like to point out that the term "civil rights" has special meaning to African Americans -- and that many of them feel like same-sex marriage does not qualify for the title of "civil rights movement." Robert Franklin is a professor at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. | The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the federal government over the National Security Agency's phone and Internet surveillance program. | eng_Latn | 19,820 |
Is The Voting Rights Act Outdated? | For more than four decades, the Voting Rights Act never lost a court decision as it cut a path for minorities' increased participation in elections. But the most effective civil rights law in U.S. history faces its most serious challenge as the Supreme Court prepares to re-examine its constitutionality. Why now? Some say it's because of the law's own success. The plaintiff in the case blames Congress for failing to amend part of the legislation to reflect changing times. Enacted in 1965, the law relies on a key provision requiring jurisdictions with a discriminatory history to get approval from the federal government before changing their election procedures. The "preclearance" requirement, in Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, covers nine states, mostly in the South, and parts of several other states. This year, courts used the preclearance provision to block voter identification requirements and other rule changes leading up to the recent election. The plaintiff in the Supreme Court case, Shelby County, Ala., says it should be released from the preclearance requirement because it no longer engages in voter discrimination. Shelby County argues that the mandate is unconstitutional because it's outdated and unfairly holds the county to a higher standard than the rest of the nation. From 1972 To The Present The law imposes preclearance on areas where fewer than 50 percent of minorities were registered to vote in 1972. Shelby County says its minority registration rates have risen above the threshold. The law was last reauthorized by Congress in 2006, for another 25 years. The case before the Supreme Court has raised questions about whether Congress had sufficient evidence to extend the law given that minority voting participation in most parts of the South had substantially increased by then. Similar concerns were expressed by some Supreme Court justices in a 2009 decision. The court declined to answer the constitutionality question, but in the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts suggested that the law may not be "justified by current needs" and urged Congress to revisit it. The court is expected to issue a ruling next year. NPR interviewed two members of Congress who voted on the 2006 extension. The congressmen — one supported it, the other opposed it — explained their reasons for their votes and addressed criticisms about the extension. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., chaired the House Judiciary Committee at the time, overseeing the hearings on the law's extension. He also helped write the bill. Rep. John Duncan Jr., R-Tenn., a former state judge, voted against the extension. Also weighing in was Richard Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, and author of the Election Law Blog. What's your opinion of the evidence presented to Congress alleging that voting discrimination was continuing? Sensenbrenner: "What the 12,000 pages of [testimony] showed is that in many of the jurisdictions, particularly in Georgia and Texas, there still was pervasive discrimination, and that there were [election rules] changes ... that were not cleared because they had a discriminatory effect. "It really was a mountain of testimony. It was overwhelming. We had opponents of Section 5 come in and attempt to testify that this really wasn't the case, and they weren't able to make out a clear case." Duncan: "It was not an easy vote for me because I have always gotten, by far, the highest African-American vote of any Republican in the country ... But when I looked at, I thought, you know, they haven't shown one case of anybody being denied the right to vote. Not one case in all that time. "The key word that you said there was alleged. There was no actual proof of anybody being denied the right to vote. The proof is in the pudding ... You have the highest percentage of minority officeholders in those states ... You have just as high or higher numbers of [minority] voter registration and voter turnout in those states as in any other states in the country. "If we did away with the law and they ever could show some instance of somebody being denied the right to vote, we could easily come back in and do something about that. But the law now solves a problem that does not exist." Hasen: "When all that evidence came, the House hearings were pretty much a collusive affair between ... the chair of the Judiciary Committee, Jim Sensenbrenner, and the civil rights community. There was no real debate on the House side as to the evidence. "I do think that there is certainly a controversy over whether much of the evidence ... was sufficient to justify the continuation of the preclearance rules." The preclearance formula is based on minority voter data from 1972 that are no longer accurate for most covered areas. Doesn't that weaken the argument for upholding the law? Why didn't the Congress amend the formula? Duncan: "I actually voted for an amendment that went down to defeat that said if we're going to have this la | Back in March, Congress approved nearly $50 billion in aid for people who need rental assistance to avoid eviction. At the same time a federal moratorium on evictions is expected to be extended till the end of the July. That money goes to the states, and then onto counties and cities where different programs are popping up to take applications and write checks to renters and landlords. It's gone relatively well in some places, but an estimated 7 million Americans are still behind on rent. And even just the threat of eviction is making it harder for them to find a place to live. NPR's Chris Arnold spoke with families who have received assistance and those who are still hoping to. Through his reporting he found evidence across the country of a disparate impact on Black renters. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community. Email us at [email protected]. | eng_Latn | 19,821 |
One DACA Recipient Reflects On His Road To Harvard Medical School | Thursday is the last day for recipients of DACA, or the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, to apply to stay in the United States for another two years. The deadline came out of the Trump administration’s decision a month ago to drop support for the program. Liz Gannes (@lizgannes) from the digital audio startup 60dB has the story of one man who is about to finish his residency in orthopedic surgery at Harvard University, and how DACA helped him get there. [Youtube] | NPR's Mandalit DelBarco talks to high school students and admissions officials at the University of California system, which has dumped its affirmative action program, or at least the parts of it that gave special status to applicants based on race, ethnicity or gender. | eng_Latn | 19,822 |
Supreme Court Throws Out Lower Court Ruling On Undocumented Immigrants And Abortion | The Supreme Court on Monday agreed with the Trump administration to toss out a lower court opinion that allowed a teenager in the country illegally to have an abortion while in U.S. custody. | The controversial law that curbed the collective bargaining rights of public employees in Wisconsin has been struck down by Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colas. The law, if you remember, was championed by Gov. Scott Walker and it unleashed massive protests and even led to Democratic law makers to flee the state to forestall its passage. After it became law, union activists mobilized and triggered a recall vote, which Walker ultimately defeated. The Associated Press reports: "Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colas ruled Friday that the law violates both the state and U.S. Constitution and is null and void. The ruling comes after a lawsuit brought by the Madison teachers union and a union for Milwaukee city employees. "Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie says he is confident the decision will be overturned on appeal. "It was not clear if the ruling means the law is immediately suspended. The law took away nearly all collective bargaining rights from most workers and has been in effect for more than a year." The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that this means municipal workers return to what was the status-quo before the law was passed. State employees still have to abide by the new law. "The ruling means that, unless it is overturned on appeal, school districts and local officials will have to return to the bargaining table with their workers in a much more significant way," the Sentinel reports. | eng_Latn | 19,823 |
The Black Crowes: Smearing the 'Warpaint' | When The Black Crowes came howling out of Atlanta with 1990's Shake Your Money Maker, few were taking on the boogie-rock of the Rolling Stones and Faces. This was the awkward period between Guns N' Roses and Nirvana, but somehow The Black Crowes succeeded. The band has continued to record classic-rock-inspired songs with a Southern twang. On Warpaint — The Black Crowes' first studio album since 2001's Lions — the group reunites after solo efforts and concert tours on the jam-band circuit. This time around, North Mississippi Allstars member Luther Dickinson replaces Marc Ford on guitar. The material remains the same — swaggering rock with a bit of Southern-fried soul — but now the band sounds like professionals who have honed an otherwise ramshackle style of music. The Black Crowes give and acoustic set and interview on WXPN. This segment originally aired April 4, 2008. | Linda talks with Paula Sharp, the author of _Crows Over Wheatfield_. This new novel deals with child and spousal abuse, but in a style that features both warmth and humor. Sharp, who is also a lawyer, wanted to create a book about these issues that featured a strong female character. (7:30) [Stations: _Crows Over Wheatfield_ is published by Hyperion.] CREDITS FUNDER 0:29 CUTAWAY 0:59 =========================SECOND HOUR======================= BILLBOARD :59 NEWS 2:59 NEWS 1:59 THEME MUSIC 0:29 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 2A 8. TEXAS REDISTRICTING -- NPR's John Burnett reports on a decision today by federal judges that redrew thirteen congressional districts in Texas and nullified their primary election results in order to conform with recent Supreme Court rulings outlawing so-called "racial gerrymandering." This decision has important implications for some Congressional races in Texas. Some incumbents who had faced no primary opposition could now find themselves with rivals for those seats. | eng_Latn | 19,824 |
Advanced Placement History Test Accused Of Being Unpatriotic | An Oklahoma legislative panel is reviewing the latest Advanced Placement U.S. History course and could cut funding for it in the state's schools. Lawmakers complain the course focuses on the negative. | New revelations are raising questions about the Supreme Court case against the Trump administration’s move to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. Last week, the ACLU filed a notice in federal court that there’s new evidence in the case, after The New York Times revealed that a Republican known for his work in partisan gerrymandering had played a role in adding the question. Thomas Hofeller, a GOP redistricting strategist, did a study in 2015 and found that adding a citizenship question would be “advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites.” This goes against the Trump administration’s statements that the question was added to enforce the Voting Rights Act. Here & Now‘s Robin Young speaks with NPR national correspondent Hansi Lo Wang (@hansilowang), who has been covering the 2020 census. This article was originally published on WBUR.org. | eng_Latn | 19,825 |
Supreme Court Rules Against Class Action Lawsuits For Workers | The U.S. Supreme court, by a 5-4 vote margin, has ruled for the first time that workers may not band together to challenge violations of federal labor laws. Here & Now‘s Robin Young speaks with Emily Bazelon (@emilybazelon), staff writer at The New York Times Magazine and a fellow at Yale Law School. | Host Renee Montagne talks with Kurt Metzger, director of the Michigan Metropolitan Information Center at Wayne State University in Detroit, about the impact of yesterday''s Supreme Court decision on census sampling for cities. The Court ruled that statistical sampling may not be used to determine a state''s number of Congressional seats. The census will be taken the traditional way -- by phone calls and door-to-door visits. However, officials in some cities claim their populations are being undercounted, and statistical sampling would provide a more accurate count. | eng_Latn | 19,826 |
Ty Cobb Joins Growing Roster Of Lawyers Inside Trump's White House | Ty Cobb, the Washington lawyer not the baseball legend, is joining an ever growing roster of lawyers at the White House. NPR's Robert Siegel talks with Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, about the role Cobb will play and the significance of his hiring. | Part 1 of the TED Radio Hour episode Fixing Our Broken Systems. Watch Phillip K. Howard's full TEDTalk — "Four Ways To Fix A Broken Legal System" — on TED.com. About Philip K. Howard's Full TEDTalk We laugh at America's warning-label culture — like the bag of airline peanuts that says "Caution: Contains Nuts" — but everyday acts of silence and loss promoted by the fear of being sued is troubling, and has repercussions. Your doctor may not speak frankly to you; your kids' principal might not feel he has the right to remove bad teachers. Attorney Philip K. Howard says the Land of the Free has become a legal minefield, especially for teachers and doctors. Their work has been paralyzed by this fear. What's the answer? A lawyer himself, Howard has four propositions for simplifying U.S. law. About Philip K. Howard Philip K. Howard founded the nonpartisan group Common Good to combat the nation's culture of fear and reform several key areas of our legal system. Among Common Good's suggestions: specialized health care courts, which would give lower but smarter awards, and a project with New York City's board of education and the teachers union to overhaul the disciplinary system in public schools. He recently founded New Talk, a project that fosters productive, nonpartisan discussion on even more tough issues like economics, health care and government. His latest book is Life Without Lawyers. | eng_Latn | 19,827 |
Court Strikes Down Wisconsin Collective Bargaining Law | The controversial law that curbed the collective bargaining rights of public employees in Wisconsin has been struck down by Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colas. The law, if you remember, was championed by Gov. Scott Walker and it unleashed massive protests and even led to Democratic law makers to flee the state to forestall its passage. After it became law, union activists mobilized and triggered a recall vote, which Walker ultimately defeated. The Associated Press reports: "Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colas ruled Friday that the law violates both the state and U.S. Constitution and is null and void. The ruling comes after a lawsuit brought by the Madison teachers union and a union for Milwaukee city employees. "Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie says he is confident the decision will be overturned on appeal. "It was not clear if the ruling means the law is immediately suspended. The law took away nearly all collective bargaining rights from most workers and has been in effect for more than a year." The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that this means municipal workers return to what was the status-quo before the law was passed. State employees still have to abide by the new law. "The ruling means that, unless it is overturned on appeal, school districts and local officials will have to return to the bargaining table with their workers in a much more significant way," the Sentinel reports. | NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks to professor Jake Rosenfeld of Washington University in St. Louis about Missouri voters' rejection of the state's right-to-work law on Tuesday. | eng_Latn | 19,828 |
How America's High Schools Can Be Improved | NPR's Robert Siegel talks to Theodore Sizer, a former high school principal and the founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools. Sizer talks about what's wrong with American high schools and how they might be improved. Sizer is also the author of <EM>The Red Pencil: Convictions from Experience in Education</EM>. | WEEKEND EDITION'S WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT DANIEL SCHORR SPEAKS WITH LAWRENCE H. FUCHS (FEW-ks), VICE-CHAIRMAN OF THE U.S. COMMISSION ON IMMIGRATION REFORM AND DANIEL A. STEIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE FEDERATION FOR AMERICAN IMMIGRATION REFORM, ABOUT THE RECOMMENDATIONS RELEASED THIS WEEK BY THE U.S. COMMISSION ON IMMIGRATION REFORM. | eng_Latn | 19,829 |
Voters In Missouri Reject Right-To-Work Law In Rare Win For Labor | NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks to professor Jake Rosenfeld of Washington University in St. Louis about Missouri voters' rejection of the state's right-to-work law on Tuesday. | NPR's Michel Martin speaks with Dr. Willie Parker about the recent Supreme Court decision regarding abortion access in Louisiana. | eng_Latn | 19,830 |
Supreme Court - Immigration | NPR's Barbara Bradley reports that a Supreme Court ruling today gives some legal immigrants access to the courts to fight deportation. The immigrants involved are non-citizens with legal residency who agreed to a plea bargain in a criminal case years ago. They're now threatened with deportation. A 1996 law required non-citizens to be deported for some crimes and cuts them off from federal court review of the deportation orders. The high court's ruling today strikes down that law. | Faced with the prospect of reshaping college athletics, the U.S. Supreme Court issued potentially transformative ruling Monday in a case that pitted college athletes against the NCAA. | eng_Latn | 19,831 |
Quick Take: Supreme Court Strikes Down Texas Abortion Law | The Supreme Court wrapped its term Monday with perhaps its most significant abortion ruling in decades. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg joins host/White House correspondent Tamara Keith and campaign reporter Scott Detrow to discuss the ruling — as well as a few others. More coverage at nprpolitics.org. Email the show at [email protected]. | President Bush says the administration will file a brief supporting white students who sued the University of Michigan's law school. The Supreme Court is hearing the students' challenge to an affirmative action policy that gives minority students an advantage in applying for admission. Hear NPR's Michele Norris, NPR's Don Gonyea and NPR's Mara Liasson. | eng_Latn | 19,832 |
Research: Black Judges Are Reversed On Appeal More Than White Judges | President Obama has tried to diversify the federal judiciary by appointing more black judges. Data show black federal district judges are overturned on appeal 10 percent more often than white judges. | NPR's Tavis Smiley talks with Ward Connerly, the chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute in Sacramento, Calif., and a regent of the University of California. Connerly gives his opinion of yesterday's Supreme Court decision. | eng_Latn | 19,833 |
Bans On Vulgar Trademarks Unconstitutional, Supreme Court Rules | It’s the last week of the Supreme Court’s decisions in this session and there are many cases still pending. The court gave judgments Monday on several of them. Here & Now‘s Robin Young speaks with Dahlia Lithwick (@Dahlialithwick), who writes about the courts and the law for Slate and hosts the podcast “Amicus,” about Monday’s decision. This article was originally published on WBUR.org. | Host Renee Montagne talks with Kurt Metzger, director of the Michigan Metropolitan Information Center at Wayne State University in Detroit, about the impact of yesterday''s Supreme Court decision on census sampling for cities. The Court ruled that statistical sampling may not be used to determine a state''s number of Congressional seats. The census will be taken the traditional way -- by phone calls and door-to-door visits. However, officials in some cities claim their populations are being undercounted, and statistical sampling would provide a more accurate count. | eng_Latn | 19,834 |
Same-sex couples in Cook County don't have to wait until June 1 .
That's when a new state legalizing same-sex marriage takes effect .
Judge says gay couples "have already suffered" from no right to marry .
