EthnicMajority

(FoxNews Latino) The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California is suing a school district and law enforcement authorities for allegedly racially profiling 55 Hispanic students.

The ACLU says Glendale Unified School District illegally detained and searched the students, who were rounded up and help for an hour in September 2010. The Los Angeles police departments and Los Angeles County Probation Department were also named in the lawsuit.

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(Examiner.com) Many of the Oakland Unified School District African American and Hispanic students are not college ready by the time they graduate from high school. As a result their legibility rates for the University of California and California State University are very low.

Many of these unprepared high school graduates enroll in community colleges hoping to transfer to 4-year institutions after 2-years. Some are accepted in 4-year learning institutions where they spend close to two years taking remedial courses.

A study by Saul Geyser and Richard C. Atkinson published in 2010 concluded, “California’s poor record of B.A. attainment could be significantly improved if more students entered 4-year baccalaureate programs directly from high school.”

The study raises serious questions about the future of African American and Hispanic students. These students need to be aware attending a community college may reduce their chances of completing a 4-year college study.

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(Centre Daily Times) The California State Teachers’ Retirement System withdrew all eight of its board diversity shareholder proposals filed during the 2011 proxy season after successfully engaging companies to consider diversity in director searches.

In recent years, the issues of board of director leadership and oversight roles have taken on increased significance to long-term investors, such as CalSTRS. Today’s economic challenges highlight the importance that board diversity plays in enhancing value and providing companies with a full range of fresh talent and experience.

“We’ve advanced the ball in the name of board diversity and are committed in our conviction that corporate boards and their nominating committees consider diversity in the larger context of improving shareholder value,” said CalSTRS Director of Corporate Governance Anne Sheehan. “One lesson from the financial crisis was the role corporate board group-think played in fostering management short-term priorities that proved detrimental to sustainable value creation. We think improved board diversity will address that problem.”

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(The News Tribune) Sixteen years ago, soon after she gave birth to her first baby, Maricela Mares-Alatorre joined residents of three small California farmworker towns who alleged they were being discriminated against by environmental regulators, because all three of the state's toxic waste dumps were located in or near poor rural Latino communities.

But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which received that civil rights complaint when Bill Clinton was president, hasn't addressed it and all the dumps continue to operate.

Trucks filled with PCBs, benzene, and asbestos continue to pass within three miles of Mares-Alatorre's home in Kettleman City on their way to one of the country's biggest toxic landfills, where they're treated, stored or buried. That dump and another one, in Buttonwillow, are in the state's sprawling Central Valley, while the third is to the south, just outside the hamlet of Westmorland.

A federal suit filed in Fresno, Calif., last week by a community group founded by Mares-Alatorre's parents and another community organization alleges that the EPA has failed to respond to the complaint within the mandated period. Mares-Alatorre's 16-year-old son is part of the group that filed the lawsuit.

Environmental groups claim the case is proof of the long-standing neglect of environmental justice by previous administrations, and they argue it casts doubts on whether the administration of President Barack Obama has made it a priority.

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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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(InsideBayArea) Special interest groups are donating money to causes supported by California's Latino legislators — potentially buying influence — without any public disclosure.

The Latino Legislative Caucus two years ago stopped revealing which Capitol interest groups give hundreds of thousands of dollars to a nonprofit group it controls.

As California's fastest-growing minority group, Latinos have rising political clout. Twenty-three Latino Democratic lawmakers are in the legislative caucus, whose work extends to sponsoring community events through its foundation.

More than $856,000 was donated to the Latino nonprofit over a two-year period ending in 2008, including more than $706,000 that was solicited by then-caucus leader Assemblyman Joe Coto, D-San Jose.

Many of the biggest checks came from powerful Capitol players, ranging from the California Correctional Peace Officers Association to the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians.

Donors were not identified in 2009, 2010 or thus far this year. Contributions totaled nearly $250,000 in 2009, the most recent year for which tax records are publicly available.

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(Los Angeles Times) An emotional battle over a traditional soup has split California's Chinese American community as environmental and animal welfare groups push the Legislature to ban the sale and possession of shark fins.

The bill passed the Assembly last month, 65-8, but is running into trouble in the Senate.

The fight has pitted influential Chinese American politicians against one another, some of whom are running for mayor of San Francisco. Chinese traders and restaurant owners have hired lobbyists to oppose a ban, and busloads of Chinatown residents have descended on the Capitol, saying that a ban would violate cultural custom.

Houston Rockets basketball star Yao Ming has joined other celebrities, such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Scarlett Johansson, in public support of a ban. "Remember, when the buying stops, the killing can too," says Ming, in a YouTube video that shows him pushing away a bowl of soup.

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(San Francisco Chronicle) More than a third of California’s African American public high school students dropped out before graduation day, a startling number and one that’s on the rise, according to 2009 data released Tuesday.

The 37 percent African American dropout rate, up three percentage points from the prior year, was far above that of any other ethnic subgroup. Hispanic students had the second highest rate at 27 percent.

Locally, San Francisco cautiously celebrated a 9 percent overall dropout rate, a stark contrast to Oakland’s 40 percent, numbers still under review for accuracy.

The statewide statistics highlight a pervasive achievement gap in test scores and graduation rates that persists despite focused efforts to boost the academic performance of black, Hispanic and low-income students, state education officials said.

Overall, 22 percent of state students dropped out of high school, according to the new data, up from 19 percent the year before.

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(SF Appeal) Arguing that spending on prisons is out of control, civil rights leaders gathered in San Francisco today to unveil a campaign in support of federal legislation to review the nation’s criminal justice system.

At a news conference at City Hall, NAACP representatives joined local political leaders in support of the National Criminal Justice Commission Act. They warned that the difficulties facing California’s prison system mirror those across the nation.

“It seems like the number-one priority in California is incarceration,” said Alice Huffman, president of the California NAACP.

Huffman was among several speakers who said money would be better spent on education and rehabilitation.

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(Stopthedrugwar.org) With the clock ticking down toward Election Day in November, both proponents and opponents of California’s Control and Tax Cannabis marijuana legalization initiative, now known officially as Proposition 19, are going after the African American vote. As it now stands, though, the community is highly supportive — winning the black vote will be an uphill struggle for pot foes at best.

A Survey USA poll done in April found that support for marijuana legalization among blacks was at 67%, the highest level of any major ethnic group in the state. Whites were second at 59%, followed by Asians at 58% and Hispanics at 45%. The findings are consistent with other polls that show similar high levels of support for pot legalization in the state’s black community.

While African Americans constitute only 5.8% of the state’s electorate, the November vote is shaping up to be extremely close, and holding onto key constituencies, even relatively small ones, could end up making the difference on Election Day.

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