From Footnote to Fame in Civil Rights History

The New York Times
November 26, 2009

By BROOKS BARNES
On that supercharged day in 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Ala., she rode her way into history books, credited with helping to ignite the civil rights movement.
But there was another woman, named Claudette Colvin, who refused to be treated like a substandard citizen on one of those Montgomery buses — and she did it nine months before Mrs. Parks. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made his political debut fighting her arrest. Moreover, she was the star witness in the legal case that eventually forced bus desegregation.
Yet instead of being celebrated, Ms. Colvin has lived unheralded in the Bronx for decades, initially cast off by black leaders who feared she was not the right face for their battle, according to a new book that has plucked her from obscurity.
Last week Phillip Hoose won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature for “Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice,” published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. The honor sent the little-selling title shooting up 500 spots on Amazon.com’s sales list and immediately thrust Ms. Colvin, 70, back into the cultural conversation.

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/books/26colvin.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

Buy "Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice" at the AAAA Bookstore http://www.affirmativeaction.org/bookstore.html

New Haven firefighters in discrimination case get promotions

Cnn.com
November 25, 2009 2:05 p.m. EST

(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.

Full Story: http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/25/new.haven.firefighters/index.html

State universities seek more-diverse campuses

miamiherald.com
Wednesday, 11.25.09

BY DAVID R. COLBURN and BRIAN DASSLER
colburn@aa.ufl.edu
Ten years ago in November 1999, then-Gov. Jeb Bush issued his ``One Florida'' initiative to eliminate affirmative action in state contracting and in admissions at the state universities.
His decision was a direct response to an anti-affirmative action campaign being led in Florida by Ward Connerly, former University of California regent and national spokesman for the effort to eliminate affirmative action.
Although in general sympathy with Connerly's campaign, Bush worried that Connerly's constitutional proposal would sharply divide Floridians, create substantial problems for his leadership and disrupt his efforts to woo African-American and Hispanic voters to the Republican Party -- votes he hoped would secure his brother the presidency in 2000.
The governor had reason to fear the effect of a constitutional amendment or court ruling. In California, Proposition 209 prohibited public institutions from discriminating on the basis of race, sex or ethnicity and gave educational leaders very little flexibility in addressing diversity issues in undergraduate admissions.
Similarly, a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that affirmative action was unconstitutional (Hopwood v. Texas) narrowly limited the ability of public colleges and universities in Texas to use race as a condition of admission. These two decisions significantly set back racial and ethnic diversity at major universities in both California and Texas.
To avoid a similar outcome in Florida, Bush proposed a ``Talented 20'' program as part of his One Florida order, which guaranteed university admission to the top 20 percent of students from each public high school. The Talented 20 program was modeled after the ``Ten Percent Plan'' in Texas and was calculated to mitigate the effects of One Florida on ethnic and racial diversity in state universities.

Full Story: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/other-views/story/1350688.html

New unit with teeth needed to address gender pay equity (Australia)

News.com
Australia
By Kate Southam, CareerOne editor
November 24, 2009 12:55pm

A new pay equity unit should be set up to punish employers who pay men and women differently for doing the same job, according to a report tabled in Federal Parliament last night.
The Making it Fair report is the result of 17 months of work by the House Employment and Workplace Relations Committee chaired by Labor MP Sharryn Jackson.Speaking today, Ms Jackson said it has been 40 years since equal pay was legislated by the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and more than 20 years since the Affirmative Agency was set up later replaced by the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency.“And yet the gender pay gap has been growing since 1992 for a range of reasons including far fewer women in the top income bracket and a growth in women taking on part-time work,” she said. The committee found women in Australia are being paid up to 17 per cent less than men and that sectors dominated by female workers such as child care and aged care were characterised by low salaries and that had to change.

Full Story: http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,26393825-462,00.html

National Law Journal's 2009 Diversity Report

Business World Index
UnityFirst.com

Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C., an intellectual property law firm in Washington, D.C., has been recognized for having the highest percentage of minority partners among Washington-area law offices with at least 25 partners in the 2009 Legal Times 150 published in the October 19, 2009 issue of The National Law Journal. Twenty-five percent of the firm's 28 directors identify as minorities - the next highest ranked firm had seventeen percent minority partners. Additionally, SKGF was ranked #18 in total lawyer racial diversity. "We are very pleased with our diversity," said firm Managing Director Michael B. Ray. "We place a premium on lawyers who also have advanced degrees in various technical and scientific fields, which naturally means that we work with a significantly smaller recruitment pool than firms with multiple practice areas. Moreover, this pool tends to be less diverse, because certain minority groups tend to be underrepresented in engineering and the sciences. To fully appreciate the scope of this issue, consider that, of our 127 timekeeping professionals, we have a large number of Ph.D.'s and Master's degrees." Each year, the Legal Times/The National Law Journal surveys all Washington, D.C. metro area law offices in order to compile its Legal Times 150 rankings.

Lawsuits Target Testing for Legal Drugs

Workforce Management
October 2009

An automotive parts distributor is the target of lawsuits over its drug-testing policy, including one filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that workers’ rights were violated when they were tested for legally prescribed drugs. By Jeff Casale

An automotive parts distributor is the target of lawsuits over its drug-testing policy, including one filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that workers’ rights were violated when they were tested for legally prescribed drugs.
The EEOC filed a complaint last month in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee against Rochester Hills, Michigan-based Dura Automotive Systems, which tested all of its production employees for certain legally prescribed drugs in addition to illegal, controlled substances in 2007.
The EEOC contends that Dura violated “various provisions” of the Americans with Disabilities Act by testing for legally prescribed drugs without having just cause. According to the complaint on behalf of employees of Dura’s Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, plant, the employer “tested without reasonable suspicion that such medications were affecting the employees in performance of their jobs.”
Further, the lawsuit states that Dura practiced “unlawful” employment practices, including suspending employees in excess of 30 days if they tested positive for certain legally prescribed medications. Dura also required that employees disclose medical conditions for which they had to take the drugs and required workers to forgo taking their medications as a condition of returning to work, according to the suit.
If workers failed at their job duties without the benefit of their prescribed medications, they were fired, the suit alleges.

Full Story: http://www.workforce.com/archive/feature/26/70/67/index.php

Sex Stereotyping Claim of Working Mother

Workforce Management Online
May 2009

Employers are cautioned that job decisions that are based on assumptions that a woman, because she is a woman, will neglect her job responsibilities because of childcare responsibilities can be evidence of sex discrimination.
By James E. Hall, Mark T. Kobata and Marty Denis

Laurie Chadwick, a working mother of an 11-year-old son and 6-year-old triplets, worked in the Maine office of health insurer WellPoint Inc. as a recovery specialist II. In 2006, Chadwick applied for promotion to "recovery specialist lead’’ or "team lead,’’ a management position, but was passed over for that promotion.
Chadwick sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Maine Human Rights Act. Chadwick’s Title VII claim was based on three comments relating to her family responsibilities, including comments made by her supervisor that "you have a lot on your plate’’ and "if [the three interviewers] were in your position, they would feel overwhelmed.’’
WellPoint defended its denial of the promotion on the basis that mothers with young children neglect the duties of their job due to child care obligations.
The district court dismissed Chadwick’s claims on summary judgment, finding that sex bias could not be shown in the promotion because Chadwick’s supervisor did not expressly state "that Chadwick’s sex was the basis for her assumption that Chadwick would not be able to handle the demands of work and home.’’

Full Story: http://www.workforce.com/archive/feature/26/40/11/index.php