The ruling applies only to marriage licenses in Cook County, which includes Chicago . | Same-sex couples in Chicago and surrounding Cook County can marry immediately and won't have to wait until June 1 for a state law legalizing gay marriage to take effect, a federal judge ruled Friday. "There is no reason to delay further when no opposition has been presented to this Court and committed gay and lesbian couples have already suffered from the denial of their fundamental right to marry," U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman wrote in a lawsuit. "Although this Court finds that the marriage ban for same-sex couples violates the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause on its face, this finding can only apply to Cook County based upon the posture of the lawsuit," the judge wrote. Cook County Clerk David Orr said his downtown Chicago office would be open until 7 p.m. Friday issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. "I'm thrilled same-sex couples who want to get married won't have to wait any longer" Orr said in a statement. "We are very excited to celebrate this historic milestone with every loving couple from today onward." In November, the Illinois General Assembly passed the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act, making Illinois the 16th state in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage. The measure goes into effect June 1 . Last month, the gay rights group Lambda Legal and the ACLU filed a class-action lawsuit in Illinois on behalf of same-sex couples who wanted to immediately obtain marriage licenses in Cook County. Christopher Clark, counsel for Lambda Legal, said the case originally arose after a couple facing life-threatening illness came forward saying they didn't feel they could wait until June to be married. Clark called Friday's ruling an "absolute ringing affirmation of the principles of liberty and equality that are at the foundations of our constitution." Clark said the ruling sets a precedent for same-sex marriage in other states and called it "another step in resolving the issue across the country." | (CNN) -- The city of New Haven, Connecticut, will promote 14 firefighters who were involved in a workplace discrimination case that worked its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The firefighters were among the New Haven 20 -- one Hispanic and 19 white firefighters -- who fought the city after it threw out the results of a 2003 firefighter promotion exam that left too few minorities qualified for promotions. A U.S. District Court issued a judgment finding the city violated the civil rights of a group of the white firefighters when it threw out the exams in 2004, according to Jessica Mayorga, city spokeswoman. The Tuesday decision follows a court action by seven black New Haven firefighters seeking to delay the promotions. "Yesterday, the court entered an order that provides the City of New Haven with the legal sanction necessary to move forward and promote the fourteen plaintiffs in the Ricci case entitled to promotions," the city said in a statement. "As a result, we intend to do so as soon as practicable." The firefighters will be promoted to either lieutenant or captain. Mayorga said the other six involved in the lawsuit were not eligible for promotions that were available at the time the exams were given. She said the court's order only addresses 14 of the 20 plaintiffs. If the exams had been certified in 2004, the other six plaintiffs would not have been promoted. The case was the center of attention during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of now-Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals that backed the city in the case. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually overturned the appeals court ruling 5-4 earlier this year when the justices ruled that the city improperly threw out the results of the promotion exams. Key plaintiff Frank Ricci and others took promotion exams in 2003 for lieutenant and captain positions that had become available in Connecticut's second-largest city. New Haven's personnel department had contracted with a private firm to design the exams. When the results came back, however, city lawyers expressed concern about the results because none of the black firefighters and only one Latino who took the exam scored high enough to be promoted. The city said that under a federal civil rights law known as Title VII, employers must ban actions such as promotion tests that would have a "disparate impact" on a protected class, such as a specified race or gender. The group of firefighters, claiming they were wronged by the city's action, then sued, calling themselves the "New Haven 20." | eng_Latn | 19,835 |
Timothy P. O'Neill: No judge on Supreme Court now has legislative background .
He says none of the nine have held, or even run for, elective office .
O'Neill: All but one attended Harvard or Yale Law School .
He says court would perform better if its membership had broader backgrounds . | Editor's note: Timothy P. O'Neill, a professor at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago, Illinois, has written and lectured widely on criminal law and criminal procedure. Among his articles was a 2007 piece for the Oklahoma Law Review: "The Stepford Justices: The Need for Experiential Diversity on the Roberts Court." He is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Michigan Law School. Timothy P. O'Neill says there are striking similarities in the backgrounds of the Supreme Court justices. CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- With the retirement of Justice David Souter, President Obama has the opportunity to bring a special kind of diversity to the Supreme Court: the diversity of broad and varied governmental experience. It is certainly true that the court needs more racial and gender diversity. Yet the homogeneity of the work résumés of the current justices is unprecedented. The right nominee would help to correct this. Many commentators have noted that this is the first Supreme Court in American history in which every justice has come from exactly the same job: judge on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. But there are other "firsts" that are equally disturbing. For the first time in American history, not a single justice has had any legislative experience. Not one has ever been elected to Congress, a state legislature or a city council. For the first time in American history, not a single justice has ever held -- or even run for -- any elective office at any level of government. (Although Souter once served as a state attorney general, that is an appointed office in New Hampshire.) For the first time in American history, eight of the nine justices attended one of only two law schools: Harvard or Yale. (Although Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg graduated from Columbia, she transferred from Harvard Law School.) Traditionally, the Supreme Court has been composed not only of former judges, but also lawyers who have come directly from serving as senators, governors, Cabinet members, heads of administrative agencies, and even from private practice. Yet it has been almost 30 years since a justice has been confirmed who was not then a federal appellate judge. What caused this change? Some point to the acrimony that surrounded the failed appointment of Robert Bork in 1987. Since that time, presidents of both parties have stressed the judicial competence -- not the ideology -- of their appointees. The implied promise is that the technical proficiency of an Ivy League-trained federal appellate judge somehow trumps issues of ideology. This, of course, is an illusion. The cases that come to the Supreme Court are there precisely because they fall between the cracks of established legal doctrine. There is no single "Ivy League judge's answer" to any issue pending before the Supreme Court. For example, take a look at the Supreme Court's 2006 term. The Court decided 72 cases. With all the justices coming from the federal appellate bench and eight of them having attended Harvard or Yale, did this help achieve consensus? On the contrary, the percentage of cases in which there was a unanimous decision was the second lowest in a decade. And 24 decisions -- fully one-third of the docket -- were decided by a 5-4 vote, the highest percentage of 5-4 decisions in over a decade. The best example of how there is no single "judge's answer" to Supreme Court issues can be found in the eight death penalty cases decided during the 2006 term. The cases had a variety of issues, including questions concerning the selection of jurors, the giving of jury instructions and competence of defense counsel. Yet every single case was decided 5-4. In every single case, Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts held for the prosecution. In every single case, Justices John Paul Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer held for the defense. Every case was decided by Justice Anthony Kennedy's vote: four times for the prosecution and four times for the defense. Looking for a single "judge's answer" to an issue before the Supreme Court is usually futile. In order to decide the great legal issues before the court, a justice needs to bring more than mere legal competence; a justice also needs to bring real-world experience, values and intuition. That is why it is self-defeating to restrict the range of possible Supreme Court nominees to the small group of sitting federal appellate judges. Supreme Court decision-making would be richer if it included people who had actually written legislation or had run federal agencies or had governed states. As Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy recently said, there is a need to select Supreme Court nominees "from outside the judicial monastery." We should welcome, and not irrationally restrict, the variety of experience that can be brought to Supreme Court decision-making. Professor Lee Epstein of Northwestern has observed that "Diversity of inputs makes for stronger outputs." Obama should cast the widest possible net to find a person who can bring a fresh set of experiences and perspectives to the work of the Supreme Court. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Timothy P. O'Neill. | Editor's note: Joel I. Klein has been chancellor of the New York City Department of Education since 2002. Joel I. Klein says Caroline Kennedy became a champion for New York City's children. NEW YORK (CNN) -- I was named schools chancellor in New York City in 2002, shortly after Mayor Michael Bloomberg won control over the city's school system. At the time, our schools were in desperate need of a strong advocate. Few prominent New Yorkers were willing to take a chance on our schools -- or invest in a system that many saw as beyond repair. Caroline Kennedy was willing. I approached Caroline about serving our city's school system because it would send a powerful message to the entire city about the importance of school reform and also because I was convinced, having known her personally, that she had the right skills to put together an office of strategic partnerships to undergird our efforts. Without hesitation, Caroline joined our effort, and started building partnerships with the private sector on behalf of children. She essentially became a champion for New York City's children, who badly needed her advocacy. Before the mayor and I took charge, New York City had not actively tried to raise money for its public schools. Caroline took over an office that previously oversaw donations to PTAs and alumni associations and recreated it around a model of a public-private partnership. The model she created in New York City has led to similar efforts in other school districts across America. Private donors were historically reluctant to make gifts to public schools because there was so little accountability and transparency around spending and outcomes. Caroline created a system that measured results. A new transparency around outcomes, along with Caroline's proficiency in articulating the goals of our reforms, gave private funders an unprecedented stake in the success of schools and students and attracted large amounts of new funding. Caroline was highly focused, efficient and hands-on in this effort. She verified the value of her work by visiting schools to see how funds were affecting principals, teachers and students. She was unafraid of asking hard questions, bringing diverse groups together and looking for alternative solutions. She framed problems in ways that made them solvable. These are qualities that served New York City's 1.1 million public schoolchildren well. Under her leadership, The Fund for Public Schools has raised more than $240 million from businesses, foundations and individuals, according to the fund. Schools have used these funds to improve middle schools, improve libraries, provide arts programs and train public school principals. Caroline's belief that government can improve people's lives -- and the way she put this belief to work on behalf of the city's public schools -- has inspired many people. In my experience, Caroline's belief in and passion for public service are contagious. If she is selected to represent our state in the U.S. Senate, I have no doubt that she would put that passion, along with her estimable talents, to work for New Yorkers in every corner of our state. I've spoken with Caroline this week about her decision to seek the Senate seat. She understands that the stakes have never been higher, and she knows that New Yorkers need to have a senator who will fight for them in Washington. Caroline is prepared to work hard for New Yorkers -- bringing jobs to our state, helping us win funding for infrastructure and homeland security, and helping to improve health care and education for New Yorkers. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Joel Klein. | eng_Latn | 19,836 |
What does the FBI employ the term race to summarize? | In an attempt to provide general descriptions that may facilitate the job of law enforcement officers seeking to apprehend suspects, the United States FBI employs the term "race" to summarize the general appearance (skin color, hair texture, eye shape, and other such easily noticed characteristics) of individuals whom they are attempting to apprehend. From the perspective of law enforcement officers, it is generally more important to arrive at a description that will readily suggest the general appearance of an individual than to make a scientifically valid categorization by DNA or other such means. Thus, in addition to assigning a wanted individual to a racial category, such a description will include: height, weight, eye color, scars and other distinguishing characteristics. | Ricci v. DeStefano was heard by the United States Supreme Court in 2009. The case concerns White and Hispanic firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut, who upon passing their test for promotions to management were denied the promotions, allegedly because of a discriminatory or at least questionable test. The test gave 17 whites and two Hispanics the possibility of immediate promotion. Although 23% of those taking the test were African American, none scored high enough to qualify. Because of the possibility the tests were biased in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, no candidates were promoted pending outcome of the controversy. In a split 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court ruled that New Haven had engaged in impermissible racial discrimination against the White and Hispanic majority. | eng_Latn | 19,837 |
Is the division rate of the TB bacterium fast or slow relative to other bacteria? | The main cause of TB is Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a small, aerobic, nonmotile bacillus. The high lipid content of this pathogen accounts for many of its unique clinical characteristics. It divides every 16 to 20 hours, which is an extremely slow rate compared with other bacteria, which usually divide in less than an hour. Mycobacteria have an outer membrane lipid bilayer. If a Gram stain is performed, MTB either stains very weakly "Gram-positive" or does not retain dye as a result of the high lipid and mycolic acid content of its cell wall. MTB can withstand weak disinfectants and survive in a dry state for weeks. In nature, the bacterium can grow only within the cells of a host organism, but M. tuberculosis can be cultured in the laboratory. | In 2012, Abigail Fisher, an undergraduate student at Louisiana State University, and Rachel Multer Michalewicz, a law student at Southern Methodist University, filed a lawsuit to challenge the University of Texas admissions policy, asserting it had a "race-conscious policy" that "violated their civil and constitutional rights". The University of Texas employs the "Top Ten Percent Law", under which admission to any public college or university in Texas is guaranteed to high school students who graduate in the top ten percent of their high school class. Fisher has brought the admissions policy to court because she believes that she was denied acceptance to the University of Texas based on her race, and thus, her right to equal protection according to the 14th Amendment was violated. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Fisher on October 10, 2012, and rendered an ambiguous ruling in 2013 that sent the case back to the lower court, stipulating only that the University must demonstrate that it could not achieve diversity through other, non-race sensitive means. In July 2014, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit concluded that U of T maintained a "holistic" approach in its application of affirmative action, and could continue the practice. On February 10, 2015, lawyers for Fisher filed a new case in the Supreme Court. It is a renewed complaint that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit got the issue wrong — on the second try as well as on the first. The Supreme Court agreed in June 2015 to hear the case a second time. It will likely be decided by June 2016. | eng_Latn | 19,838 |
Where did Hanna Holborn Gray go after Yale? | The Yale Provost's Office has launched several women into prominent university presidencies. In 1977 Hanna Holborn Gray was appointed acting President of Yale from this position, and went on to become President of the University of Chicago, the first woman to be full president of a major university. In 1994 Yale Provost Judith Rodin became the first female president of an Ivy League institution at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2002 Provost Alison Richard became the Vice Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. In 2004, Provost Susan Hockfield became the President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2007 Deputy Provost Kim Bottomly was named President of Wellesley College. In 2003, the Dean of the Divinity School, Rebecca Chopp, was appointed president of Colgate University and now heads Swarthmore College. | On November 17, 2014, Students for Fair Admissions, an offshoot of the Project on Fair Representation, filed lawsuits in federal district court challenging the admissions practices of Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The UNC-Chapel Hill lawsuit alleges discrimination against white and Asian students, while the Harvard lawsuit focuses on discrimination against Asian applicants. Both universities requested the court to halt the lawsuits until the U.S. Supreme Court provides clarification of relevant law by ruling in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin for the second time. This Supreme Court case will likely be decided in June 2016 or slightly earlier. | eng_Latn | 19,839 |
why isnt there a space to check mixed or biracial on US forms? | I know what you mean. On every single standardized test, government survey, etc, I have checked other. It's not a big deal, but it is kind of depressing. I hope that soon they will start adding a multi-racial box to the forms.\nI either check other or check both races. I like the check all that apply idea from above. | f - gender\ng - wealth\nc - skin color\nk - age\no - sexual orientation\nm - religious beliefs\ni - occupation prior to politics\nj - military service\nh - education\nl - physical disability\nd - short name\np - family history\nn - fame\nq - state of birth\ne - long name\nr - clothing\nb - hair color\na - glasses\n\nNote these are based on what I think America cares about, not what I personally care about.\n\np.s. and as to the comment above mine, I'd put "good looking" right under wealth. | eng_Latn | 19,840 |
We both presently reside in my native country. What are my chances of acquiring a visa to the US? Would I be scrutinized more than another becasue my son is a US citizen? | Are You Trying To Say, In A Politically Correct Way\nThat Your Son Is An ANCHOR BABY???\n\nThe Fourteenth Amendment EXCLUDES the children of aliens. (The Slaughterhouse Cases (83 U.S. 36 (1873) \n\nThe Fourteenth Amendment draws a distinction between the children of aliens and children of citizens. (Minor v. Happersett (88 U.S. 162 (1874)\n\nThe phrase "subject to the jurisdiction" REQUIRES "Direct And Immediate ALLEGIENCE" to the United States, NOT just physical presence. \n(Elk v. Wilkins 112 U.S. 94 (1884) \n\nThere is NO automatic birthright citizenship in a particular case. (Wong Kim Ark Case, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) \n\nThe Supreme Court has NEVER confirmed birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens, temporary workers, and tourists. \n(Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 211 n.10 (1982) | What is a CHILD doing with a firearm ? What is wrong with this kid ? is this kid stupid or just plain violent ? Where is this kid picking up this type of irresponsible actions. Is it from the parents ? because it sounds like to me this kid has a big problem. \n\nI would love to here what excuse the parents of this kid would conjure up why a minor child secured a loaded firearm. --\n\nAnd here is my big MIS-understanding - Why are you so concerned about this kid not being able to buy a gun in the future ? THAT IS WHAT I WANT TO KNOW ! | eng_Latn | 19,841 |
pull the race card !!! come on do it !!!! Everyone should be able to have a drivers license picture or show up in court with a garbage bag over your head wow maybe get your head out of your ass. | Oh Sweet Jesus, it's the Racial Card again...give us a damn break on that crap... | You sound like a responsible person so under the licensing law, you should be allowed to have free speech but you'll still need to show picture ID to vote.
