The New York Times
July 7, 2009
Emily Bazelon
Excerpts from article:
Q: What do you think about Judge Sotomayor’s frank remarks that she is a product of affirmative action?
JUSTICE GINSBURG: So am I. I was the first tenured woman at Columbia. That was 1972, every law school was looking for its woman. Why? Because Stan Pottinger, who was then head of the office for civil rights of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, was enforcing the Nixon government contract program. Every university had a contract, and Stan Pottinger would go around and ask, How are you doing on your affirmative-action plan? William McGill, who was then the president of Columbia, was asked by a reporter: How is Columbia doing with its affirmative action? He said, It’s no mistake that the two most recent appointments to the law school are a woman and an African-American man.
Q: And was that you?
JUSTICE GINSBURG: I was the woman. I never would have gotten that invitation from Columbia without the push from the Nixon administration. I understand that there is a thought that people will point to the affirmative-action baby and say she couldn’t have made it if she were judged solely on the merits. But when I got to Columbia I was well regarded by my colleagues even though they certainly disagreed with many of the positions that I was taking. They backed me up: If that’s what I thought, I should be able to speak my mind.
Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/magazine/12ginsburg-t.html?pagewanted=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Government to Require Verification of Workers
The New York Times
July 9, 2009
By JULIA PRESTON
The Obama administration will require businesses that win federal contracts to use a government electronic database system to verify that their employees have legal immigration status to work in the United States, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Wednesday.
After a six-month review, Homeland Security officials decided to go ahead with a worker-verification plan based on the electronic system, called E-Verify. The system, which the Bush administration sought to put into effect in its final months, is meant to prevent federal contractors from hiring illegal immigrants.
At the same time, Homeland Security officials said they would drop another Bush administration proposal that would have forced employers to fire any workers whose Social Security information did not match the records of the Social Security Administration. That measure, called the no-match rule, had been challenged in federal court by immigrant advocates and businesses, who said the Social Security database contained errors that could have cost thousands of legal workers their jobs.
Administration officials said the court battle over the no-match rule, which never went into effect, would now end.
The move to expand the use of E-Verify reflects the Obama administration’s strategy of keeping up the pace of immigration enforcement while weighing whether to push for an overhaul this year that would give legal status to millions of illegal workers, officials said.
But the E-Verify system has also been criticized by immigrant advocacy groups and is facing a challenge in federal court by the United States Chamber of Commerce and other business groups, who say the databases it relies on are also full of errors.
Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/us/politics/09immig.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
July 9, 2009
By JULIA PRESTON
The Obama administration will require businesses that win federal contracts to use a government electronic database system to verify that their employees have legal immigration status to work in the United States, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Wednesday.
After a six-month review, Homeland Security officials decided to go ahead with a worker-verification plan based on the electronic system, called E-Verify. The system, which the Bush administration sought to put into effect in its final months, is meant to prevent federal contractors from hiring illegal immigrants.
At the same time, Homeland Security officials said they would drop another Bush administration proposal that would have forced employers to fire any workers whose Social Security information did not match the records of the Social Security Administration. That measure, called the no-match rule, had been challenged in federal court by immigrant advocates and businesses, who said the Social Security database contained errors that could have cost thousands of legal workers their jobs.
Administration officials said the court battle over the no-match rule, which never went into effect, would now end.
The move to expand the use of E-Verify reflects the Obama administration’s strategy of keeping up the pace of immigration enforcement while weighing whether to push for an overhaul this year that would give legal status to millions of illegal workers, officials said.
But the E-Verify system has also been criticized by immigrant advocacy groups and is facing a challenge in federal court by the United States Chamber of Commerce and other business groups, who say the databases it relies on are also full of errors.
Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/us/politics/09immig.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
Monday, July 6, 2009
Powell Defends Sotomayor; Expounds on Affirmative Action
Hispanic Business
July 6, 2009
Rob Kuznia--HispanicBusiness.com
Colin Powell defended Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on Sunday, dismissing criticism that she is a "reverse racist" as "nonsense."Speaking with John King on CNN's State of Union, Powell also acknowledged that she "has an open and liberal bent of mind," but said that that is "not disqualifying."Powell, who said he's never met Sotomayor even though they hail from the same South Bronx neighborhood, broached the topic of how the U.S. Supreme Court last week reversed a Sotomayor ruling on an affirmative action case -- and also expounded on his own thoughts about affirmative action. ...
"What we can't continue to have is to have somebody like a Judge Sotomayor, who is announced, and based on one simple, tricky ... case that the Supreme Court has now decided, have her called a racist or a reverse racist, and she ought to withdraw her nomination because we're mad at her," Powell said. "Fortunately, the senators who will sit on this hearing in the judiciary committee after a few days of this kind of nonsense said 'Let's slow down. Let's examine her qualifications in the way we're supposed to at a confirmation hearing....
Powell said he believes the Republican party still has a ways to go on this measure [affirmative action], and went on to say that he supports some forms of affirmative action."You don't have an obligation to bring in anybody who's not able to do the work.," he said. "You should always have qualifications. But once you establish those qualifications, is there something wrong with a taxpayer-funded institution not making sure that it is representing the entire public?"About his own life, he said: "I have a hunch that maybe 55 years ago somebody took a look at my rather mediocre high school grades and at the same time thought, 'Maybe this kid can make it.' And they let me into the City College of New York."
Full Story: http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/politics/2009/7/6/powell_defends_sotomayor_expounds_on_affirmative.htm#
July 6, 2009
Rob Kuznia--HispanicBusiness.com
Colin Powell defended Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on Sunday, dismissing criticism that she is a "reverse racist" as "nonsense."Speaking with John King on CNN's State of Union, Powell also acknowledged that she "has an open and liberal bent of mind," but said that that is "not disqualifying."Powell, who said he's never met Sotomayor even though they hail from the same South Bronx neighborhood, broached the topic of how the U.S. Supreme Court last week reversed a Sotomayor ruling on an affirmative action case -- and also expounded on his own thoughts about affirmative action. ...
"What we can't continue to have is to have somebody like a Judge Sotomayor, who is announced, and based on one simple, tricky ... case that the Supreme Court has now decided, have her called a racist or a reverse racist, and she ought to withdraw her nomination because we're mad at her," Powell said. "Fortunately, the senators who will sit on this hearing in the judiciary committee after a few days of this kind of nonsense said 'Let's slow down. Let's examine her qualifications in the way we're supposed to at a confirmation hearing....
Powell said he believes the Republican party still has a ways to go on this measure [affirmative action], and went on to say that he supports some forms of affirmative action."You don't have an obligation to bring in anybody who's not able to do the work.," he said. "You should always have qualifications. But once you establish those qualifications, is there something wrong with a taxpayer-funded institution not making sure that it is representing the entire public?"About his own life, he said: "I have a hunch that maybe 55 years ago somebody took a look at my rather mediocre high school grades and at the same time thought, 'Maybe this kid can make it.' And they let me into the City College of New York."
Full Story: http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/politics/2009/7/6/powell_defends_sotomayor_expounds_on_affirmative.htm#
Subtle, and stubborn, race bias
The Boston Globe
Editorial
July 6, 2009
EVEN WITH a black American president, a white man is still considered more capable and trustworthy. This sorry truth has been reconfirmed in a new study from business researchers at the universities of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, British Columbia, Michigan, and Washington and at West Point. Controlling for objective measures of performance, white males got higher customer satisfaction ratings than women or people of color, whether they were doctors, university bookstore employees, or staffers at a golf course.
No one was more surprised at the findings than the study’s lead author, David Hekman of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He said it may help explain why wide pay gaps persist in the United States between white males and everyone else, as businesses may be induced to give raises and promotions to white male employees who are disproportionately praised by customers.
The bookstore study is especially poignant, because it captured unconscious lingering attitudes among college students, who were a huge reason Barack Obama was elected. Even women and people of color exhibited biases, but not as starkly.
