Lexology
Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC
Martha J. Zackin
USA
November 21 2011
On November 15, 2011, the Massachusetts House of Representatives passed An Act Relative to Gender Identity, by a vote of 115 to 37. The next day, the bill was passed in a voice vote by the Massachusetts Senate. If Governor Patrick signs it, which he is expected to do, the Transgender Act will go into effect on July 1, 2012.
Full Story: http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=e9cbb993-e2d8-4573-828e-16ebd3d8c509&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+Other+states+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2011-11-28&utm_term=
Showing posts with label Massachusetts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Massachusetts. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Saturday, November 6, 2010
A racial benchmark, with race not a factor
The Boston Globe
By Derrick Z. Jackson
Globe Columnist / November 6, 2010
AFTER ROILING the nation’s political waters in January with Scott Brown’s election, Massachusetts made history in the midterms with barely a ripple. Governor Deval Patrick, the nation’s second-ever elected African-American governor, became the first such governor in US politics ever to be re-elected.
Nit-pickers could say this was not the most difficult distinction to achieve. The other elected governor, Doug Wilder of Virginia (1990-94), could not run again because that state does not allow consecutive terms. Only two other African Americans have ever held the office. P.B.S. Pinchback of Louisiana was appointed to fill out the final month of a disgraced predecessor during Reconstruction. David Paterson rose from lieutenant governor in New York to the top office in 2008 when Governor Eliot Spitzer was felled by a prostitution scandal. Paterson, wounded by miscues and ethics questions, chose not to run for a full term.
Full Story: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/11/06/a_racial_benchmark_with_race_not_a_factor/
By Derrick Z. Jackson
Globe Columnist / November 6, 2010
AFTER ROILING the nation’s political waters in January with Scott Brown’s election, Massachusetts made history in the midterms with barely a ripple. Governor Deval Patrick, the nation’s second-ever elected African-American governor, became the first such governor in US politics ever to be re-elected.
Nit-pickers could say this was not the most difficult distinction to achieve. The other elected governor, Doug Wilder of Virginia (1990-94), could not run again because that state does not allow consecutive terms. Only two other African Americans have ever held the office. P.B.S. Pinchback of Louisiana was appointed to fill out the final month of a disgraced predecessor during Reconstruction. David Paterson rose from lieutenant governor in New York to the top office in 2008 when Governor Eliot Spitzer was felled by a prostitution scandal. Paterson, wounded by miscues and ethics questions, chose not to run for a full term.
Full Story: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/11/06/a_racial_benchmark_with_race_not_a_factor/
Monday, July 20, 2009
Compact continues to push Mass. diversity benchmarks
The Bay State Banner
Kenneth J. Cooper
July 9, 2009
In 1721, as an outbreak of smallpox caused panic in Boston, an African slave spoke up and helped solve the public health crisis.
Onesimus informed his master, Cotton Mather, the city’s most powerful man, that Africans of that era stopped the deadly disease from spreading by extracting fluid from the blisters and scratching it into the skin of healthy people, using a thorn.
Despite the enormous difference in their social status, Mather listened to his slave and enlisted Dr. Zabdiel Boylston to experiment with the African practice, which was rudimentary but medically sound. Smallpox inoculation was the first major innovation made in Massachusetts with a person of color as prime mover. It was not to be the last.
A 2006 study of 60 significant innovations in Massachusetts during the last 400 years found that more than a third involved people of color, women or immigrants. To give a few examples, African Americans participated in a big way in the first pamphlet calling for the total abolition of slavery (David Walker), the invention of the telephone (Lewis Latimer) and the first infant formula (Louise A. Giblin).
Launched a year ago, the Commonwealth Compact aims to make the state’s future resemble its innovative past by fostering more diversity in businesses, governments and nonprofits.
This spring, the initiative, based at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, published aggregate numbers on the level of diversity up and down the ranks of 111 institutions, which have committed to making their workforces and boards of directors more representative.