Sounds ridiculous right. | eng_Latn | 19,842 |
Michael Dorf is a law professor at what school? | In October 2013, the New York Post reported that Schwarzenegger was exploring a future run for president. The former California governor would face a constitutional hurdle; Article II, Section I, Clause V nominally prevents individuals who are not natural-born citizens of the United States from assuming the office. He has reportedly been lobbying legislators about a possible constitutional change, or filing a legal challenge to the provision. Columbia University law professor Michael Dorf observed that Schwarzenegger's possible lawsuit could ultimately win him the right to run for the office, noting, "The law is very clear, but it’s not 100 percent clear that the courts would enforce that law rather than leave it to the political process." | Around the beginning of the 20th century, a general dissatisfaction with the emphasis on revivalist architecture and elaborate decoration gave rise to many new lines of thought that served as precursors to Modern Architecture. Notable among these is the Deutscher Werkbund, formed in 1907 to produce better quality machine made objects. The rise of the profession of industrial design is usually placed here. Following this lead, the Bauhaus school, founded in Weimar, Germany in 1919, redefined the architectural bounds prior set throughout history, viewing the creation of a building as the ultimate synthesis—the apex—of art, craft, and technology. | eng_Latn | 19,843 |
Aside from the construction industry, which other group was one of the main offenders against equal opportunity laws? | The strides that the Johnson presidency made in ensuring equal opportunity in the workforce were further picked up by his successor Nixon. In 1969 the Nixon administration initiated the "Philadelphia Order". It was regarded as the most forceful plan thus far to guarantee fair hiring practices in construction jobs. Philadelphia was selected as the test case because, as Assistant Secretary of Labor Arthur Fletcher explained, "The craft unions and the construction industry are among the most egregious offenders against equal opportunity laws . . . openly hostile toward letting blacks into their closed circle." The order included definite "goals and timetables." As President Nixon asserted, "We would not impose quotas, but would require federal contractors to show 'affirmative action' to meet the goals of increasing minority employment." | Allusions to legal issues in To Kill a Mockingbird, particularly in scenes outside of the courtroom, has drawn the attention from legal scholars. Claudia Durst Johnson writes that "a greater volume of critical readings has been amassed by two legal scholars in law journals than by all the literary scholars in literary journals". The opening quote by the 19th-century essayist Charles Lamb reads: "Lawyers, I suppose, were children once." Johnson notes that even in Scout and Jem's childhood world, compromises and treaties are struck with each other by spitting on one's palm and laws are discussed by Atticus and his children: is it right that Bob Ewell hunts and traps out of season? Many social codes are broken by people in symbolic courtrooms: Mr. Dolphus Raymond has been exiled by society for taking a black woman as his common-law wife and having interracial children; Mayella Ewell is beaten by her father in punishment for kissing Tom Robinson; by being turned into a non-person, Boo Radley receives a punishment far greater than any court could have given him. Scout repeatedly breaks codes and laws and reacts to her punishment for them. For example, she refuses to wear frilly clothes, saying that Aunt Alexandra's "fanatical" attempts to place her in them made her feel "a pink cotton penitentiary closing in on [her]". Johnson states, "[t]he novel is a study of how Jem and Scout begin to perceive the complexity of social codes and how the configuration of relationships dictated by or set off by those codes fails or nurtures the inhabitants of (their) small worlds." | eng_Latn | 19,844 |
Congressional Black Caucus Urges Rethink Of Army Hair Rules | The women of the Congressional Black Caucus have sent a letter asking Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to reconsider new Army regulations that made headlines earlier this month. AR 670-1, the revised regulations for grooming and appearance, has some black female enlistees in an uproar: it dictates that black women may wear their hair au naturelle in twists or braids if they choose, but they must be narrow twists or braids — no more than a quarter-inch in diameter. (The Army has forbidden twists and dreadlocks since 2005, but wasn't specific about size. And while thin twists are still allowed, dreadlocks remain prohibited.) In the April 10 letter, Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, head of the Congressional Black Caucus, joined with more than a dozen other women Caucus members to tell Hagel, "African American women have often been required to meet unreasonable norms as it relates to acceptable standards of grooming in the workplace." The letter notes that such standards "should shift based on each community's unique and practical needs. New cultural norms and trends naturally change, ensuring that no person feels targeted or attacked based on his or her appearance." A 'More Professional-Looking' Army The revisions also include new rules on tattoos (which are allowed, but only certain kinds in certain places at certain sizes), mustaches (short and trim, no Ron Burgundy 'staches allowed) and sideburns. Mohawks are a no-go. So are is a partially-shaved style called the Horseshoe. But it's the revised women's hair regulations that have caused the biggest stir. At a time when more and more African-American women are choosing to wear their hair natural, without being straightened by chemicals or heat, the Army has decreed that only certain natural coiffures are acceptable. Like the regulations for tattoos and mustaches, the Army says the hair regulations are part of a push to make the all-volunteer army uniform in aspect, and "more professional-looking." Many black servicewomen have complained that the new rules are biased. The ladies of the CBC agree. "The lack of regard for ethnic hair is apparent," says the letter. "This policy needs to be reviewed prior to publishing to allow for neat and maintained natural hairstyles." Sgt. Jasmine Jacobs of the Georgia National Guard says the definition of "professional-looking" needs some broadening. Twists, she told Army Times, are professional — they allow her and other black women who have kinky-curly hair to keep their natural hair neat and out-of-the-way on maneuvers. They say twists and large braids stay put in the field and are impervious to sweat or water immersion. While many of her white comrades have hair that can be pulled back and pinned into a bun (acceptable, but only if it's above the collar), Jacobs said her thick, curly hair can't be contained like that. So she started a petition on the White House website asking the Obama administration to "reconsider changes to AR 670-1 to allow professional ethnic hairstyles." Reaction To The Reaction About 15,000 people have signed so far. Many believe it's unlikely that another revision will occur; the Army spent a couple years working on the current set. But the petition has been the catalyst for some fierce online debates, in addition to the letter from the women of the CBC. A sampling of opinion from the discussions reveals three broad categories: It's the Army. And you volunteered for it. Armies usually demand a uniform appearance. This is what "uniform" means. Get over it. You People are always asking for special treatment. This is just the latest example. If they gave incoming women the same buzz-cut the men get, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Gender-blind buzz-cut mandates for basic training don't happen because the military doesn't want it do, says this fascinating little video from USA Today. (Note the reporter explaining all this would not be able to keep her natural hairstyle!) On social media sites, a number of black self-identified veterans of both genders voiced agreement with the new regs. ("It's the Army, not a fashion show," one Facebook comment pointed out.) Many others spoke against the regulations. Lt. Col. Alayne P. Conway, spokeswoman for Army Headquarters at the Pentagon, told us that although the Army is insisting on uniformity, there is latitude, within reason. "Many hairstyles are acceptable, as long as they are neat and conservative," she emailed in a statement. And, she added, safe: "Headgear is expected to fit snugly and comfortably, without bulging or distortion from the intended shape of the headgear and without excessive gaps." In other words, helmets must fit well enough to protect the wearer, and fatigue caps shouldn't have odd lumps from the hairstyles underneath. The point is to remain safe during maneuvers. And not just twists and dreads — long hair unpinned and long bangs are also non-regulation, for a reason: "Loading rounds into artillery tubes," Conway said by way of example, | News Headlines: Sept. 28, 2007Baltimore Sun: At GOP Debate on Minority Issues, Absent Candidates Incur Resentment -- "Outside the debate hall at Morgan State University, African-Americans across the political spectrum used the phrase "slap in the face" when expressing their frustration at the decision of four leading Republican presidential candidates to skip last night's debate." More: Homeland Colors live blogged the event and asked questions of the candidates in attendance. Check out the open thread comments about the Republican snub. More Headlines:CNN: Mychal Bell of 'Jena 6' Released on Bail AP: Spain Fights Migration Via Senegal Ads ABC News: Judge Strikes Down Patriot Act Provisions Fox News: Oprah TV's Top Earner, Followed by Jerry Seinfeld The New York Times: McNabb: "Somebody Has to Speak About It" U.S. News & World Report: Like Other Schools, HBCUs Must Compete for Students | The New Affirmative Action Chicago Tribune: African-American Museum Opens Online RTE: Pregnant Halle Berry Receives Death Threats | kor_Hang | 19,845 |
Did they have daily quotas for cotton? | Out of former Soviet Union republics Uzbekistan continued and expanded the program of child labour on industrial scale to increase profits on the main source of Islam Karimov's income, cotton harvesting. In September, when school normally starts, the classes are suspended and children are sent to cotton fields for work, where they are assigned daily quotas of 20 to 60 kg of raw cotton they have to collect. This process is repeated in spring, when collected cotton needs to be hoed and weeded. In 2006 it is estimated that 2.7 million children were forced to work this way. | One of the first incidents of the book being challenged was in Hanover, Virginia, in 1966: a parent protested that the use of rape as a plot device was immoral. Johnson cites examples of letters to local newspapers, which ranged from amusement to fury; those letters expressing the most outrage, however, complained about Mayella Ewell's attraction to Tom Robinson over the depictions of rape. Upon learning the school administrators were holding hearings to decide the book's appropriateness for the classroom, Harper Lee sent $10 to The Richmond News Leader suggesting it to be used toward the enrollment of "the Hanover County School Board in any first grade of its choice". The National Education Association in 1968 placed the novel second on a list of books receiving the most complaints from private organizations—after Little Black Sambo. | eng_Latn | 19,846 |
What was boycotted by American musicians in 1943? | In July 1943, as a result of the American Federation of Musicians boycott of US recording studios, the a cappella vocal group The Song Spinners had a best-seller with "Comin' In On A Wing And A Prayer". In the 1950s several recording groups, notably The Hi-Los and the Four Freshmen, introduced complex jazz harmonies to a cappella performances. The King's Singers are credited with promoting interest in small-group a cappella performances in the 1960s. In 1983 an a cappella group known as The Flying Pickets had a Christmas 'number one' in the UK with a cover of Yazoo's (known in the US as Yaz) "Only You". A cappella music attained renewed prominence from the late 1980s onward, spurred by the success of Top 40 recordings by artists such as The Manhattan Transfer, Bobby McFerrin, Huey Lewis and the News, All-4-One, The Nylons, Backstreet Boys and Boyz II Men.[citation needed] | One of the first incidents of the book being challenged was in Hanover, Virginia, in 1966: a parent protested that the use of rape as a plot device was immoral. Johnson cites examples of letters to local newspapers, which ranged from amusement to fury; those letters expressing the most outrage, however, complained about Mayella Ewell's attraction to Tom Robinson over the depictions of rape. Upon learning the school administrators were holding hearings to decide the book's appropriateness for the classroom, Harper Lee sent $10 to The Richmond News Leader suggesting it to be used toward the enrollment of "the Hanover County School Board in any first grade of its choice". The National Education Association in 1968 placed the novel second on a list of books receiving the most complaints from private organizations—after Little Black Sambo. | eng_Latn | 19,847 |
What stipulation did the school base entrance on in 1945? | In the past, people at Eton have occasionally been guilty of antisemitism. For a time, new admissions were called 'Jews' by their fellow Collegers. In 1945, the school introduced a nationality statute conditioning entry on the applicant's father being British by birth. The statute was removed after the intervention of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in the 1960s after it came to the attention of Oxford's Wykeham Professor of Logic, A. J. Ayer, himself Jewish and an Old Etonian, who "suspected a whiff of anti-semitism". | Paragraph 6 of Article 29 stated that if a petition was successful a referendum should be held within three years. Since the deadline passed on 5 May 1958 without anything happening the Hesse state government filed a constitutional complaint with the Federal Constitutional Court in October 1958. The complaint was dismissed in July 1961 on the grounds that Article 29 had made the new delimitation of the federal territory an exclusively federal matter. At the same time, the Court reaffirmed the requirement for a territorial revision as a binding order to the relevant constitutional bodies. | eng_Latn | 19,848 |
What association criticized the separation of race and ethnicity in the UScensus? | Race and ethnicity are considered separate and distinct identities, with Hispanic or Latino origin asked as a separate question. Thus, in addition to their race or races, all respondents are categorized by membership in one of two ethnic categories, which are "Hispanic or Latino" and "Not Hispanic or Latino". However, the practice of separating "race" and "ethnicity" as different categories has been criticized both by the American Anthropological Association and members of U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. | The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), an independent agency under the Department of State established in place of the Marshall Plan for the purpose of determining and distributing foreign aid, does not use the term Near East. Its definition of Middle East corresponds to that of the State Department, which officially prefers the term Near East. | eng_Latn | 19,849 |
How many units of assessment did Imperial submit? | Imperial submitted a total of 1,257 staff across 14 units of assessment to the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) assessment. In the REF results 46% of Imperial's submitted research was classified as 4*, 44% as 3*, 9% as 2* and 1% as 1*, giving an overall GPA of 3.36. In rankings produced by Times Higher Education based upon the REF results Imperial was ranked 2nd overall for GPA and 8th for "research power" (compared to 6th and 7th respectively in the equivalent rankings for the RAE 2008). | Race was asked differently in the Census 2000 in several other ways than previously. Most significantly, respondents were given the option of selecting one or more race categories to indicate racial identities. Data show that nearly seven million Americans identified as members of two or more races. Because of these changes, the Census 2000 data on race are not directly comparable with data from the 1990 census or earlier censuses. Use of caution is therefore recommended when interpreting changes in the racial composition of the US population over time. | eng_Latn | 19,850 |
The Tuskegee Institute has a museum named for this famed scientist who taught at the college | George Washington Carver - Botanist, Chemist, Scientist, Inventor ... Sep 28, 2016 ... African-American scientist George Washington Carver pioneered agricultural ... by Booker T. Washington at the Tuskegee Institute and went on to discovering ... Susan Carver taught George to read and write, since no local school ... Accepted to Highland College in Highland, Kansas, Carver was denied... | Author Topic: Education of Little Tree Pulled from Oprah Winfrey's ... The AP had inquired last week about "The Education of Little Tree," which was ... of an orphaned boy raised by his Cherokee grandparents; the book became a ... Wallace who wrote Wallace's infamous vow: "Segregation today! ... it is the racial hypocrisy of a white supremacist," says author Sherman Alexie,... | eng_Latn | 19,851 |
Which organization believed in the class based argument? | Proponents of affirmative action argue that by nature the system is not only race based, but also class and gender based. To eliminate two of its key components would undermine the purpose of the entire system. The African American Policy Forum believes that the class based argument is based on the idea that non-poor minorities do not experience racial and gender based discrimination. The AAPF believes that "Race-conscious affirmative action remains necessary to address race-based obstacles that block the path to success of countless people of color of all classes". The groups goes on to say that affirmative action is responsible for creating the African American middle class, so it does not make sense to say that the system only benefits the middle and upper classes. | In Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97 (1968), the Supreme Court considered an Arkansas law that made it a crime "to teach the theory or doctrine that mankind ascended or descended from a lower order of animals," or "to adopt or use in any such institution a textbook that teaches" this theory in any school or university that received public funds. The court's opinion, written by Justice Abe Fortas, ruled that the Arkansas law violated "the constitutional prohibition of state laws respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The overriding fact is that Arkansas' law selects from the body of knowledge a particular segment which it proscribes for the sole reason that it is deemed to conflict with a particular religious doctrine; that is, with a particular interpretation of the Book of Genesis by a particular religious group." The court held that the Establishment Clause prohibits the state from advancing any religion, and that "[T]he state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or all religions from views distasteful to them." | eng_Latn | 19,852 |
What was the name of the legistlation leading to the change in ARCUK's name? | The content of the acts, particularly section 1 (1) of the amending act of 1938, shows the importance which was then attached to giving architects the responsibility of superintending or supervising the building works of local authorities (for housing and other projects), rather than persons professionally qualified only as municipal or other engineers. By the 1970s another issue had emerged affecting education for qualification and registration for practice as an architect, due to the obligation imposed on the United Kingdom and other European governments to comply with European Union Directives concerning mutual recognition of professional qualifications in favour of equal standards across borders, in furtherance of the policy for a single market of the European Union. This led to proposals for reconstituting ARCUK. Eventually, in the 1990s, before proceeding, the government issued a consultation paper "Reform of Architects Registration" (1994). The change of name to "Architects Registration Board" was one of the proposals which was later enacted in the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 and reenacted as the Architects Act 1997; another was the abolition of the ARCUK Board of Architectural Education. | In Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97 (1968), the Supreme Court considered an Arkansas law that made it a crime "to teach the theory or doctrine that mankind ascended or descended from a lower order of animals," or "to adopt or use in any such institution a textbook that teaches" this theory in any school or university that received public funds. The court's opinion, written by Justice Abe Fortas, ruled that the Arkansas law violated "the constitutional prohibition of state laws respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The overriding fact is that Arkansas' law selects from the body of knowledge a particular segment which it proscribes for the sole reason that it is deemed to conflict with a particular religious doctrine; that is, with a particular interpretation of the Book of Genesis by a particular religious group." The court held that the Establishment Clause prohibits the state from advancing any religion, and that "[T]he state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or all religions from views distasteful to them." | eng_Latn | 19,853 |
