BAMN E-MAIL - 6/30/2008
Former Phoenix City Councilman Calvin C. Goode, defrauded Latina/o and black Arizona citizens, and the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) will file suit in state court Monday morning to stop the fraudulent "Arizona Civil Rights Initiative" (ACRI) from getting on the ballot.
They will also file a formal complaint with Governor Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Terry Goddard calling on them to hold a public hearing and investigate the ACRI campaign and its petition companies' racially-targeted voter fraud and the criminal violations of Arizona election law that occurred during the ACRI’s petition campaign.
BAMN will also submit dozens of notarized affidavits by voters asking that their names be removed from the ACRI’s petition.
"Tens of thousands of Latina/o, black, and Native American citizens of Arizona were defrauded and led to believe that by signing the 'American Civil Rights Initiative' (ACRI) they were banning racial discrimination and advancing the dreams of their children to have a better future," said Shanta Driver, National Chair of BAMN and an attorney. "They are angry that the ACRI stole their signatures as support for a petition whose sole aim is to eliminate affirmative action, which is the only way that their children will have an equal chance for a future. The duly elected public officials of Arizona have a duty to protect them, their children, all the citizens of Arizona, and democratic norms from systematic, racially-targeted voter fraud."
In only a short period of time, BAMN has uncovered extensive evidence of other systematic violations of Arizona’s election law. Whistleblowers who once circulated the ACRI petition and oither witnesses have verified that the ACRI targeted homeless shelters to recruit minority circulators to facilitate ACRI's deception, offered poor voters food or money to sign the ACRI, forged signatures, and illegally used out-of-state residents, felons, and underage people as petition circulators.
"We also call on the governor and attorney general to take up the investigation of ACRI because we cannot trust County Attorney Andrew Thomas, chairman of the ACRI campaign, to investigate his own operation," said Driver. "The whistleblowers who are coming forward need to be assured that they will be protected after standing up and telling the truth."
Go to the FRAUD FINDER WEBSITE to see some of the growing evidence of ACRI's fraudulent practices.
Media Information Page: http://www.bamn.com/stopacri/mediaFraud Finder Website: http://www.bamn.com/stopacri/fraudfinder.asp
Monday, June 30, 2008
America's Universities Are Living a Diversity Lie
AAAA Note: This is quite a surprising story from the primary affirmative action and diversity writer for the Chronicle of Higher Education. Does it reflect the editorial policy of the Chronicle, the nation's most prestigious news publication at the college and university level?
The Wall Street Journal
By PETER SCHMIDT
June 28, 2008; Page A11
Thirty years ago this past week, Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. condemned our nation's selective colleges and universities to live a lie. Writing the deciding opinion in the case Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, he prompted these institutions to justify their use of racial preferences in admissions with a rationale most had never considered and still do not believe – a desire to offer a better education to all students.
To this day, few colleges have even tried to establish that their race-conscious admissions policies yield broad educational benefits. The research is so fuzzy and methodologically weak that some strident proponents of affirmative action admit that social science is not on their side.
In reality, colleges profess a deep belief in the educational benefits of their affirmative-action policies mainly to save their necks. They know that, if the truth came out, courts could find them guilty of illegal discrimination against white and Asian Americans.
Selective colleges began lowering the bar for minority applicants back in the late 1960s to promote social justice and help keep the peace. They felt an obligation to help remedy society's racial discrimination, even if they generally weren't willing to acknowledge their own. And with riots devastating the nation's big cities, they saw a need to send black America a clear signal that the establishment it was rebelling against was in fact open to it – and that getting a good college education, not violence, represented the best path to wealth and power.
In the mid 1970s, when colleges talked about the educational benefits of race-conscious admissions, what they had in mind were the benefits reaped by minority students. And tellingly, the University of California had said nothing about the educational benefits of diversity in defending the UC-Davis medical school's strict racial quotas against the lawsuit brought by Allan P. Bakke, a rejected white applicant.
When the U.S. Supreme Court took up that decision on appeal, however, the educational diversity argument was tucked into a few of the many friend-of-the-court briefs submitted in the case.
Justice Powell would come to rely heavily on one of those briefs, in which Columbia, Harvard, Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania joined in arguing, without any empirical evidence, that diversity "makes the university a better learning environment." Like the four other conservatives on the court, Powell rejected the social-justice rationale for such policies, arguing that the government should not be in the business of deciding which segments of American society owed what to whom for past misdeeds. Nevertheless, he did not want the court to be radically changing how colleges did business. Looking for a way out, he ended up saying the four elite colleges had convinced him of the educational benefits of treating some applicants' minority status as a "plus factor."
Most selective colleges interpreted Justice Powell's controlling opinion in the case as a green light to keep doing what they had been as far as racial and ethnic-group admissions preferences were concerned. At the same time, they fretted little about how their campuses were actually becoming less diverse in socioeconomic terms as they jacked up tuitions and increasingly favored applicants from families wealthy enough to fatten endowments and pay their children's full fare. And despite a professed concern with viewpoint diversity, some colleges adopted rigid speech codes aimed at squelching statements that made minority students uncomfortable.
Academe got a rude awakening in 1996. Californians passed a ballot measure in that year barring public colleges from considering race and ethnicity in admissions. And a federal appeals court rejected Justice Powell's diversity rationale in a lawsuit, Hopwood v. Texas, involving the University of Texas law school. In his book, "Diversity Challenged," Gary Orfield, a staunch advocate of affirmative action, says people in higher education looked around and suddenly realized "no consensus existed on the benefits of diversity" and "the research had not been done to prove the academic benefits."
Over the next several years, education researchers scrambled to find such proof and repeatedly met with college leaders to discuss their progress. Their work took on a sense of urgency, on the expectation the Supreme Court would soon be revisiting Bakke. Yet again and again, their studies were shown to have gaping holes and deemed too weak to hold up in the courts.
Fortunately for affirmative-action advocates, the Center for Individual Rights, which coordinated the legal assault on race-conscious admissions, made a tactical decision not to seriously challenge such research – out of a belief it could win on legal principle. When the Supreme Court waded back into the controversy, it reaffirmed Justice Powell's diversity rationale in a 2003 decision, Grutter v. Bollinger, involving the University of Michigan law school. The opinions revealed that the majority of justices had been swayed by a barrage of friend-of-the-court briefs spinning and exaggerating what the research said about the alleged educational benefits of diversity.
Proponents of race-conscious admissions policies have yet to produce a study of their educational benefits without some limitation or flaw. Many focus only on benefits to minority students. Others define benefits in nakedly ideological terms, declaring the policies successful if they seem correlated with the adoption of liberal views. A large share relies on survey data that substitute subjective opinions for an objective measurement of learning. The University of Michigan's star witness, Patricia Gurin, a professor of psychology and women's studies, presented studies showing the educational benefits of classes and campus programs that promote interracial understanding. Those may exist at colleges that don't consider an applicant's race.
Affirmative action advocates argue that it is unreasonable to expect more of the research, because no education policy has incontrovertible proof of effectiveness. But affirmative-action preferences are not just any education policy; they require some students to suffer racial discrimination for the sake of a perceived common good. In grounding his definition of that good in the shifting sands of social science, Justice Powell may have left colleges legally vulnerable for decades to come. The courts, after all, are known for diverse opinions. http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB121460672212612067-lMyQjAxMDI4MTI0ODYyMDg2Wj.html
The Wall Street Journal
By PETER SCHMIDT
June 28, 2008; Page A11
Thirty years ago this past week, Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. condemned our nation's selective colleges and universities to live a lie. Writing the deciding opinion in the case Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, he prompted these institutions to justify their use of racial preferences in admissions with a rationale most had never considered and still do not believe – a desire to offer a better education to all students.
To this day, few colleges have even tried to establish that their race-conscious admissions policies yield broad educational benefits. The research is so fuzzy and methodologically weak that some strident proponents of affirmative action admit that social science is not on their side.
In reality, colleges profess a deep belief in the educational benefits of their affirmative-action policies mainly to save their necks. They know that, if the truth came out, courts could find them guilty of illegal discrimination against white and Asian Americans.
Selective colleges began lowering the bar for minority applicants back in the late 1960s to promote social justice and help keep the peace. They felt an obligation to help remedy society's racial discrimination, even if they generally weren't willing to acknowledge their own. And with riots devastating the nation's big cities, they saw a need to send black America a clear signal that the establishment it was rebelling against was in fact open to it – and that getting a good college education, not violence, represented the best path to wealth and power.
In the mid 1970s, when colleges talked about the educational benefits of race-conscious admissions, what they had in mind were the benefits reaped by minority students. And tellingly, the University of California had said nothing about the educational benefits of diversity in defending the UC-Davis medical school's strict racial quotas against the lawsuit brought by Allan P. Bakke, a rejected white applicant.
When the U.S. Supreme Court took up that decision on appeal, however, the educational diversity argument was tucked into a few of the many friend-of-the-court briefs submitted in the case.
Justice Powell would come to rely heavily on one of those briefs, in which Columbia, Harvard, Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania joined in arguing, without any empirical evidence, that diversity "makes the university a better learning environment." Like the four other conservatives on the court, Powell rejected the social-justice rationale for such policies, arguing that the government should not be in the business of deciding which segments of American society owed what to whom for past misdeeds. Nevertheless, he did not want the court to be radically changing how colleges did business. Looking for a way out, he ended up saying the four elite colleges had convinced him of the educational benefits of treating some applicants' minority status as a "plus factor."
Most selective colleges interpreted Justice Powell's controlling opinion in the case as a green light to keep doing what they had been as far as racial and ethnic-group admissions preferences were concerned. At the same time, they fretted little about how their campuses were actually becoming less diverse in socioeconomic terms as they jacked up tuitions and increasingly favored applicants from families wealthy enough to fatten endowments and pay their children's full fare. And despite a professed concern with viewpoint diversity, some colleges adopted rigid speech codes aimed at squelching statements that made minority students uncomfortable.
Academe got a rude awakening in 1996. Californians passed a ballot measure in that year barring public colleges from considering race and ethnicity in admissions. And a federal appeals court rejected Justice Powell's diversity rationale in a lawsuit, Hopwood v. Texas, involving the University of Texas law school. In his book, "Diversity Challenged," Gary Orfield, a staunch advocate of affirmative action, says people in higher education looked around and suddenly realized "no consensus existed on the benefits of diversity" and "the research had not been done to prove the academic benefits."
Over the next several years, education researchers scrambled to find such proof and repeatedly met with college leaders to discuss their progress. Their work took on a sense of urgency, on the expectation the Supreme Court would soon be revisiting Bakke. Yet again and again, their studies were shown to have gaping holes and deemed too weak to hold up in the courts.
Fortunately for affirmative-action advocates, the Center for Individual Rights, which coordinated the legal assault on race-conscious admissions, made a tactical decision not to seriously challenge such research – out of a belief it could win on legal principle. When the Supreme Court waded back into the controversy, it reaffirmed Justice Powell's diversity rationale in a 2003 decision, Grutter v. Bollinger, involving the University of Michigan law school. The opinions revealed that the majority of justices had been swayed by a barrage of friend-of-the-court briefs spinning and exaggerating what the research said about the alleged educational benefits of diversity.
Proponents of race-conscious admissions policies have yet to produce a study of their educational benefits without some limitation or flaw. Many focus only on benefits to minority students. Others define benefits in nakedly ideological terms, declaring the policies successful if they seem correlated with the adoption of liberal views. A large share relies on survey data that substitute subjective opinions for an objective measurement of learning. The University of Michigan's star witness, Patricia Gurin, a professor of psychology and women's studies, presented studies showing the educational benefits of classes and campus programs that promote interracial understanding. Those may exist at colleges that don't consider an applicant's race.
Affirmative action advocates argue that it is unreasonable to expect more of the research, because no education policy has incontrovertible proof of effectiveness. But affirmative-action preferences are not just any education policy; they require some students to suffer racial discrimination for the sake of a perceived common good. In grounding his definition of that good in the shifting sands of social science, Justice Powell may have left colleges legally vulnerable for decades to come. The courts, after all, are known for diverse opinions. http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB121460672212612067-lMyQjAxMDI4MTI0ODYyMDg2Wj.html
HRD orders faculty quota, IIT directors livid
The Times of India
28 Jun 2008, 0032 hrs IST, Hemali Chhapia,TNN
MUMBAI: Buoyed by its success in pushing through a quota for OBC students in higher education, the government has now ordered IITs to introduce - with "immediate effect" - quotas in the teaching faculty for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and OBCs. IIT directors, not surprisingly, were livid with the decision, though none of the four TOI spoke to were willing to go on record. The high quality of IIT faculty has built the institution into a globally respected brand. Said an IIT-Delhi professor: "It is hard to imagine that even teachers will now use the caste flag to get in." The government diktat dated June 9, which has been sent to all the IITs, lays down 15% quota for SC, 7.5% for ST and 27% quota for OBCs in teaching positions. IITs currently have reservations for backward category candidates for administrative posts - from attendants to the level of deputy registrar. However, there is no reservation for faculty members in these premier technological institutes. The order signed by Seema Raj, director of technical education in the HRD ministry, read, "I am directed to say that the matter relating to reservation of SC, ST, OBC categories in recruitment to teaching (faculty) posts in the IITs was considered in the second meeting of the SCIC (Standing Committee of IIT Council) held on 11/2/2008. The recommendations made by the SCIC have been accepted by the chairman of (the) IIT Council. Accordingly, it has been decided to implement reservation for SC, ST, OBC, in recruitment to teaching (faculty) posts in IITs with immediate effect." For subjects in science and technology, posts will be reserved for lecturers and assistant professors. In areas like management, social sciences and humanities, reservations will be applicable up to the professor level. The ministry allows IITs to dereserve the posts after a year, if they do not get filled "despite all efforts". Insiders feel that merit, on which brand IIT rests, would be shaken by the decision of the government. The order specifies that in departments dealing with science and technology subjects, "reservation shall be applied to the extent possible at the school or broad branch of engineering, at least, if not at the individual department level." The IIT directors TOI contacted, who were yet to convey the order to their faculty members, said they are shocked by the decision. "Some of the finest people have given up top positions and fat cheques that were offered to them in other parts of the world to come and teach in the IITs, despite the low pay scale that the government offers. With reservation in faculty positions, I see a day, not far from now, when the IITs will crumble," said one director. Another director said that there had been no bias against hiring backward category candidates to teaching positions if they were found meritorious. "Till now, if a backward category candidate was found on par with another candidate, the former was given preference, but reservation will change the atmosphere on campus," said the director. [To see the entire article, go to: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-3173620,prtpage-1.cms ]
28 Jun 2008, 0032 hrs IST, Hemali Chhapia,TNN
MUMBAI: Buoyed by its success in pushing through a quota for OBC students in higher education, the government has now ordered IITs to introduce - with "immediate effect" - quotas in the teaching faculty for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and OBCs. IIT directors, not surprisingly, were livid with the decision, though none of the four TOI spoke to were willing to go on record. The high quality of IIT faculty has built the institution into a globally respected brand. Said an IIT-Delhi professor: "It is hard to imagine that even teachers will now use the caste flag to get in." The government diktat dated June 9, which has been sent to all the IITs, lays down 15% quota for SC, 7.5% for ST and 27% quota for OBCs in teaching positions. IITs currently have reservations for backward category candidates for administrative posts - from attendants to the level of deputy registrar. However, there is no reservation for faculty members in these premier technological institutes. The order signed by Seema Raj, director of technical education in the HRD ministry, read, "I am directed to say that the matter relating to reservation of SC, ST, OBC categories in recruitment to teaching (faculty) posts in the IITs was considered in the second meeting of the SCIC (Standing Committee of IIT Council) held on 11/2/2008. The recommendations made by the SCIC have been accepted by the chairman of (the) IIT Council. Accordingly, it has been decided to implement reservation for SC, ST, OBC, in recruitment to teaching (faculty) posts in IITs with immediate effect." For subjects in science and technology, posts will be reserved for lecturers and assistant professors. In areas like management, social sciences and humanities, reservations will be applicable up to the professor level. The ministry allows IITs to dereserve the posts after a year, if they do not get filled "despite all efforts". Insiders feel that merit, on which brand IIT rests, would be shaken by the decision of the government. The order specifies that in departments dealing with science and technology subjects, "reservation shall be applied to the extent possible at the school or broad branch of engineering, at least, if not at the individual department level." The IIT directors TOI contacted, who were yet to convey the order to their faculty members, said they are shocked by the decision. "Some of the finest people have given up top positions and fat cheques that were offered to them in other parts of the world to come and teach in the IITs, despite the low pay scale that the government offers. With reservation in faculty positions, I see a day, not far from now, when the IITs will crumble," said one director. Another director said that there had been no bias against hiring backward category candidates to teaching positions if they were found meritorious. "Till now, if a backward category candidate was found on par with another candidate, the former was given preference, but reservation will change the atmosphere on campus," said the director. [To see the entire article, go to: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-3173620,prtpage-1.cms ]
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Civil rights trailblazer Atkins dies at 69
The Boston Globe
June 29, 2008
By Eric Moskowitz and Mark Feeney, Globe Staff
Thomas I. Atkins, a hard-driving champion of racial justice who rose from rural Indiana to become Boston's first black at-large city councilor and faced off against opponents of busing in the 1970s as an NAACP leader, has died at 69.
The Harvard Law School graduate knew that access to education had enabled his rise and fought to secure opportunities for others, first in Boston and later in desegregation cases across the country.
"He was clearly the most brilliant and insightful civil rights lawyer, both in and beyond Boston, to take on the challenges of school desegregation," said Ted Landsmark, who worked with Mr. Atkins in the late 1970s as a lawyer at Mr. Atkins's Boston law firm, Atkins and Brown. "He was a great humanist."
Mr. Atkins died Friday night at a nursing home in Brooklyn, N.Y., after struggling for nearly two decades with the degenerative muscular disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease.
He was a humanist, but he also had a steely resolve. As a central figure in the city during a turbulent era, he received repeated death threats. He fortified his Roxbury home to protect his family, running chicken wire over windows to block Molotov cocktails and installing spigots throughout the seven- bedroom house to connect hoses for fighting fires, said his son Thomas Jr.
