EthnicMajority

(AsianWeek) Asian Americans may have the lowest unemployment rate of any racial group nationwide, but a new report shows college-educated Asian Americans have a harder time finding jobs than whites.

The new report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), “Hidden Disadvantage: Asian American Unemployment and the Great Recession,” shows that in the fourth quarter of 2009, 7.2 percent Asian Americans with bachelor’s degrees were unemployed, while only 4.7 percent of whites with the same education level were without work, even though Asian Americans have a slightly lower unemployment rate overall—8.1 percent compared to 8.4 percent for whites, regardless of education level.

“The national figure hides the high level of unemployment in Asian Americans, ” said Dr. Algernon Austin, the author of report, who is also the director of the Race, Ethnicity and the Economy Program at EPI.

Full story…

(Slam) According to Richard Lapchick, the study’s author, the NBA continues to lead the way on diversity issues in sport. The study found that 36 percent of the professional positions at the NBA League Office are held by people of color and women hold 44 percent of the professional positions. Both are higher than any other men’s professional league.

Below are some of the highlights reported by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport:

· In the NBA, 82 percent of the players were people of color, remaining constant from last year’s totals. This ties the highest percentage of players of color since the ‘94-95 season. The percentage of African-American players also remained constant from last year’s report at 77 percent. The percentage of Latinos and Asians remained constant, at three and one percent, respectively. The percentage of international players stayed steady as well at 18 percent.

· Professional opportunities for people of color in the NBA League Offices – at 36 percent – increased from 35 percent for the ‘08-09 season. This is the highest percentage in the NBA’s history and the highest in the history of any professional sport.

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(CBS News) While working as a domestic policy adviser to President Clinton, Elena Kagan emphatically agreed with a proposal to strongly defend affirmative action in the Supreme Court, while at the same time siding with a white teacher who was laid off instead of a black colleague solely because of her race.

“I think this is exactly the right position–as a legal matter, as a policy matter, and as a political matter,” Kagan wrote by hand in the margin of a memo from then-Solicitor General Walter Dellinger about the controversial case, Piscataway Board of Education v. Taxman.

That posture — strategic and careful — is reflected throughout the 46,500 pages of documents contained in the Clinton Library and released on Friday. The documents represent about a third of the Kagan documents stored in the Library and cover her time as a deputy domestic policy adviser to President Clinton from 1997-1999.

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(WebMD) A recent report of a study by the University of California–San Francisco (UCSF) has identified key areas that have been effective in increasing diversity in US medical schools.

The study specifically focuses on 2 California universities — Stanford University and UCSF — as examples of institutions that have effectively increased the number of underrepresented groups in their medical schools.

Both institutions were early adopters of effective methods to enroll, sustain, and graduate medical students from underrepresented ethnic and racial groups in the United States, including blacks, Latinos, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and other Pacific Islanders.

“These institutions offer a roadmap for continued increases in diversity of medical school populations,” said coauthor Patricia E. Franks, senior research associate at the UCSF Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, in a UCSF news release.

The study, titled “Diversity in US Medical Schools: Revitalizing Efforts to Increase Diversity in a Changing Context, 1960s-2000s,” was released in March.

Full story…

(Christian Science Monitor) Some 6,000 African-American applicants for jobs with the Chicago Fire Department can proceed with a discrimination lawsuit over the firefighter hiring test, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The US Supreme Court ruled on Monday that some 6,000 African-American job applicants are entitled to pursue a discrimination lawsuit claiming a Chicago Fire Department hiring test created a disparate impact against minority candidates.

The justices unanimously reversed a federal appeals court decision that had thrown out the group’s class-action lawsuit on grounds that they had filed their challenge after a 300-day deadline had passed.

Writing for the court, Justice Antonin Scalia said lawsuits attacking ongoing employment practices that result in disparate impacts against minority groups are not tied to the same 300-day limitations period.

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(AP) WASHINGTON — Who’s discriminated against in America? More people say Hispanics than blacks or women — and it’s far from just Hispanics who feel that way.

An Associated Press-Univision Poll found that 61 percent of people overall said Hispanics face significant discrimination, compared with 52 percent who said blacks do and 50 percent who said women.

The survey also underscored how perceptions of prejudice can vary by ethnicity. While 81 percent of Latinos said Hispanics confront a lot or some discrimination, a smaller but still substantial 59 percent of non-Hispanics said so.

It is not unusual for members of a group to feel they face more prejudice. In this survey, that was especially true when people were asked about “a lot” of discrimination. Fifty-five percent of Hispanics but only 24 percent of non-Hispanics said Hispanics encounter that.

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(Wall Street Journal) Now that he’s the Kentucky Republican Senate nominee Rand Paul is facing increased scrutiny for statements he’s made regarding the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

In a handful of media interviews, most recently on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” Wednesday evening, Paul would not commit to a firm yes-or-no answer when asked when he would have voted for the landmark legislation.

Paul has contended that while the legislation was correct in ending racial discrimination, he’s turned the question into a philosophical one over whether or not the federal government should be able to intrude on how a private business conducts itself. That may work well in the classroom, but it’s a tricky position to take as a political candidate on national television.

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(Yahoo News) A new Brandeis University study that followed 2,000 families has found that the pay gap between white and black American families quadrupled in only 23 years, from $20,000 to $95,000.

Even when black families earn a significantly higher income than whites, the study found, they accumulated much less wealth. That disparity can’t be attributed to personal saving habits either, since blacks and whites save at the same rate. White families earning more than $30,000 a year accumulated $74,000 in wealth between1984 and 2007, whereas black families earning more than $50,000 accumulated only $18,000 in wealth during that period.

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(Physorg) The wealth gap between white and African-American families increased more than four times between 1984-2007, and middle-income white households now own far more wealth than high-income African Americans, according to an analysis released on Monday by the Institute on Assets and Social Policy (IASP) at Brandeis University.

IASP, in a research brief, also reported that many African Americans hold more debt than assets and at least 25 percent of African-American families had no assets to turn to in times of economic hardship. The fourfold increase in the wealth gap, it said, reflects public policies, such as tax cuts on investment income and inheritances, which benefit the wealthiest and persistent discrimination in housing, credit and labor markets.

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This week the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a group of white firefighters in New Haven CT whose promotion exam was thrown out by the city for fear of litigation because the results yielded no qualified black candidates. The Court ruled that the fear of litigation is not enough evidence to show racial discrimination.

I agree, and for once find myself agreeing with the conservative wingnuts of the Court – Roberts, Scalio, Alito, and Thomas. But on the other hand this court decision really doesn’t meet the smell test when it comes to a referendum on affirmative action.

According to a recent opinion poll, 56% of the public support affirmative action for minorities while only 36% oppose it. And yet a poll conducted by Quinnipiac University cited in a June 3rd McClatchy article before the Supreme Court ruling indicated a 71% opposition to nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s appellate court decision to rule in favor of New Haven on the case, and a 56-36% support for abolishing affirmative action altogether.

Even though these polling results seem contradictory, I think they are reflective of the public’s acknowledgment that we still have a race problem but no easy way to solve it. The problem is not whether THE test is biased. The problem is that A test is biased.

Is a written test the best way of determining who is the most qualified firefighter? Or for that matter is a written test the best way of determining the most qualified candidates for any job?

We need to stop evaluating affirmative action based on test results, even though it is tempting to do so because of the quantitative nature of tests. Otherwise there are a few million Asian Americans in this country who deserve a promotion.

For more information, check out this article in the New York Times.

Ethnicmajority Affirmative Action page.