How many professors have been disciplined according to the new Statement on Academic Freedom? | In 1992, the university drafted a new Statement on Academic Freedom, specifying that limitations may be placed upon "expression with students or in public that: (1) contradicts or opposes, rather than analyzes or discusses, fundamental Church doctrine or policy; (2) deliberately attacks or derides the Church or its general leaders; or (3) violates the Honor Code because the expression is dishonest, illegal, unchaste, profane, or unduly disrespectful of others." These restrictions have caused some controversy as several professors have been disciplined according to the new rule. The American Association of University Professors has claimed that "infringements on academic freedom are distressingly common and that the climate for academic freedom is distressingly poor." The new rules have not affected BYU's accreditation, as the university's chosen accrediting body allows "religious colleges and universities to place limitations on academic freedom so long as they publish those limitations candidly", according to associate academic vice president Jim Gordon. The AAUP's concern was not with restrictions on the faculty member's religious expression but with a failure, as alleged by the faculty member and AAUP, that the restrictions had not been adequately specified in advance by BYU: "The AAUP requires that any doctrinal limitations on academic freedom be laid out clearly in writing. We [AAUP] concluded that BYU had failed to do so adequately." | In contrast to Catholic allegations of rationalism and naturalism, Protestant objections are more likely to be based on allegations of mysticism, occultism, and even Satanism. Masonic scholar Albert Pike is often quoted (in some cases misquoted) by Protestant anti-Masons as an authority for the position of Masonry on these issues. However, Pike, although undoubtedly learned, was not a spokesman for Freemasonry and was also controversial among Freemasons in general. His writings represented his personal opinion only, and furthermore an opinion grounded in the attitudes and understandings of late 19th century Southern Freemasonry of the USA. Notably, his book carries in the preface a form of disclaimer from his own Grand Lodge. No one voice has ever spoken for the whole of Freemasonry. | eng_Latn | 19,854 |
What were biologists trying to avoid discussing the political implications of? | The authors of the study also examined 77 college textbooks in biology and 69 in physical anthropology published between 1932 and 1989. Physical anthropology texts argued that biological races exist until the 1970s, when they began to argue that races do not exist. In contrast, biology textbooks did not undergo such a reversal but many instead dropped their discussion of race altogether. The authors attributed this to biologists trying to avoid discussing the political implications of racial classifications, instead of discussing them, and to the ongoing discussions in biology about the validity of the concept "subspecies". The authors also noted that some widely used textbooks in biology such as Douglas J. Futuyama's 1986 "Evolutionary Biology" had abandoned the race concept, "The concept of race, masking the overwhelming genetic similarity of all peoples and the mosaic patterns of variation that do not correspond to racial divisions, is not only socially dysfunctional but is biologically indefensible as well (pp. 5 18-5 19)." (Lieberman et al. 1992, pp. 316–17) | In Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97 (1968), the Supreme Court considered an Arkansas law that made it a crime "to teach the theory or doctrine that mankind ascended or descended from a lower order of animals," or "to adopt or use in any such institution a textbook that teaches" this theory in any school or university that received public funds. The court's opinion, written by Justice Abe Fortas, ruled that the Arkansas law violated "the constitutional prohibition of state laws respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The overriding fact is that Arkansas' law selects from the body of knowledge a particular segment which it proscribes for the sole reason that it is deemed to conflict with a particular religious doctrine; that is, with a particular interpretation of the Book of Genesis by a particular religious group." The court held that the Establishment Clause prohibits the state from advancing any religion, and that "[T]he state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or all religions from views distasteful to them." | eng_Latn | 19,855 |
Which party does Barbara Sommer belong to? | Comprehensive schools have been accused of grade inflation after a study revealed that Gymnasium senior students of average mathematical ability found themselves at the very bottom of their class and had an average grade of "Five", which means "Failed". Gesamtschule senior students of average mathematical ability found themselves in the upper half of their class and had an average grade of "Three Plus". When a central Abitur examination was established in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was revealed that Gesamtschule students did worse than could be predicted by their grades or class rank. Barbara Sommer (Christian Democratic Union), Education Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, commented that: Looking at the performance gap between comprehensives and the Gymnasium [at the Abitur central examination] [...] it is difficult to understand why the Social Democratic Party of Germany wants to do away with the Gymnasium. [...] The comprehensives do not help students achieve [...] I am sick and tired of the comprehensive schools blaming their problems on the social class origins of their students. What kind of attitude is this to blame their own students? She also called the Abitur awarded by the Gymnasium the true Abitur and the Abitur awarded by the Gesamtschule "Abitur light". As a reaction, Sigrid Beer (Alliance '90/The Greens) stated that comprehensives were structurally discriminated against by the government, which favoured the Gymnasiums. She also said that many of the students awarded the Abitur by the comprehensives came from "underprivileged groups" and sneering at their performance was a "piece of impudence". | In the United States, August Vollmer introduced other reforms, including education requirements for police officers. O.W. Wilson, a student of Vollmer, helped reduce corruption and introduce professionalism in Wichita, Kansas, and later in the Chicago Police Department. Strategies employed by O.W. Wilson included rotating officers from community to community to reduce their vulnerability to corruption, establishing of a non-partisan police board to help govern the police force, a strict merit system for promotions within the department, and an aggressive recruiting drive with higher police salaries to attract professionally qualified officers. During the professionalism era of policing, law enforcement agencies concentrated on dealing with felonies and other serious crime, rather than broader focus on crime prevention. | eng_Latn | 19,856 |
What ethnicity was his mother? | Egyptian President Anwar Sadat had a mother who was a dark-skinned Nubian Sudanese woman and a father who was a lighter-skinned Egyptian. In response to an advertisement for an acting position, as a young man he said, "I am not white but I am not exactly black either. My blackness is tending to reddish". | In 1997, OMB issued a Federal Register notice regarding revisions to the standards for the classification of federal data on race and ethnicity. OMB developed race and ethnic standards in order to provide "consistent data on race and ethnicity throughout the Federal Government. The development of the data standards stem in large measure from new responsibilities to enforce civil rights laws." Among the changes, OMB issued the instruction to "mark one or more races" after noting evidence of increasing numbers of interracial children and wanting to capture the diversity in a measurable way and having received requests by people who wanted to be able to acknowledge their or their children's full ancestry rather than identifying with only one group. Prior to this decision, the Census and other government data collections asked people to report only one race. | eng_Latn | 19,857 |
Who did Hayek say economic security should be guaranteed to? | Hayek also wrote that the state can play a role in the economy, and specifically, in creating a "safety net". He wrote, "There is no reason why, in a society which has reached the general level of wealth ours has, the first kind of security should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom; that is: some minimum of food, shelter and clothing, sufficient to preserve health. Nor is there any reason why the state should not help to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance in providing for those common hazards of life against which few can make adequate provision." | In 1976, a group of Italian American professors at City University of New York asked to be added as an affirmative action category for promotion and hiring. Italian Americans are usually considered white in the US and would not be covered under affirmative action policies, but the professors believed they were underrepresented. Libertarian economist Thomas Sowell wrote in his book, Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study, that affirmative action policies encourage non-preferred groups to designate themselves as members of preferred groups [i.e., primary beneficiaries of affirmative action] to take advantage of group preference policies. | eng_Latn | 19,858 |
What is one particular loophole that aids roadside zoos and private collectors? | According to research published in 1999 by Alan Green and the Center for Public Integrity (CPI), loopholes in the ESA are commonly exploited in the exotic pet trade. Although the legislation prohibits interstate and foreign transactions for list species, no provisions are made for in-state commerce, allowing these animals to be sold to roadside zoos and private collectors. Additionally, the ESA allows listed species to be shipped across state lines as long as they are not sold. According to Green and the CPI, this allows dealers to "donate" listed species through supposed "breeding loans" to anyone, and in return they can legally receive a reciprocal monetary "donation" from the receiving party. Furthermore, an interview with an endangered species specialist at the US Fish and Wildlife Service revealed that the agency does not have sufficient staff to perform undercover investigations, which would catch these false "donations" and other mislabeled transactions. | There have been six instances as of 2009 in which the exemption process was initiated. Of these six, one was granted, one was partially granted, one was denied and three were withdrawn. Donald Baur, in The Endangered Species Act: law, policy, and perspectives, concluded," ... the exemption provision is basically a nonfactor in the administration of the ESA. A major reason, of course, is that so few consultations result in jeopardy opinions, and those that do almost always result in the identification of reasonable and prudent alternatives to avoid jeopardy." | eng_Latn | 19,859 |
Who was the political enemy of the Patriots? | The major opponent of Freemasonry was the Roman Catholic Church, so that in countries with a large Catholic element, such as France, Italy, Spain, and Mexico, much of the ferocity of the political battles involve the confrontation between what Davies calls the reactionary Church and enlightened Freemasonry. Even in France, Masons did not act as a group. American historians, while noting that Benjamin Franklin and George Washington were indeed active Masons, have downplayed the importance of Freemasonry in causing the American Revolution because the Masonic order was non-political and included both Patriots and their enemy the Loyalists. | In 1976, a group of Italian American professors at City University of New York asked to be added as an affirmative action category for promotion and hiring. Italian Americans are usually considered white in the US and would not be covered under affirmative action policies, but the professors believed they were underrepresented. Libertarian economist Thomas Sowell wrote in his book, Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study, that affirmative action policies encourage non-preferred groups to designate themselves as members of preferred groups [i.e., primary beneficiaries of affirmative action] to take advantage of group preference policies. | eng_Latn | 19,860 |
By what percentage did the non-Hispanic white population decrease? | The city's population in 2010 was 44% white (33.3% non-Hispanic white), 25.5% black (23% non-Hispanic black), 0.7% Native American, and 12.7% Asian. Hispanics of any race represented 28.6% of the population, while Asians constituted the fastest-growing segment of the city's population between 2000 and 2010; the non-Hispanic white population declined 3 percent, the smallest recorded decline in decades; and for the first time since the Civil War, the number of blacks declined over a decade. | Racial discrimination continued to be enacted in new laws in the 20th century, for instance the one-drop rule was enacted in Virginia's 1924 Racial Integrity Law and in other southern states, in part influenced by the popularity of eugenics and ideas of racial purity. People buried fading memories that many whites had multiracial ancestry. Many families were multiracial. Similar laws had been proposed but not passed in the late nineteenth century in South Carolina and Virginia, for instance. After regaining political power in Southern states by disenfranchising blacks, white Democrats passed laws to impose Jim Crow and racial segregation to restore white supremacy. They maintained these until forced to change in the 1960s and after by enforcement of federal legislation authorizing oversight of practices to protect the constitutional rights of African Americans and other minority citizens. | eng_Latn | 19,861 |
I have a question for you people out there...Am curious as to how many people feel the way I do...? | Sure have been there and over the years it still pops up from time to time. I don't know if there is a medical term for it. I found it happens when I feel very unsure of what to do and how to do. Like watching a movie and even be able to replay some of it. very strange. | I know what you mean. On every single standardized test, government survey, etc, I have checked other. It's not a big deal, but it is kind of depressing. I hope that soon they will start adding a multi-racial box to the forms.\nI either check other or check both races. I like the check all that apply idea from above. | eng_Latn | 19,862 |
Diablo Valley College needs a club for conservatives | Hang on for a minute...we're trying to find some more stories you might like. Close
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People often speak about the dangers of echo chambers within today’s political discourse.
As an institution that prides itself on diversity and inclusion, Diablo Valley College ought to actively include conservative voices in our political discourse.
One way to do that would be for the entire community: students, faculty, administration, etc. to promote the creation of a student conservative club.
A quick look at DVCsync, the official website for student life, shows that of the five political organizations listed none are dedicated to conservative viewpoints.
Two of the organizations, “College Democrats of DVC” and “College Democrats of Diablo Valley College” appear to be duplicates, both listing the same president, Victor Tiglao.
DVC also has the “Friends of the Spartacist Youth Club,” an organization whose purpose according to its profile on DVCsync is, “to broaden the spectrum of political debate on campus by providing a forum for the views of the Spartacist League, a Marxist political organization, and its youth group, the Spartacus Youth Club.”
The closest we have to any officially sanctioned student club dedicated to conservative thought is the non-partisan club “Students for America” whose stated purpose is sharing all political viewpoints, or NORML/SSDP, which is dedicated to reforming marijuana laws and drug policy.
While it is good we have a club dedicated to including opposing viewpoints, this only provides a forum to exchange ideas.
DVC also needs a club where actual conservative viewpoints, not those of racism, bigotry or fear, can be explored.
Conservatism should be more about personal responsibility than blaming immigrants for your problems. No matter your circumstances, they do not determine where you go, no matter what odds are set against you.
Why? Because conservative thinking has so much more to offer than what we’ve come to see it as.
A conservative club on campus would lead to more robust thinking and challenge students by exposing them to ideas they normally would never come across.
Expanding one’s horizons is crucial to the college experience. Conservative sources should have equal footing on our campus so students have the opportunity to be exposed to both sides of the political spectrum.
This would help us think of problems and issues from different perspectives.
We frequently have Mark DeSaulnier on campus, why not Republicans like Catharine Baker?
This would be a small step in bridging the gap in today’s partisan politics. | A puppy problem is plaguing the Charlottesville-Albemarle Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. While the problem is a cute one, the influx of puppies is now bringing the animal shelter close to capacity. | eng_Latn | 19,863 |
Sequim School District halts sexual health education courses after concerns raised | Please enable Javascript to watch this video
SEQUIM, Wash. -- The Sequim School District has stopped teaching a sexual health education course after some parents said it was not age appropriate.
Superintendent Gary Neal tells Q13 News that some parents had concerns after this year’s curriculum concentrated more on gender identity than the lessons in previous years.
Jason Peterson is a single-parent of five children. He said when he first agreed to allow his 12-year-old daughter to take the course in November, he thought the lessons would be about the same when his older two children took the course.
"I assume, like most other parents, that we would be covering pregnancies, STDs and all of those things that you want your kids to know about,” Peterson said.
That wasn’t the case for Peterson, who said his daughter came home crying and confused about the class in November.
“They told her that if she was into fishing and wearing athletic gear, or playing basketball, that those were boy things. And that would mean that she was a boy inside and that she was gay,” Peterson said.
Peterson said those stereotypes shouldn’t be taught the way the instructor did.
“I think people should be free to be who they are,” he said. “They’re discriminating, though, against her identity. And how much of it do you have to put up with?"
Peterson said the issue was that he felt the curriculum focused more on gender identity rather than medically or scientifically based sexual health. He feels that kids that young are very impressionable.
“The thing is, it’s front burnered,” he said. “Twenty out of 32 pages are generated to gender identity. It’s heavily weighted towards that. It’s biased toward that.”
Peterson said learning about this was not age-appropriate for his daughter. A few other parents within the district felt the same way and addressed it with the school’s principal and eventually the Sequim superintendent.
After hearing concerns, the superintendent decided to stop the sex -ed program for now.
The program used by the district is known as FLASH, which stands for Family Life and Sexual Health Curriculum. It was developed by King County Health about 30 years ago, according to officials.
Officials agree that the program changes throughout time, but only based on the latest scientific information. Part of that includes talking about gender identity, officials said.
“The issue of gender identity is also based on science. We have medical reviews locally and medical reviews nationally with some of the best experts (who) understand what is the best information that we should be sharing,” said TJ Cosgrove, director of the Community Health Services division for King County Health.
FLASH lessons are tested and reviewed by teachers before being published, according to King County Health officials. School districts have flexibility over how they implement FLASH – including which lessons they teach and at what grade they’re taught.
King County Public Health officials add that FLASH aligns with CDC National Health Education Standards and the National Sexuality Education Standards, which includes treating people with respect and dignity, officals said.
Superintendent Neal said that the district will now form a group to discuss which standards need to be met to make sure content is age-appropriate for his students.
Neal tells Q13 that he expects that process to completed before the start of the next school year. | House Bill 1073, Representative Mike Clark’s sponsored measure to provide for free speech guidelines on our University campuses was sent to the 41st legislative day, which is South Dakotan for “killed in committee.” Part of the justification for legislators doing so was based on some students saying it’s not needed.
In addition to one student saying HB 1073 would “make it harder to limit speakers that minority students might find offensive” (I’m not kidding), there was a resolution from the SDSU Student Senate opposing the bill.
But not so fast. Here’s an interesting take on that Student Senate resolution from some of the student Senators themselves:
Sounds like someone with an agenda ramrodded the resolution through, as these Student Senators are standing up and saying “the testimony (from the SDSU Student’s Association) and the resolution are in many ways misleading, and untrue because no student organizations of students were consulted on this issue.” And that the resolution itself was an “unethical action” by the Student’s Association.
Paints things in a different light, eh?
The word is that a smokeout attempt may be made on HB1073 this next week.