"He was pretty instrumental in what became a pretty tumultuous time in Boston," said the son, who lived with his father for the last eight years.
Mr. Atkins amassed an impressive roster of accomplishments: first black candidate to win citywide office in Boston and first to hold a state Cabinet post; executive secretary and president of Boston's NAACP chapter; mayoral candidate; and lead lawyer for the NAACP nationwide.
But yesterday, when his sons were asked about his legacy, each started with Mr. Atkins's leadership role in Boston's busing case and his fight for education equality.
"It was a cause very near and dear to his heart," said Todd Atkins, Mr. Atkins's oldest son, who lives in North Attleborough. "He realized just how important education was and what a dividing line it set between those who have and those who have not."
Mr. Atkins never shied from controversy. He called Malcolm X's death "as much of a loss to America as that of President Kennedy," and he criticized Cardinal Richard J. Cushing for not doing more "to dispel racial prejudices on the part of church members." He led a sit-in at the office of School Committee chairwoman Louise Day Hicks.
Yet Mr. Atkins had a pragmatic side. Elected to the City Council in 1967, while a Harvard Law student, he emphasized such bread-and-butter issues as trash pickup and constituent services.
"Power is colorless," he liked to say. "It's like water. You can drink it or you can drown in it."
Mayor Thomas M. Menino called Mr. Atkins a political trailblazer who motivated activists but also drew votes from diverse constituencies and worked to help all residents.
"He was just what an elected official should be," Menino said. "Tommy Atkins was about helping people. He didn't care if they were black, white, yellow, or brown."
Not everyone agreed. In his memoir, "While the Music Lasts," former Senate president William M. Bulger described Mr. Atkins as "bright, but flawed by a veiled desire not merely to advantage blacks but, in the process, to revenge them on whites."
To allies, though, he was an unparalleled strategist. "I don't think there was anybody around who was as astute as he was," said Mel King, activist, educator, and former mayoral candidate. "There is no place - and I say this with all due respect to the Creator - there's no place where Tom Atkins wasn't influential, and I'm sure where he is now, they're going to know it."
Mr. Atkins could be a mediator and a negotiator. After urban renewal projects razed neighborhoods in the West End and Roxbury and displaced residents, protesters clustered in a tent city near Dartmouth Street and Columbus Avenue to decry a similar proposal in the South End. Mr. Atkins used his clout as a city councilor to halt the proposal, calm the gathering, and give residents a say in determining the fate of neighborhoods, said Kay Gibbs, who worked as an aide to Mr. Atkins on the City Council.
"He was an extremely brilliant man, but he was also a pioneer in Boston city politics," Gibbs said of Mr. Atkins's at-large win. "He opened the door really to the notion that people of color could in fact be representatives of the whole city and not just of their own community." [To see the entire obituary, go to: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/06/29/civil_rights_trailblazer_atkins_dies_at_69/ ]
June 29, 2008
By Eric Moskowitz and Mark Feeney, Globe Staff
Thomas I. Atkins, a hard-driving champion of racial justice who rose from rural Indiana to become Boston's first black at-large city councilor and faced off against opponents of busing in the 1970s as an NAACP leader, has died at 69.
The Harvard Law School graduate knew that access to education had enabled his rise and fought to secure opportunities for others, first in Boston and later in desegregation cases across the country.
"He was clearly the most brilliant and insightful civil rights lawyer, both in and beyond Boston, to take on the challenges of school desegregation," said Ted Landsmark, who worked with Mr. Atkins in the late 1970s as a lawyer at Mr. Atkins's Boston law firm, Atkins and Brown. "He was a great humanist."
Mr. Atkins died Friday night at a nursing home in Brooklyn, N.Y., after struggling for nearly two decades with the degenerative muscular disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease.
He was a humanist, but he also had a steely resolve. As a central figure in the city during a turbulent era, he received repeated death threats. He fortified his Roxbury home to protect his family, running chicken wire over windows to block Molotov cocktails and installing spigots throughout the seven- bedroom house to connect hoses for fighting fires, said his son Thomas Jr.
"He was pretty instrumental in what became a pretty tumultuous time in Boston," said the son, who lived with his father for the last eight years.
Mr. Atkins amassed an impressive roster of accomplishments: first black candidate to win citywide office in Boston and first to hold a state Cabinet post; executive secretary and president of Boston's NAACP chapter; mayoral candidate; and lead lawyer for the NAACP nationwide.
But yesterday, when his sons were asked about his legacy, each started with Mr. Atkins's leadership role in Boston's busing case and his fight for education equality.
"It was a cause very near and dear to his heart," said Todd Atkins, Mr. Atkins's oldest son, who lives in North Attleborough. "He realized just how important education was and what a dividing line it set between those who have and those who have not."
Mr. Atkins never shied from controversy. He called Malcolm X's death "as much of a loss to America as that of President Kennedy," and he criticized Cardinal Richard J. Cushing for not doing more "to dispel racial prejudices on the part of church members." He led a sit-in at the office of School Committee chairwoman Louise Day Hicks.
Yet Mr. Atkins had a pragmatic side. Elected to the City Council in 1967, while a Harvard Law student, he emphasized such bread-and-butter issues as trash pickup and constituent services.
"Power is colorless," he liked to say. "It's like water. You can drink it or you can drown in it."
Mayor Thomas M. Menino called Mr. Atkins a political trailblazer who motivated activists but also drew votes from diverse constituencies and worked to help all residents.
"He was just what an elected official should be," Menino said. "Tommy Atkins was about helping people. He didn't care if they were black, white, yellow, or brown."
Not everyone agreed. In his memoir, "While the Music Lasts," former Senate president William M. Bulger described Mr. Atkins as "bright, but flawed by a veiled desire not merely to advantage blacks but, in the process, to revenge them on whites."
To allies, though, he was an unparalleled strategist. "I don't think there was anybody around who was as astute as he was," said Mel King, activist, educator, and former mayoral candidate. "There is no place - and I say this with all due respect to the Creator - there's no place where Tom Atkins wasn't influential, and I'm sure where he is now, they're going to know it."
Mr. Atkins could be a mediator and a negotiator. After urban renewal projects razed neighborhoods in the West End and Roxbury and displaced residents, protesters clustered in a tent city near Dartmouth Street and Columbus Avenue to decry a similar proposal in the South End. Mr. Atkins used his clout as a city councilor to halt the proposal, calm the gathering, and give residents a say in determining the fate of neighborhoods, said Kay Gibbs, who worked as an aide to Mr. Atkins on the City Council.
"He was an extremely brilliant man, but he was also a pioneer in Boston city politics," Gibbs said of Mr. Atkins's at-large win. "He opened the door really to the notion that people of color could in fact be representatives of the whole city and not just of their own community." [To see the entire obituary, go to: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/06/29/civil_rights_trailblazer_atkins_dies_at_69/ ]
Friday, June 27, 2008
House Votes to Expand Civil Rights for Disabled
The New York Times
Published: June 26, 2008
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON — The House passed a major civil rights bill on Wednesday that would expand protections for people with disabilities and overturn several Supreme Court decisions issued in the last decade.
The bill, approved 402 to 17, would make it easier for workers to prove discrimination. It would explicitly relax some stringent standards set by the court and says that disability is to be “construed broadly,” to cover more physical and mental impairments.
Supporters of the proposal said it would restore the broad protections that Congress meant to establish when it passed the Americans With Disabilities Act that President George Bush signed in 1990.
Lawmakers said Wednesday that people with epilepsy, diabetes, cancer, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis and other ailments had been improperly denied protection because their conditions could be controlled by medication or were in remission. In a Texas case, for example, a federal judge said a worker with epilepsy could not be considered disabled because he was taking medications that reduced the frequency of seizures.
In deciding whether a person is disabled, the bill says, courts should generally not consider the effects of “mitigating measures” like prescription drugs, hearing aids and artificial limbs. Moreover, it adds, “an impairment that is episodic or in remission is a disability if it would substantially limit a major life activity when active.”
The chief sponsor of the bill, the House Democratic leader, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, said the situation was now bizarre. “An individual may be considered too disabled by an employer to get a job, but not disabled enough by the courts to be protected by the A.D.A. from discrimination,” Mr. Hoyer said.
The chief Republican sponsor, Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin, said the Supreme Court had “chipped away at the protections” of the 1990 law, leaving millions of Americans with no recourse or remedy for discrimination.
His wife, Cheryl Sensenbrenner, has testified in support of the bill as chairwoman of the American Association of People With Disabilities, an advocacy group. Mrs. Sensenbrenner suffered a spinal cord injury in 1972, when she was 22, and sometimes uses a wheelchair. In addition, she noted in an interview, she has a sister with Down syndrome.
Supporters of the bill immediately shifted their attention to the Senate, which is expected to pass a similar bipartisan measure. Senator Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat leading the effort, predicted that the Senate would act “in the near future.”
The White House said that although President Bush “supports the overall intent” of the House bill, he was concerned that it “could unduly expand” coverage and significantly increase litigation. [To read the entire article, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/washington/26rights.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1214561361-6LHRTBKuhcT2XLnTXloLHg ]
Published: June 26, 2008
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON — The House passed a major civil rights bill on Wednesday that would expand protections for people with disabilities and overturn several Supreme Court decisions issued in the last decade.
The bill, approved 402 to 17, would make it easier for workers to prove discrimination. It would explicitly relax some stringent standards set by the court and says that disability is to be “construed broadly,” to cover more physical and mental impairments.
Supporters of the proposal said it would restore the broad protections that Congress meant to establish when it passed the Americans With Disabilities Act that President George Bush signed in 1990.
Lawmakers said Wednesday that people with epilepsy, diabetes, cancer, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis and other ailments had been improperly denied protection because their conditions could be controlled by medication or were in remission. In a Texas case, for example, a federal judge said a worker with epilepsy could not be considered disabled because he was taking medications that reduced the frequency of seizures.
In deciding whether a person is disabled, the bill says, courts should generally not consider the effects of “mitigating measures” like prescription drugs, hearing aids and artificial limbs. Moreover, it adds, “an impairment that is episodic or in remission is a disability if it would substantially limit a major life activity when active.”
The chief sponsor of the bill, the House Democratic leader, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, said the situation was now bizarre. “An individual may be considered too disabled by an employer to get a job, but not disabled enough by the courts to be protected by the A.D.A. from discrimination,” Mr. Hoyer said.
The chief Republican sponsor, Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin, said the Supreme Court had “chipped away at the protections” of the 1990 law, leaving millions of Americans with no recourse or remedy for discrimination.
His wife, Cheryl Sensenbrenner, has testified in support of the bill as chairwoman of the American Association of People With Disabilities, an advocacy group. Mrs. Sensenbrenner suffered a spinal cord injury in 1972, when she was 22, and sometimes uses a wheelchair. In addition, she noted in an interview, she has a sister with Down syndrome.
Supporters of the bill immediately shifted their attention to the Senate, which is expected to pass a similar bipartisan measure. Senator Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat leading the effort, predicted that the Senate would act “in the near future.”
The White House said that although President Bush “supports the overall intent” of the House bill, he was concerned that it “could unduly expand” coverage and significantly increase litigation. [To read the entire article, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/washington/26rights.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1214561361-6LHRTBKuhcT2XLnTXloLHg ]
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Initiative to end affirmative action in Colorado fires up minority and women business groups
ColoradoBiz Magazine
Last modified on 6/25/2008 3:47:50 PM.
Initiative to end affirmative action in Colorado fires up minority and women business groups
By Eric Peterson
"The state shall not discriminate against or grant preferential treatment to any group or individual on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public contracting, or public education."—Excerpt of the ballot for Amendment 46
President John F. Kennedy coined the term "affirmative action" in 1961. In the time since, it has come to mean different things to different people. But nearly everyone agrees that affirmative action programs at their core promote diversity within the business community, educational institutions and government workforce.
Not Ward Connerly.
Often described in shorthand as a millionaire executive from California, Connerly is a former University of California regent and construction industry consultant of mixed-race heritage who says he believes affirmative action doesn’t fight racism or sexism but, in fact, encourages both by setting the bar lower for minorities and women.
The Sacramento-based leader of two political nonprofits, the American Civil Rights Coalition and the American Civil Rights Institute, Connerly makes no apologies for his crusade.
And now he’s taken his fight to Colorado.
Detractors contend Connerly is merely a pawn for the good old boys network that is the mainstream construction industry. They argue he’s in the pocket of the big contractors and the extreme right-wing fringe, that all of his money comes from out of state, and — last but not least — that his petitioners illegally deceived voters to get enough petitions to get their anti-affirmative action measure, Amendment 46, on the November ballot.
Connerly argues affirmative action should have been a temporary period of preferential treatment for African Americans, but today the world has passed the concept by.
He believes the expansion of affirmative action to permanently offer preferential treatment to women and all minorities is counterproductive to society at large.
"It has become the disease it sought to cure," he says. "At first it made sense, but now it’s become its own kind of discrimination. Imagine the daughters of Barack Obama getting admission to college based on racial preferences over the daughters of a white taxi driver.
"My guiding philosophy is the government has the obligation to treat everybody equally, regardless of their skin color, their sex, their race, or their religion," Connerly says. "To do otherwise is to diminish all of us."
Amendment 46 echoes California’s Proposition 209, which passed into law behind Connerly’s support in 1996, and similar measures that voters have since approved in Washington state and Michigan.
At press time, the petition for Amendment 46 was in legal limbo. A challenge filed by opponents claim that there aren’t enough valid signatures and that paid petitioners used deception to trick Colorado residents into signing.
The initiative has become part of a national debate, prompting a response from the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee at the request of USA Today.
"Sen. Obama believes in a country in which opportunity is available to all Americans, regardless of their race, gender or economic status," said Candice Tolliver, an Obama campaign spokeswoman, in a story published June 10. "That’s why he opposes these ballot initiatives, which would roll back opportunity for millions of Americans and cripple efforts to break down historic barriers to the progress of qualified women and minorities."
Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, favors strict enforcement of anti-discrimination laws over broad-based quotas.
"We must recommit ourselves to the ideal that every individual is created equal in the eyes of God and every individual must therefore be treated equally under the law," McCain said in a written response through his press office. "It also means rejecting affirmative action plans and quotas that give weight to one group of Americans at the expense of another. Plans that result in quotas, where such plans have not been judicially created to remedy a specific, proven act of discrimination, only result in more discrimination and violate the concept of equality of opportunity." [To read the entire article, go to: http://www.cobizmag.com/articles.asp?id=2220 ]
Last modified on 6/25/2008 3:47:50 PM.
Initiative to end affirmative action in Colorado fires up minority and women business groups
By Eric Peterson
"The state shall not discriminate against or grant preferential treatment to any group or individual on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public contracting, or public education."—Excerpt of the ballot for Amendment 46
President John F. Kennedy coined the term "affirmative action" in 1961. In the time since, it has come to mean different things to different people. But nearly everyone agrees that affirmative action programs at their core promote diversity within the business community, educational institutions and government workforce.
Not Ward Connerly.
Often described in shorthand as a millionaire executive from California, Connerly is a former University of California regent and construction industry consultant of mixed-race heritage who says he believes affirmative action doesn’t fight racism or sexism but, in fact, encourages both by setting the bar lower for minorities and women.
The Sacramento-based leader of two political nonprofits, the American Civil Rights Coalition and the American Civil Rights Institute, Connerly makes no apologies for his crusade.
And now he’s taken his fight to Colorado.
Detractors contend Connerly is merely a pawn for the good old boys network that is the mainstream construction industry. They argue he’s in the pocket of the big contractors and the extreme right-wing fringe, that all of his money comes from out of state, and — last but not least — that his petitioners illegally deceived voters to get enough petitions to get their anti-affirmative action measure, Amendment 46, on the November ballot.
Connerly argues affirmative action should have been a temporary period of preferential treatment for African Americans, but today the world has passed the concept by.
He believes the expansion of affirmative action to permanently offer preferential treatment to women and all minorities is counterproductive to society at large.
"It has become the disease it sought to cure," he says. "At first it made sense, but now it’s become its own kind of discrimination. Imagine the daughters of Barack Obama getting admission to college based on racial preferences over the daughters of a white taxi driver.
"My guiding philosophy is the government has the obligation to treat everybody equally, regardless of their skin color, their sex, their race, or their religion," Connerly says. "To do otherwise is to diminish all of us."
Amendment 46 echoes California’s Proposition 209, which passed into law behind Connerly’s support in 1996, and similar measures that voters have since approved in Washington state and Michigan.
At press time, the petition for Amendment 46 was in legal limbo. A challenge filed by opponents claim that there aren’t enough valid signatures and that paid petitioners used deception to trick Colorado residents into signing.
The initiative has become part of a national debate, prompting a response from the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee at the request of USA Today.
"Sen. Obama believes in a country in which opportunity is available to all Americans, regardless of their race, gender or economic status," said Candice Tolliver, an Obama campaign spokeswoman, in a story published June 10. "That’s why he opposes these ballot initiatives, which would roll back opportunity for millions of Americans and cripple efforts to break down historic barriers to the progress of qualified women and minorities."
Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, favors strict enforcement of anti-discrimination laws over broad-based quotas.
"We must recommit ourselves to the ideal that every individual is created equal in the eyes of God and every individual must therefore be treated equally under the law," McCain said in a written response through his press office. "It also means rejecting affirmative action plans and quotas that give weight to one group of Americans at the expense of another. Plans that result in quotas, where such plans have not been judicially created to remedy a specific, proven act of discrimination, only result in more discrimination and violate the concept of equality of opportunity." [To read the entire article, go to: http://www.cobizmag.com/articles.asp?id=2220 ]
Diversity Meets Data at George Mason Law
InsideHigherEd
June 26, 2008
The American Bar Association considers, as part of its accreditation requirements, a law school’s commitment to a diverse student population. For top-ranking institutions, that usually means some combination of aggressive outreach, race-conscious affirmative action and on-campus support services to help recruit and retain underrepresented minorities.
But what if the ABA’s diversity standard led some students on the path to failure?