“We thought we’d get eight or 10 to sign up. We got 111,” says Stephen P. Crosby, dean of the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies at UMass-Boston. “This is an unusual initiative. We can’t find anything like this.”
Since May, the number of entities that have joined the Commonwealth Compact has grown to 140, including the governments of the city of Boston and the state of Massachusetts. All have volunteered to provide, annually and on a confidential basis, information on their personnel broken down by race and ethnicity. Those data are totaled and also aggregated by industry, then published to provide benchmarks for institutions to measure themselves against competitors and other parts of the state’s economy.
“I commend the compact and its research, but time will tell if measurable progress will be made as a result of the compact’s efforts,” says Shirley J. Wilcher, a Mattapan resident who is executive director of the American Association for Affirmative Action. “Improving Boston’s reputation as a ‘welcoming’ city for minorities would be admirable and desirable and, given the changing demographics, just good business.”
The first benchmarks, covering about 180,000 employees or 5.5 percent of the state’s labor, may make the workforce appear more diverse than it actually is.
Crosby, a co-founder of the compact along with former Suffolk County district attorney Ralph Martin II and Boston Globe Publisher P. Steven Ainsley, acknowledges that the initial participants tend to be predisposed to diversity.
Persons of color were reported to comprise 34 percent of all employees and 22 percent of managers and senior executives. In 2008, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that Hispanics and members of a racial minority made up 20 percent of the state population.
“Our goal is to reach at least 1,000 companies so we get representative data,” says Georgianna Meléndez, one of the compact’s three co-directors. The former assistant commissioner of the state Department of Transitional Assistance emphasizes the benchmarks are not intended to be “a shame or blame thing” for participating institutions.
A traditional pattern of minorities being concentrated in the lowest-level jobs is reflected in the current, aggregated data. That concentration was greatest in the health care field, a fast-growing part of the state economy. In the lowest-paying health jobs, 55 percent of employees were minorities. At the top end of the employment ladder, minorities accounted for just 12 percent of managers or officers at for-profit companies.
“I would be looking for sincere efforts to recruit and a demonstrable commitment from the very top of the member organizations, not only to diversify the entry levels, but the executive suites as well,” says Wilcher, who directed the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs during the Clinton administration.
Full Story: http://www.baystatebanner.com/local12-2009-07-09
Kenneth J. Cooper
July 9, 2009
In 1721, as an outbreak of smallpox caused panic in Boston, an African slave spoke up and helped solve the public health crisis.
Onesimus informed his master, Cotton Mather, the city’s most powerful man, that Africans of that era stopped the deadly disease from spreading by extracting fluid from the blisters and scratching it into the skin of healthy people, using a thorn.
Despite the enormous difference in their social status, Mather listened to his slave and enlisted Dr. Zabdiel Boylston to experiment with the African practice, which was rudimentary but medically sound. Smallpox inoculation was the first major innovation made in Massachusetts with a person of color as prime mover. It was not to be the last.
A 2006 study of 60 significant innovations in Massachusetts during the last 400 years found that more than a third involved people of color, women or immigrants. To give a few examples, African Americans participated in a big way in the first pamphlet calling for the total abolition of slavery (David Walker), the invention of the telephone (Lewis Latimer) and the first infant formula (Louise A. Giblin).
Launched a year ago, the Commonwealth Compact aims to make the state’s future resemble its innovative past by fostering more diversity in businesses, governments and nonprofits.
This spring, the initiative, based at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, published aggregate numbers on the level of diversity up and down the ranks of 111 institutions, which have committed to making their workforces and boards of directors more representative.
“We thought we’d get eight or 10 to sign up. We got 111,” says Stephen P. Crosby, dean of the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies at UMass-Boston. “This is an unusual initiative. We can’t find anything like this.”
Since May, the number of entities that have joined the Commonwealth Compact has grown to 140, including the governments of the city of Boston and the state of Massachusetts. All have volunteered to provide, annually and on a confidential basis, information on their personnel broken down by race and ethnicity. Those data are totaled and also aggregated by industry, then published to provide benchmarks for institutions to measure themselves against competitors and other parts of the state’s economy.
