Black Women Lost More Jobs During Recovery

Workforce Management
August 16, 2011


While the recession hit black men harder than any other group, the economic recovery has shifted that impact to their female counterparts, according to a recent report by the National Women’s Law Center, which shows that black women have lately seen their unemployment rate rise even as other populations—including black men—have finally begun to regain jobs.
Between June 2009 and June 2011, black men gained 127,000 jobs while black women lost more than twice that number, 258,000, the report says. That means that black women have now lost more total jobs than have black men since the recession began in December 2007.

Full Story: http://www.workforce.com/section/news/article/black-women-lost-more-jobs-during-recovery.php

The Ties That Align

The Washington Post
Administration's Black Women Form A Strong Sisterhood

By Krissah Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 18, 2009; C01

Like two old girlfriends catching up, they ignored onlookers, hugged and laughed.
Donna Brazile, the political strategist and Washington veteran, peppered Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson with questions.
"How are the kids?" "Have you contacted the church? I don't go every Sunday but they know me."
Before she left, Jackson had an open invitation to Brazile's place for home-cooked red beans and rice, served up every Monday night.
"The sisterhood in this town, there's deep history here," Jackson said.
The "Obama women" -- as African American women who've taken big jobs in his administration have been nicknamed -- mark another step in the long journey of black women from outsiders to gatekeepers in political Washington. They have quietly entered their jobs with little attention paid to the fact that they are the largest contingent of high-ranking black women to work for a president.
Many are firsts -- as in the first black woman to run the Domestic Policy Council, the first black EPA chief and the first black woman to be deputy chief of staff. Last week, Obama tapped Margaret (Peggy) Hamburg to lead the Food and Drug Administration. If confirmed, Hamburg -- who is biracial (her mother is African American, her father Jewish) -- will also be a first.
Seven of about three dozen senior positions on President Obama's team are filled by African American women. Veterans in town see them as part of the steady evolution of power for black women, not only in the White House but also across the country -- in the business world, in academia, in policy circles.

Full Story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/17/AR2009031703744.html

Many Black Women Veer Off Path to Tenure, Researchers Say

The Chronicle of Higher Education
September 9, 2008

Washington — Black women appear to be substantially less likely than other segments of the population to get on and stay on academe’s tenure track, according to a forthcoming report commissioned by the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education.
The report, the highlights of which the association presented here today, says survey data collected from doctoral recipients suggest that “black women have a distaste for or trouble navigating some aspects of the tenure process,” even though they do not appear to have any distaste for academe itself.
“We don’t know what is going on, but the data suggest that black women are not faring as well” as other groups, said Rhonda Vonshay Sharpe, a professor of economics at the University of Vermont and research fellow at the Institute for Higher Education Law and Governance. Ms. Sharpe is a co-author of the report, along with William A. Darity Jr., a professor of African-American studies, economics, and public policy at Duke University, and Omari H. Swinton, an assistant professor of economics at Howard University.
The researchers based their analysis on data from surveys that the National Science Foundation has administered to the same doctoral recipients repeatedly since the the early 1990s, to track their progress over time. The fields covered by the surveys included engineering, mathematics, the sciences, and the social sciences. [To read the full story, go to: http://chronicle.com/news/article/5111/many-black-women-veer-off-path-to-tenure-researchers-say?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en ]

Title IX Awards Raise Colleges' Bias Liability

By Viv Bernstein - WeNews correspondent(WOMENSENEWS)