Since 2005, when The Stanford Law Review published a controversial and highly publicized study concluding that there would be more black lawyers if law schools did not use affirmative action in admissions, opponents of such policies have argued that race-based preferences actually harm those whom it is intended to help. Yet there is also evidence that concerted outreach and support efforts can, if applied properly, prevent the potential negative effects of race-conscious admissions practices.
The “mismatch” theory, as it’s been called, posits that some African-American students have struggled and at times dropped out of highly competitive law schools even though they might have thrived at lower-ranked or less rigorous institutions, and gone on to pass the bar exam. The article concluded that without affirmative action, black students would be better “matched” with institutions that meet their qualifications, and that disparities in failure rates would disappear.
Now, an organization that opposes race-conscious admissions policies asserts that it has found data from one particular institution illustrating the sort of dynamic the study would predict. According to data obtained through a public records request, from 2003 to 2005 some 45 percent of African-American students at George Mason University School of Law, outside of Washington, had grade-point averages below 2.15, defined as “academic failure.” For the rest of the student body, however, the figure was 4 percent.
While the law school confirmed the numbers, it also provided details showing that since those years, the number of admitted African-American students increased while instances of “involuntary academic attrition” — in which students are no longer permitted to continue the program unless they reapply and show improvement to achieve good standing — dropped to zero. Moreover, officials attributed the gains to an expanded outreach program that pairs each incoming minority student with both a student and an alumni mentor.
In 2004, the law school enrolled seven black students, four of whom were placed on involuntary academic attrition. In 2005, an equal number of black students enrolled, but five of them could no longer continue for the same reason. The next year, the law school began to see improvements: In 2006, one black student out of eight admitted suffered academic failure; in 2007, the enrollment of first-year African-American students climbed to 13, and none of them failed out.
“We feel that we’ve made significant progress, although you can always do better,” said Christine LaPaille, George Mason’s vice president for university relations. “The numbers speak for themselves. In the early 2000s, we had an attrition rate of more than 60 percent of our first-year African-American students. This year we admitted more African-American students than in any of the last four years, and this year we had an attrition rate of zero.” [To read the entire story, go to: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/06/26/gmu ]
June 26, 2008
The American Bar Association considers, as part of its accreditation requirements, a law school’s commitment to a diverse student population. For top-ranking institutions, that usually means some combination of aggressive outreach, race-conscious affirmative action and on-campus support services to help recruit and retain underrepresented minorities.
But what if the ABA’s diversity standard led some students on the path to failure?
Since 2005, when The Stanford Law Review published a controversial and highly publicized study concluding that there would be more black lawyers if law schools did not use affirmative action in admissions, opponents of such policies have argued that race-based preferences actually harm those whom it is intended to help. Yet there is also evidence that concerted outreach and support efforts can, if applied properly, prevent the potential negative effects of race-conscious admissions practices.
The “mismatch” theory, as it’s been called, posits that some African-American students have struggled and at times dropped out of highly competitive law schools even though they might have thrived at lower-ranked or less rigorous institutions, and gone on to pass the bar exam. The article concluded that without affirmative action, black students would be better “matched” with institutions that meet their qualifications, and that disparities in failure rates would disappear.
Now, an organization that opposes race-conscious admissions policies asserts that it has found data from one particular institution illustrating the sort of dynamic the study would predict. According to data obtained through a public records request, from 2003 to 2005 some 45 percent of African-American students at George Mason University School of Law, outside of Washington, had grade-point averages below 2.15, defined as “academic failure.” For the rest of the student body, however, the figure was 4 percent.
While the law school confirmed the numbers, it also provided details showing that since those years, the number of admitted African-American students increased while instances of “involuntary academic attrition” — in which students are no longer permitted to continue the program unless they reapply and show improvement to achieve good standing — dropped to zero. Moreover, officials attributed the gains to an expanded outreach program that pairs each incoming minority student with both a student and an alumni mentor.
In 2004, the law school enrolled seven black students, four of whom were placed on involuntary academic attrition. In 2005, an equal number of black students enrolled, but five of them could no longer continue for the same reason. The next year, the law school began to see improvements: In 2006, one black student out of eight admitted suffered academic failure; in 2007, the enrollment of first-year African-American students climbed to 13, and none of them failed out.
“We feel that we’ve made significant progress, although you can always do better,” said Christine LaPaille, George Mason’s vice president for university relations. “The numbers speak for themselves. In the early 2000s, we had an attrition rate of more than 60 percent of our first-year African-American students. This year we admitted more African-American students than in any of the last four years, and this year we had an attrition rate of zero.” [To read the entire story, go to: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/06/26/gmu ]
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Group Challenges Legitimacy Of Affirmative Action Petition
KETV-7, OMAHA, NE
POSTED: 11:24 am CDT June 25, 2008
UPDATED: 11:44 am CDT June 25, 2008
OMAHA, Neb. -- A challenge was filed Wednesday to the petition drive seeking a change in Nebraska affirmative action policies.
The group seeking to change Nebraska's constitution wants it to say the state "shall not grant preferential treatment" to any group.
An organization called Nebraskans United presented evidence Wednesday that they said shows that those behind the petition drive are acting illegally.
"I think they have a solution in search of a problem," said David Kramer of Nebraskans United. "We don't have that problem that they're claiming here in Nebraska. So I'd be very, very skeptical about why we should change our Constitution given what they're saying."
Several people have signed petitions believing that they're supporting affirmative action, the KETV NewsWatch 7 I-Teamr reported.
Two weeks ago, the Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative, who is backing the petition, said its petition drive is straightforward and not misleading. KETV is seeking comment Wednesday from the group in response to Nebraskans United. [To see the entire story, go to: http://www.ketv.com/politics/16707176/detail.html ]
POSTED: 11:24 am CDT June 25, 2008
UPDATED: 11:44 am CDT June 25, 2008
OMAHA, Neb. -- A challenge was filed Wednesday to the petition drive seeking a change in Nebraska affirmative action policies.
The group seeking to change Nebraska's constitution wants it to say the state "shall not grant preferential treatment" to any group.
An organization called Nebraskans United presented evidence Wednesday that they said shows that those behind the petition drive are acting illegally.
"I think they have a solution in search of a problem," said David Kramer of Nebraskans United. "We don't have that problem that they're claiming here in Nebraska. So I'd be very, very skeptical about why we should change our Constitution given what they're saying."
Several people have signed petitions believing that they're supporting affirmative action, the KETV NewsWatch 7 I-Teamr reported.
Two weeks ago, the Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative, who is backing the petition, said its petition drive is straightforward and not misleading. KETV is seeking comment Wednesday from the group in response to Nebraskans United. [To see the entire story, go to: http://www.ketv.com/politics/16707176/detail.html ]
Justice Department blackballed liberal lawyers, report says
MSNBC.COM
DEEP BACKGROUND: NBC NEWS INVESTIGATES
Posted on Tuesday, June 24, 2008 12:58 PM PT
Filed Under: Politics
Imagine you are first in your class at Georgetown Law School, had clerked for two federal judges and been the articles editor on a law journal. You’d think you had a pretty good chance at getting an entry-level job as a lawyer at the Justice Department, right?
Not so fast, big shot. The Georgetown Law graduate was turned down, along with a Harvard Law student who had graduated in the top 5 percent of his Harvard undergraduate class, and a Yale Law School standout who had clerked for a federal judge and graduated summa cum laude from Yale College.
Their perceived deficiencies? They were all rejected by the Bush Administration Justice Department because of some affiliation with liberal groups or Democratic Party causes, according to a stinging new report by the Justice Department’s Inspector General (IG) and the Office of Professional Responsibility.
The 115-page report examines the selection of candidates for the Attorney General’s Honors Program and the Summer Law Intern Program from 2002 to 2006. Allegations regarding politicization of the prestigious programs received widespread public attention a year ago after an anonymous group of Justice Department officials wrote a letter to Congress complaining about alleged hiring-practice abuses.
“Political affiliations were used”Indeed, the IG investigation released Tuesday concludes that “political or ideological affiliations were used to deselect candidates from the Honors Program” and the summer intern program in many of the years reviewed. Members of the screening committee were asked to weed out "wackos" and ideological "extremists," the report found. Even one candidate’s belief that wolves should be re-introduced onto federal lands was noted in his review.
Esther McDonaldThe report is particularly critical of a low-ranking Justice Department lawyer named Esther Slater McDonald, who abruptly resigned from the DOJ last year on the same day that investigators from the Inspector General’s office were scheduled to interview her. She turned down all subsequent interview requests.
The investigators report that McDonald was hired as a political appointee at the Justice Department just three years out of law school. She was assigned to work on the screening committee for the Honors Program and the internship pool, and promptly began doing computer searches on the candidates “for organizations to which candidates belonged,” the report states. In a Nov. 29, 2007 email, McDonald blackballed three candidates “based on her objections to the candidates’ ideological affiliations,” the IG writes. She wrote despairingly in the email of Greenpeace and another group which “increased affirmative action,” and described one applicant’s essay as “filled with leftist commentary and buzz words like ‘environmental justice’ and ‘social justice.’ " She also wrote: “Leftists usually refer to achieving ‘social justice’ or ‘making policy’ or anything else that involves legislating rather than enforcing.”
Under Justice Department regulations and civil service law, it is improper to consider politics or political affiliation when hiring for DOJ career positions, such as the Honors Program and the intern program.
McDonald works now as an attorney in private practice, at the Seyfarth Shaw law firm in Washington, DC. She would not comment on the IG report, when contacted by NBC News. [To view the entire story, go to: http://deepbackground.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/06/24/1164379.aspx ]
DEEP BACKGROUND: NBC NEWS INVESTIGATES
Posted on Tuesday, June 24, 2008 12:58 PM PT
Filed Under: Politics
Imagine you are first in your class at Georgetown Law School, had clerked for two federal judges and been the articles editor on a law journal. You’d think you had a pretty good chance at getting an entry-level job as a lawyer at the Justice Department, right?
Not so fast, big shot. The Georgetown Law graduate was turned down, along with a Harvard Law student who had graduated in the top 5 percent of his Harvard undergraduate class, and a Yale Law School standout who had clerked for a federal judge and graduated summa cum laude from Yale College.
Their perceived deficiencies? They were all rejected by the Bush Administration Justice Department because of some affiliation with liberal groups or Democratic Party causes, according to a stinging new report by the Justice Department’s Inspector General (IG) and the Office of Professional Responsibility.
The 115-page report examines the selection of candidates for the Attorney General’s Honors Program and the Summer Law Intern Program from 2002 to 2006. Allegations regarding politicization of the prestigious programs received widespread public attention a year ago after an anonymous group of Justice Department officials wrote a letter to Congress complaining about alleged hiring-practice abuses.
“Political affiliations were used”Indeed, the IG investigation released Tuesday concludes that “political or ideological affiliations were used to deselect candidates from the Honors Program” and the summer intern program in many of the years reviewed. Members of the screening committee were asked to weed out "wackos" and ideological "extremists," the report found. Even one candidate’s belief that wolves should be re-introduced onto federal lands was noted in his review.
Esther McDonaldThe report is particularly critical of a low-ranking Justice Department lawyer named Esther Slater McDonald, who abruptly resigned from the DOJ last year on the same day that investigators from the Inspector General’s office were scheduled to interview her. She turned down all subsequent interview requests.
The investigators report that McDonald was hired as a political appointee at the Justice Department just three years out of law school. She was assigned to work on the screening committee for the Honors Program and the internship pool, and promptly began doing computer searches on the candidates “for organizations to which candidates belonged,” the report states. In a Nov. 29, 2007 email, McDonald blackballed three candidates “based on her objections to the candidates’ ideological affiliations,” the IG writes. She wrote despairingly in the email of Greenpeace and another group which “increased affirmative action,” and described one applicant’s essay as “filled with leftist commentary and buzz words like ‘environmental justice’ and ‘social justice.’ " She also wrote: “Leftists usually refer to achieving ‘social justice’ or ‘making policy’ or anything else that involves legislating rather than enforcing.”
Under Justice Department regulations and civil service law, it is improper to consider politics or political affiliation when hiring for DOJ career positions, such as the Honors Program and the intern program.
McDonald works now as an attorney in private practice, at the Seyfarth Shaw law firm in Washington, DC. She would not comment on the IG report, when contacted by NBC News. [To view the entire story, go to: http://deepbackground.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/06/24/1164379.aspx ]
HUGH B. PRICE: The Obama victory: giving affirmative action its due
Brookings Institution
Posted on Tue, Jun. 24, 2008
Voters of varying ethnic and economic backgrounds have put an African-American one election away from smashing the loftiest glass ceiling in American society. Predictably, Barack Obama's capture of the Democratic Party nomination for president has triggered a flurry of post-mortems about why this point of inflexion in our nation's history has occurred.
Pundits and pollsters have explanations aplenty. Some say the decline in urban violence has tamped down white anxiety about black people. More and more young voters these days judge candidates on their merits, it's said, instead of their race, gender or sexual preference, for that matter. Racially incendiary political campaigns and ads supposedly are passe.
There is much to be said for these theories. But another explanation rings out that politicians and experts ignore, or perhaps hesitate to utter, because the phrase is as so radioactive politically and legally. I refer, of course, to affirmative action.
I recently attended my 45th reunion at Amherst College in Massachusetts. Four other black classmates entered with me in September 1963 (three of us graduated). In that pre-affirmative action era, we comprised a scant 2 percent of the freshman class. The make-up of the other classes was about the same. As a leading bastion of male education, Amherst accepted no women back then. I vividly recall from prospecting for dates that the women's colleges in the Pioneer Valley weren't any more diverse ethnically.
In those days, the majority of fraternities at my college refused to accept black students. Since the frats served as the hub of most campus social life, I hardly got to know most of my classmates. Last month's reunion made up for a half century of lost opportunity as we discovered the vast commonalities among us in terms of professional aspirations and setbacks, family experiences and joys, physical ailments and laments over deceased classmates.
Two generations of American voters have come of age since I stood with roughly 200,000 people on the Washington Mall on August 28, 1963, straining to hear Rev. Martin Luther King's soul-stirring speech that punctuated the March on Washington. If anything, his words that day resonate even more today in light of the Obama victory. As King intoned, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
Since 1963, millions of Americans have studied together and lived together on college and university campuses that are vastly more integrated than they were in my day. We have worked alongside one another in teams in large companies, small businesses, municipal agencies, hospitals and community organizations. As members of the military, we have fought side-by-side in battles and served in close synchronization onboard aircraft carriers. Our colleagues, co-workers and bosses now come in all races, genders and sexual persuasions. We've grown accustomed to seeing someone in addition to white males get elected, pilot spacecraft and smash glass ceilings in every realm of American life.
The growing acceptance of diversity that fueled Senator Obama's victory did not occur by accident or osmosis. It wasn't the result of immaculate reconciliation. No, it took years of conscious and conscientious affirmative action by the gatekeepers of opportunity-in college admissions, in hiring and promotion, in the allocation of business opportunity-to systematically expose two generations of Americans to one another and gradually teach a gratifyingly large proportion of the population to understand and trust, respect and rely upon one another.
As we strive this election season to rise above ethnicity, let us give this powerful-and patently successful-engine of social and racial progress its due. Affirmative action unquestionably has made our robustly diverse nation a more perfect union.
Hugh B. Price is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former president and CEO of the National Urban League. http://www.bnd.com/285/story/378174.html
Posted on Tue, Jun. 24, 2008
Voters of varying ethnic and economic backgrounds have put an African-American one election away from smashing the loftiest glass ceiling in American society. Predictably, Barack Obama's capture of the Democratic Party nomination for president has triggered a flurry of post-mortems about why this point of inflexion in our nation's history has occurred.
Pundits and pollsters have explanations aplenty. Some say the decline in urban violence has tamped down white anxiety about black people. More and more young voters these days judge candidates on their merits, it's said, instead of their race, gender or sexual preference, for that matter. Racially incendiary political campaigns and ads supposedly are passe.
There is much to be said for these theories. But another explanation rings out that politicians and experts ignore, or perhaps hesitate to utter, because the phrase is as so radioactive politically and legally. I refer, of course, to affirmative action.
I recently attended my 45th reunion at Amherst College in Massachusetts. Four other black classmates entered with me in September 1963 (three of us graduated). In that pre-affirmative action era, we comprised a scant 2 percent of the freshman class. The make-up of the other classes was about the same. As a leading bastion of male education, Amherst accepted no women back then. I vividly recall from prospecting for dates that the women's colleges in the Pioneer Valley weren't any more diverse ethnically.
In those days, the majority of fraternities at my college refused to accept black students. Since the frats served as the hub of most campus social life, I hardly got to know most of my classmates. Last month's reunion made up for a half century of lost opportunity as we discovered the vast commonalities among us in terms of professional aspirations and setbacks, family experiences and joys, physical ailments and laments over deceased classmates.
Two generations of American voters have come of age since I stood with roughly 200,000 people on the Washington Mall on August 28, 1963, straining to hear Rev. Martin Luther King's soul-stirring speech that punctuated the March on Washington. If anything, his words that day resonate even more today in light of the Obama victory. As King intoned, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
Since 1963, millions of Americans have studied together and lived together on college and university campuses that are vastly more integrated than they were in my day. We have worked alongside one another in teams in large companies, small businesses, municipal agencies, hospitals and community organizations. As members of the military, we have fought side-by-side in battles and served in close synchronization onboard aircraft carriers. Our colleagues, co-workers and bosses now come in all races, genders and sexual persuasions. We've grown accustomed to seeing someone in addition to white males get elected, pilot spacecraft and smash glass ceilings in every realm of American life.
The growing acceptance of diversity that fueled Senator Obama's victory did not occur by accident or osmosis. It wasn't the result of immaculate reconciliation. No, it took years of conscious and conscientious affirmative action by the gatekeepers of opportunity-in college admissions, in hiring and promotion, in the allocation of business opportunity-to systematically expose two generations of Americans to one another and gradually teach a gratifyingly large proportion of the population to understand and trust, respect and rely upon one another.
As we strive this election season to rise above ethnicity, let us give this powerful-and patently successful-engine of social and racial progress its due. Affirmative action unquestionably has made our robustly diverse nation a more perfect union.
