EthnicMajority

(NY1) The New York City Fire Department is once again feeling the heat from a federal judge over its hiring practices.

Judge Nicholas Garaufis says despite progress on diversity in recent recruiting, the department hasn't done enough to reverse discrimination against black and Hispanic candidates.

He's expected to spell out a solution in a separate ruling.

The written entrance exam is being redesigned after the judge ruled it favored white applicants back in 2007.

But the judge now says the process that follows the test also favors white candidates.

Since they make up most of the department, the judge says they have a better chance of having potential background problems overlooked.

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(SFGate) UC Berkeley student senators voted Sunday to condemn discriminatory behavior on campus – even if done in satire – in response to a Republican student group's plans for an "Increase Diversity Bake Sale," with pastries labeled according to race and gender.

The 19-0 vote, with one absence, came during a special meeting of the Associated Students of the University of California, as the debate over affirmative action reignited in Berkeley.

"Sure, it came off as discrimination," said Francisco Loayza IV, the treasurer of the Republican group, at Sunday's meeting. "People are being judged by their skin color (in affirmative action policies). I don't want to be judged because I'm brown. Look past the prices, and see what we're trying to do."

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(Newser) "White/Caucasian" pastries: $2. "Black/African American" pastries: 75 cents. "Native American" pastries: only a quarter. Such is the pricing scheme for a sarcastic "Increase Diversity Bake Sale" posted on Facebook by a Republican group at UC Berkeley, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. Planned for Tuesday, the sale has sparked anger on campus for its snarky opposition to a bill that would let California universities consider ethnicity in student admissions. "If you don't come, you're a racist," the post says.

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(NY1) The New York City Fire Department today unveiled a new print and radio ad campaign as it prepares to take on a new class of firefighters for the first time in years.

The department is looking to get a lot of people interested in taking the firefighter entrance exam, tentatively scheduled for January.

More than $1 million will be spent on advertising the test.

Speaking at Engine 37/Ladder 40 in Harlem, Fire Commissioner Sal Cassano said being a firefighter is the greatest job in the world.

"In the first year an FDNY firefighter will earn about $40,000. That's just the start. And that salary can increase to up to $100,00 in five year. Let me repeat that, up to $100,000 in five years. You get excellent health benefits and medical benefits for you and your family, and you enjoy those medical benefits for the rest of your life," Cassano said.

The FDNY has been unable to hire any firefighters since 2007 because a federal judge ruled the last three exams discriminated against blacks and Hispanics.

A new test is being worked on.

Of the more than 10,000 current firefighters only nine percent are black or Hispanic; one percent are Asian.

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(Justia) Last week, in Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action v. Regents of University of Michigan, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit struck down an amendment to the Michigan constitution that prohibited the state’s public colleges and universities from granting “preferential treatment [to] any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin.” The amendment was the result of a successful voter initiative, known as Proposal 2. In striking down the amendment, the appeals court held that  “Proposal 2 unconstitutionally alters Michigan’s political structure by impermissibly burdening racial minorities.”

Background

Proposal 2, also misleadingly known as the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, was passed by 58 percent of Michigan voters in November 2006 and became law in December of that year. Among its notable supporters were Jennifer Gratz, plaintiff in the 2003 case Gratz v. Bollinger (where the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that students could not be given “extra points” in admissions decisions on the basis of race); Barbara Grutter, plaintiff in the Grutter v. Bollinger case of the same year (where the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of race as a “factor” in the University of Michigan Law School’s admissions decisions); and Ward Connerly, a former Regent of the University of California who was instrumental in the passage of Proposition 209, California’s own successful anti-affirmative action initiative of 1996.

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(World Editors Forum) Good journalism needs diversity. It adds perspective and enriches publications, bringing different narratives and reflecting today's multicultural societies. The root of this issue lies in journalism schools. How are schools today working to enrich their student and faculty population?

(AP) The U.S. military is too white and too male at the top and needs to change recruiting and promotion policies and lift its ban on women in combat, an independent report for Congress said Monday.

Seventy-seven percent of senior officers in the active-duty military are white, while only 8 percent are black, 5 percent are Hispanic and 16 percent are women, the report by an independent panel said, quoting data from September 2008.

One barrier that keeps women from the highest ranks is their inability to serve in combat units. Promotion and job opportunities have favored those with battlefield leadership credentials.

The report ordered by Congress in 2009 calls for greater diversity in the military’s leadership so it will better reflect the racial, ethnic and gender mix in the armed forces and in American society.

Efforts over the years to develop a more equal opportunity military have increased the number of women and racial and ethnic minorities in the ranks of leadership. But, the report said, “despite undeniable successes … the armed forces have not yet succeeded in developing a continuing stream of leaders who are as diverse as the nation they serve.”

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(Talking Points Memo) An African-American studies professor at Columbia University on Wednesday took to task a Texas student who is organizing scholarship exclusively for white men.

Marc Lamont Hill on MSNBC told Colby Bohannan — who came up with the scholarship idea — that “being white is itself a form of scholarship.” He said that white Americans have better access to health care, criminal justice and housing, among other things.

“There’s no need,” he said. In fact, Hill called it a “spectacle that we see every year with Affirmative-Action bake sales, with now whites-only scholarships, which only draw attention to white folk who are becoming increasingly frustrated that the world is becoming a little more fair.”

Bohannan disagrees.

“First of all, I just want to thank him for pointing out the fact that that ‘white folk,’ his words, not mine, have no problem affording anything,” Bohannan responded. “Right after I’m done with this interview, I’m going to go to the bank and say, ‘hey, I forgot I was a Caucasian American, can you just go ahead and throw some money in my account, please.’”

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(Color Lines) Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin is out to claim his second Super Bowl title in three years as his team prepares to square off against the Green Bay Packers on Sunday. If the Steelers win, Tomlin will be the first African American to lead his team to two Super Bowls. Not bad for the 38-year-old coach nobody wanted to hire.

But Tomlin wouldn’t likely be roaming the sidelines if not for the Rooney Rule, which requires an NFL team with a head coaching vacancy to interview a candidate of color. Before the rule, few African Americans were granted interviews, let alone given head coaching jobs.

In 2002, the late Johnnie Cochran and fellow attorney Cyrus Mehri felt people of color, particularly African Americans, deserved more opportunities to lead teams. So Cochran and Mehri threatened to sue the NFL if it didn’t change its ways. “Our motives are driven not by personal desire or financial gain, but to correct what we see as a great inequity in America’s game,” Cochran said at the time. “Now is the time for the NFL to step up and make a change.”

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(The Atlantic) How do you run a campaign when you could be disqualified, through no fault of your own, moments before balloting begins? That’s a question a number of contenders are weighing as they vie for co-chairman of the Republican National Committee.

The possibility that the GOP may elect a woman as national party chairman for just the second time in its history is raising that prospect for candidates for the party’s often-overlooked No. 2 post. That’s because RNC rules require the co-chairman to be of the opposite sex of the chairman.

That rule will make Election Day more nerve-racking than usual for co-chairman candidates. They won’t know whether they can run until the last moment, when a new national committee chairman is elected.

Take Sharon Day, one of Florida’s representatives on the RNC, and Jan Larimer, the current co-chairman. Both are running this year, and even if one does line up the votes necessary to win the co-chairmanship, both will be ineligible to run if either of the two women seeking the top job–former Ambassador Ann Wagner and former Bush administration official Maria Cino–ends up winning.

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