Keep on watching.
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Like this: Like Loading... | eng_Latn | 19,864 |
UN backs Uluru Statement from the Heart | The call for an Indigenous voice to Parliament contained in the Uluru Statement from the Heart has won the endorsement of the United Nations.
Meeting in Chile, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination recommended the Government accelerate efforts to address Indigenous self-determination.
The Federal Government has already ruled out the voice to Parliament, so will the UN backing make any difference? | Schools across South Ayrshire are well on the way to being UNICEF Rights Respecting Schools.
During the year of young people the majority of schools have put themselves forward for the UNICEF award and have undergone UNICEF assessment as they work towards creating safe and inspiring places to learn.
Tarbolton, Alloway, Muirhead and Barassie primaries have achieved a Level 2/gold award. Cairn Primary secured a Level 1/silver and Doonfoot, Barrhill, Fisherton and Invergarven primaries along with Queen Margaret Academy all achieved bronze awards.
These latest awards bring South Ayrshire up to eight gold level schools, 20 silver level, 19 bronze level and another four schools have registered to start their journey. The gold medal schools have been raising awareness beyond their own classrooms and helping children abroad - developing strong links with children in Dehli and Malawi
Councillor William Grant said: “Thanks to the efforts of children and staff we are developing our children into young people who not only know their own rights but who will respect the rights of others.”
“Well done to all the schools for achieving this important recognition.” | eng_Latn | 19,865 |
AG directive protects religious objectors to LGBT rights | Share this: Email
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WASHINGTON — In an order that undercuts protections for LGBT people, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a sweeping directive to agencies Friday to do as much as possible to accommodate those who claim their religious freedoms are being violated. The guidance, an attempt to deliver on President Donald Trump's pledge to his evangelical and other religious ... | facebook twitter email Share More Videos 2:11 NAACP's Barber wants General Assembly to stop making laws Pause 1:15 Black lawmakers call for quick redistricting 0:58 North Carolina GOP lawmaker: NC House budget plan eliminates Pre-K wait list 1:09 McKissick: Republicans circumvented Cooper's call for special session 3:17 Berger: Why Cooper's call for special session voted down 2:16 Cooper wants budget with more "vision" 3:32 Former Gov. McCrory calls for Gov. Cooper to do more to help Hurricane Matthew victims 1:38 House budget writers anticipate orderly budget negotiations 1:48 Teacher raises in budget based on retention, retirement concerns 2:37 Cooper and legislators continue court fight over Board of Elections Share Video Video link: Select Embed code: Select
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twitter email Video: The N.C. NAACP's Rev. William Barber wants the N.C. General Assembly to 'Cease and desist' from making laws. He says it is an illegal body following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that says some voting districts were improperly drawn. Chris Seward [email protected]
Video: The N.C. NAACP's Rev. William Barber wants the N.C. General Assembly to 'Cease and desist' from making laws. He says it is an illegal body following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that says some voting districts were improperly drawn. Chris Seward [email protected] | eng_Latn | 19,866 |
Teaching Tolerance article by Stefanie Wong | Teaching Tolerance published this short article by Professor Stefanie Wong: The Election, One Year Later: Struggling with Critical Conversations at a Midwestern High School.
In the fall of 2016, anthropologist Jia-Hui Stefanie Wong was observing students and educators at a high school when the presidential election took place. This winter, she followed up to see what had changed in the last year. | SANITY RETURNS TO THE ACADEMY: Fresno State Reports Own Professor for ‘Trump Must Hang’ Tweet. | eng_Latn | 19,867 |
Cops give Missouri boy 'permit' approval for lemonade stand | First responders in Gladstone, Missouri, stopped by to sip on some fresh lemonade after a customer questioned an 8-year-old boy who didn't have a permit at his lemonade stand. Courtesy photo Clay County, Missouri, Sheriff | If libertarians were in charge of legalizing marijuana, their first instinct would be to reach for an eraser.
That is, libertarians would simply eliminate existing laws that outlaw marijuana, rather than “design” the marijuana market by establishing a licensing board, capping the number of legal marijuana retailers, and the like.
Actual state marijuana legalizations, however, have generally capped the number of retail establishments and put a government board in charge of doling out the lucrative licenses to run them.
Predictably, this means that well-connected, white entrepreneurs benefit at the expense of African-Americans:
Darryl Hill, hailed for integrating college football in his youth half a century ago, was a successful entrepreneur with no criminal record and plenty of capital when he applied for a license to grow marijuana in Maryland – a perfect candidate, or so he thought, to enter a wide-open industry that was supposed to take racial diversity into account. To his dismay, Hill was shut out on his first attempt. So were at least a dozen other African American applicants for Maryland licenses. They were not told why.
The good news is that, in this instance, Hill seems to have circumvented the apparent bias:
… the 73-year-old great-grandfather who was the first black football player at the University of Maryland sought an ally in his quest to help other minorities – and himself – break into the closed ranks of cannabis cultivation and sales. Hill’s new business partner, Rhett Jordan, happens to be a groundbreaker in his own right. The 33-year-old Colorado industry pioneer, who is white, founded one of the largest legal marijuana operations in the nation.
But Hill’s success should not obscure licensing’s harm: restricted supply, higher prices, and crony capitalism.
Reprinted from Cato Institute. | eng_Latn | 19,868 |
OpEd: Stop Shaming Black Students Who Choose Not to Attend an HBCU | As I watched news coverage of white extremists marching across the University of Virginia on Friday night, I took to social media to be in community with others who were also angry and frustrated by the racist display.
What I did not expect to see on my timeline were flurries of messages criticizing Black students for choosing to attend the Historically White Institution (HWI) and not a Historically Black College or University (HBCU).
This is not the first time this type of criticism has arisen: it happens virtually any time a racist event occurs on a white campus. So, to anyone who thinks taunting Black students for the racist events that happen at HWIs is reasonable, then you underestimate how white supremacy has infiltrated your thinking.
Let's get one thing clear: yes, I am a Black alumna that attended an HWI; a few, in fact. Yet, I have no intention of excusing white colleges of their racist histories, nor do I adhere to the lie that they are somehow superior to HBCUs. HWIs are regarded with higher value because white supremacy ensured their institutional development through public and private investments, appropriations, and grants.
when people turn what's happening at UVA into a pwi vs hbcu debate I gtg pic.twitter.com/VN9MEtGwZp — sarah (@sdobson100) August 12, 2017
Research about college choice among Black students shows that students who choose an HBCU are influenced by personal relationships, college reputation, and seeking to affirm one’s Black identity.[i] Yet, we cannot vilify Black students who choose to attend another type of institution for these very same reasons.
In fact, many Black students choose their colleges based on geographical vicinity and affordability, which can be barriers to attending an HBCU. Critiquing Black student college choice disregards the fact that Black students are increasingly: enrolled part-time, parents or caretakers, work full-time, international, and 24 years or older.
Black students largely pursue postsecondary education at Predominantly Black Institutions, community colleges, regional colleges, for-profit institutions, and open-access colleges.
By the way, some HBCUs do not have the resources to make expensive recruitment trips across the country, especially to states where HBCUs do not exist.
Black students exist AND THRIVE here. We've made #BlackExcellence a @UVA tradition since 1969. Google us. https://t.co/TGCp3KOrqU — BSA @ UVA (@BSAatUVA) August 12, 2017
The histories of Black students at HWIs and HBCUs have been inextricably linked long before desegregation and affirmative action. Rather than establishing professional and graduate education at HBCUs, many Southern states established out-of-state scholarships to (intentionally) send Black students away.
In the case of Maryland, for example, Black students who wished to pursue law could not do so at then-named Morgan College or Princess Anne Academy, the state’s Black land-grant institution. As a result, Black college graduates enrolled at HWIs.
The idea — “if all Black students only attended HBCUs” — uncomfortably aligns with proponents of racially segregated schooling, an institution that is rooted in white supremacy.
While it is great to imagine a world where we can adequately support and grow Black colleges by redistributing enrollments to Black colleges, this ignores the fact that 1) colleges aren’t grown solely by revenue from student tuition; and 2) institutional capacity, including housing and food services, student support services, faculty, and staff, does not grow overnight, and sudden demand for increased capacity could be detrimental to campus environments.
If your response to this horrific display of racism + terrorism at UVA is "you should've went to an HBCU" you need to reevaluate your life. — Negrita (@HustleAndFro_) August 13, 2017
History has already taught us a vital lesson: when left to the influence of white supremacy, separate will never mean equal.
All Black educated folks need to stop reinforcing white supremacist ideas of who Black students in American higher education are, or should be, by vilifying the choices they make to obtain the degrees that will help them earn higher wages and economic stability.
HBCUs are not exempt from the infiltration of white supremacy. HBCUs cannot protect students from white supremacy. HBCUs exist and survive by white supremacist educational policies.
There is no denying the political rhetoric that devalues HBCUs. It is wrong. The Black middle-class would not exist without the work and investment of HBCUs into Black students. However, elevating Black colleges does not have to come at the expense of shaming Black students who must endure racist campus climates, microaggressions by faculty, staff, and students, and now, white extremist mobs on campus. | Screenshot: The Tennessean
Following the deadly shooting of four people at a Nashville, Tenn., Waffle House early Sunday morning, business owners and lawmakers have tried to find ways to support the victims and survivors of the brutal attack.
Among them is the Waffle House chain restaurant, which has offered to pay for the funerals of the four patrons killed this weekend. According to TMZ, the Waffle House has also volunteered to cover medical costs for people injured during the shooting. These people died in the weekend attack: Akilah Dasilva, 23; DeEbony Groves, 21; Joe R. Perez, 20; and Taurean C. Sanderlin, 29.
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On Tuesday, Tennessee state lawmakers honored the man who likely prevented even more people from dying that day. Caught in the Waffle House with the shooter, 29-year-old patron James Shaw Jr. successfully disarmed the attacker as he attempted to reload his weapon.
As The Tennessean reports, Shaw was credited with saving numerous lives, thanks to his heroic actions, which included rushing the gunman, grabbing the hot barrel of an AR-15 and disarming the shooter.
A Senate resolution lauding Shaw for his bravery unanimously passed on Monday. Senators called his courage moving and inspiring. Shaw, for his part, seems to be the only person who doesn’t consider him a hero, saying over the weekend that he was selfishly trying to stay alive.
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“I distinctively remember thinking that he is going to have to work for this kill,” Shaw said Sunday, according to The Tennessean. “I had a chance to stop him, and thankfully I stopped him.” | eng_Latn | 19,869 |
Backlash ensues after Century High School Unity Day activity backfires | A Unity Day activity at Century High School last week meant to tackle and tear down stereotypes ended with some students upset and in tears after the exercise resulted in slurs toward certain racial groups, members of the LGBTQA community and others being written on posters.
As a part of Unity Day on Friday, the Century High School Student Government Association executed a number of activities that were “designed to strengthen student understanding of the experiences of others and how diversity of experience can be a unifying force,” Century Principal Troy Barnes said in an email sent to parents Monday morning. The activities included both adult and student speakers, he said in the email.
One such activity, The Wall, resulted in backlash, prompting the email to parents.
“[The activity] was intended to have students confront stereotypes and false perceptions about various ‘identities’ or groups and to eradicate them and symbolically destroy them,” Barnes said in his email. “This exercise has been successfully used in the past at such events as the [Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership] leadership camps for students and is part of a repertoire of strategies used in diversity training within CCPS and was presented as an activity for inclusion by our student leaders.”
Sophie Dommermuth, a junior at Century who is a member of the SGA as an advisory representative but was not involved in the planning of the event, said there were posters with a category hung around the gym and different groups of people stationed at the posters. Students were supposed to write down whatever came to mind — including stereotypes — and then the poster would go to the next group.
At the end of the activity, the posters were going to be hung up so the students could tear them down and “tear down the stereotypes,” she said, adding that things didn’t go exactly as planned.
Dommermuth said that some people were “extremely concerned” over what was written on the boards, and it was “disheartening” and “painful” to see the students so distraught.
“There were people crying during the activity,” she added.
Barnes, in his email, said the intention of the activity was to be positive, but a “large number” of students were “insulted or emotionally upset” by the exercise.
“Clearly, I misjudged the maturity level and readiness of our students to be able to participate in such an exercise,” he said.
Following the activity, some drew the conclusion that the student body is “racist and bigoted,” Barnes wrote in his email, but said that part of the exercise was to confront negative stereotypes.
“While, undoubtedly, there may be students who truly harbor such feelings, my experience with this student body and this community as a whole, is the opposite. The vast majority of our students are accepting and have inclusive mindsets that serve to create a positive school culture that does not marginalize any student,” Barnes said in his email. “This is something that we emphasize. Even in our disagreements, we encourage students to engage in civil discourse and strive to see another’s point of view, based on their experience.”
Barnes also clarified it was his decision to allow the exercise. In his email, Barnes also encouraged students who were feeling upset to talk to their counselor or to him to provide feedback. Barnes also apologized to the students and families who felt “upset or unwelcomed” after the activity.
“I also want to reassure all students that we value each of you and what you bring to the CHS ‘family,’ ” he said.
In an interview with the Times, Barnes said they didn’t want to upset students or parents, and the students who ran the event did their best to execute the exercise.
“The planning and the execution didn’t match,” he said. “We were trying to do something positive and it didn’t turn out that way.”
CAPTION Girl Scout Troop 1310 earns their Bronze Award teaching community about container gardening Girl Scout Troop 1310 earns their Bronze Award teaching community about container gardening CAPTION Girl Scout Troop 1310 earns their Bronze Award teaching community about container gardening Girl Scout Troop 1310 earns their Bronze Award teaching community about container gardening CAPTION Knorr Brake partners with Taneytown Elementary School for STEM night Knorr Brake partners with Taneytown Elementary School for STEM night CAPTION Students, educators participate in dance off during Jostens Renaissance Tour Students, educators participate in dance off during Jostens Renaissance Tour CAPTION Westminster East Middle School 6th graders created handcrafted bowls for The Shepherd's Staff Empty Bowls fundraiser Westminster East Middle School 6th graders created handcrafted bowls for The Shepherd's Staff Empty Bowls fundraiser CAPTION Tech Center to allow students from Pennsylvania into some programs. Next year, there are spots in a handful of courses, including masonry and automotive. Tech Center to allow students from Pennsylvania into some programs. Next year, there are spots in a handful of courses, including masonry and automotive.
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twitter.com/EmilyChappell13 | The Department of Education has posted the rescission of Obama era federal regulatory guidance documents encouraging educational institutions to discriminate on the basis of race in the name of the shibboleth of “diversity.” We previewed the rescission yesterday here. The Department of Education has now posted it here. It comes in the form of a “Dear Colleague” letter signed by senior officers of the Department of Education and the Department of Justice. After listing the specific guidance documents that are now rescinded, the letter provides this concise rationale:
These documents purport to explain the legal framework that governs the use of race by elementary, secondary, and postsecondary schools under the Constitution, Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title IV), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000c et seq., and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000d et seq. The documents advocate specific policies and procedures for educational institutions to adopt, analyze a number of hypotheticals, and draw conclusions about whether the actions in those hypotheticals would violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution or Title IV or Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The Departments have reviewed the documents and have concluded that they advocate policy preferences and positions beyond the requirements of the Constitution, Title IV, and Title VI. Moreover, the documents prematurely decide, or appear to decide, whether particular actions violate the Constitution or federal law. By suggesting to public schools, as well as recipients of federal funding, that they take action or refrain from taking action beyond plain legal requirements, the documents are inconsistent with governing principles for agency guidance documents.
Accordingly, the Department of Education and the Department of Justice have decided to withdraw the documents. The protections from discrimination on the basis of race guaranteed by the Constitution, Title IV, and Title VI remain in place. The Departments are firmly committed to vigorously enforcing these protections on behalf of all students. | eng_Latn | 19,870 |
Exhibit explores Minnesota university’s past discrimination | ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — An exhibit at the University of Minnesota has uncovered an uncomfortable past.
“A Campus Divided” is a collection of documents that reveal how university administrators discriminated against African-American and Jewish students, Minnesota Public Radio reported .
They tell of the 1930s and ’40s, when university presidents like Lotus Coffman and deans like Edward Nicholson spied on students’ political activity. Those names, Coffman and Nicholson, are still displayed on campus buildings today, including the student union that houses the offices of multicultural student groups.
“There are many, many documents, and I’ve encountered people who’ve come multiple times,” said Professor Riv-Ellen Prell, who teaches American Studies. She was inspired to dig deeper into the time period, when she read about the history of political anti-Semitism in Minnesota in the 1930s.
“That brought into the story not just political surveillance but segregated housing on the campus in the 1930s,” she said.
The exhibit runs until Nov. 30. A digital version is available online.