Hugh B. Price is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former president and CEO of the National Urban League. http://www.bnd.com/285/story/378174.html
Monday, June 23, 2008
African-American Woman, Paula Allen-Meares, selected to lead University of Illinois at Chicago
NEWS RELEASE
June 17, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Note to journalists: A publication-quality photograph of Paula Allen-Meares is available at http://www.uillinois.edu/our/images/)
Paula Allen-Meares selected to lead University of Illinois at Chicago
Dean of social work is member of Institute of Medicine of the National Academies
CHICAGO, Ill. — Paula Allen-Meares, dean of the nationally top-ranked school of social work at the University of Michigan, has been selected as the next chancellor of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), pending formal approval by the Board of Trustees.
The chancellor serves as the executive officer of the UIC campus and reports to the president of the University of Illinois in a system that includes campuses in Urbana-Champaign and Springfield and the university's online Global Campus.
Allen-Meares would take office effective Jan. 16, 2009, and would assume the helm of a UIC campus that ranks 47th nationally in federally funded research, enrolls 25,000 undergraduate, graduate and professional students, employs 12,000 faculty and staff and operates with a total annual budget of about $1.7 billion. It is the largest university in Chicago.
U. of I. President B. Joseph White said Allen-Meares was selected from a field of more than 100 who expressed interest in the chancellorship. A 20-member search advisory committee culled the field to 17 candidates and five finalists were interviewed by the Board of Trustees.
"Paula Allen-Meares is a high-aspiration, high-achieving leader who for 15 years has kept a professional school of a leading university at the very top of the national rankings. The search committee described Paula as a role model for the UIC community, an academic leader and highly productive scholar who is personally involved in vital areas of improving peoples' lives," White said. "She will lead UIC through its next level of development as a great urban research university."
Allen-Meares has been dean of the school of social work at the University of Michigan since 1993 and is the Norma Radin Collegiate Professor of Social Work as well as a professor of education at the university. Prior to joining the University of Michigan, Allen-Meares was a professor and dean of the school of social work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she received her master's and Ph.D. degrees. Her bachelor's degree was earned at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
"The mission of the University of Illinois at Chicago reflects my strong beliefs: ‘to create knowledge that transforms our views of the world and, through sharing and application, transforms the world.' For this reason, I am deeply honored to become the next chancellor at UIC," Allen-Meares said.
"My vision is to continue to create knowledge and put knowledge to work as we educate the next cohorts of students. I hope to build on and strengthen bonds with the other campuses that comprise the University of Illinois system so that together we can make a real difference in communities, in the nation and around the globe," Allen-Meares said.
U. of I. Board of Trustees Chair Lawrence C. Eppley said Allen-Meares' experience and accomplishments made her the leading choice for the UIC chancellorship.
"Paula Allen-Meares has exactly the right stuff that an ascendant UIC requires in a chancellor. She is a proven success as a builder and driver of a nationally acclaimed academic enterprise, with an intellectual energy and vigor to match her personal dynamism," Eppley said. "She understands the importance of fundraising at a public university and has succeeded in building the endowment of the school of social work at Michigan.
"Moreover, we're proud to claim her as a member of University of Illinois family, an alumna, faculty member and dean before going to Michigan. We heartily welcome her back to the U. of I. fold," Eppley said.
The Board of Trustees will act on Allen-Meares' nomination as UIC chancellor at its scheduled July 24 meeting. In addition to the UIC chancellorship, Allen-Meares would hold faculty appointments in social work and education at the UIC and Urbana campuses.
Allen-Meares said UIC's role as a health care provider and leading educator of health care professionals and the campus' Great Cities Commitment of engagement with the Chicago community are areas of common interest with her research and scholarship.
The interdisciplinary nature of the school of social work at Michigan involves joint appointments with medicine, social sciences, psychiatry and the school of art. A joint doctoral program in social work and social science engages the social science disciplines of anthropology, economics, political science, psychology and sociology with social work.
Allen-Meares' academic career has been distinguished during the nearly four decades since she first enrolled in the master's of social work program on the U. of I. Urbana-Champaign campus, where she rose between 1970 and 1993 from graduate student and teaching assistant in the school of social work to professor and dean of the school. Her interest and expertise focus on social work as it relates to educational settings and adolescents. In addition to her administrative experience as a dean at Michigan and Illinois, Allen-Meares has conducted extensive research in her field and her findings have been widely published.
Allen-Meares is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and is a trustee of the New York Academy of Medicine. At Michigan's school of social work, she is principal investigator of the Global Program on Youth, an initiative supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the principal investigator of the Skillman Good Neighborhoods Grant and the National Institute of Mental Health's Social Work Research Center on Poverty, Risk and Mental Health.
Additional biographical information and a complete curriculum vitae are posted at http://www.uillinois.edu/ChancellorSearch/.
The president of the University of Michigan, Mary Sue Coleman, said: "Paula Allen-Meares has given our campus energy and vision and established the School of Social Work as one of the top in the country. Paula has provided distinguished leadership at the University of Michigan and I am delighted for her in this new role and wish her the very best."
Elliot Kaufman, UIC professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics and chair of the search advisory committee for chancellor, said Allen-Meares represents "strong and dynamic new leadership" for UIC.
"The committee members and I are extremely pleased with the successful outcome of the UIC chancellor search," Kaufman said. "Our new chancellor rose from a field of very accomplished, talented and experienced leaders, each of whom demonstrated the high regard in which UIC is held in the higher education community and beyond. We can all be proud of UIC's past accomplishments and excited about its future with such strong and dynamic new leadership."
White applauded the search committee chair and his colleagues for their work. "I thank Elliot Kaufman and the members of the search committee for a superb job in a very robust search. The sense of UIC from the candidates was that this is the right university at the right place at the right time. The past is impressive and the future is extraordinarily promising," White said.
Former Chancellor Sylvia Manning retired last December after eight years at the UIC helm. During Manning's tenure, UIC moved into the top 50 universities nationally in federal research funding at more than $200 million annually. Eric A. "Rick" Gislason, vice chancellor for research at UIC, has served as interim chancellor and will remain in the job until next January, when he plans to retire.
Between July and next January, Allen-Meares will transition between her Michigan deanship and the UIC chancellorship, as well as major research projects that include four in which she acts as principal or co-principal investigator.
Allen-Meares is a native of Buffalo. Her spouse, Henry Meares, is assistant dean for external relations in the school of education at the University of Michigan. They will reside in the UIC Chancellor's Residence, a townhouse on historic Jackson Boulevard adjacent to the campus, that was bequeathed for this purpose by the late Dr. Olga Jonasson, a long time UIC professor and surgeon.
UIC consists of 15 colleges, including the nation's largest college of medicine, and operates the state's major public medical center. With six health sciences colleges, UIC is the principal educator of physicians, dentists, pharmacists, nurses and other health professionals serving the state. A hallmark of the campus is the Great Cities Commitment, through which UIC faculty, students and staff engage with community, corporate, foundation and government partners in hundreds of programs to improve the quality of life in metropolitan areas around the world.
###
The University of Illinois enrolls 70,000 undergraduate and graduate students at campuses in Urbana-Champaign, Chicago, Springfield and online, and it awards approximately 18,000 degrees annually. http://www.uillinois.edu/our/news/2008/june17.allen.meares.cfm
June 17, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Note to journalists: A publication-quality photograph of Paula Allen-Meares is available at http://www.uillinois.edu/our/images/)
Paula Allen-Meares selected to lead University of Illinois at Chicago
Dean of social work is member of Institute of Medicine of the National Academies
CHICAGO, Ill. — Paula Allen-Meares, dean of the nationally top-ranked school of social work at the University of Michigan, has been selected as the next chancellor of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), pending formal approval by the Board of Trustees.
The chancellor serves as the executive officer of the UIC campus and reports to the president of the University of Illinois in a system that includes campuses in Urbana-Champaign and Springfield and the university's online Global Campus.
Allen-Meares would take office effective Jan. 16, 2009, and would assume the helm of a UIC campus that ranks 47th nationally in federally funded research, enrolls 25,000 undergraduate, graduate and professional students, employs 12,000 faculty and staff and operates with a total annual budget of about $1.7 billion. It is the largest university in Chicago.
U. of I. President B. Joseph White said Allen-Meares was selected from a field of more than 100 who expressed interest in the chancellorship. A 20-member search advisory committee culled the field to 17 candidates and five finalists were interviewed by the Board of Trustees.
"Paula Allen-Meares is a high-aspiration, high-achieving leader who for 15 years has kept a professional school of a leading university at the very top of the national rankings. The search committee described Paula as a role model for the UIC community, an academic leader and highly productive scholar who is personally involved in vital areas of improving peoples' lives," White said. "She will lead UIC through its next level of development as a great urban research university."
Allen-Meares has been dean of the school of social work at the University of Michigan since 1993 and is the Norma Radin Collegiate Professor of Social Work as well as a professor of education at the university. Prior to joining the University of Michigan, Allen-Meares was a professor and dean of the school of social work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she received her master's and Ph.D. degrees. Her bachelor's degree was earned at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
"The mission of the University of Illinois at Chicago reflects my strong beliefs: ‘to create knowledge that transforms our views of the world and, through sharing and application, transforms the world.' For this reason, I am deeply honored to become the next chancellor at UIC," Allen-Meares said.
"My vision is to continue to create knowledge and put knowledge to work as we educate the next cohorts of students. I hope to build on and strengthen bonds with the other campuses that comprise the University of Illinois system so that together we can make a real difference in communities, in the nation and around the globe," Allen-Meares said.
U. of I. Board of Trustees Chair Lawrence C. Eppley said Allen-Meares' experience and accomplishments made her the leading choice for the UIC chancellorship.
"Paula Allen-Meares has exactly the right stuff that an ascendant UIC requires in a chancellor. She is a proven success as a builder and driver of a nationally acclaimed academic enterprise, with an intellectual energy and vigor to match her personal dynamism," Eppley said. "She understands the importance of fundraising at a public university and has succeeded in building the endowment of the school of social work at Michigan.
"Moreover, we're proud to claim her as a member of University of Illinois family, an alumna, faculty member and dean before going to Michigan. We heartily welcome her back to the U. of I. fold," Eppley said.
The Board of Trustees will act on Allen-Meares' nomination as UIC chancellor at its scheduled July 24 meeting. In addition to the UIC chancellorship, Allen-Meares would hold faculty appointments in social work and education at the UIC and Urbana campuses.
Allen-Meares said UIC's role as a health care provider and leading educator of health care professionals and the campus' Great Cities Commitment of engagement with the Chicago community are areas of common interest with her research and scholarship.
The interdisciplinary nature of the school of social work at Michigan involves joint appointments with medicine, social sciences, psychiatry and the school of art. A joint doctoral program in social work and social science engages the social science disciplines of anthropology, economics, political science, psychology and sociology with social work.
Allen-Meares' academic career has been distinguished during the nearly four decades since she first enrolled in the master's of social work program on the U. of I. Urbana-Champaign campus, where she rose between 1970 and 1993 from graduate student and teaching assistant in the school of social work to professor and dean of the school. Her interest and expertise focus on social work as it relates to educational settings and adolescents. In addition to her administrative experience as a dean at Michigan and Illinois, Allen-Meares has conducted extensive research in her field and her findings have been widely published.
Allen-Meares is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and is a trustee of the New York Academy of Medicine. At Michigan's school of social work, she is principal investigator of the Global Program on Youth, an initiative supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the principal investigator of the Skillman Good Neighborhoods Grant and the National Institute of Mental Health's Social Work Research Center on Poverty, Risk and Mental Health.
Additional biographical information and a complete curriculum vitae are posted at http://www.uillinois.edu/ChancellorSearch/.
The president of the University of Michigan, Mary Sue Coleman, said: "Paula Allen-Meares has given our campus energy and vision and established the School of Social Work as one of the top in the country. Paula has provided distinguished leadership at the University of Michigan and I am delighted for her in this new role and wish her the very best."
Elliot Kaufman, UIC professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics and chair of the search advisory committee for chancellor, said Allen-Meares represents "strong and dynamic new leadership" for UIC.
"The committee members and I are extremely pleased with the successful outcome of the UIC chancellor search," Kaufman said. "Our new chancellor rose from a field of very accomplished, talented and experienced leaders, each of whom demonstrated the high regard in which UIC is held in the higher education community and beyond. We can all be proud of UIC's past accomplishments and excited about its future with such strong and dynamic new leadership."
White applauded the search committee chair and his colleagues for their work. "I thank Elliot Kaufman and the members of the search committee for a superb job in a very robust search. The sense of UIC from the candidates was that this is the right university at the right place at the right time. The past is impressive and the future is extraordinarily promising," White said.
Former Chancellor Sylvia Manning retired last December after eight years at the UIC helm. During Manning's tenure, UIC moved into the top 50 universities nationally in federal research funding at more than $200 million annually. Eric A. "Rick" Gislason, vice chancellor for research at UIC, has served as interim chancellor and will remain in the job until next January, when he plans to retire.
Between July and next January, Allen-Meares will transition between her Michigan deanship and the UIC chancellorship, as well as major research projects that include four in which she acts as principal or co-principal investigator.
Allen-Meares is a native of Buffalo. Her spouse, Henry Meares, is assistant dean for external relations in the school of education at the University of Michigan. They will reside in the UIC Chancellor's Residence, a townhouse on historic Jackson Boulevard adjacent to the campus, that was bequeathed for this purpose by the late Dr. Olga Jonasson, a long time UIC professor and surgeon.
UIC consists of 15 colleges, including the nation's largest college of medicine, and operates the state's major public medical center. With six health sciences colleges, UIC is the principal educator of physicians, dentists, pharmacists, nurses and other health professionals serving the state. A hallmark of the campus is the Great Cities Commitment, through which UIC faculty, students and staff engage with community, corporate, foundation and government partners in hundreds of programs to improve the quality of life in metropolitan areas around the world.
###
The University of Illinois enrolls 70,000 undergraduate and graduate students at campuses in Urbana-Champaign, Chicago, Springfield and online, and it awards approximately 18,000 degrees annually. http://www.uillinois.edu/our/news/2008/june17.allen.meares.cfm
Will Affirmative Action Roil '08 Race?
ABC News
Obama Against Connerly Initiatives; McCain Still Mum
By TEDDY DAVIS, TAHMAN BRADLEY, and GREGORY WALLACE
June 20, 2008—
Democrat Barack Obama opposes three state ballot measures which would end affirmative action in Colorado, Arizona, and Nebraska. Republican John McCain, by contrast, continues to take no position, according to a campaign spokesperson.
The McCain campaign's reluctance to take a stance after multiple requests from ABC News has led Ward Connerly, the proponent of the measures, to say that the presumptive Republican nominee is missing an opportunity to draw a sharp contrast with his Democratic rival.
"If (McCain) came out and said, 'I believe that our country is at its best when it treats everybody as an equal' . . . and I have read these initiatives and they do precisely that. . . . He puts Sen. Obama in one hell of a spot," Connerly told ABC News.
"Senator Obama has to be careful, as he opposes our initiatives, that he not be seen as an anti-white male kind of candidate," said Connerly. "White males typically vote, probably 70/30 in favor of these initiatives. If Sen. Obama isn't careful, he can get saddled with the impression, the image, of being an angry black man, despite the soothing rhetoric that he uses."
Connerly, who has led efforts which ended race- and gender-based affirmative action in California and Michigan, contributed $500 to Obama's campaign on Feb. 28. He made this donation even though the Illinois Democrat lent his voice to a 2006 radio ad seeking to defeat Connerly's ballot measure in the Wolverine State.
"I really thought that Senator Obama in his heart of hearts would like to get beyond race. He's a multiracial guy," said Connerly, who himself is multi-racial. "Multiracial people understand race in a far more nuanced way than those who are quote 'mono-racial.'"
Obama lost Connerly's backing on June 10 when the Illinois Democrat came out against Connerly's Civil Rights Initiatives in DeWayne Wickham's U.S.A. Today column. [To read the entire story, go to: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=5213420&page=1 ]
Obama Against Connerly Initiatives; McCain Still Mum
By TEDDY DAVIS, TAHMAN BRADLEY, and GREGORY WALLACE
June 20, 2008—
Democrat Barack Obama opposes three state ballot measures which would end affirmative action in Colorado, Arizona, and Nebraska. Republican John McCain, by contrast, continues to take no position, according to a campaign spokesperson.
The McCain campaign's reluctance to take a stance after multiple requests from ABC News has led Ward Connerly, the proponent of the measures, to say that the presumptive Republican nominee is missing an opportunity to draw a sharp contrast with his Democratic rival.
"If (McCain) came out and said, 'I believe that our country is at its best when it treats everybody as an equal' . . . and I have read these initiatives and they do precisely that. . . . He puts Sen. Obama in one hell of a spot," Connerly told ABC News.
"Senator Obama has to be careful, as he opposes our initiatives, that he not be seen as an anti-white male kind of candidate," said Connerly. "White males typically vote, probably 70/30 in favor of these initiatives. If Sen. Obama isn't careful, he can get saddled with the impression, the image, of being an angry black man, despite the soothing rhetoric that he uses."
Connerly, who has led efforts which ended race- and gender-based affirmative action in California and Michigan, contributed $500 to Obama's campaign on Feb. 28. He made this donation even though the Illinois Democrat lent his voice to a 2006 radio ad seeking to defeat Connerly's ballot measure in the Wolverine State.
"I really thought that Senator Obama in his heart of hearts would like to get beyond race. He's a multiracial guy," said Connerly, who himself is multi-racial. "Multiracial people understand race in a far more nuanced way than those who are quote 'mono-racial.'"
Obama lost Connerly's backing on June 10 when the Illinois Democrat came out against Connerly's Civil Rights Initiatives in DeWayne Wickham's U.S.A. Today column. [To read the entire story, go to: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=5213420&page=1 ]
Friday, June 20, 2008
New AAAA Webinar on Complaint Investigations, July 24, 2008
SAVE THE DATE
NEW AAAA WEBINAR
JULY 24, 2008
2:00 - 3:00 pm EDT
"Ready, Fire, Aim: How to Properly Conduct Workplace Investigations"
Conducting a workplace investigation is a sensitive and often complex matter. Too often employers forge ahead without taking the time to properly manage each phase of the investigation. Navigating through issues such as privacy and privilege can be tricky and it is important that any investigation is conducted properly and legally. This session will focus on each step of the investigation process, including document review, interviewing, determining disciplinary action(s), and follow up. Walk away with a list of key action items that will help your organization limit risk and prevent costly litigation, as well as best practices advice. Sign up for this informative and detailed session with Valerie Hoffman, Senior Partner at Seyfarth Shaw LLP who has conducted hundreds of workplace investigations, to learn about the do’s and don’ts of properly conducting these investigations.