--Amid complaints a few years ago from a women's volleyball coach at California State University, Fresno, that her team wasn't receiving equal treatment with men's programs at the school, some members of the athletic department decided to have a party.In April 2000 administrators hung a banner in an office, complete with pictures of female athletes with cutouts of male heads attached to them. And they sipped drinks under the banner that read: "Ugly Women Athletes Day."Weighty payouts from lawsuits based on Title IX--the 1972 law that bans discrimination on the basis of gender in educational institutions that receive federal funds--have since followed.Lindy Vivas, the women's volleyball coach who made the complaint, did not get her contract renewed in 2004. When she filed suit against Fresno State for violating the federal antidiscrimination law, "Ugly Women Athletes Day" became part of the evidence. Last July a jury awarded Vivas $5.85 million in compensation and damages.At the time, it was considered an eye-catching amount for a Title IX case even though a judge later reduced the award to $4.52 million.But those figures were dwarfed in December when another jury, ruling in the dismissal of Fresno State women's basketball coach Stacy Johnson-Klein, awarded the coach $19 million in a suit also involving Title IX. That was since reduced to $6.6 million by a judge.Still, those recent jury awards--coupled with multi-million-dollar settlements at the University of Colorado and University of California, Berkeley--have raised the possible upside for those willing to risk a Title IX legal reprisal.But will it inspire real change in the treatment of women's teams and coaches moving forward?Erin Buzuvis, an assistant professor at Western New England College School of Law in Springfield, Mass., who teaches sports law and has a Title IX blog, says it can only help.Buzuvis says discriminatory conduct continues in many athletic departments. "But the fact that two separate juries in Fresno were willing to award multi-million dollar verdicts as a way to penalize a major university for discriminatory treatment of its female staff is definitely an example of some movement in that direction."History of ComplaintsFresno State has been a hotbed of Title IX complaints in recent years.In addition to the volleyball and basketball coaches, Associate Athletics Director Diane Milutinovich settled a Title IX case for $3.5 million in October 2007. Women's softball coach Margie Wright filed a Title IX complaint with the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights in 2004 and is mulling a lawsuit."In the early 1990s, there were violations of Title IX which led to a corrective action plan and I think those were resolved," Fresno State President John D. Welty said in a telephone interview. "I think unfortunately it created tensions within the department that have contributed to these cases and I think it's complicated. When we did take employment actions with regards to two coaches, the issues really became blurred between whether it was a Title IX issue or an employment issue."But Dan Siegel, the attorney who has represented Milutinovich, Wright, Johnson-Klein and Vivas, said the problem is with the leadership at Fresno State."The issue of why Fresno State has had so many cases is actually the big question here," he said in an e-mail. "I have argued that the reason is that its president, John Welty, had demonstrated poor leadership by allowing an atmosphere of hostility and harassment towards women who have fought for gender equity to continue."String of Title IX CasesStill, Fresno State is not an aberration, according to those who have monitored Title IX cases. It is merely the most penalized case in recent years."They are all over-the-top obvious," said Donna Lopiano, who worked for a sports advocacy group for 15 years and followed Title IX legal disputes. "I swear, I've testified in at least 20 or 30 cases and I am constantly amazed at how obvious these cases are. That's why the plaintiffs never lose; because it is so extreme."Lopiano recently left the East Meadow, N.Y.-based Women's Sports Foundation, which advocates for women in athletics. She is forming a consulting company and will advise universities on how to handle Title IX cases in light of the recent Fresno State awards."I think there are a couple of things that are really significant about this," Lopiano said. "One is, they're going to precipitate more cases. They are going to increase the bravery of coaches who are not being treated well, who are being discriminated against because of their sex."Lopiano said state university presidents will also likely see the cases as a warning to steer their schools clear of cases that could put them under legislatures' watch and possibly damage financial support. Welty already has had to answer to a California state legislative committee about the suits."There's just nothing good that comes out of this," she said.In the interview, Welty said the large jury awards could spur a push for legislative relief to cap the amounts awarded in Title IX cases in the future.NCAA Working with CollegesThe Indianapolis-based National Collegiate Athletic Association has been helping universities prevent Title IX abuses with a certification process that audits their policies and practices."The NCAA has become a very big supporter of Title IX," said Nancy Hogshead-Makar, a professor at Jacksonville's Florida Coastal School of Law, an Olympic gold medal swimmer and past president of the Women's Sports Foundation. "There was a criticism for a number of years that they sort of had a defense lawyer's mentality, like what's the least that you can do in order to be able to be in compliance," Hogshead-Makar said. "And that's shifting now."Welty said there has been a shift at Fresno State, too. Although the university is appealing the Vivas case and is considering an appeal of the Johnson-Klein verdict as well, a gender equity task force has been created. The school also will add some women's sports to the program to meet Title IX requirements.But the battles continue. At Florida Gulf Coast University, in Fort Myers, volleyball coach Jaye Flood filed a lawsuit in January against the school after she was fired following complaints about gender equity in the athletic program. According to reports, the school claims Flood was dismissed for an improper relationship with a student. A court date has not yet been set.Already, the ugly confrontation has inspired some to call Florida Gulf Coast the "Fresno State of the East.""I think it's a repeat of Fresno," said Lopiano, who points to similarities in the accusations made in each of the cases. She believes universities would be better off settling to avoid the public scrutiny that comes from a trial. "Every case is different, but you would hope that people would learn from these things and I'm hopeful that they are."