“A Campus Divided” describes university administrators’ efforts to hinder integration on campus, but it also tells an inspiring story of how activists rose up to fight discrimination.
“What you see … is what’s the dynamic of racism and anti-Semitism,” Prell said. “‘It’s not our fault that other people discriminate. These aren’t our attitudes. Our view of the races is entirely wholesome. We’re doing this for your own good. You wouldn’t be comfortable living with white people. You’re not going to get a job.’ There is a way in which it’s always turned back on the Jewish student or the African-American student.”
Researchers were able to dig up letters, newspaper clippings and university records to showcase the environment African-American and Jewish students lived in. They relied heavily on the student newspaper, the Minnesota Daily, and the African-American publication, the Spokesman Recorder, for additional information on student activists.
One of the students who played an important role in the fight was Martha Wright. She graduated from high school at age 15. She was a math major at the university, the only African-American and only one of three women. And she was president of the Negro Student Council.
“My aunt came from a family context, people who had been struggling for what was once called, ‘race elevation, raising my race,'” said John Wright, Martha’s nephew and a professor. He grew up learning the history of campus discrimination.
“Hearing these stories, of course, gives one some pause about attending the U,” he said. “A lot of black families would not send their students to the university precisely because they did not want to expose their children, their young people, to this kind of experience.”
The exhibit comes as a surprise to people who never thought such things could happen at the University of Minnesota.
Wright said efforts to segregate students have been kept out of view for a long time — and the exhibit has been a revelation for many who were shocked by what they saw.
Shortly after the exhibit opened, University President Eric Kaler appointed a committee of historians, faculty, students and alumni to examine the U’s troubling history and come up with appropriate responses. There have been calls for the university to remove names from some campus buildings.
The committee will discuss that idea, said chair John Coleman, dean of the College of Liberal Arts.
“You can think of it as getting out in front of some of the issues that might potentially come up over time, as people learn about particular parts of the university’s history,” Coleman said.
“As we learn more and become aware of and confront our own history as an institution, under what conditions would it be perhaps appropriate to consider naming changes?” he asked. “And what kinds of considerations might we want to take into account on the front end, when we are naming buildings and monuments and so on?”
It’s not clear yet whether the names of Coffman Union or Nicholson Hall will be changed, or whether students like Martha Wright will be honored. The committee’s first report is due in February.
But for now, the exhibit at Elmer Andersen Library ends with a wall of hand-written notes from visitors responding to what they see. The most common response: Rename the buildings.
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Information from: Minnesota Public Radio News, http://www.mprnews.org | The proposed training, which would have been provided by volunteers at no cost to the state, would occur during orientation for legislators at the beginning of each session.
The bill was not prompted by the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, but several who testified in support of the training said better cultural understanding could have prevented some of the conflicts that arose during the protests.
The Senate Government and Veterans Affairs Committee amended the bill to a legislative management study to consider the need for cultural competency training for legislators, other elected and appointed officials and state employees.
Sen. Shawn Vedaa, R-Velva, a member of the committee, said Tuesday, Feb. 14, the bill was amended to a study because several committee members felt requiring the training "was overstepping legislation."
Sen. Dick Dever, R-Bismarck, spoke in favor of the bill as a way to repair relationships that have been strained during the pipeline protests.
"I think there have been damages done to the relationships between our general population and the population south of here through recent events," Dever said.
The Senate voted to amend the bill to a study, but ultimately the bill failed in a 20-26 vote on Tuesday.
Sen. Richard Marcellais, D-Belcourt, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and one of the bill's sponsors, said he is disappointed with the vote.
"It's not going to improve the communications or relations between the state and tribes," he said.
Marcellais sponsored similar legislation in 2009 that also failed in the Senate with a similar vote. | eng_Latn | 19,871 |
Letters: Celebrities, Immigration, and Graduates | Listeners comment on the coverage of celebrity news, the implementation of a point system that could decide who gets a green card, and advice for new graduates. | Entrepreneur and author Stedman Graham talks about his new book <em>Diversity: Leaders Not Labels: A New Plan for The 21st Century,</em> which stresses moving beyond external labels like race, gender and ethnicity to the pathway of success. | eng_Latn | 19,872 |
Post Draws Criticism For Bid To Sell Access | A flier from <em>The Washington Post</em> offered health care high-rollers access to top officials of the Obama administration and to <em>Post</em> reporters, too. <em>Politico</em> first reported on the salons, which have been canceled following the revelations. | The union representing New York City's teachers goes to court Wednesday to try to stop the release to the media of a database of teacher effectiveness ratings. The move in New York follows the publication earlier this year by the <em>Los Angeles Times</em> of the scores of some L.A. teachers. The ratings, known as "value added analysis," are controversial because there is disagreement over whether they accurately reflect teaching ability. And unions say making the ratings public violates teacher privacy. | kor_Hang | 19,873 |
Push Grows For A 'Scarlet Letter' On Transcripts Of Campus Sexual Offenders | When it comes to punishing students for campus sexual assault, some say kicking offenders out of school isn't enough. They want schools to put a permanent note on offenders' transcripts explaining that they've been punished for sexual misconduct, so other schools — or employers — can be warned. Survivor Carmen McNeill says it's common sense. She was a college junior nearly two years ago when, she says, she passed out on someone's bed after a party, from a mix of drinks — including one she suspects was spiked. "There was a male figure over top of me," she recalls. "And my arms were being held down by his arms." The next morning, after realizing she was missing her underwear, McNeill started piecing together what happened. "He took advantage of what he saw was an easy target and he did what he wanted with me," she says. Eventually, a campus disciplinary panel expelled the male student. McNeill felt relieved and vindicated — until she found out he was accepted as a transfer student at another school nearby. "It was nauseating," she says. "I just felt so failed at that point." It's barely better than the old days, McNeill says, when colleges would sweep the problem under the rug. Now, she says, they're just sweeping it down the street. "It's a nightmare," she says. "I mean how are we protecting students if we're letting perpetrators in [to other schools]? Every woman is at risk now at that school." Indeed, to many it's a disturbingly familiar reality. "I've actually had somebody say to me, 'Isn't that the Roman Catholic Church school of disclosure? Just move the student on,' " says Mike Reilly, executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. "There are some parallels." AACRAO recently switched its policy from opposing transcript notations to suggesting that schools consider it. Today only about 15 percent do, but Reilly says many more are likely to follow suit after his organization issues new guidelines in a few months. "It's just a really complex question," he says about the kinds of discipline that get marked on the transcript, how permanent it becomes, and how much detail is included. For example, should a transcript say "suspended for sexual misconduct" or just "for misconduct"? But at the same time, Reilly notes, there's increased pressure on schools to do it. "We're looking at it as a public safety matter," says Anita Bonds, a District of Columbia council member who is pushing a measure mandating transcript notations. She says a school needs to know it's bringing a perpetrator on campus, so that "they may say 'We have our eye on you.' " Similar mandates have passed in Virginia and New York, but have failed in Maryland and California amid concerns from both survivors and those representing the accused. Some survivors worry that mandating a higher-stakes punishment may have the unintended consequence of making schools more reluctant to punish. On the other side, many see it as too draconian to basically brand a student for life. "I think at some point Hester Prynne gets to take the scarlet letter off," says attorney Justin Dillon, referring to the A (for "adulteress") worn by the character in the Nathaniel Hawthorne novel The Scarlet Letter. Dillon has represented dozens of students accused of sexual assault. "This is essentially public shaming in its worst form." Dillon, of the law firm KaiserDillon, says it's especially unfair considering how unreliable many campus tribunals are. He says he has seen too many students turned into pariahs, like one client who he says was expelled just months before graduating from an Ivy League school with a 3.9 GPA. Dillon says his client applied to more than two dozen schools. "The vast majority of them never even got back to him," he says. Not surprisingly, the issue has made schools, and their lawyers, more than a little nervous. If schools do mark transcripts, they worry expelled students will sue them for defamation. But if they don't, they worry a future victim will sue. And for schools on other end, deciding whether to accept a student with a history of assault is no less fraught. Columbus State Community College in Ohio is one school that is willing to take the risk. "We really like to take the stance that individuals deserve opportunity to better their current circumstances," says Terrence Brooks, director for student conduct. But, he adds, that has to be balanced with campus safety. So rather than automatically disqualifying students with checkered pasts, he says, they're accepted with conditions. For example, they may be allowed to only take courses online. Or they may be restricted to certain areas of campus, at certain times of day. The school might also ask students to sign waivers allowing administrators permission to talk with a counselor or parole officer "to ensure they are keeping up their end of the bargain," Brooks says. Another way some suggest to balance campus safety with second chances is to have tr | Anti-smoking activists want to put an "R" rating on films that show actors smoking. Sen. John Ensign of Nevada is among those who want the Motion Picture Association of America to change its ratings system and recognize what he calls "gratuitous smoking." NPR's Neda Ulaby reports. | yue_Hant | 19,874 |
Film Academy Announces New Diversity Requirements For Best Picture Nominees | The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has established new diversity and representation rules for films that want to qualify for best picture, beginning in 2024. | The number of "forcible rapes" that get reported at four-year colleges increased 49 percent between 2008 and 2012. That's the finding of an analysis by NPR's Investigative Unit of data from the Department of Education. That increase shows that sexual assault is a persistent and ugly problem on college campuses. But there's also a way to look at the rise in reports and see something positive: It means more students are willing to come forward and report this underreported crime. "It's a good thing that more victims are reporting because they're getting the help and support they need from their institutions," says Daniel Carter, a veteran advocate for better campus safety laws. "For far too long, they've been left on their own. And now they're getting the help they need, which is the first step in healing and recovery and ultimately ... finishing their education as wholly as possible." Carter is the director of a group called 32 National Campus Safety Initiative. He says there's still a long way for schools to go. This week, the White House told colleges and universities to take more action to prevent sexual assaults. And just in the past couple of years, many schools have taken on sexual assault investigations with more seriousness. School administrations have been prodded by students who are demanding better treatment. And schools have been pushed, since 2011, by new rules and laws from Washington, D.C. Among the schools that Carter and other advocates point to as being models is the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. But that school, which gives a series of training sessions to first-year students on preventing sexual assault, has had its own controversy — showing just how hard it can be for schools to take on this problem. The University of Michigan is already doing most of the steps suggested by the White House to prevent sexual assaults on college campuses. For example, the school teaches "bystander education," which shows students how to step in and stop a dangerous situation that they see — such as a student trying to get another student drunk at a party. Students not only are taught the definition of consent but then role-play and practice saying "No" and even how to respond correctly — and graciously — when told "No." The data NPR analyzed show that reports of forcible sexual assaults between 2010 and 2012 have gone up 113 percent at the University of Michigan. "So if you say, look, University of Michigan, we want you to be aggressive. We want you to be focused. We want you to get your students to tell you what's going on, then our numbers are going to go up," says Royster Harper, the school's vice president for student affairs. "If you want low numbers, you're really saying to students, be quiet. We should expect the more education we do, the safer our students feel, the more they see us responding. We should expect our numbers to go up." And students have not been quiet. In February, a small group of students protested the way the university handled sexual misconduct allegations against a player on the football team. In 2009, a first-year student said the player, Brendan Gibbons, raped her at a fraternity party. But the case was dropped. Last August, the school adopted a new policy — based on new guidelines issued by the Department of Education in 2011 — that gave the school more leeway to conduct an investigation. A retired professor, who acts as a local watchdog, then filed a new complaint over the Gibbons investigation, and the case against the football player was reopened. And in December, right before Michigan went to a bowl game, Gibbons was expelled. But some students wanted to know whether the university had waited too long. University officials refused to turn over records to an investigative committee formed by the student government. Administrators say the records had to stay confidential. The student report concluded that the university took too long — more than 60 days — to investigate most allegations. In January, the school hired a second, full-time investigator — to look into reports of sexual assault. "If the University of Michigan still has a ways to go, but is doing a good job relative to everyone else, everyone else really needs to do a lot to catch up," says Michael Proppe, the student government president at the time, who established the student task force. By next fall, all schools around the country must comply with a new federal law, the Campus SaVE Act, which demands more assault prevention education and better investigations. MELISSA BLOCK, HOST: This week, the White House told colleges and universities it's time to take more action to prevent sexual assaults. Every school is already required to report to the federal government any crime that occurs on campus. NPR's investigative unit has been analyzing the data on this from the Department of Education. It found the number of reported forcible rapes at four-year colleges has gone way up - a 49 percent increase betwee | kor_Hang | 19,875 |
Joe Wright: 'Gunners' Blasting their Fellow Med Students | Commentator and medical student Joe Wright has learned a lot about medicine in the past two years of school -- and a lot about medical students. Wright comments on med school "gunners" -- students who use their superior medical knowledge to put other students down. | Worldwide, populist nationalist movements are gaining traction. Why? Law professor Joan Williams says it’s because professional elites — including journalists and establishment politicians — remain clueless about the working class. In a new book, Williams explains why so many white blue-collar voters in the U.S. feel like strangers in their own country, ignored by elites, and what can be done about it. GUESTS Joan Williams, Distinguished professor of law and director of the Work Life Law Center, University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Her books include: “White Working Class” and “Unbending Gender: Why family and Work Conflict and What to Do About It” @JoanCWilliams For more, visit http://the1a.org. © 2017 WAMU 88.5 – American University Radio. | eng_Latn | 19,876 |
Letters: Colorado Professor, Corrections | A story on controversial University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill got mixed reviews. Also, listeners weigh in on coverage of rising college tuition; and clarifications and corrections. | For many people in prison, an education means a chance at a new life on the outside. One Massachusetts man got that chance, and made the most of it. | eng_Latn | 19,877 |
Racial Politics And The New College Activism | Protests against racial and cultural insensitivity are planned on more than 20 college campuses around the country this weekend. This comes after protests at Yale University and Ithaca College sparked national headlines, and the president of the University of Missouri resigned in the face of student activism. In his resignation speech earlier this week, former University of Missouri president Timothy Wolfe took responsibility for the protests on campus but also spoke out against a hunger strike by some students. Interview Highlights Why is the frustration coming to a head right now? “The way I take that question is, why hasn’t it come up sooner? Which is to say that, one of the things that has happened in the media around these issues is to just imagine that these are miniature slights, and that students are just exploding from nothing out of context. But if you look at most of these campuses, students have a record of long term investment trying to make changes, and I think now it has everything to do with a combination of factors. The Missouri case was very inspirational with the athletes, but we’re also ending the Obama era and people are realizing that they’re going to have to do this, this isn’t going to be a symbolic figurehead presidential context, and that a lot has gotten worse.” On the dean at Claremont McKenna resigning over an email to a Latino student “I think that language suggests there is a fixed mold, a mold is itself a fixed structure that you pour things into and create an outcome, and these are people who simply don’t fit that mold and we’re going to try to help them, but they’ve already been identified as outsiders and as people in need of fixing – rather than a system that excludes and marginalizes some existing members of the community. Basically, if you’ve admitted a student to Claremont, or to Brown, or wherever, they’re a part of the community. Now either they’re 100 percent part of the community or their not. If they’re 100 percent part of the community, then the mold must be different, and once that’s the case then you wouldn’t say something like that. You would basically acknowledge you have a wide range of people, and you have to work together to create a civil, just, fair, competent, not only listening but proactive context. So it was a poor choice of words on the dean’s part “But again, it’s not just those words. I’m sure this one individual dean is not what this protest is about. They have been concerned about many, many things for a long time, so we don’t want to over read one incident.” On the students’ long term goals “I don’t think there’s a systemic plan that everybody is reading from a playbook. I think what many of these requests are about are a set of behaviors, institutional actions that will change the climate and the context for their experience on the campus. So that means making it clear that when the institutions speak this, or in ways like the Yale incident, that there are consequences, you can’t just create additional climates of disrespect, hostility and disregard, from an institutional standpoint. So that’s one thing. “But they’re also asking for the study of people of color to be an important part of the curriculum, not marginal, not segregated, not a handful, not isolated from the so-called traditional, so-called mainstream disciplines. And they’re asking for attention to the ways their economic conditions may impact, the way fraternities and sororities may be responding to students of color. They’re basically, the mentorship gap, they’re basically responding across a wide range of facets to say these things work together to create a very problematic and detrimental climate for us on this campus.” What about people that say college is a time to cope in a tough world, not be coddled? “The university is a sequestered place where we’re intending to develop young people’s minds and their spirits. And in that sense we have an obligation on these campuses to make it as relatively safe as possible, there’s no place that’s going to be safe. But we are not meant to be an incubator for all the ails of the world, at the same time we’re holding them to incredibly high intellectual standards and personal growth standards.” Guest