LOOK FOR THE REGISTRATION INFORMATION COMING SOON!
NEW AAAA WEBINAR
JULY 24, 2008
2:00 - 3:00 pm EDT
"Ready, Fire, Aim: How to Properly Conduct Workplace Investigations"
Conducting a workplace investigation is a sensitive and often complex matter. Too often employers forge ahead without taking the time to properly manage each phase of the investigation. Navigating through issues such as privacy and privilege can be tricky and it is important that any investigation is conducted properly and legally. This session will focus on each step of the investigation process, including document review, interviewing, determining disciplinary action(s), and follow up. Walk away with a list of key action items that will help your organization limit risk and prevent costly litigation, as well as best practices advice. Sign up for this informative and detailed session with Valerie Hoffman, Senior Partner at Seyfarth Shaw LLP who has conducted hundreds of workplace investigations, to learn about the do’s and don’ts of properly conducting these investigations.
LOOK FOR THE REGISTRATION INFORMATION COMING SOON!
A Supreme Court Victory for Older Workers
The New York Times
June 20, 2008
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled for older workers Thursday in a closely watched age discrimination case, placing on employers the burden of proving that a layoff or other action that hurts older workers more than others was based not on age but on some other “reasonable factor.”
The 7-to-1 decision overturned a ruling by the federal appeals court in New York, which said employees had the burden of disproving an employer’s defense of reasonableness.
The case was brought by 28 employees who lost their jobs during cutbacks at a federal research laboratory in upstate New York. All but one of the employees who were laid off were at least 40, the age at which protections begin under the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act.
The issue in the case, while technical, is important for the litigation of age discrimination cases in which an employer’s action or policy that appears neutral on its face has a disparate impact on older workers. David Certner, the chief legislative counsel for AARP, praised the decision and said it would prove “vital to the creation and maintenance of a workplace that is fair and free of age bias.”
From a broader perspective, this decision, coming near the end of the Supreme Court’s term, completed a five-for-five sweep for employees’ rights in workplace discrimination cases that was little short of astonishing, given how far the court had appeared to be tilting toward business under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. By comfortable margins, the court interpreted federal antidiscrimination statutes broadly to enable employees to overcome procedural hurdles and to pursue a category of claims not fully detailed in the statutes themselves.
Business lawyers, while pointing to victories in other parts of their agenda, were quick to acknowledge that the court’s apparent turnabout in the employment area was a big surprise.
“It’s been a clean sweep,” said Robin S. Conrad, executive vice president of the National Chamber Litigation Center, which handles Supreme Court cases for the United States Chamber of Commerce.
A year ago, Ms. Conrad proclaimed the court’s 2006-7 term “our best term ever.” Now “it’s back to the drawing board,” she said in an interview, adding, “To achieve our objectives, we’ll have to battle it out case by case.”
The National Federation of Independent Business, which represents small businesses, said the decision Thursday “will make it much harder for small-business owners to defend themselves against allegations of violations of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act,” particularly when it comes to responding to “market changes and new technology without fearing that any real change in their business plan will prompt a baseless lawsuit.”
In the case on Thursday, Meacham v. Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, No. 06-1505, the employer was faced with laying off some employees after a voluntary buyout failed to produce the desired staff reduction. Managers were instructed to rate employees for how “flexible” and “retrainable” they were. Of the 31 who were eventually laid off, 30 were at least 40 years old.
The age discrimination law provides that an employment action that would be “otherwise prohibited” is lawful if “the differentiation is based on reasonable factors other than age.” The question in the case was what happens once an employer invokes this defense: does the employer have to prove, or do the plaintiffs have to disprove, the existence of the reasonable non-age factors?
The laid-off Knolls Atomic workers won their case before a jury, but the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned the verdict on the ground that the employees had not refuted the reasonableness of the laboratory’s selection process.
In his majority opinion overturning the appeals court’s decision, Justice David H. Souter said the structure of the statute made it clear that the defense was “entirely the responsibility of the party raising it.” He said that by using the phrase “otherwise prohibited,” Congress meant to offer employers “an excuse or justification for behavior that, standing alone, violates the statute’s prohibition,” but only if they could prove their entitlement to the defense. [To read the entire article, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/washington/20scotus.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin ]
June 20, 2008
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled for older workers Thursday in a closely watched age discrimination case, placing on employers the burden of proving that a layoff or other action that hurts older workers more than others was based not on age but on some other “reasonable factor.”
The 7-to-1 decision overturned a ruling by the federal appeals court in New York, which said employees had the burden of disproving an employer’s defense of reasonableness.
The case was brought by 28 employees who lost their jobs during cutbacks at a federal research laboratory in upstate New York. All but one of the employees who were laid off were at least 40, the age at which protections begin under the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act.
The issue in the case, while technical, is important for the litigation of age discrimination cases in which an employer’s action or policy that appears neutral on its face has a disparate impact on older workers. David Certner, the chief legislative counsel for AARP, praised the decision and said it would prove “vital to the creation and maintenance of a workplace that is fair and free of age bias.”
From a broader perspective, this decision, coming near the end of the Supreme Court’s term, completed a five-for-five sweep for employees’ rights in workplace discrimination cases that was little short of astonishing, given how far the court had appeared to be tilting toward business under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. By comfortable margins, the court interpreted federal antidiscrimination statutes broadly to enable employees to overcome procedural hurdles and to pursue a category of claims not fully detailed in the statutes themselves.
Business lawyers, while pointing to victories in other parts of their agenda, were quick to acknowledge that the court’s apparent turnabout in the employment area was a big surprise.
“It’s been a clean sweep,” said Robin S. Conrad, executive vice president of the National Chamber Litigation Center, which handles Supreme Court cases for the United States Chamber of Commerce.
A year ago, Ms. Conrad proclaimed the court’s 2006-7 term “our best term ever.” Now “it’s back to the drawing board,” she said in an interview, adding, “To achieve our objectives, we’ll have to battle it out case by case.”
The National Federation of Independent Business, which represents small businesses, said the decision Thursday “will make it much harder for small-business owners to defend themselves against allegations of violations of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act,” particularly when it comes to responding to “market changes and new technology without fearing that any real change in their business plan will prompt a baseless lawsuit.”
In the case on Thursday, Meacham v. Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, No. 06-1505, the employer was faced with laying off some employees after a voluntary buyout failed to produce the desired staff reduction. Managers were instructed to rate employees for how “flexible” and “retrainable” they were. Of the 31 who were eventually laid off, 30 were at least 40 years old.
The age discrimination law provides that an employment action that would be “otherwise prohibited” is lawful if “the differentiation is based on reasonable factors other than age.” The question in the case was what happens once an employer invokes this defense: does the employer have to prove, or do the plaintiffs have to disprove, the existence of the reasonable non-age factors?
The laid-off Knolls Atomic workers won their case before a jury, but the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned the verdict on the ground that the employees had not refuted the reasonableness of the laboratory’s selection process.
In his majority opinion overturning the appeals court’s decision, Justice David H. Souter said the structure of the statute made it clear that the defense was “entirely the responsibility of the party raising it.” He said that by using the phrase “otherwise prohibited,” Congress meant to offer employers “an excuse or justification for behavior that, standing alone, violates the statute’s prohibition,” but only if they could prove their entitlement to the defense. [To read the entire article, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/washington/20scotus.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin ]
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Women's Groups Oppose Affirmative Action Initiative
KETV.Com
Opponents Call Petition Out-Of-State Nonsense
POSTED: 4:56 pm CDT June 18, 2008
UPDATED: 5:37 pm CDT June 18, 2008
OMAHA, Neb. -- Women's groups on Wednesday came out in opposition to a Nebraska initiative that would change the state's affirmative action laws.
The Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative petition would end race- and gender-based affirmative action.
The YWCA, Girls Inc., the College of St. Mary and the Women's Fund said Wednesday that the initiative and those circulating the petitions are misleading voters. They also said that the petition is being driven by outside influences. "It came from people in California and New York who somehow thought they knew what was best for the state of Nebraska," said opponent Bonnie Coffey. "They brought their out-of-state initiative, hired out-of-state petitioners and funded it with out-of-state money."
Some groups said that if the initiative were passed, it could jeopardize funding for a number of programs for women and girls. http://www.ketv.com/news/16646780/detail.html
Opponents Call Petition Out-Of-State Nonsense
POSTED: 4:56 pm CDT June 18, 2008
UPDATED: 5:37 pm CDT June 18, 2008
OMAHA, Neb. -- Women's groups on Wednesday came out in opposition to a Nebraska initiative that would change the state's affirmative action laws.
The Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative petition would end race- and gender-based affirmative action.
The YWCA, Girls Inc., the College of St. Mary and the Women's Fund said Wednesday that the initiative and those circulating the petitions are misleading voters. They also said that the petition is being driven by outside influences. "It came from people in California and New York who somehow thought they knew what was best for the state of Nebraska," said opponent Bonnie Coffey. "They brought their out-of-state initiative, hired out-of-state petitioners and funded it with out-of-state money."
Some groups said that if the initiative were passed, it could jeopardize funding for a number of programs for women and girls. http://www.ketv.com/news/16646780/detail.html
House Committee Approves Bill to Clarify Who Qualifies Under Disability Law
The Chronicle of Higher Education
June 19, 2008
By SARA LIPKA
Washington
The education committee of the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to approve a bill that would update the Americans With Disabilities Act but not broaden its coverage as much as an earlier bill, opposed by college officials, had sought to do.
The initial bill, which was introduced last July, defined as disabled anyone with "a physical or mental impairment." It dropped the existing standard that a disability must "substantially limit" a "major life activity" to be considered for coverage under the law. Many higher-education officials were concerned that expanded eligibility would overwhelm campus offices that work to accommodate disabled students (The Chronicle, June 13).
The new bill, which the Committee on Education and Labor approved by a vote of 43 to 1, includes the stricter definition of a disability. And it specifies a list of major life activities that a disability must limit, adding, for the first time, concentrating and thinking.
The intent of the bill remains the same: to reverse judicial rulings it says "have narrowed the broad scope of protection intended to be afforded by the ADA, thus eliminating protection for many individuals whom Congress intended to protect."
Higher-education associations welcomed the new bill as an improvement over the one introduced last year. "It really would have expanded the reach of the act so far that it would have been watered down significantly," said Ada Meloy, general counsel for the American Council on Education.
Specifically, she said, colleges were concerned that if more students sought disability services, those who really needed them would suffer. "There are individuals from time to time who take advantage of things," she said, "and that can be to the disadvantage of others."
But even with the stricter definition, the new bill still raises questions for colleges, Ms. Meloy said. The inclusion of concentrating and thinking, she said, could prompt more students to identify themselves as disabled.
Another provision in the bill would prevent colleges from considering "mitigating measures," such as medication and assistive technology, when assessing a student's need. That also worries colleges, Ms. Meloy said.
"Students who have achieved at a high academic level may still be requesting accommodations that are not available to other students," she said. "At a certain point, fairness becomes an issue."
'Thinking' and 'Concentrating'
Some advocates for disability services do not share Ms. Meloy's concerns. The prohibition on considering mitigating measures already exists in federal regulations, if not law, said Jane E. Jarrow, president of Disability Access Information and Support, an organization that helps colleges meet disability standards.
"The higher-ed community has always functioned with that understanding in place," she said. ...
The full House may consider the new bill, HR 3195, as early as next week, while the Senate has yet to act on its version, S 1881.
[To read the entire story, go to: http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/06/3451n.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en ]
June 19, 2008
By SARA LIPKA
Washington
The education committee of the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to approve a bill that would update the Americans With Disabilities Act but not broaden its coverage as much as an earlier bill, opposed by college officials, had sought to do.
The initial bill, which was introduced last July, defined as disabled anyone with "a physical or mental impairment." It dropped the existing standard that a disability must "substantially limit" a "major life activity" to be considered for coverage under the law. Many higher-education officials were concerned that expanded eligibility would overwhelm campus offices that work to accommodate disabled students (The Chronicle, June 13).
The new bill, which the Committee on Education and Labor approved by a vote of 43 to 1, includes the stricter definition of a disability. And it specifies a list of major life activities that a disability must limit, adding, for the first time, concentrating and thinking.
The intent of the bill remains the same: to reverse judicial rulings it says "have narrowed the broad scope of protection intended to be afforded by the ADA, thus eliminating protection for many individuals whom Congress intended to protect."
Higher-education associations welcomed the new bill as an improvement over the one introduced last year. "It really would have expanded the reach of the act so far that it would have been watered down significantly," said Ada Meloy, general counsel for the American Council on Education.
Specifically, she said, colleges were concerned that if more students sought disability services, those who really needed them would suffer. "There are individuals from time to time who take advantage of things," she said, "and that can be to the disadvantage of others."
But even with the stricter definition, the new bill still raises questions for colleges, Ms. Meloy said. The inclusion of concentrating and thinking, she said, could prompt more students to identify themselves as disabled.
Another provision in the bill would prevent colleges from considering "mitigating measures," such as medication and assistive technology, when assessing a student's need. That also worries colleges, Ms. Meloy said.
"Students who have achieved at a high academic level may still be requesting accommodations that are not available to other students," she said. "At a certain point, fairness becomes an issue."
'Thinking' and 'Concentrating'
Some advocates for disability services do not share Ms. Meloy's concerns. The prohibition on considering mitigating measures already exists in federal regulations, if not law, said Jane E. Jarrow, president of Disability Access Information and Support, an organization that helps colleges meet disability standards.
"The higher-ed community has always functioned with that understanding in place," she said. ...
The full House may consider the new bill, HR 3195, as early as next week, while the Senate has yet to act on its version, S 1881.
[To read the entire story, go to: http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/06/3451n.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en ]
June 19, 1964: Civil Rights Bill Passed, 73-27; Johnson Urges All To Comply; Dirksen Berates Goldwater
The New York Times On this Day
Action By Senate
Revised Measure Now Goes Back to House for Concurrence
By E. W. KENWORTHY
Washington, June 19--The Senate passed the civil rights bill today by a vote of 73 - 27.
The final roll-call came at 7:40 P.M. on the 83d day of debate, nine days after closure was invoked.
Voting for the bill were 46 Democrats and 27 Republicans. Voting against it were 21 Democrats and six Republicans.
Except for Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, all the Democratic votes against the bill came from Southerners.
Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona voted against the bill, as he said yesterday he would. The five other Republicans opposing it all support Mr. Goldwater's candidacy for the Republican Presidential nomination.
They were Bourke B. Hickenlooper of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee; Norris Cotton of New Hampshire, Edwin L. Mechem of New Mexico, Milward L. Simpson of Wyoming and a John G. Tower of Texas.
2 Pledge Acceptance
The bill will now go back to the House for concurrence in the changes that the Senate made in the measure the House passed last Feb. 10 by a vote of 290 to 130.
Tonight, Representatives Emanuel Celler, Democrat of New York, and William M. McCulloch, Republican of Ohio, who are the chairman and ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, said that they would accept the Senate version of the bill.
"We believe that the House membership will take the same position," they said.
With the support of these two men, who were responsible for the House bill, acceptance of the Senate bill in the House is assured.
President Johnson hopes to have the bill on his desk by July 3 at the latest so that he can sign it on the Fourth of July.
Powers of the Bill
The bill passed by the Senate outlaws discrimination in places of public accommodation, publicly owned facilities, employment and union membership and Federally aided programs. It gives the Attorney General new powers to speed school desegregation and enforce the Negro's right to vote.
The Senate bill differs from the House measure chiefly in giving states and local communities more scope and time to deal with complaints of discrimination in hiring and public accommodations. It allows the Attorney General to initiate suits in these areas where he finds a "pattern of discrimination, but does not permit him, as did the House bill, to file suits on behalf of individuals.
After the roll-call, several thousand people gathered in the plaza before the floodlit Capitol to applaud the Senate Democratic leader, Mike Mansfield of Montana, and the Republican leader, Everett McKinley Dirksen of Illinois. Mr. Dirksen was instrumental in shaping the compromise that the Senate passed.
Burke Marshall, the Justice Department's civil rights chief, said after the bill was passed tonight that the department would move promptly to enforce the measure.
"I think there is going to be compliance with this bill," Mr. Marshall said. "That's the first thing."
"But where there is a pattern of noncompliance, we will move as expeditiously as possible in the courts."
It was a year ago today, a few weeks after the riots in Birmingham, Ala. that President Kennedy sent a draft civil rights bill to Congress. He concluded his message with these words:
"I ask you to look into your hearts--not in search of charity, for the Negro neither wants nor needs condescension--but for the one plain, proud and priceless quality that united us all as Americans: A sense of justice.
"In this year of the emancipation centennial, justice requires us to insure the blessings of liberty for all Americans and their posterity--not merely for reasons of economic efficiency, world diplomacy and domestic tranquility--but, above all, because it is right."
Tonight the first sign that a vote on the bill was imminent came about 7 o' clock when Senator Mansfield rose and paid tribute to Senator Dirksen, who framed the substitute bill.
"This is his finest hour," Mr. Mansfield said. "The Senate and the whole country are in debt to the Senator from Illinois."
Mr. Mansfield then paid tribute to the "great service" rendered by Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota, the Democratic floor manager of the bill, and Senator Thomas H. Kuchel of California, the Republican floor manager.
'No Sense of Triumph'
Mr. Mansfield said that there was "no room for unwarranted sentiments of victory," and that there should be "no sense of triumph but a profound humility" upon the part of those who had labored and voted for the bill.
Then Mr. Dirksen got up, thanked Mr. Mansfield for his "patience and tolerance" and then went into what will probably be remembered as one of the finest speeches of his career.