“I commend the compact and its research, but time will tell if measurable progress will be made as a result of the compact’s efforts,” says Shirley J. Wilcher, a Mattapan resident who is executive director of the American Association for Affirmative Action. “Improving Boston’s reputation as a ‘welcoming’ city for minorities would be admirable and desirable and, given the changing demographics, just good business.”
The first benchmarks, covering about 180,000 employees or 5.5 percent of the state’s labor, may make the workforce appear more diverse than it actually is.
Crosby, a co-founder of the compact along with former Suffolk County district attorney Ralph Martin II and Boston Globe Publisher P. Steven Ainsley, acknowledges that the initial participants tend to be predisposed to diversity.
Persons of color were reported to comprise 34 percent of all employees and 22 percent of managers and senior executives. In 2008, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that Hispanics and members of a racial minority made up 20 percent of the state population.
“Our goal is to reach at least 1,000 companies so we get representative data,” says Georgianna Meléndez, one of the compact’s three co-directors. The former assistant commissioner of the state Department of Transitional Assistance emphasizes the benchmarks are not intended to be “a shame or blame thing” for participating institutions.
A traditional pattern of minorities being concentrated in the lowest-level jobs is reflected in the current, aggregated data. That concentration was greatest in the health care field, a fast-growing part of the state economy. In the lowest-paying health jobs, 55 percent of employees were minorities. At the top end of the employment ladder, minorities accounted for just 12 percent of managers or officers at for-profit companies.
“I would be looking for sincere efforts to recruit and a demonstrable commitment from the very top of the member organizations, not only to diversify the entry levels, but the executive suites as well,” says Wilcher, who directed the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs during the Clinton administration.
Full Story: http://www.baystatebanner.com/local12-2009-07-09
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Minorities in Massachusetts find path to university presidential ranks difficult to tread
Diverse Issues in Higher Education
February 17, 2009
Kenneth J. Cooper
As the new vice chancellor for student affairs at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1971, Dr. Randolph W. Bromery had not given any thought to moving up to chancellor. But the president of the UMass system, Dr. Robert C. Wood, had contemplated the possibility. Then he made it happen.
When the chancellor of the state flagship university resigned that year, Wood asked Bromery to serve as interim chancellor and to apply for the permanent job, which the trustees gave him six months later. His elevation made Bromery the first African-American to lead a college in Massachusetts and only the second at a predominantly White campus, after Dr. Clifton R. Wharton Jr. at Michigan State University.
“I had no previous experience running a public college or university, especially one with 25,000 students,” recalls Bromery, 83. “It takes a person like Bob Wood to take that risk. A lot of people wouldn’t take that risk.”
Indisputably, Wood’s gamble worked out. For eight years, Bromery led UMass Amherst so capably that other colleges in the state kept summoning him to straighten out their management problems. He was acting president of Westfield State College in the 1980s, acting and then permanent president of Springfield College in the 1990s and then acting president of Roxbury Community College earlier this decade.
“He’s the godfather in Massachusetts,” says Dr. Charles Desmond, an African-American who chairs the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education.
After that groundbreaking start four decades ago, the history of college presidents of color in Massachusetts, a state known for its liberal politics and elite private colleges, has unfolded at about the same halting pace as it has in the rest of the country.
With the exception of Dr. Ruth J. Simmons, who was president of Smith College before becoming the first Black president of an Ivy League school at Brown University, no minority has led on a permanent basis any of the elite schools that give Massachusetts its reputation for quality higher education.
Full Story: http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_12308.shtml
February 17, 2009
Kenneth J. Cooper
As the new vice chancellor for student affairs at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1971, Dr. Randolph W. Bromery had not given any thought to moving up to chancellor. But the president of the UMass system, Dr. Robert C. Wood, had contemplated the possibility. Then he made it happen.