Tricia Rose, author of the book “The Hip Hop Wars,” professor of Africana studies and director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University. She tweets @ProfTriciaRose. | NPR's Michel Martin visits Madison, Wis., next week for "Who Needs College?" the latest live event in the "Going There" series. UW-Madison student Sam Park discusses the value of a college education. | kor_Hang | 19,878 |
Kayla Williams: 'Love My Rifle More Than You' | Kayla Williams is a former U.S. Army soldier who served in the Middle East as an Arabic interpreter. She recounts her decision to enlist and her experiences during the Iraq war in a new memoir, Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army. Williams was a sergeant in a military intelligence company of the 101st Airborne Division. (Original airdate: Aug. 25, 2005) Permission to republish this excerpt has expired. It is no longer available online. | One Supreme Court decision could cause the largest restoration of tribal land in American history. The case is Carpenter v. Murphy. It hinges on a murder case, early American history and varied interpretations of tribal land rights. The court is set to rule on the case next term. That’s the story behind the Crooked Media podcast This Land, hosted by journalist Rebecca Nagle. Nagle is a citizen of Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. She told Splinter that her goals were broader than just telling people about the case, and about the potential for land restoration to the five tribes. My goal has been that when Native people listen to it, they hear themselves, they feel themselves and that that is empowering. And also that non-Native people, who may not know what a federally recognized tribe is, don’t know what a reservation is—I mean technically; like, that they’ve heard of it, but they don’t know what it is legally—that people are also learning. That’s one of the things that’s neat about this case. It has this really interesting backstory and all of these pieces, but it’s also a way to explain what’s happening to Native rights in 2019 and in a way that’s bigger than just this one case. The case is the entry point. We talk with Nagle about her project and the implications of the court’s ruling next term. Produced by Kathryn Fink. GUESTS Rebecca Nagle, Host, “This Land”; @rebeccanagle For more, visit https://the1a.org. © 2019 WAMU 88.5 – American University Radio. | eng_Latn | 19,879 |
After The Mizzou Protests, Students Ask Themselves: Now What? | A week after protests over racism at their school became the biggest story in the country, 300 students, faculty and community members marched through the University of Missouri, Columbia campus behind a banner that read "Mizzou United, Columbia United." Their goal: to keep talking about what's been going on here, and why. The big national news outlets have moved on — to the bombing in Paris, to the raids in Belgium — but here, the campus community is trying to make sense of it all, and figure out how to move forward. Despite the resignation of Tim Wolfe, the university system's president, and a slate of new diversity initiatives, the atmosphere on campus is tense. Students and faculty say that won't change without some hard conversations. At Sunday's march, recent grad Aliyah Sulaiman expressed support for a conversation she said is long overdue. Here's how she put it: When Sulaiman was studying here, she says, she often talked with other black students about campus racism, but those conversations stayed private. Longtime professors, white and black, agreed there's nothing new about racial friction here. "People have talked for years behind closed doors about problems," said Spanish instructor Grace Vega, "but when you want them to come out into the open to support change, they're afraid." But for a lot of white students here, talk of racism is new. Some have expressed anger online, in widely circulated social media posts and open letters. Others don't know what to think. A sophomore named Allissa says: "Me and my roommates are just confused about the whole situation. We don't really know how to approach it, and we don't really know how to communicate with other black students to know, like, what they were feeling and what they wanted to accomplish and what they still want to accomplish." Allissa is white and grew up in Glasgow, Mo., a rural town of about a thousand people that's mostly white. She asked me not to use her last name because she's worried she'll be vilified for her views. She told me she wants things to change if students of color feel uncomfortable on campus. It's just that before a couple of weeks ago, she had no idea there was anything wrong. Sophomore Drew Mack grew up in St. Louis, one of two urban centers where most of the state's black residents live. His mom is white and his dad is black. He says he's been looking for opportunities to talk to students like Allissa because he wants them to understand why students of color are demanding change. I met Drew and Allissa separately, and since they both told me they wanted to talk to other students about this, I asked if they'd like to talk to each other. They agreed. First, they talked about the key incidents leading up to the demonstrations — the racist slur hurled at the student body president, the feces swastika (confirmed by a police report), how pleas from the Legion of Black Collegians to administrators had not gotten an adequate response — because Allissa felt she hadn't heard the full story. Then Allissa asked Drew to help her understand something else: what it feels like to be black on campus. Drew explained how he felt after threats against black students circulated on social media: I can't put into words the fear that washed over me, hearing about that. The next day I went to class, but I was absolutely terrified to do so. I kept my phone on me and I kept my head up. Every time the door slammed open or shut, I jumped. And I realized that some of the people around me who were not people of color were not nearly as antsy. Just the fact that people can see that being a possibility is such a testament to our campus climate and our mental health. That the thought of somebody shooting students of color on campus was such a possibility that people wanted their classes to be canceled, people stayed home, and people are paying thousands of dollars to feel unsafe. That's atrocious. Allissa said talking to Drew helped her understand why students of color had demanded change in a way she couldn't grasp before. Drew and other students here said it's vital to hold the school accountable for racist acts committed on campus. But the bigger challenge may be getting students like Allissa, who make up a big part of the student body, to acknowledge there's a problem. "Appointing new administration is definitely a great step, but it's not going to end there," says Drew. "Having these open dialogues is going to be as central to making the campus climate a bit less scary." On Monday night, the Department of Black Studies hosted a teach-in. The room was packed. When chairs ran out, people crowded together on the floor. "I think everyone can agree this has been quite a semester," said professor Stephanie Shonekan, who moderated the panel of 11 faculty members from a range of departments. English professor Clenora Hudson Weems was on the panel. She said these frank discussions about racism give her hope. "We can serve as a blueprint for other universiti | As Ferguson, Mo., braces for the grand jury decision on whether police officer Darren Wilson should face charges, NPR's Rachel Martin talks with Rasheen Aldridge, a community activist. | eng_Latn | 19,880 |
Feeling Foggy? Japanese Raisin Is Good For What 'Ales' You | A Bay Area distillery has created a vodka mixed with fog. And in South Korea, there's now special hangover ice cream. It uses fruit from the Japanese raisin tree, long used as a hangover cure. | News Headlines: Aug. 28, 2007Press Release: U.S. Civil Rights Commission Warns That Affirmative Action Might Harm Minority Law Students -- "Admitting students into law schools for which they might not academically be prepared could harm their academic performance and hinder their ability to obtain secure and gainful employment ... Moreover, racial preferences might also contribute to racial income and wealth disparities." Do you agree? What do make of the report's concept of affirmative action? Should racial preferences be used in student admissions? More Headlines:The New York Times: After a Trailblazer Is Honored, Williamses Carry on Her Legacy Politico.com: Obama Supported by Wilder ESPN.com: Coverage of Vick Means Bigger Issues Ignored Washington Times: D.C. Tops in Obese Youths BBC: South Africa Recalls Faulty Condoms Los Angeles Times: Bids to Start for Bonds' Nos. 755, 756 The Atlanta Journal Constitution: Bishop Accused in Beating Blames Satan for His Woes Newsday: Judges in Newark More Cautious with Bails After Slaying | eng_Latn | 19,881 |
National Review: The Social Justice Code | When Glenn Beck urged Christians to leave churches that preach social justice, he allowed himself to be tripped up by conventional buzzwords of the campus Left. In plain English, "social justice" is a goal of all churches and refers to helping the poor and seeking equality. As a code word, it refers to a controversial package of goals including political redistribution of wealth, gay marriage, and a campaign against "institutional racism," "classism," "ableism," and "heterosexism." Beck was wildly off base linking "social justice" (of either form) to Communism and Nazism, but he was correct to note that the term is often used as a code. In the words of Peter Wood, head of the National Association of Scholars, "The campus left learned with its promotion of the concept of 'diversity' the advantages of packaging hard-core ideology in bland, feel-good terminology." "Social justice" is one of several terms — others include "dispositions," "sustainability," and "cultural competence" — that has been given in-group meanings by the wordsmiths of the cultural Left. In 2002, for example, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) issued new guidelines requiring education departments that listed social justice as a goal to "include some measure of a candidate's commitment to social justice" when evaluating the "dispositions" of their students. As soon became clear, this provided education schools a back-door method of ensuring ideological conformity among their students. At Brooklyn College, Washington State, and Alaska-Fairbanks — all public institutions covered by the First Amendment — students were punished for voicing opinions that differed from those of the faculty. At Washington State, where the college of education tried to expel a student for his conservative opinions, the dean was asked whether Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia could pass a disposition test at the school. "I'm not sure how to answer that," she replied. Eventually, NCATE clarified its wording a bit. Sounding very much like Jim Wallis teeing off against Glenn Beck , NCATE protested the attack on the words "social justice," saying, "To most Americans the phrase social justice is positive and connotes values associated with the Judeo-Christian tradition." The problem is that even in its mildest form, the insistence on dedication to social justice puts schools in a position of judging the acceptability of students' political and social opinions. Other fashionable buzzwords include "secure livelihoods" and "strong economies," which seem to refer to redistribution of wealth, not economic development to create new wealth. (Few of the words are precisely defined, but used in context, they convey the general idea.) "Cultural competence" may sound like it would refer to knowledge of different cultures. But it really means the acceptance of multicultural ideology and cultural relativism. The most potent of the current buzzwords is "sustainability," which ties traditional environmentalism to the entire left-wing agenda. As Wood says, hundreds of campuses now have sustainability officers, courses that promote the ideology, and most ominously "co-curricular programs run through student life and residence halls to 'educate' students about their mistaken 'worldviews' and bring them aboard this new ideological ark." Kathleen Kerr, who ran an astonishing all-out indoctrination program in the residential halls of the University of Delaware (students were all expected to accuse themselves of racism, for example), admitted in a speech that "the social-justice aspects of sustainability education" included lessons on "environmental racism" "domestic partnerships," and "gender equity." We are far from tree-hugging here. The apparently harmless lingo of the Left can't be taken at face value. It needs an English translation. | NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks with researcher Joan Donovan about how the online platform Gab appealed to white supremacists, and why it provides lessons in combating extremism online. | eng_Latn | 19,882 |
DOT Suspends Proposed Rule Requiring Airlines To Show Baggage Fee At Booking | The U.S. Department of Transportation released a statement last week announcing it would withdraw a proposed rule that would force airlines to disclose baggage and other fees at the time of ticket purchase. The decision to rescind the yet-to-be-enforced regulation from the Obama administration received heated responses from members of Congress and airline consumer rights organizations. The Obama administration proposed and drafted the rule (called a "rulemaking" in DOT language), but it was never finalized because the Trump administration froze the rulemaking process shortly after taking office. So while the department's decision to drop the rule has riled up lawmakers and consumers alike, it technically hasn't eliminated any rules that were in effect. The officially named "Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Transparency of Airline Ancillary Service Fees" was one of two measures the department dropped Thursday. The other, the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Ancillary Airline Passenger Revenues, sought to require airlines to provide more information about how much money they make from ancillary fees — like seat upgrades and baggage fees. In the statement, the DOT says it made the decision to drop the two would-be rules "because they are of limited public benefit." The Associated Press reports that some trade groups came out in support of the decision: "Airlines for America, an airline industry trade association, praised the administration and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao for 'recognizing that airlines, like all other businesses, need the freedom to determine which third-parties they do business with and how best to market, display and sell their products.'" Paul Hudson, president of FlyersRights.org, an organization that aims to protect airline passenger rights, released a statement on the decision. In it he said: "This is NOT how you make air travel great again. Airlines are already exempt from all state and local consumer protection, much antitrust law, most other federal regulations and tort law. The DOT is their sole regulator. If the DOT refuses to correct abuses or enforce existing regulations (as happened in the Dr. Dao case), and repeals existing regulations, airlines will be the first US industry to have stripped the public of all economic protections from unfair predatory practices. Only Congress and the federal courts can now override this unfortunate DOT decision." Currently, third-party sites like Expedia and Hotwire offer price comparison on some of the major airlines. Missing from these sites is Southwest, which, the AP reports, claims its prices are proprietary information. Pricing information for Southwest flights is publicly available on its own website. Democratic Sens. Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal released a joint statement on Friday condemning the DOT's decision. The statement said, in part, "This might be a great day for the airlines' bottom line, but it is a sad one for travelers who deserve transparency when buying an airline ticket." Not all travel and transportation writers and bloggers agreed with the senators, though. Gary Leff of website View from the Wing wrote this as part of his explanation as to why the department formally dropped the proposed regulation: "Because it was dumb." This is the latest of several Obama and Bush-era regulations that the Trump administration has killed in recent months. Previous rules include trucking safety and environmental regulations. | Back in 2006, when many municipalities across the country took Arizona's lead passing stringent laws against illegal immigrants, the Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch became a kind of poster boy. With much controversy, the city passed legislation that among other things barred anyone from renting property to undocumented immigrants. Yesterday, after more than six years and a legal battle that cost the city of 29,000 residents at least $6 million, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled the ordinance was unconstitutional because it infringed upon federal government duties. NPR member station KERA reports: "The ordinance would have required all renters to obtain licenses before renting. City inspectors would've been able to check an immigrant's status and deny licenses to any undocumented workers. Landlords who rented to immigrants without permits would have faced fines or removal of their renters' licenses. "Other towns have fought to put in place similar laws with mixed success. A federal appeals court ruled against a renter's ordinance in Hazleton, Pa., but a different court ruled in favor of another ordinance in Fremont, Neb." The latest ruling, reports The Dallas Morning News, relies heavily on a Supreme Court decision declaring parts of Arizona's immigration laws unconstitutional. The paper reports: "Judges also found fault with the city's plan to fine or revoke the renters' licenses of landlords who leased to immigrants without permits. "'The ordinance not only criminalizes occupancy of a rented apartment or single-family residence, but puts local officials in the impermissible position of arresting and detaining persons based on their immigration status without federal direction and supervision,' the court said." The city said it would review its options. This was the city's second appeal. | kor_Hang | 19,883 |
Class Of Dreams: Students Take On Dr. King's Legacy | This summer, Tell Me More has been asking listeners for their version of Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous 'I Have a Dream' speech. Notre Dame Professor Maria McKenna took it to another level and pitched the question to her class. She tells us about some of the common threads from the assignment and the parallels between education and civil rights. | School officials in Seattle and Louisville, Ky., named in the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 desegregation ruling were encouraged by the separate and deciding opinion of Justice Anthony Kennedy. Though voting with the majority, he wrote that race could still be an element of a school district's racial diversity plan. | kor_Hang | 19,884 |
Binge Drinking At Colleges | --NPR's Brenda Wilson reports on the problem of binge drinking on college campuses... In recent months, several students have died following excessive drinking, and some colleges are taking steps to prevent future tragedies. | NPR's Tovia Smith reports on a civil suit filed today by Boston University against eight companies that sell term papers over the Internet. A law clerk posing as a B-U student purchased some of the papers; one company offered to print out the paper with a cover page that included the student's name, the professor's name and the course. The companies have a simple defense: their work isn't meant to be plagarized, and it's covered by the First Amendment. | eng_Latn | 19,885 |
Struggling With Racism, Tension on College Campuses | This from The Boston Globe about students on college campuses across the country struggling with ethnic tensions and racist attitudes: The subject of racial and ethnic tensions on college campuses has become so topical that a November episode of "Without a Trace" kicked off with a white student calling his black peer an affirmative-action "charity case" during class. Tufts University's conservative student newspaper, The Primary Source, generated controversy a year ago when it published a Christmas carol titled "O Come All Ye Black Folk." Asian students at Boston College complain of drunken alumni and students who shout racial epithets as part of their football game celebrations. Read the rest of the article, and tell us: Did you face similar run-ins during your time in school? How did you deal with it? | Statues have been taken down. Names are being scrubbed from institutions. The national reckoning over race has led to closer scrutiny of which figures from history we honor, and how. | eng_Latn | 19,886 |
School Sponsered Prayer Violates Constitution | NPR Legal Affairs Correspondent, Nina Totenberg reports the Supreme Court has ruled that school-sponsored prayer is a violation of the Constitution's ban on state endorsement of religion. It made a distinction though, between banning school-sponsored or supervised prayer -- be it led by a student or an adult -- and student-initiated prayer, such as choosing to include a prayer as part of a graduation speech, which is a personal religious expression and protected under freedom of speech. | filed by 10 learning disabled students at Boston University. The students accuse school administrators of discriminating against them by gutting the program that provides them with support services, like note-takers and extra time on tests. | eng_Latn | 19,887 |