The Illinois Republican proceeded to answer Mr. Goldwater's implied rebuke of yesterday when the Arizonan called the rights measure an "unconstitutional" bill.
Mr. Dirksen recalled that on June 5 last year the Republican Conference of the Senate urged the Administration to produce a program to guarantee the rights and privileges of all citizens.
He then addressed himself to Mr. Goldwater's argument that the sections of the bill dealing with public accommodations and employment were an unwarranted extension of the commerce clause of the Constitution.
Social Legislation Cited
Mr. Dirksen tolled a long list of social and economic legislation that had been similarly called unconstitutional when first proposed.
"Today they are accepted," he said, "because they were a forward thrust in the whole effort of mankind." [To read the entire article, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0619.html#article ]
Action By Senate
Revised Measure Now Goes Back to House for Concurrence
By E. W. KENWORTHY
Washington, June 19--The Senate passed the civil rights bill today by a vote of 73 - 27.
The final roll-call came at 7:40 P.M. on the 83d day of debate, nine days after closure was invoked.
Voting for the bill were 46 Democrats and 27 Republicans. Voting against it were 21 Democrats and six Republicans.
Except for Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, all the Democratic votes against the bill came from Southerners.
Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona voted against the bill, as he said yesterday he would. The five other Republicans opposing it all support Mr. Goldwater's candidacy for the Republican Presidential nomination.
They were Bourke B. Hickenlooper of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee; Norris Cotton of New Hampshire, Edwin L. Mechem of New Mexico, Milward L. Simpson of Wyoming and a John G. Tower of Texas.
2 Pledge Acceptance
The bill will now go back to the House for concurrence in the changes that the Senate made in the measure the House passed last Feb. 10 by a vote of 290 to 130.
Tonight, Representatives Emanuel Celler, Democrat of New York, and William M. McCulloch, Republican of Ohio, who are the chairman and ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, said that they would accept the Senate version of the bill.
"We believe that the House membership will take the same position," they said.
With the support of these two men, who were responsible for the House bill, acceptance of the Senate bill in the House is assured.
President Johnson hopes to have the bill on his desk by July 3 at the latest so that he can sign it on the Fourth of July.
Powers of the Bill
The bill passed by the Senate outlaws discrimination in places of public accommodation, publicly owned facilities, employment and union membership and Federally aided programs. It gives the Attorney General new powers to speed school desegregation and enforce the Negro's right to vote.
The Senate bill differs from the House measure chiefly in giving states and local communities more scope and time to deal with complaints of discrimination in hiring and public accommodations. It allows the Attorney General to initiate suits in these areas where he finds a "pattern of discrimination, but does not permit him, as did the House bill, to file suits on behalf of individuals.
After the roll-call, several thousand people gathered in the plaza before the floodlit Capitol to applaud the Senate Democratic leader, Mike Mansfield of Montana, and the Republican leader, Everett McKinley Dirksen of Illinois. Mr. Dirksen was instrumental in shaping the compromise that the Senate passed.
Burke Marshall, the Justice Department's civil rights chief, said after the bill was passed tonight that the department would move promptly to enforce the measure.
"I think there is going to be compliance with this bill," Mr. Marshall said. "That's the first thing."
"But where there is a pattern of noncompliance, we will move as expeditiously as possible in the courts."
It was a year ago today, a few weeks after the riots in Birmingham, Ala. that President Kennedy sent a draft civil rights bill to Congress. He concluded his message with these words:
"I ask you to look into your hearts--not in search of charity, for the Negro neither wants nor needs condescension--but for the one plain, proud and priceless quality that united us all as Americans: A sense of justice.
"In this year of the emancipation centennial, justice requires us to insure the blessings of liberty for all Americans and their posterity--not merely for reasons of economic efficiency, world diplomacy and domestic tranquility--but, above all, because it is right."
Tonight the first sign that a vote on the bill was imminent came about 7 o' clock when Senator Mansfield rose and paid tribute to Senator Dirksen, who framed the substitute bill.
"This is his finest hour," Mr. Mansfield said. "The Senate and the whole country are in debt to the Senator from Illinois."
Mr. Mansfield then paid tribute to the "great service" rendered by Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota, the Democratic floor manager of the bill, and Senator Thomas H. Kuchel of California, the Republican floor manager.
'No Sense of Triumph'
Mr. Mansfield said that there was "no room for unwarranted sentiments of victory," and that there should be "no sense of triumph but a profound humility" upon the part of those who had labored and voted for the bill.
Then Mr. Dirksen got up, thanked Mr. Mansfield for his "patience and tolerance" and then went into what will probably be remembered as one of the finest speeches of his career.
The Illinois Republican proceeded to answer Mr. Goldwater's implied rebuke of yesterday when the Arizonan called the rights measure an "unconstitutional" bill.
Mr. Dirksen recalled that on June 5 last year the Republican Conference of the Senate urged the Administration to produce a program to guarantee the rights and privileges of all citizens.
He then addressed himself to Mr. Goldwater's argument that the sections of the bill dealing with public accommodations and employment were an unwarranted extension of the commerce clause of the Constitution.
Social Legislation Cited
Mr. Dirksen tolled a long list of social and economic legislation that had been similarly called unconstitutional when first proposed.
"Today they are accepted," he said, "because they were a forward thrust in the whole effort of mankind." [To read the entire article, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0619.html#article ]
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
U. of Michigan Says It Has Avoided a Big Drop in Diversity From Proposal 2
The Chronicle of Higher Education
June 17, 2008
The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor’s preliminary admissions figures for this fall’s entering freshmen suggest that it has a avoided a substantial drop in black, Hispanic, and Native American enrollment despite being barred from considering race and ethnicity in admissions.
The number of applications from students in one of those three minority groups fell by just 2 percent in the first full admissions cycle conducted under Proposal 2, a ban on the use of affirmative-action preferences by public colleges and other state and local agencies. Such students account for 10.47 percent of the projected entering freshman class, down from 10.85 percent a year ago.
“The results are not as dire as the opponents of Proposal 2 had predicted,” Ward Connerly, a leader of the campaign on behalf of the measure, said today.
A statement issued by the university described several steps it had taken to try to maintain racial and ethnic diversity. Its undergraduate-admissions office hired additional employees, expanded its hours of operation, and used Descriptor PLUS, a geodemographic search tool developed by the College Board, to identify high schools and neighborhoods that are underrepresented on its campus. The university also stepped up its outreach in communities such as Detroit. [To see the entire article, go to:
http://chronicle.com/news/article/4694/u-of-michigan-says-it-has-avoided-a-big-drop-in-diversity-from-proposal-2?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en ]
To see the University of Michigan's press release, go to: http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=6609 ]
June 17, 2008
The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor’s preliminary admissions figures for this fall’s entering freshmen suggest that it has a avoided a substantial drop in black, Hispanic, and Native American enrollment despite being barred from considering race and ethnicity in admissions.
The number of applications from students in one of those three minority groups fell by just 2 percent in the first full admissions cycle conducted under Proposal 2, a ban on the use of affirmative-action preferences by public colleges and other state and local agencies. Such students account for 10.47 percent of the projected entering freshman class, down from 10.85 percent a year ago.
“The results are not as dire as the opponents of Proposal 2 had predicted,” Ward Connerly, a leader of the campaign on behalf of the measure, said today.
A statement issued by the university described several steps it had taken to try to maintain racial and ethnic diversity. Its undergraduate-admissions office hired additional employees, expanded its hours of operation, and used Descriptor PLUS, a geodemographic search tool developed by the College Board, to identify high schools and neighborhoods that are underrepresented on its campus. The university also stepped up its outreach in communities such as Detroit. [To see the entire article, go to:
http://chronicle.com/news/article/4694/u-of-michigan-says-it-has-avoided-a-big-drop-in-diversity-from-proposal-2?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en ]
To see the University of Michigan's press release, go to: http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=6609 ]
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Barack Obama Comes Out Against Ward Connerly's Latest Campaigns
The Chronicle of Higher Education
June 11, 2008
Ward Connerly—the former University of California regent, prominent affirmative action critic, and Republican activist—announced back in February that he had donated $500 to Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign. In a subsequent Washington Post article, he said he had given Mr. Obama the money to honor him “for trying to take race out of the body politic.” He said the campaigns of Mr. Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton show that there is no longer a need for affirmative-action preferences “to compensate for, quote, institutional racism and institutional sexism.”
Senator Obama, however, had already showed that he disagreed with Mr. Connerly on affirmative action, having appeared in a 2006 radio advertisement opposing Proposal 2, the Michigan ballot measure banning the use of racial, ethnic, and gender preferences by public colleges and other state and local agencies. (The measure passed overwhelmingly that fall.)
An article published in USA Today this week suggests that neither Mr. Connerly’s praise and donation nor the passage of time have done much to change Mr. Obama’s views. A spokeswoman for his campaign told DeWayne Wickham, a columnist for the newspaper, that Mr. Obama opposes Mr. Connerly’s efforts to get measures similar to Proposal 2 passed in Arizona, Colorado, and Nebraska this fall.
The spokeswoman, Candice Tolliver, is quoted as saying: “Sen. Obama believes in a country in which opportunity is available to all Americans, regardless of their race, gender or economic status. That’s why he opposes these ballot initiatives, which would roll back opportunity for millions of Americans and cripple efforts to break down historic barriers to the progress of qualified women and minorities.” http://chronicle.com/blogs/election/2186/barack-obama-comes-out-against-ward-connerlys-latest-campaigns
June 11, 2008
Ward Connerly—the former University of California regent, prominent affirmative action critic, and Republican activist—announced back in February that he had donated $500 to Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign. In a subsequent Washington Post article, he said he had given Mr. Obama the money to honor him “for trying to take race out of the body politic.” He said the campaigns of Mr. Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton show that there is no longer a need for affirmative-action preferences “to compensate for, quote, institutional racism and institutional sexism.”
Senator Obama, however, had already showed that he disagreed with Mr. Connerly on affirmative action, having appeared in a 2006 radio advertisement opposing Proposal 2, the Michigan ballot measure banning the use of racial, ethnic, and gender preferences by public colleges and other state and local agencies. (The measure passed overwhelmingly that fall.)
An article published in USA Today this week suggests that neither Mr. Connerly’s praise and donation nor the passage of time have done much to change Mr. Obama’s views. A spokeswoman for his campaign told DeWayne Wickham, a columnist for the newspaper, that Mr. Obama opposes Mr. Connerly’s efforts to get measures similar to Proposal 2 passed in Arizona, Colorado, and Nebraska this fall.
The spokeswoman, Candice Tolliver, is quoted as saying: “Sen. Obama believes in a country in which opportunity is available to all Americans, regardless of their race, gender or economic status. That’s why he opposes these ballot initiatives, which would roll back opportunity for millions of Americans and cripple efforts to break down historic barriers to the progress of qualified women and minorities.” http://chronicle.com/blogs/election/2186/barack-obama-comes-out-against-ward-connerlys-latest-campaigns
Minorities Remain Outside Boardroom, Executive Suite
Workforce Management
Only 13 percent expect the numbers to increase in coming years.
By Garry Kranz
June 18, 2008
Uniformity: How important is diversity within corporations? IMD International Search and Consulting, an executive recruiter in Morristown, New Jersey, paints a grim portrait. According to its global study of 2,000 “market-leading” organizations, only 13 percent of respondents are optimistic that more minorities and women will move up to the executive suite during the next three years—in spite of the fact that 78 percent of organizations cite diversity as an important organizational strategy. Women also continue to be underrepresented on corporate boards, according to the findings, with nearly half the surveyed organizations having no female members. Succession planning and acquiring talent also are listed among top concerns for companies, but this may be mere lip service. IMD says only 30 percent of company boards have identified successors to their top leadership. And while recruiting gets tougher by the day, only two-thirds of corporate directors are making talent acquisition a central strategy in their planning.
Workforce Management contributing editor Garry Kranz is based in Richmond, Virginia. E-mail editors@workforce.com to comment. http://www.workforce.com/section/quick_takes/55953_2.html
Only 13 percent expect the numbers to increase in coming years.
By Garry Kranz
June 18, 2008
Uniformity: How important is diversity within corporations? IMD International Search and Consulting, an executive recruiter in Morristown, New Jersey, paints a grim portrait. According to its global study of 2,000 “market-leading” organizations, only 13 percent of respondents are optimistic that more minorities and women will move up to the executive suite during the next three years—in spite of the fact that 78 percent of organizations cite diversity as an important organizational strategy. Women also continue to be underrepresented on corporate boards, according to the findings, with nearly half the surveyed organizations having no female members. Succession planning and acquiring talent also are listed among top concerns for companies, but this may be mere lip service. IMD says only 30 percent of company boards have identified successors to their top leadership. And while recruiting gets tougher by the day, only two-thirds of corporate directors are making talent acquisition a central strategy in their planning.
Workforce Management contributing editor Garry Kranz is based in Richmond, Virginia. E-mail editors@workforce.com to comment. http://www.workforce.com/section/quick_takes/55953_2.html
Proposed Federal Regulations Would Ease Up on Colleges' Responsibilities Under Disability Law
The Chronicle of Higher Education
June 17, 2008
By SARA LIPKA
Washington
As Congress considers a bill that would bolster the Americans With Disabilities Act, the Justice Department has proposed new regulations that would limit the accommodations universities and other entities must provide under the existing law.
The lengthy new regulations, which detail requirements for handicapped-accessible seating and qualifications for service animals, among other issues, are scheduled to be published today in the Federal Register.
Counting Seats
Compared with current regulations, the proposed update decreases the proportion of seats an "assembly area" must make accessible to people who use wheelchairs. Now that figure is about 1 percent, with the exact proportion depending on the size of the venue. A stadium of 5,000 seats, for example, must provide space for 51 wheelchairs. Stadiums larger than that must provide one more space for every 100 additional seats.
Under the proposed new regulations, a stadium of 5,001 seats would have to provide space for 36 wheelchairs. One more space would be required for every 200 additional seats a stadium has. For a stadium with a 50,000-person capacity, that would mean 261—as opposed to 501—handicapped-accessible spots.
"That seems like a step backwards to me," said L. Scott Lissner, who coordinates disability-law compliance for the Ohio State University system. "I don't know of any past examples that actually reduced the standard of access."
At Ohio State's football stadium, Mr. Lissner said, wheelchair-accessible seating is in high demand. "We're easily filling 2 percent" of all seats, he said.
The proposed revisions of regulations, he said, were driven by professional arenas, which tend to draw fewer fans with disabilities than do college stadiums.
The new regulations, if unchanged after a public comment period, would be roughly comparable to the terms of a recent settlement between the federal government and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. This spring, in response to a lawsuit over handicapped-accessible seating in its football stadium, the university agreed to provide 329 spots—or a third of a percent of its 107,000 seats—for fans in wheelchairs.
The proposed new regulations on seating would modify the ADA Standards for Accessible Design, an attempt to consolidate several building codes, Mr. Lissner said. As of now, depending on facilities' age and the source of funds for their construction, colleges may be complying with the Americans With Disabilities Act, the Architectural Barriers Act, the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards, and the American National Standards Institute's guidelines. If the changes pass, Mr. Lissner said, "all of the buildings will be under the same set of standards on campus."
Residence halls, whether operated by or on behalf of a college, would have to meet existing accessibility guidelines for "transient lodging," according to the proposed regulations. Apartment-style housing, on the other hand, would be subject to existing requirements for residential dwelling units. Prior rules did not specify how to classify campus housing for compliance purposes, the Justice Department said.
No Ferrets
Service animals are another focal point of the new regulations. The proposed rules distinguish service animals from "emotional-support animals," which they say are not covered by federal disability law. [To read the entire article, go to: http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/06/3406n.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en ]
June 17, 2008
By SARA LIPKA
Washington
As Congress considers a bill that would bolster the Americans With Disabilities Act, the Justice Department has proposed new regulations that would limit the accommodations universities and other entities must provide under the existing law.
The lengthy new regulations, which detail requirements for handicapped-accessible seating and qualifications for service animals, among other issues, are scheduled to be published today in the Federal Register.
Counting Seats
Compared with current regulations, the proposed update decreases the proportion of seats an "assembly area" must make accessible to people who use wheelchairs. Now that figure is about 1 percent, with the exact proportion depending on the size of the venue. A stadium of 5,000 seats, for example, must provide space for 51 wheelchairs. Stadiums larger than that must provide one more space for every 100 additional seats.
Under the proposed new regulations, a stadium of 5,001 seats would have to provide space for 36 wheelchairs. One more space would be required for every 200 additional seats a stadium has. For a stadium with a 50,000-person capacity, that would mean 261—as opposed to 501—handicapped-accessible spots.
"That seems like a step backwards to me," said L. Scott Lissner, who coordinates disability-law compliance for the Ohio State University system. "I don't know of any past examples that actually reduced the standard of access."
At Ohio State's football stadium, Mr. Lissner said, wheelchair-accessible seating is in high demand. "We're easily filling 2 percent" of all seats, he said.
The proposed revisions of regulations, he said, were driven by professional arenas, which tend to draw fewer fans with disabilities than do college stadiums.
The new regulations, if unchanged after a public comment period, would be roughly comparable to the terms of a recent settlement between the federal government and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. This spring, in response to a lawsuit over handicapped-accessible seating in its football stadium, the university agreed to provide 329 spots—or a third of a percent of its 107,000 seats—for fans in wheelchairs.
The proposed new regulations on seating would modify the ADA Standards for Accessible Design, an attempt to consolidate several building codes, Mr. Lissner said. As of now, depending on facilities' age and the source of funds for their construction, colleges may be complying with the Americans With Disabilities Act, the Architectural Barriers Act, the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards, and the American National Standards Institute's guidelines. If the changes pass, Mr. Lissner said, "all of the buildings will be under the same set of standards on campus."
Residence halls, whether operated by or on behalf of a college, would have to meet existing accessibility guidelines for "transient lodging," according to the proposed regulations. Apartment-style housing, on the other hand, would be subject to existing requirements for residential dwelling units. Prior rules did not specify how to classify campus housing for compliance purposes, the Justice Department said.