When the chancellor of the state flagship university resigned that year, Wood asked Bromery to serve as interim chancellor and to apply for the permanent job, which the trustees gave him six months later. His elevation made Bromery the first African-American to lead a college in Massachusetts and only the second at a predominantly White campus, after Dr. Clifton R. Wharton Jr. at Michigan State University.
“I had no previous experience running a public college or university, especially one with 25,000 students,” recalls Bromery, 83. “It takes a person like Bob Wood to take that risk. A lot of people wouldn’t take that risk.”
Indisputably, Wood’s gamble worked out. For eight years, Bromery led UMass Amherst so capably that other colleges in the state kept summoning him to straighten out their management problems. He was acting president of Westfield State College in the 1980s, acting and then permanent president of Springfield College in the 1990s and then acting president of Roxbury Community College earlier this decade.
“He’s the godfather in Massachusetts,” says Dr. Charles Desmond, an African-American who chairs the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education.
After that groundbreaking start four decades ago, the history of college presidents of color in Massachusetts, a state known for its liberal politics and elite private colleges, has unfolded at about the same halting pace as it has in the rest of the country.
With the exception of Dr. Ruth J. Simmons, who was president of Smith College before becoming the first Black president of an Ivy League school at Brown University, no minority has led on a permanent basis any of the elite schools that give Massachusetts its reputation for quality higher education.
Full Story: http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_12308.shtml
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Hope and a diverse nation
The Boston Globe
By Steve Crosby and Robert L. Turner
November 13, 2008
IN AMERICA, presidential elections are the ultimate act of community. Millions vote, and, though the contest is usually close, the winner is embraced as everyone's president.
Barack Obama's victory says a great deal that is good about the nation, about its optimism and its readiness to grow. Not least, it says something positive about race relations in America.
According to CNN exit polls, of those who said race was a significant factor in their voting decision, the support for Obama and John McCain closely mirrored the overall national totals - fully as many voters apparently liked the idea of electing the nation's first black president as disliked it. More telling, in the long run, is that the number was low - age was cited as a significant factor by more than twice as many voters as race.
Still, the election has put race more profoundly - and more hopefully - in the forefront of American consciousness than at any time since 1968. Frank talk about the economic and social value of diversity and inclusion, both domestically and in the globalized economy, helped propel Obama's candidacy.
But as we have found in Massachusetts, the elevation of an African-American to the highest political office provides an opportunity for progress - a culture and a tone - but solves little by itself.
Education gaps, health outcomes, hate crimes, unemployment rates, crime and incarceration statistics, foreclosure rates and housing discrimination have not resolved themselves in Massachusetts overnight. Progress in these areas will probably continue to be slow unless the community rises up with a determination to act as a community. An elected leader and a handful of committed activists can help, but significant progress will rely on broad sectors of the population rallying to take advantage of the opportunity. [Full story: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/11/13/hope_and_a_diverse_nation/]
By Steve Crosby and Robert L. Turner
November 13, 2008
IN AMERICA, presidential elections are the ultimate act of community. Millions vote, and, though the contest is usually close, the winner is embraced as everyone's president.
Barack Obama's victory says a great deal that is good about the nation, about its optimism and its readiness to grow. Not least, it says something positive about race relations in America.
According to CNN exit polls, of those who said race was a significant factor in their voting decision, the support for Obama and John McCain closely mirrored the overall national totals - fully as many voters apparently liked the idea of electing the nation's first black president as disliked it. More telling, in the long run, is that the number was low - age was cited as a significant factor by more than twice as many voters as race.
Still, the election has put race more profoundly - and more hopefully - in the forefront of American consciousness than at any time since 1968. Frank talk about the economic and social value of diversity and inclusion, both domestically and in the globalized economy, helped propel Obama's candidacy.
But as we have found in Massachusetts, the elevation of an African-American to the highest political office provides an opportunity for progress - a culture and a tone - but solves little by itself.