Black Parents Take Control, Teachers Strike Back | In 1968, a vicious battle went down between white teachers and black and Puerto Rican parents in a Brooklyn school district. Many say the conflict brought up issues that have yet to be resolved more than fifty years later. | NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Molly Redden, a senior politics reporter with HuffPost, about Kamala Harris' years-long campaign against truancy in California and why it remains controversial. | eng_Latn | 19,888 |
Roundtable: Confederate History, Profitable Students | Monday's topics include discussion of a Georgia initiative to launch Confederate History Month and a look at how financial lenders partner with some colleges to profit from students. Farai Chideya's guests are Callie Crossley, a commentator on the Boston TV show <em>Beat the Press</em>; Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, professor of globalization and education and co-director of immigration studies at New York University; and Robert George, <em>New York Post</em> editorial writer. | NPR's Tavis Smiley takes a look at the conflict between college sports and educational values with authors William Bowen and Sarah Levin. Their new book is titled <EM>Reclaiming the Game: College Sports and Educational Values</EM>. | kor_Hang | 19,889 |
Brown Vs. Board of Education | Today is the 48th anniversary of <EM>Brown v. Board of Education</EM>, the Supreme Court decision which led to school desegregation. Tomorrow, May 18th will mark 106 years since the <EM>Plessy v. Ferguson</EM> decision which made segregation legal. Writer Janus Adams reflects on these two decisions. | The <em>Tell Me More</em> inbox was flooded with reactions to an interview with David Bossie. The Citizens United Supreme Court case helped pave the way for Super PACs. Bossie says, "money is speech and people who can spend more, get more," but some listeners strongly disagree. Host Michel Martin and Editor Ammad Omar discuss listener feedback. | eng_Latn | 19,890 |
Racism Controversy Rocks 'Bachelor' Nation | NPR's Michel Martin discusses the most recent <em>Bachelor </em>controversy with Brandy Monk-Payton, a scholar of media and Black cultural studies at Fordham University. | Unemployment, crime and poverty continue to take a toll on significant numbers of people in the U.S. But advocates like Pastor Jamal-Harrison Bryant are working to turn things around. Tony Cox talks to Bryant, head of Empowerment Temple in Baltimore. | eng_Latn | 19,891 |
Georgia Hope Scholarships | Melissa Gray of Peach State Public Radio reports Georgia's program that uses lottery proceeds to give college scholarships to every student who maintains a B average has been wildly popular in the state. So popular, that Democratic gubernatorial candidates in Alabama and South Carolina won their races largely because they promised to create similar programs in their states. But a look at the scholarships shows that a program that seems on the surface to benefit the poor, actually gives more to middle and upper class students. | Lehigh University in Pennsylvania takes students to Ghana to learn about the Transatlantic slave trade. The two professors in charge of the study abroad program come from different perspectives: one descended from slaves, the other’s ancestors helped the British trade slaves. Sara Hoover (@smhooverville) of Here & Now contributor WHYY has our story. | eng_Latn | 19,892 |
Inequalities Complicate S. Africa College Admissions | Universities in South Africa are wrestling with an issue familiar to many Americans: affirmative action. South Africa is still coping with the aftermath of apartheid and a lingering educational gap between black and white. Now, a series of public debates about college admissions has reopened a national dialogue on race. During apartheid, the University of Cape Town was a nearly all-white university, admitting few black, mixed-race and Indian students. The few admitted were done so with severe restrictions. But now, there are black, white, Asian and mixed-race faces in nearly equal numbers — it's the kind of diversity usually reserved for promotional materials. The way in which the university has achieved this diversity, however, is somewhat controversial. To be admitted, white students must score the equivalent of straight A's. Meanwhile, black and mixed-race students can get in with plenty of B's. The University of Cape Town doesn't make this policy a secret — admission cutoffs are listed by race in the prospectus. The vice chancellor, Max Price, says the policy reflects the fact that black students in South Africa are still highly disadvantaged. "Even 15 years after the end of apartheid, it's still the case that 80 percent of black students go to very poor township schools or rural schools," he says. "Their teachers are poorly qualified, the schools are poorly equipped, and the result is that on the national exams, they perform poorly." The government has gone to great lengths to improve an educational system that once taught black students how to wash dishes rather than learn math and science. And though some improvements have been made, the gap between black and white is still immense. Price says that without race-based admission goals, schools would be nearly as white as they were during apartheid, despite the fact that whites make up fewer than 10 percent of the population. He says that would be unacceptable. "People would think there was something wrong," he says. "It would produce social unrest; it would produce a sense that the country hasn't changed." Bringing Positive Change Across town, engineer Michael Tladi reviews blueprints for a new government hospital. Tladi is black and grew up on the streets of Pretoria, bouncing between children's homes after his mother abandoned him. He went to an underfunded township school and earned good — but not great — marks. His teachers saw his potential and encouraged him to apply to the country's top schools. He was elated when he received an acceptance letter from UCT. " 'You have been chosen to come and study at UCT' — I didn't even read further. I just ... I was so excited," Tladi recalls. But like many disadvantaged students, he was overwhelmed when he arrived. "I was not prepared financially, I was not prepared academically and I was not prepared for the new environment," he said. He struggled and almost dropped out, but he eventually completed a degree in engineering and got a job with the provincial government. He also volunteers at a children's home and says he hopes his story can inspire underprivileged kids. "I just hope that my success out of UCT can bring a positive change," he says. "Because they know that I was in the same place, same lifestyle — they can see that they also can do it." Creating A Sense Of Entitlement? Back on campus, Cynthia Ngebe sits with friends in the cafeteria. She says affirmative action is a necessary evil. "It's giving people an opportunity," she says. "Like, in some families now, they're going to have engineers for the very first time, you know?" But others, like Amanda Ngwenya, disagree. She worries that the policy is creating a sense of entitlement among her black peers. "It means they think that, 'Because I'm black, I deserve special privileges. Because I'm black, I need to be treated differently,' even though they are just as capable," Ngwenya says. It's a sticky debate, complicated by the legacy of apartheid. But as South Africa's past grows more distant, the question becomes: When, if ever, should race not matter? ROBERT SIEGEL, host: In South Africa, universities are wrestling with an issue familiar to Americans: affirmative action. Nearly two decades after the end of apartheid, South Africa is still coping with a lingering educational gap between black and white. Now, a debate about college admissions has reopened a national dialogue on race. Anders Kelto has our story. ANDERS KELTO: The University of Cape Town sits on the lower slopes of Devil's Peak. Its red roofs and ivy-covered walls form a striking image against the backdrop of sky and mountains. Class lets out and dozens of students gather on the steps of Jameson Hall. During apartheid, UCT was an all-white university. But now, there are black, white, Asian and mixed-race faces in nearly equal numbers. It's the kind of diversity usually reserved for promotional materials. But the way in which UCT has achieved this diversity is somewhat controversial. [ | Tavis Smiley sits down for an extended, exclusive interview with Harvard University Afro-American Studies Professor Cornel West about why he's chosen to leave Harvard for Princeton. | eng_Latn | 19,893 |
When did Barry Weiss become head of Jive Records? | RCA/Jive Label Group CEO Barry Weiss left the company in March 2011 to become the new CEO of Island Def Jam and Universal Republic, which were both part of Universal Music Group. Weiss had been the RCA/Jive Label Group CEO since 2008 and was head of Jive Records since 1991. | In 1957, the state of Arkansas refused to honor a federal court order to integrate their public school system stemming from the Brown decision. Eisenhower demanded that Arkansas governor Orval Faubus obey the court order. When Faubus balked, the president placed the Arkansas National Guard under federal control and sent in the 101st Airborne Division. They escorted and protected nine black students' entry to Little Rock Central High School, an all-white public school, for the first time since the Reconstruction Era. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote to Eisenhower to thank him for his actions, writing "The overwhelming majority of southerners, Negro and white, stand firmly behind your resolute action to restore law and order in Little Rock". | eng_Latn | 19,894 |
Who should be able to challenge administrative orders in court? | Others argue that the rule of law has survived but was transformed to allow for the exercise of discretion by administrators. For much of American history, the dominant notion of the rule of law, in this setting, has been some version of A. V. Dicey's: “no man is punishable or can be lawfully made to suffer in body or goods except for a distinct breach of law established in the ordinary legal manner before the ordinary Courts of the land.” That is, individuals should be able to challenge an administrative order by bringing suit in a court of general jurisdiction. As the dockets of worker compensation commissions, public utility commissions and other agencies burgeoned, it soon became apparent that letting judges decide for themselves all the facts in a dispute (such as the extent of an injury in a worker's compensation case) would overwhelm the courts and destroy the advantages of specialization that led to the creation of administrative agencies in the first place. Even Charles Evans Hughes, a Chief Justice of the United States, believed “you must have administration, and you must have administration by administrative officers.” By 1941, a compromise had emerged. If administrators adopted procedures that more-or-less tracked "the ordinary legal manner" of the courts, further review of the facts by "the ordinary Courts of the land" was unnecessary. That is, if you had your "day in commission," the rule of law did not require a further "day in court." Thus Dicey's rule of law was recast into a purely procedural form. | In 1992, the university drafted a new Statement on Academic Freedom, specifying that limitations may be placed upon "expression with students or in public that: (1) contradicts or opposes, rather than analyzes or discusses, fundamental Church doctrine or policy; (2) deliberately attacks or derides the Church or its general leaders; or (3) violates the Honor Code because the expression is dishonest, illegal, unchaste, profane, or unduly disrespectful of others." These restrictions have caused some controversy as several professors have been disciplined according to the new rule. The American Association of University Professors has claimed that "infringements on academic freedom are distressingly common and that the climate for academic freedom is distressingly poor." The new rules have not affected BYU's accreditation, as the university's chosen accrediting body allows "religious colleges and universities to place limitations on academic freedom so long as they publish those limitations candidly", according to associate academic vice president Jim Gordon. The AAUP's concern was not with restrictions on the faculty member's religious expression but with a failure, as alleged by the faculty member and AAUP, that the restrictions had not been adequately specified in advance by BYU: "The AAUP requires that any doctrinal limitations on academic freedom be laid out clearly in writing. We [AAUP] concluded that BYU had failed to do so adequately." | eng_Latn | 19,895 |
What does ICRISTAT stand for? | Efforts have been made to improve nutrition, and reduce associated health problems, by encouraging women to make nutritious versions of local recipes. For example, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and the Aga Khan Foundation, trained women's groups to make equinut, a healthy and nutritional version of the traditional recipe di-dèguè (comprising peanut paste, honey and millet or rice flour). The aim was to boost nutrition and livelihoods by producing a product that women could make and sell, and which would be accepted by the local community because of its local heritage. | In 1957, the state of Arkansas refused to honor a federal court order to integrate their public school system stemming from the Brown decision. Eisenhower demanded that Arkansas governor Orval Faubus obey the court order. When Faubus balked, the president placed the Arkansas National Guard under federal control and sent in the 101st Airborne Division. They escorted and protected nine black students' entry to Little Rock Central High School, an all-white public school, for the first time since the Reconstruction Era. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote to Eisenhower to thank him for his actions, writing "The overwhelming majority of southerners, Negro and white, stand firmly behind your resolute action to restore law and order in Little Rock". | kor_Hang | 19,896 |
In which year were the "To Secure These Rights" findings published? | Following the Sergeant Isaac Woodard incident, President Harry S. Truman, himself a combat veteran of World War I, issued Executive Order 9808 establishing the President's Committee on Civil Rights to examine the violence and recommend appropriate federal legislation. Hearing of the incident, Truman turned to NAACP leader Walter Francis White and declared, "My God! I had no idea it was as terrible as that. We've got to do something." In 1947 the committee published its findings, To Secure These Rights. The book was widely read, influential, and considered utopian for the times: "In our land men are equal, but they are free to be different. From these very differences among our people has come the great human and national strength of America." The report discussed and demonstrated racial discrimination in basic freedoms, education, public facilities, personal safety, and employment opportunities. The committee was disturbed by the state of race relations, and included the evacuation of Americans of Japanese descent during the war "made without a trial or any sort of hearing…Fundamental to our whole system of law is the belief that guilt is personal and not a matter of heredity or association." The recommendations were radical, calling for federal policies and laws to end racial discrimination and bring about equality: "We can tolerate no restrictions upon the individual which depend upon irrelevant factors such as his race, his color, his religion, or the social position to which he is born." To Secure These Rights set the liberal legislative agenda for the next generation that eventually would be signed into law by Lyndon B. Johnson.:35–36 | Affirmative action is a subject of controversy. Some policies adopted as affirmative action, such as racial quotas or gender quotas for collegiate admission, have been criticized as a form of reverse discrimination, and such implementation of affirmative action has been ruled unconstitutional by the majority opinion of Gratz v. Bollinger. Affirmative action as a practice was upheld by the Supreme Court's decision in Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003. Affirmative action policies were developed in order to correct decades of discrimination stemming from the Reconstruction Era by granting disadvantaged minorities opportunities. Many believe that the diversity of current American society suggests that affirmative action policies succeeded and are no longer required. Opponents of affirmative action argue that these policies are outdated and lead to reverse discrimination which entails favoring one group over another based upon racial preference rather than achievement. | eng_Latn | 19,897 |
Which religion does Boyer equate with a modern soap opera? | Pascal Boyer argues that while there is a wide array of supernatural concepts found around the world, in general, supernatural beings tend to behave much like people. The construction of gods and spirits like persons is one of the best known traits of religion. He cites examples from Greek mythology, which is, in his opinion, more like a modern soap opera than other religious systems. Bertrand du Castel and Timothy Jurgensen demonstrate through formalization that Boyer's explanatory model matches physics' epistemology in positing not directly observable entities as intermediaries. Anthropologist Stewart Guthrie contends that people project human features onto non-human aspects of the world because it makes those aspects more familiar. Sigmund Freud also suggested that god concepts are projections of one's father. | All students and faculty, regardless of religion, are required to agree to adhere to an honor code. Early forms of the Church Educational System Honor Code are found as far back as the days of the Brigham Young Academy and early school President Karl G. Maeser. Maeser created the "Domestic Organization", which was a group of teachers who would visit students at their homes to see that they were following the schools moral rules prohibiting obscenity, profanity, smoking, and alcohol consumption. The Honor Code itself was not created until about 1940, and was used mainly for cases of cheating and academic dishonesty. President Wilkinson expanded the Honor Code in 1957 to include other school standards. This led to what the Honor Code represents today: rules regarding chastity, dress, grooming, drugs, and alcohol. A signed commitment to live the honor code is part of the application process, and must be adhered by all students, faculty, and staff. Students and faculty found in violation of standards are either warned or called to meet with representatives of the Honor Council. In certain cases, students and faculty can be expelled from the school or lose tenure. Both LDS and non-LDS students are required to meet annually with a Church leader to receive an ecclesiastical endorsement for both acceptance and continuance. Various LGBT advocacy groups have protested the honor code and criticized it as being anti-gay, and The Princeton Review ranked BYU as the 3rd most LGBT-unfriendly school in the United States. | eng_Latn | 19,898 |
Whose hands should elders leave allegations of sexual abuse in when the accused person denies wrongdoing? | Jehovah's Witnesses have been accused of having policies and culture that help to conceal cases of sexual abuse within the organization. The religion has been criticized for its "two witness rule" for church discipline, based on its application of scriptures at Deuteronomy 19:15 and Matthew 18:15-17, which requires sexual abuse to be substantiated by secondary evidence if the accused person denies any wrongdoing. In cases where corroboration is lacking, the Watch Tower Society's instruction is that "the elders will leave the matter in Jehovah's hands". A former member of the church’s headquarters staff, Barbara Anderson, says the policy effectively requires that there be another witness to an act of molestation, "which is an impossibility". Anderson says the policies "protect pedophiles rather than protect the children." Jehovah's Witnesses maintain that they have a strong policy to protect children, adding that the best way to protect children is by educating parents; they also state that they do not sponsor activities that separate children from parents. | In 1992, the university drafted a new Statement on Academic Freedom, specifying that limitations may be placed upon "expression with students or in public that: (1) contradicts or opposes, rather than analyzes or discusses, fundamental Church doctrine or policy; (2) deliberately attacks or derides the Church or its general leaders; or (3) violates the Honor Code because the expression is dishonest, illegal, unchaste, profane, or unduly disrespectful of others." These restrictions have caused some controversy as several professors have been disciplined according to the new rule. The American Association of University Professors has claimed that "infringements on academic freedom are distressingly common and that the climate for academic freedom is distressingly poor." The new rules have not affected BYU's accreditation, as the university's chosen accrediting body allows "religious colleges and universities to place limitations on academic freedom so long as they publish those limitations candidly", according to associate academic vice president Jim Gordon. The AAUP's concern was not with restrictions on the faculty member's religious expression but with a failure, as alleged by the faculty member and AAUP, that the restrictions had not been adequately specified in advance by BYU: "The AAUP requires that any doctrinal limitations on academic freedom be laid out clearly in writing. We [AAUP] concluded that BYU had failed to do so adequately." | eng_Latn | 19,899 |
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