“I had no idea the effects were this huge,’’ said Hekman, who is white. “People simply feel like they’re getting a better deal from white guys. Customers are more grateful for service from a white guy, even if it’s just an oil change or a glass of water.’’
Co-author Karl Aquino, who is of Asian descent, said, “What’s unsettling about our study is that when women and minorities perform better, they actually get lower performance ratings and are perceived more negatively. And we don’t yet really know why. They even judged the overall environment [of the doctor’s office, bookstore, or golf course] more negatively.’’
How then to explain Obama’s groundbreaking victory? Aquino and Hekman said Obama was judged by enough people as greatly superior to white rivals (though he still lost the overall white vote to John McCain). For average American workers who are female and of color, higher invisible hurdles of bias remain.
Full Story: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2009/07/06/subtle_and_stubborn_race_bias/
Editorial
July 6, 2009
EVEN WITH a black American president, a white man is still considered more capable and trustworthy. This sorry truth has been reconfirmed in a new study from business researchers at the universities of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, British Columbia, Michigan, and Washington and at West Point. Controlling for objective measures of performance, white males got higher customer satisfaction ratings than women or people of color, whether they were doctors, university bookstore employees, or staffers at a golf course.
No one was more surprised at the findings than the study’s lead author, David Hekman of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He said it may help explain why wide pay gaps persist in the United States between white males and everyone else, as businesses may be induced to give raises and promotions to white male employees who are disproportionately praised by customers.
The bookstore study is especially poignant, because it captured unconscious lingering attitudes among college students, who were a huge reason Barack Obama was elected. Even women and people of color exhibited biases, but not as starkly.
“I had no idea the effects were this huge,’’ said Hekman, who is white. “People simply feel like they’re getting a better deal from white guys. Customers are more grateful for service from a white guy, even if it’s just an oil change or a glass of water.’’
Co-author Karl Aquino, who is of Asian descent, said, “What’s unsettling about our study is that when women and minorities perform better, they actually get lower performance ratings and are perceived more negatively. And we don’t yet really know why. They even judged the overall environment [of the doctor’s office, bookstore, or golf course] more negatively.’’
How then to explain Obama’s groundbreaking victory? Aquino and Hekman said Obama was judged by enough people as greatly superior to white rivals (though he still lost the overall white vote to John McCain). For average American workers who are female and of color, higher invisible hurdles of bias remain.
Full Story: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2009/07/06/subtle_and_stubborn_race_bias/
Gender Bias at SUNY-Buffalo?
Inside Higher Ed
July 6, 2009
Earning tenure is never a sure thing, but Janet Shucard thought that she had done everything right.She and her husband joined the State University of New York at Buffalo as instructors in the neurology department in 1985. By 1998, the year she entered the tenure track, she had served as associate director of the department's division of development and behavioral neuroscience, head of the department of neurology medical psychotherapy service and assistant professor of neurology. She had published dozens of articles in prominent science journals. And she had pulled in research funding, most recently grants from the National Institutes of Health.When her tenure review process got underway, everything seemed on track. Shucard breezed through her department, chair, school, dean and, in a unanimous 7-0 vote, the president's review board -- an advisory board of professors across disciplines, appointed by the president. But then came the decisions from the university provost, Satish Tripathi, and president, John Simpson: negative.
Full Story: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/07/06/tenure
July 6, 2009
Earning tenure is never a sure thing, but Janet Shucard thought that she had done everything right.She and her husband joined the State University of New York at Buffalo as instructors in the neurology department in 1985. By 1998, the year she entered the tenure track, she had served as associate director of the department's division of development and behavioral neuroscience, head of the department of neurology medical psychotherapy service and assistant professor of neurology. She had published dozens of articles in prominent science journals. And she had pulled in research funding, most recently grants from the National Institutes of Health.When her tenure review process got underway, everything seemed on track. Shucard breezed through her department, chair, school, dean and, in a unanimous 7-0 vote, the president's review board -- an advisory board of professors across disciplines, appointed by the president. But then came the decisions from the university provost, Satish Tripathi, and president, John Simpson: negative.
Full Story: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/07/06/tenure
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