Viv Bernstein is a freelance writer based in Charlotte, N.C., and a frequent contributor to the New York Times. She is a former staff sports reporter for the Detroit Free Press, the Hartford Courant and other newspapers and has written for numerous publications.
Women's eNews welcomes your comments. E-mail us at http://webmail.att.net/wmc/n/wm/47D5405D000A987B000055F422230647029B0A02D29B9B0EBF9D0A080C040799D206D29C?cmd=ComposeTo&adr=editors%40womensenews.org&sid=c0 .For more information:Title IX Blog: - http://title-ix.blogspot.com/
Women's Sports Foundation: - http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/cgi-bin/iowa/index.html
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Report Details Black Women's Challenges

The New York Times
March 5, 2008
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:11 a.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- This is a triumphant time for black women: Condoleezza Rice in the global diplomatic spotlight, Michelle Obama captivating campaign crowds as a potential first lady, billionaire Oprah Winfrey playing political kingmaker.
It's also a traumatic time: Rutgers University basketball players disparaged by radio host Don Imus, a black woman kidnapped and tortured by whites in West Virginia, the home-owning dreams of black women disproportionately dashed by foreclosures.
That remarkable mix is the focus of this year's State of Black America report, issued Wednesday by the National Urban League. It features essays looking at the array of challenges faced by African-American women: economic, social, psychological and medical.
''The one thing that is certain is the need to hear and amplify the voices of black women,'' longtime civil rights activist Dorothy Height writes in the foreword. ''Too often, our needs, concerns, struggles, and triumphs are diminished and subordinated to what is believed to be the more pressing concerns of others.''
Julianne Malveaux, the president of Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, N.C., contends in the report's opening essay that the image of black women in popular culture has barely improved in the year since the Imus incident.
White men continue to dominate on TV's Sunday morning news shows, she writes, while ''the gyrating, undulating image of African-American women in rap music videos and, by extension, on cable television is as prevalent as ever.''
The report delves deeply into economics, noting that black women are more likely than white or Hispanic women to be running a household and raising children on their own. According to Malveaux, black women hold more jobs nationwide than black men, yet -- despite their breadwinner roles -- earn less on average, $566 a week compared to $629 for black men.
In an essay about the home loan crisis, Andrea Harris, president of the North Carolina Institute for Minority Economic Development, suggests that black women have suffered disproportionately. Assessing recent federal data on subprime loans, which are a main culprit in the foreclosure epidemic, Harris says black women received far more of these loans in 2006 than white men.
''It is easy to imagine the devastation that is headed toward African-American women and their communities,'' Harris writes.
An essay by Dr. Doris Browne, a public health expert, details the above-average rates of cancer, diabetes and heart disease among black women.
On an upbeat note, former Labor Secretary Alexis Herman notes in her essay that black women are making huge strides as entrepreneurs. The number of businesses owned by them increased by 147 percent between 1997 and 2006, compared to an overall business growth rate of 24 percent, she wrote. [To read the entire article, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Black-Women.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=women+rights&st=nyt&oref=slogin------]
On the Net:
National Urban League: http://www.nul.org//