EthnicMajority

(Chicago Sun Times) Black and Latino drivers pulled over in Illinois traffic stops last year were more likely to end up with a ticket and have their vehicle searched than their white counterparts, according to a new Transportation Department study.

Minority drivers also were involved in traffic stops at a higher rate than their share of the state population would suggest, even though illegal contraband was more likely to be found in vehicles being driven by whites.

The average length of a traffic stop was the same for all races: 10 minutes.

The American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday that the study supports its request for a federal civil rights investigation of the way Illinois State Police handles driver searches. It also called on state leaders to address the issue in all police departments.

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(Orlando Sentinel) Law schools in Florida have struggled for years to draw more minorities into legal fields long dominated by white men.

Yet despite recruitment drives and other efforts to boost their enrollment, the numbers at some colleges have remained stagnant or have fallen off.

That troubles scholars and college administrators as Florida becomes more and more diverse.

Soaring tuition, tougher admission requirements and other factors have discouraged many minorities from seeking law degrees.

At the University of Florida, black enrollment at the state’s largest public law school dropped 10 percent from fall 2006 to fall 2010, the national Law School Admission Council reported last week. The overall number of full-time minority students studying law dipped as well.

Meanwhile, Hispanic enrollment fell by more than one-third at Florida A&M University’s law school in Orlando from 2008 to 2010. And even though black student enrollment remained about the same at Florida A&M, which has served mostly black students for decades, a smaller percentage of the law school’s student body is now black.

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(Business Wire) Bank of America today announced a commitment to increase its spending with small, medium-sized and diverse businesses, pledging to purchase $10 billion in products and services from those companies over five years, with the spending amount expected to grow by an average of more than 5 percent each year.

“What businesses of all sizes are telling us they need most right now is more business,” said Brian T. Moynihan, president and chief executive officer, Bank of America. “In addition to extending credit and providing technical assistance and a full range of banking services to our clients, we want to increase our support by purchasing more of their products and services, particularly from small, medium-sized and diverse businesses — coast to coast and across a wide range of industries. We hope other large companies will do the same.”

Small, medium-sized and diverse businesses provide the bank with a broad range of valuable services and products, including advertising, furniture, cleaning, courier service, home inspections, legal services, landscaping, maintenance, photography, security and software.

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