No Ferrets
Service animals are another focal point of the new regulations. The proposed rules distinguish service animals from "emotional-support animals," which they say are not covered by federal disability law. [To read the entire article, go to: http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/06/3406n.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en ]
Monday, June 16, 2008
WAL-MART TO PAY $250,000 FOR DISABILITY BIAS
EEOC Said Long-Time Pharmacy Technician Fired Because of Gunshot Disability
June 9, 2008
BALTIMORE – Retail giant Wal-Mart will pay $250,000 and furnish significant injunctive relief to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today. The EEOC had charged that Wal-Mart failed to accommodate and then fired a long-time pharmacy technician who suffered a disability resulting from a gunshot wound.
In its suit (1:06-cv-2514), filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, the EEOC said that Glenda D. Allen had been employed with the Arkansas-based company as a pharmacy technician since July 1993, most recently at its store in Abingdon, Md. As a result of a gunshot wound sustained during the course of a robbery at a different employer in 1994, Allen suffered permanent damage to her spinal cord and other medical issues, including an abnormal gait requiring the use of a cane as an assistive device.
The agency charged that despite Allen’s successful job performance throughout her employment, Wal-Mart declared her incapable of performing her position with or without a reasonable accommodation, denied her a reasonable accommodation, and then unlawfully fired her because of her disability. The lawsuit settled shortly after the court denied Wal-Mart’s motion for summary judgment on March 10, and partially granted the EEOC’s cross-motion for summary judgment finding that Wal-Mart had no undue hardship defense.
Disability discrimination violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The EEOC filed suit after first attempting to reach a voluntary settlement.
Commenting on her case, Allen said, “After beating all the odds -- surviving my injury when not expected to survive, walking again when told that I would never walk again, and returning to work where I received excellent performance evaluations and consistent merit increases -- I was devastated to have the rug pulled out from underneath me simply because Wal-Mart could ‘no longer accommodate my handicap needs.’ I am hopeful that this settlement will make Wal-Mart take a closer look at its policies and practices with respect to the employment of individuals with disabilities so that what happened to me will not happen to someone else.”
Along with the monetary payment, the consent decree settling the suit requires Wal-Mart to:
Observe the ADA and post a notice to employees on the ADA;
Have all salaried supervisors and managers of its Abingdon stores and in pharmacies in the district that includes Abingdon complete training on the ADA with annual refresher training for the next three years; and
Submit a list of all employees at the Abingdon store and the pharmacies in the Abingdon district who have been denied reasonable accommodation and/or complained that they have been unlawfully denied reasonable accommodation or terminated because of their disabilities.
The EEOC will monitor the company’s compliance with the decree for the next three years.
“When an employer is faced with an employee who has difficulty performing certain tasks because of his or her disability, it cannot sit back passively and then turn around and fire the employee because of its own failure to accommodate,” said EEOC Regional Attorney Jacqueline McNair. “Federal law mandates that employers engage in a good-faith interactive dialogue with the qualified disabled employee to identify potential reasonable accommodations.”
This is the EEOC’s second settlement this year with Wal-Mart concerning the ADA. In April 2008, the EEOC settled a lawsuit concerning Wal-Mart’s failure to hire an individual with cerebral palsy in Richmond, Mo., (EEOC v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., No. 04-cv-0076 (W.D. Mo. April 18, 2008) for $300,000 and injunctive relief. According to its web site (www.walmart.com), “Today, 7,357 Wal-Mart stores and Sam’s Club locations in 14 markets employ more than 2 million associates, serving more than 179 million customers a year.”
During Fiscal Year 2007, disability discrimination charges filed with the EEOC under the ADA increased 14% to 17,734 -- the highest level in a decade. Approximately one out of every five private sector charge filings with the EEOC contains an allegation of disability discrimination.
The EEOC enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. Further information about the Commission is available on its web site at www.eeoc.gov.
June 9, 2008
BALTIMORE – Retail giant Wal-Mart will pay $250,000 and furnish significant injunctive relief to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today. The EEOC had charged that Wal-Mart failed to accommodate and then fired a long-time pharmacy technician who suffered a disability resulting from a gunshot wound.
In its suit (1:06-cv-2514), filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, the EEOC said that Glenda D. Allen had been employed with the Arkansas-based company as a pharmacy technician since July 1993, most recently at its store in Abingdon, Md. As a result of a gunshot wound sustained during the course of a robbery at a different employer in 1994, Allen suffered permanent damage to her spinal cord and other medical issues, including an abnormal gait requiring the use of a cane as an assistive device.
The agency charged that despite Allen’s successful job performance throughout her employment, Wal-Mart declared her incapable of performing her position with or without a reasonable accommodation, denied her a reasonable accommodation, and then unlawfully fired her because of her disability. The lawsuit settled shortly after the court denied Wal-Mart’s motion for summary judgment on March 10, and partially granted the EEOC’s cross-motion for summary judgment finding that Wal-Mart had no undue hardship defense.
Disability discrimination violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The EEOC filed suit after first attempting to reach a voluntary settlement.
Commenting on her case, Allen said, “After beating all the odds -- surviving my injury when not expected to survive, walking again when told that I would never walk again, and returning to work where I received excellent performance evaluations and consistent merit increases -- I was devastated to have the rug pulled out from underneath me simply because Wal-Mart could ‘no longer accommodate my handicap needs.’ I am hopeful that this settlement will make Wal-Mart take a closer look at its policies and practices with respect to the employment of individuals with disabilities so that what happened to me will not happen to someone else.”
Along with the monetary payment, the consent decree settling the suit requires Wal-Mart to:
Observe the ADA and post a notice to employees on the ADA;
Have all salaried supervisors and managers of its Abingdon stores and in pharmacies in the district that includes Abingdon complete training on the ADA with annual refresher training for the next three years; and
Submit a list of all employees at the Abingdon store and the pharmacies in the Abingdon district who have been denied reasonable accommodation and/or complained that they have been unlawfully denied reasonable accommodation or terminated because of their disabilities.
The EEOC will monitor the company’s compliance with the decree for the next three years.
“When an employer is faced with an employee who has difficulty performing certain tasks because of his or her disability, it cannot sit back passively and then turn around and fire the employee because of its own failure to accommodate,” said EEOC Regional Attorney Jacqueline McNair. “Federal law mandates that employers engage in a good-faith interactive dialogue with the qualified disabled employee to identify potential reasonable accommodations.”
This is the EEOC’s second settlement this year with Wal-Mart concerning the ADA. In April 2008, the EEOC settled a lawsuit concerning Wal-Mart’s failure to hire an individual with cerebral palsy in Richmond, Mo., (EEOC v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., No. 04-cv-0076 (W.D. Mo. April 18, 2008) for $300,000 and injunctive relief. According to its web site (www.walmart.com), “Today, 7,357 Wal-Mart stores and Sam’s Club locations in 14 markets employ more than 2 million associates, serving more than 179 million customers a year.”
During Fiscal Year 2007, disability discrimination charges filed with the EEOC under the ADA increased 14% to 17,734 -- the highest level in a decade. Approximately one out of every five private sector charge filings with the EEOC contains an allegation of disability discrimination.
The EEOC enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. Further information about the Commission is available on its web site at www.eeoc.gov.
President's Plan Seeks More Access for Disabled
The New York Times
June 16, 2008
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is about to propose far-reaching new rules that would give people with disabilities greater access to tens of thousands of courtrooms, swimming pools, golf courses, stadiums, theaters, hotels and retail stores.
The proposal would substantially update and rewrite federal standards for enforcement of the Americans With Disabilities Act, a landmark civil rights law passed with strong bipartisan support in 1990. The new rules would set more stringent requirements in many areas and address some issues for the first time, in an effort to meet the needs of an aging population and growing numbers of disabled war veterans.
More than seven million businesses and all state and local government agencies would be affected. The proposal includes some exemptions for parts of existing buildings, but any new construction or renovations would have to comply.
The new standards would affect everything from the location of light switches to the height of retail service counters, to the use of monkeys as “service animals” for people with disabilities, which would be forbidden.
The White House approved the proposal in May after a five-month review. It is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, with 60 days for public comment. After considering those comments, the government would issue final rules with the force of law.
Already, the proposal is stirring concern. The United States Chamber of Commerce says it would be onerous and costly, while advocates for disabled Americans say it does not go far enough.
Since the disability law was signed by the first President Bush, advances in technology have made services more available to people with disabilities. But Justice Department officials said they were still receiving large numbers of complaints. In recent months, the federal government has settled lawsuits securing more seats for disabled fans at Madison Square Garden in New York and at the nation’s largest college football stadium, at the University of Michigan. [To see the entire article, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/washington/16disabled.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin ]
June 16, 2008
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is about to propose far-reaching new rules that would give people with disabilities greater access to tens of thousands of courtrooms, swimming pools, golf courses, stadiums, theaters, hotels and retail stores.
The proposal would substantially update and rewrite federal standards for enforcement of the Americans With Disabilities Act, a landmark civil rights law passed with strong bipartisan support in 1990. The new rules would set more stringent requirements in many areas and address some issues for the first time, in an effort to meet the needs of an aging population and growing numbers of disabled war veterans.
More than seven million businesses and all state and local government agencies would be affected. The proposal includes some exemptions for parts of existing buildings, but any new construction or renovations would have to comply.
The new standards would affect everything from the location of light switches to the height of retail service counters, to the use of monkeys as “service animals” for people with disabilities, which would be forbidden.
The White House approved the proposal in May after a five-month review. It is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, with 60 days for public comment. After considering those comments, the government would issue final rules with the force of law.
Already, the proposal is stirring concern. The United States Chamber of Commerce says it would be onerous and costly, while advocates for disabled Americans say it does not go far enough.
Since the disability law was signed by the first President Bush, advances in technology have made services more available to people with disabilities. But Justice Department officials said they were still receiving large numbers of complaints. In recent months, the federal government has settled lawsuits securing more seats for disabled fans at Madison Square Garden in New York and at the nation’s largest college football stadium, at the University of Michigan. [To see the entire article, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/washington/16disabled.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin ]
Proposed Regulations for USCIS E-Verify System and Federal Contractors
[Federal Register: June 12, 2008 (Volume 73, Number 114)][Proposed Rules] [Page 33374-33381]From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov][DOCID:fr12jn08-37] =======================================================================-----------------------------------------------------------------------DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSEGENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATIONNATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION48 CFR Parts 2, 12, 22, and 52[FAR Case 2007-013; Docket 2008-0001; Sequence 1]RIN 9000-AK91 Federal Acquisition Regulation; FAR Case 2007-013, Employment Eligibility VerificationAGENCIES: Department of Defense (DoD), General Services Administration (GSA), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).ACTION: Proposed rule.-----------------------------------------------------------------------SUMMARY: The Civilian Agency Acquisition Council and the Defense Acquisition Regulations Council (Councils) are proposing to amend the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to require certain contractors and subcontractors to use the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' (USCIS) E-Verify system as the means of verifying that certain of their employees are eligible to work in the United States.
DATES: Interested parties should submit written comments to the FAR Secretariat on or before August 11, 2008 to be considered in the formulation of a final rule.
ADDRESSES: Submit comments identified by FAR case 2007-013 by any of the following methods: Regulations.gov: http://www.regulations.gov. Submit comments via the Federal eRulemaking portal by inputting ``FAR Case 2007-013'' under the heading ``Comment or Submission''. Select the link ``Send a Comment or Submission'' that corresponds with FAR Case 2007-013. Follow the instructions provided to complete the ``Public Comment and Submission Form''. Please include your name, company name (if any), and ``FAR Case 2007-013'' on your attached document.[[Page 33375]] Fax: 202-501-4067. Mail: General Services Administration, Regulatory Secretariat (VPR), 1800 F Street, NW., Room 4035, ATTN: Laurieann Duarte, Washington, DC 20405.
Instructions: Please submit comments only and cite FAR case 2007-013 in all correspondence related to this case. All comments received will be posted without change to http://www.regulations.gov, including any personal and/or business confidential information provided.FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Meredith Murphy, Procurement Analyst, at (202) 208-6925 for clarification of content. For information pertaining to status or publication schedules, contact the FAR Secretariat at (202) 501-4755. Please cite FAR case 2007-013.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
A. Background This rule proposes to amend the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to require that certain contracts contain a clause requiring that the contractor and certain subcontractors utilize the E-Verify System to verify employment eligibility of all newly hired employees of the contractor or subcontractor and all employees directly engaged in the performance of work in the United States under those contracts. The Government awards numerous contracts each fiscal year worth hundreds of billions of dollars. At the same time, one of the Government's primary responsibilities is the enforcement of the immigration laws of the United States. It is appropriate to ensure that Government contractors and subcontractors abide by the immigration laws that the Government enforces. In 1986, Congress amended the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to prohibit the hiring or continued employment of aliens, knowing that the aliens are unauthorized to work in the United States. Public Law 99-603, Title I, Sec. 101(a)(1), 100 Stat. 3360, codified at 8 U.S.C. 1324a(a). Congress also established an employment verification system in 8 U.S.C. 1324a(b), and directed the President to evaluate that system's security and efficacy and implement necessary changes, subject to congressional oversight. 8 U.S.C. 1324a(d). To assist in the development of such changes and additions to the system, Congress also authorized the President to establish demonstration projects designed to strengthen the employment verification system. 8 U.S.C. 1324a(d)(4). In 1992 the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) launched the Telephone Verification System (TVS) pilot program--an early form of what is now the E-Verify system--as a demonstration project. 69 Interpreter Releases 702 (June 8, 1992); 515 (Apr. 27, 1992). In 1996, Congress established the Basic Pilot program (now E-Verify) as part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA). Public Law No. 104-208, Sec. Sec. 401-405, 110 Stat. 3009-655--3009-665 (1996) (8 U.S.C. 1324a note). The Basic Pilot statute instructs all departments of the Executive Branch to participate in E-Verify as part of their hiring process. IIRIRA Sec. 402(e)(1). This rule is authorized by an exercise of the President's authority under the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949 (FPASA), to ``prescribe policies and directives'' governing procurement policy ``that the President considers necessary to carry out'' that Act and that are ``consistent'' with the Act's aim of ``provid[ing] the Federal Government with an economical and efficient'' procurement system. 40 U.S.C. 121, 101. The ``economy and efficiency'' benefits to Federal contracting that flow from ensuring that the Federal Government does not do business with contractors that hire or employ unauthorized aliens were first set forth in Executive Order 12989 (see 61 FR 6091, February 15, 1996). That order, which pre-dated Congress's creation of the Basic Pilot program (now E-Verify), noted that the presence of unauthorized aliens on a contractor's workforce rendered that contractor's workforce less stable and reliable than the workforces of contractors who do not employ unauthorized aliens. The executive order entitled ``Economy and Efficiency in Government Procurement Through Compliance with Certain Immigration and Nationality Act Provisions and Use of an Electronic Employment Eligibility Verification System'' of June 6, 2008, amends Executive Order 12989 and, together with the Designation by the Secretary of Homeland Security, directs Federal agencies, in light of the recent advances in the reliability, convenience, and accuracy of the E-Verify system, to use this powerful tool to avoid both the general inefficiencies that flow from contracting with employers burdened with unstable workforces as well as the direct costs of disruptions to Federal contract performance that result when unauthorized aliens are found in, and must be subsequently removed from, the Federal contract workforce. This proposed rule inserts a clause into Federal contracts committing Government contractors to use the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) E-Verify System to verify that all of the contractors' new hires, and all employees (existing and new) directly engaged in the performance of work under Federal contracts, are authorized to work in the United States. The E-Verify System is expected to help contractors avoid employment of unauthorized aliens and will assist Federal agencies to avoid contracting with companies that knowingly hire unauthorized aliens. This enhances the Government's ability to protect national security and ensure compliance with the nation's immigration laws--core aspects of the Government's mission that otherwise could be compromised by the presence of unauthorized aliens in Government facilities or by the employment of unauthorized aliens in the Government's supply chain. It also protects U.S. workers by creating another disincentive for companies to hire unauthorized aliens who may command lower wages.
In summary, the proposed rule-- 1. Requires insertion of a clause into Government prime contracts that include work in the United States, other than those that do not exceed the micro-purchase threshold (generally $3,000), or that are for commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) items or items that would be COTS items but for minor modifications (the rule adopts the statutory definition of COTS). 2. Requires inclusion of the clause in subcontracts over $3,000 for services or for construction. 3. Requires a contractor or subcontractor to enroll in the E-Verify program within 30 days of contract award, begin verifying the employment eligibility of all new employees of the contractor or subcontractor that are hired after enrollment in E-Verify, and continue to use the E-Verify program for the life of the contract. 4. Requires contractors and subcontractors to use E-Verify to confirm the employment eligibility of all existing employees who are directly engaged in the performance of work under the covered contract. 5. Applies to solicitations issued and contracts awarded after the effective date of the final rule in accordance with FAR 1.108(d). Under the final rule, Departments and agencies should, in accordance with FAR 1.108(d)(3), amend existing indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts to include the clause for future orders if the remaining period of performance extends at least six months after the effective date of the final rule and the amount of work or number of orders[[Page 33376]]expected under the remaining performance period is substantial. 6. In exceptional circumstances, allows a head of the contracting activity to waive the requirement to include the clause. This authority is not delegable. The proposed rule applies only to employment in the United States as defined at section 101(a)(38) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq. ``United States'' includes the fifty States and the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands. It does not currently include the United States territories of American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Under the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008, Federal immigration law will begin to apply--through a phased process--to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands starting in mid-2009. At this time, however, these two territories have their own immigration laws and are not covered by the employment verification requirements of INA section 274A, 8 U.S.C. 1324a (see Form I-9). The proposed rule also does not apply to any employment outside the United States, including work on United States embassies or military bases in foreign countries. Finally, the proposed rule does not apply to any employee hired prior to November 6, 1986, as these employees are not subject to employment verification under INA section 274A, 8 U.S.C. 1324a.
[To read the entire proposed regulation, go to: http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=DocumentDetail&o=0900006480620ee8 ]
DATES: Interested parties should submit written comments to the FAR Secretariat on or before August 11, 2008 to be considered in the formulation of a final rule.