Education gaps, health outcomes, hate crimes, unemployment rates, crime and incarceration statistics, foreclosure rates and housing discrimination have not resolved themselves in Massachusetts overnight. Progress in these areas will probably continue to be slow unless the community rises up with a determination to act as a community. An elected leader and a handful of committed activists can help, but significant progress will rely on broad sectors of the population rallying to take advantage of the opportunity. [Full story: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/11/13/hope_and_a_diverse_nation/]
Monday, May 19, 2008
Push is set for workplace diversity
The Boston Globe
By John C. Drake
Globe Staff / May 19, 2008
Massachusetts civic leaders and business executives are preparing a major push to improve the diversity of the state's workforce by keeping closer track of the numbers of minority and female employees.
more stories like this
The new push comes less than a year after a detailed survey showed that the state's largest businesses and nonprofit institutions are led almost exclusively by white men.
Leaders of the effort, including former Suffolk district attorney Ralph C. Martin II and Steve Crosby, dean of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, say the state's institutions need to take public action to improve diversity and counter a perception, lingering since the busing controversy of the 1970s, that Massachusetts has a hostile racial climate.
"We have a branding problem in Boston, but we also have a real problem in Boston," Crosby said.
Seventy-six institutions, from Wal-Mart to Bunker Hill Community College, have already signed on to the program - called the Commonwealth Compact - in advance of a public appeal set for Friday, when Governor Deval Patrick and Mayor Thomas M. Menino will back the effort. By joining the program, employers will be asked to make several commitments that will give the public some new insights into the diversity of the private workforce, organizers said.
Employers will agree to supply demographic data on their workforce, executive team, and applicant pool to a central database and commit to taking steps to improve their diversity. The Commonwealth Compact will, in turn, report to the public on the diversity of the state's workforce, categorized by the type of business or institution.
The public reports will not include details on each company's workforce, which one diversity specialist said weakened the initiative's potential impact. But Martin said the program is focused on "collective accountability," and won't point the finger at individual employers.
"There's an old saying, 'That which gets measured, gets done,' " said Martin, a managing partner of Bingham McCutchen, a law firm that is one of the early signers of the compact. "We're going to throw our lot in with each other and represent in a very transparent way whether or not our industries are making progress." [To read the entire article, go to: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/05/19/push_is_set_for_workplace_diversity/?page=full ]
By John C. Drake
Globe Staff / May 19, 2008
Massachusetts civic leaders and business executives are preparing a major push to improve the diversity of the state's workforce by keeping closer track of the numbers of minority and female employees.
more stories like this
The new push comes less than a year after a detailed survey showed that the state's largest businesses and nonprofit institutions are led almost exclusively by white men.
Leaders of the effort, including former Suffolk district attorney Ralph C. Martin II and Steve Crosby, dean of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, say the state's institutions need to take public action to improve diversity and counter a perception, lingering since the busing controversy of the 1970s, that Massachusetts has a hostile racial climate.
"We have a branding problem in Boston, but we also have a real problem in Boston," Crosby said.
Seventy-six institutions, from Wal-Mart to Bunker Hill Community College, have already signed on to the program - called the Commonwealth Compact - in advance of a public appeal set for Friday, when Governor Deval Patrick and Mayor Thomas M. Menino will back the effort. By joining the program, employers will be asked to make several commitments that will give the public some new insights into the diversity of the private workforce, organizers said.
Employers will agree to supply demographic data on their workforce, executive team, and applicant pool to a central database and commit to taking steps to improve their diversity. The Commonwealth Compact will, in turn, report to the public on the diversity of the state's workforce, categorized by the type of business or institution.
The public reports will not include details on each company's workforce, which one diversity specialist said weakened the initiative's potential impact. But Martin said the program is focused on "collective accountability," and won't point the finger at individual employers.
"There's an old saying, 'That which gets measured, gets done,' " said Martin, a managing partner of Bingham McCutchen, a law firm that is one of the early signers of the compact. "We're going to throw our lot in with each other and represent in a very transparent way whether or not our industries are making progress." [To read the entire article, go to: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/05/19/push_is_set_for_workplace_diversity/?page=full ]
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