ADDRESSES: Submit comments identified by FAR case 2007-013 by any of the following methods: Regulations.gov: http://www.regulations.gov. Submit comments via the Federal eRulemaking portal by inputting ``FAR Case 2007-013'' under the heading ``Comment or Submission''. Select the link ``Send a Comment or Submission'' that corresponds with FAR Case 2007-013. Follow the instructions provided to complete the ``Public Comment and Submission Form''. Please include your name, company name (if any), and ``FAR Case 2007-013'' on your attached document.[[Page 33375]] Fax: 202-501-4067. Mail: General Services Administration, Regulatory Secretariat (VPR), 1800 F Street, NW., Room 4035, ATTN: Laurieann Duarte, Washington, DC 20405.
Instructions: Please submit comments only and cite FAR case 2007-013 in all correspondence related to this case. All comments received will be posted without change to http://www.regulations.gov, including any personal and/or business confidential information provided.FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Meredith Murphy, Procurement Analyst, at (202) 208-6925 for clarification of content. For information pertaining to status or publication schedules, contact the FAR Secretariat at (202) 501-4755. Please cite FAR case 2007-013.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
A. Background This rule proposes to amend the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to require that certain contracts contain a clause requiring that the contractor and certain subcontractors utilize the E-Verify System to verify employment eligibility of all newly hired employees of the contractor or subcontractor and all employees directly engaged in the performance of work in the United States under those contracts. The Government awards numerous contracts each fiscal year worth hundreds of billions of dollars. At the same time, one of the Government's primary responsibilities is the enforcement of the immigration laws of the United States. It is appropriate to ensure that Government contractors and subcontractors abide by the immigration laws that the Government enforces. In 1986, Congress amended the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to prohibit the hiring or continued employment of aliens, knowing that the aliens are unauthorized to work in the United States. Public Law 99-603, Title I, Sec. 101(a)(1), 100 Stat. 3360, codified at 8 U.S.C. 1324a(a). Congress also established an employment verification system in 8 U.S.C. 1324a(b), and directed the President to evaluate that system's security and efficacy and implement necessary changes, subject to congressional oversight. 8 U.S.C. 1324a(d). To assist in the development of such changes and additions to the system, Congress also authorized the President to establish demonstration projects designed to strengthen the employment verification system. 8 U.S.C. 1324a(d)(4). In 1992 the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) launched the Telephone Verification System (TVS) pilot program--an early form of what is now the E-Verify system--as a demonstration project. 69 Interpreter Releases 702 (June 8, 1992); 515 (Apr. 27, 1992). In 1996, Congress established the Basic Pilot program (now E-Verify) as part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA). Public Law No. 104-208, Sec. Sec. 401-405, 110 Stat. 3009-655--3009-665 (1996) (8 U.S.C. 1324a note). The Basic Pilot statute instructs all departments of the Executive Branch to participate in E-Verify as part of their hiring process. IIRIRA Sec. 402(e)(1). This rule is authorized by an exercise of the President's authority under the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949 (FPASA), to ``prescribe policies and directives'' governing procurement policy ``that the President considers necessary to carry out'' that Act and that are ``consistent'' with the Act's aim of ``provid[ing] the Federal Government with an economical and efficient'' procurement system. 40 U.S.C. 121, 101. The ``economy and efficiency'' benefits to Federal contracting that flow from ensuring that the Federal Government does not do business with contractors that hire or employ unauthorized aliens were first set forth in Executive Order 12989 (see 61 FR 6091, February 15, 1996). That order, which pre-dated Congress's creation of the Basic Pilot program (now E-Verify), noted that the presence of unauthorized aliens on a contractor's workforce rendered that contractor's workforce less stable and reliable than the workforces of contractors who do not employ unauthorized aliens. The executive order entitled ``Economy and Efficiency in Government Procurement Through Compliance with Certain Immigration and Nationality Act Provisions and Use of an Electronic Employment Eligibility Verification System'' of June 6, 2008, amends Executive Order 12989 and, together with the Designation by the Secretary of Homeland Security, directs Federal agencies, in light of the recent advances in the reliability, convenience, and accuracy of the E-Verify system, to use this powerful tool to avoid both the general inefficiencies that flow from contracting with employers burdened with unstable workforces as well as the direct costs of disruptions to Federal contract performance that result when unauthorized aliens are found in, and must be subsequently removed from, the Federal contract workforce. This proposed rule inserts a clause into Federal contracts committing Government contractors to use the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) E-Verify System to verify that all of the contractors' new hires, and all employees (existing and new) directly engaged in the performance of work under Federal contracts, are authorized to work in the United States. The E-Verify System is expected to help contractors avoid employment of unauthorized aliens and will assist Federal agencies to avoid contracting with companies that knowingly hire unauthorized aliens. This enhances the Government's ability to protect national security and ensure compliance with the nation's immigration laws--core aspects of the Government's mission that otherwise could be compromised by the presence of unauthorized aliens in Government facilities or by the employment of unauthorized aliens in the Government's supply chain. It also protects U.S. workers by creating another disincentive for companies to hire unauthorized aliens who may command lower wages.
In summary, the proposed rule-- 1. Requires insertion of a clause into Government prime contracts that include work in the United States, other than those that do not exceed the micro-purchase threshold (generally $3,000), or that are for commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) items or items that would be COTS items but for minor modifications (the rule adopts the statutory definition of COTS). 2. Requires inclusion of the clause in subcontracts over $3,000 for services or for construction. 3. Requires a contractor or subcontractor to enroll in the E-Verify program within 30 days of contract award, begin verifying the employment eligibility of all new employees of the contractor or subcontractor that are hired after enrollment in E-Verify, and continue to use the E-Verify program for the life of the contract. 4. Requires contractors and subcontractors to use E-Verify to confirm the employment eligibility of all existing employees who are directly engaged in the performance of work under the covered contract. 5. Applies to solicitations issued and contracts awarded after the effective date of the final rule in accordance with FAR 1.108(d). Under the final rule, Departments and agencies should, in accordance with FAR 1.108(d)(3), amend existing indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts to include the clause for future orders if the remaining period of performance extends at least six months after the effective date of the final rule and the amount of work or number of orders[[Page 33376]]expected under the remaining performance period is substantial. 6. In exceptional circumstances, allows a head of the contracting activity to waive the requirement to include the clause. This authority is not delegable. The proposed rule applies only to employment in the United States as defined at section 101(a)(38) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq. ``United States'' includes the fifty States and the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands. It does not currently include the United States territories of American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Under the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008, Federal immigration law will begin to apply--through a phased process--to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands starting in mid-2009. At this time, however, these two territories have their own immigration laws and are not covered by the employment verification requirements of INA section 274A, 8 U.S.C. 1324a (see Form I-9). The proposed rule also does not apply to any employment outside the United States, including work on United States embassies or military bases in foreign countries. Finally, the proposed rule does not apply to any employee hired prior to November 6, 1986, as these employees are not subject to employment verification under INA section 274A, 8 U.S.C. 1324a.
[To read the entire proposed regulation, go to: http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=DocumentDetail&o=0900006480620ee8 ]
Federal Contractors Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on E-Verify Requirements
US Citizenship and Immigration Services
Federal Contractors Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. As a current or prospective Federal contractor, am I required by the Executive Order or the proposed rule to enroll in E-Verify now?
Not at this time. At this time, the E-Verify program remains a voluntary program for employers, including federal contractors. The Executive Order instructs Federal agencies to require contractor participation in E-Verify as a term of future contracts, and the proposed rule provides detailed guidance on how that requirement is to be implemented. However, the proposed rule is not a final rule; it is a proposal that is open for public comment at this time. There may be substantive changes to the rule before it becomes final. Moreover, the final rule will not be effective until 30 days after publication. Under the proposed rule, you would only be required to enroll in E-Verify if and when you enter into a Federal contract or subcontract that requires participation in E-Verify as a term of the contract. Although Federal Contractors are not yet required to participate in E-Verify, you are encouraged to enroll in E-Verify now to verify the employment eligibility of your new hires.
2. What are the responsibilities of Federal Contractors who choose to participate in E-Verify?
The responsibilities of all employers that use E-Verify currently can be found in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that sets forth the legal obligations and responsibilities of employers. The "E-Verify MOU" is available for review at the bottom of this page. It is important for all employers to recognize that staff that uses E-Verify must be thoroughly trained in appropriate E-Verify procedures and policies. The failure to use the program appropriately may lead to liability for the company, including back wages for employees who have been subject to adverse action, and expulsion from the program.
Once the proposed amendments to the Federal Acquisition Regulation have been finalized, we anticipate that the responsibilities of Federal Contractors participating in E-Verify will change in accordance with the final FAR rule. A proposed MOU specific to the requirements of the proposed FAR rule can be viewed on the regulatory docket. Upon issuance of a final rule, the E-Verify website will contain updated information specifically designed to assist federal contractors covered by the final rule, and their employees. This material will include the revised MOU that covers affected government contractors, and frequently asked questions and answers.
For access to the docket to read background documents or comments received, go to the Regulations.gov listed under"Related Links" on the right side of this page.
3. Which employees may I verify through the E-Verify system?
As a voluntary participant in the E-Verify Program, all employers are required to verify all new hires at designated sites, following completion of the Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9 (Form I-9). The proposed FAR rule covers verification of existing employees when they are assigned to work on a covered Federal contract. However, until such time as the FAR rule is deemed final and effective, employers are prohibited from verifying or re-verifying current employees through E-Verify.
4. May I run an existing employee through E-Verify at this time?
No. All employers are prohibited from running existing employees through E-Verify at this time. The proposed FAR rule is subject to comment from the public, consideration of these comments by the government, and subsequent issuance of a final rule in the Federal Register with a stated effective date. Until the FAR rule is published in the Federal Register as a final rule, existing program rules apply to all employers using the program. Under the proposed FAR rule, only those employers that are awarded a contract with the Federal Government that includes the contract term required by the final FAR rule may run existing employees through E-Verify, and then, only if such employees work on the covered contract.
5. Why should I consider participating in E-Verify?
E-Verify is currently the only means available for employers to electronically verify the employment eligibility of hew hires. E-Verify helps protect jobs for authorized U.S. workers and helps U.S. employers maintain a legal workforce.
6. How does E-Verify work?
E-Verify is an Internet-based system operated by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that allows employers to electronically verify the employment eligibility of all newly hired employees, regardless of citizenship. Based on the information provided by the employee on their Form I-9, E-Verify electronically checks this information against records contained in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Social Security Administration (SSA) databases.
7. How do I begin using E-Verify?
Before you can start using E-Verify, you need to enroll your company in the program. When you enroll your company, you will be asked to provide basic contact information for your company and agree to follow the rules of the program. At the end of the enrollment process, you will be required to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that provides the terms of agreement between you the Federal Contractor, the SSA, and DHS.Select the "E-Verify Registration" link listed under"Related Links" on the right side of this page to begin the enrollment process for your company.
Once you have completed the enrollment process, USCIS will review your information and activate your account. After the account is activated, you will receive an email with your logon instructions, user identification, and password.
8. May I use E-Verify prior to hiring a job applicant?
No. All users, including federal contractors, are prohibited from using E-Verify prior to hiring an applicant. By signing the MOU to participate in E-Verify, all employers agree not to use E-Verify for pre-employment screening of job applicants, support for any unlawful employment practice, or any other use not authorized by the MOU. Should the employer use E-Verify procedures for any purpose other than as authorized by the MOU, the employer may be subject to appropriate legal action and the immediate termination of its access to SSA and DHS information.
9. What information is required to conduct an initial verification using E-Verify?
All new hires are required to complete the Form I-9 before an E-Verify query is conducted. Federal Contractors, who are enrolled participants, must submit a query that includes information from sections 1 and 2 of the Form I-9, including:
a) Employee's name and date of birthb) Social Security Number (SSN)c) Attested citizenship status (US Citizen, Lawful Permanent Resident, or Alien Authorized to Work)d) Alien number or I-94 number, if applicablee) Type of document presented for the Form I-9 to establish identity and/or work eligibility statusf) In some cases the document number and expiration date
Note that recently admitted asylees and refugees may not have a Social Security number at the time of hire; for those cases, the employer should run the person through E-Verify after the employee has received their number from the Social Security Administration.
10. What is the required timeframe for conducting an employment eligibility check through E-Verify on a newly hired employee?
The earliest the employer may initiate a query is after an individual accepts an offer of employment and after the employee and employer complete the Form I-9. For newly hired employees, the employer must initiate the query no later than three business days after the newly hired employee starts work for pay. [To see all of the questions and answers, go to: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=00ccb85299d6a110VgnVCM1000004718190aRCRD&vgnextchannel=75bce2e261405110VgnVCM1000004718190aRCRD ]
Federal Contractors Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. As a current or prospective Federal contractor, am I required by the Executive Order or the proposed rule to enroll in E-Verify now?
Not at this time. At this time, the E-Verify program remains a voluntary program for employers, including federal contractors. The Executive Order instructs Federal agencies to require contractor participation in E-Verify as a term of future contracts, and the proposed rule provides detailed guidance on how that requirement is to be implemented. However, the proposed rule is not a final rule; it is a proposal that is open for public comment at this time. There may be substantive changes to the rule before it becomes final. Moreover, the final rule will not be effective until 30 days after publication. Under the proposed rule, you would only be required to enroll in E-Verify if and when you enter into a Federal contract or subcontract that requires participation in E-Verify as a term of the contract. Although Federal Contractors are not yet required to participate in E-Verify, you are encouraged to enroll in E-Verify now to verify the employment eligibility of your new hires.
2. What are the responsibilities of Federal Contractors who choose to participate in E-Verify?
The responsibilities of all employers that use E-Verify currently can be found in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that sets forth the legal obligations and responsibilities of employers. The "E-Verify MOU" is available for review at the bottom of this page. It is important for all employers to recognize that staff that uses E-Verify must be thoroughly trained in appropriate E-Verify procedures and policies. The failure to use the program appropriately may lead to liability for the company, including back wages for employees who have been subject to adverse action, and expulsion from the program.
Once the proposed amendments to the Federal Acquisition Regulation have been finalized, we anticipate that the responsibilities of Federal Contractors participating in E-Verify will change in accordance with the final FAR rule. A proposed MOU specific to the requirements of the proposed FAR rule can be viewed on the regulatory docket. Upon issuance of a final rule, the E-Verify website will contain updated information specifically designed to assist federal contractors covered by the final rule, and their employees. This material will include the revised MOU that covers affected government contractors, and frequently asked questions and answers.
For access to the docket to read background documents or comments received, go to the Regulations.gov listed under"Related Links" on the right side of this page.
3. Which employees may I verify through the E-Verify system?
As a voluntary participant in the E-Verify Program, all employers are required to verify all new hires at designated sites, following completion of the Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9 (Form I-9). The proposed FAR rule covers verification of existing employees when they are assigned to work on a covered Federal contract. However, until such time as the FAR rule is deemed final and effective, employers are prohibited from verifying or re-verifying current employees through E-Verify.
4. May I run an existing employee through E-Verify at this time?
No. All employers are prohibited from running existing employees through E-Verify at this time. The proposed FAR rule is subject to comment from the public, consideration of these comments by the government, and subsequent issuance of a final rule in the Federal Register with a stated effective date. Until the FAR rule is published in the Federal Register as a final rule, existing program rules apply to all employers using the program. Under the proposed FAR rule, only those employers that are awarded a contract with the Federal Government that includes the contract term required by the final FAR rule may run existing employees through E-Verify, and then, only if such employees work on the covered contract.
5. Why should I consider participating in E-Verify?
E-Verify is currently the only means available for employers to electronically verify the employment eligibility of hew hires. E-Verify helps protect jobs for authorized U.S. workers and helps U.S. employers maintain a legal workforce.
6. How does E-Verify work?
E-Verify is an Internet-based system operated by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that allows employers to electronically verify the employment eligibility of all newly hired employees, regardless of citizenship. Based on the information provided by the employee on their Form I-9, E-Verify electronically checks this information against records contained in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Social Security Administration (SSA) databases.
7. How do I begin using E-Verify?
Before you can start using E-Verify, you need to enroll your company in the program. When you enroll your company, you will be asked to provide basic contact information for your company and agree to follow the rules of the program. At the end of the enrollment process, you will be required to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that provides the terms of agreement between you the Federal Contractor, the SSA, and DHS.Select the "E-Verify Registration" link listed under"Related Links" on the right side of this page to begin the enrollment process for your company.
Once you have completed the enrollment process, USCIS will review your information and activate your account. After the account is activated, you will receive an email with your logon instructions, user identification, and password.
8. May I use E-Verify prior to hiring a job applicant?
No. All users, including federal contractors, are prohibited from using E-Verify prior to hiring an applicant. By signing the MOU to participate in E-Verify, all employers agree not to use E-Verify for pre-employment screening of job applicants, support for any unlawful employment practice, or any other use not authorized by the MOU. Should the employer use E-Verify procedures for any purpose other than as authorized by the MOU, the employer may be subject to appropriate legal action and the immediate termination of its access to SSA and DHS information.
9. What information is required to conduct an initial verification using E-Verify?
All new hires are required to complete the Form I-9 before an E-Verify query is conducted. Federal Contractors, who are enrolled participants, must submit a query that includes information from sections 1 and 2 of the Form I-9, including:
a) Employee's name and date of birthb) Social Security Number (SSN)c) Attested citizenship status (US Citizen, Lawful Permanent Resident, or Alien Authorized to Work)d) Alien number or I-94 number, if applicablee) Type of document presented for the Form I-9 to establish identity and/or work eligibility statusf) In some cases the document number and expiration date
Note that recently admitted asylees and refugees may not have a Social Security number at the time of hire; for those cases, the employer should run the person through E-Verify after the employee has received their number from the Social Security Administration.
10. What is the required timeframe for conducting an employment eligibility check through E-Verify on a newly hired employee?
The earliest the employer may initiate a query is after an individual accepts an offer of employment and after the employee and employer complete the Form I-9. For newly hired employees, the employer must initiate the query no later than three business days after the newly hired employee starts work for pay. [To see all of the questions and answers, go to: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=00ccb85299d6a110VgnVCM1000004718190aRCRD&vgnextchannel=75bce2e261405110VgnVCM1000004718190aRCRD ]
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