Discrimination

Photo courtesy of Univisión

I am so glad I didn't go to Miami for this :

Reporters who didn't speak Spanish were already anxious about the translation devices that didn't quite fit in our ears. (Porque soy de California, yo hablo un poquito Espanol.)

But 90 seconds before the forum began tonight, the Media Room had no sound - not in Spanish, English or French. Nada.

Spanish- and English-speaking reporters in the room erupted in a panic, sending University of Miami staff scrambling to try and fix the feed. What most reporters heard for the first 16 minutes of the debate was static - both from the closed television feed and from the translation device.

Even Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) seemed to have trouble, yanking the earpiece from his ear mid-way through his answer to a question on Iraq.

Notwithstanding the awe inspiring set and the hard hitting tonality of the questioning, I don't think that Univision did anything groundbreaking. On the contrary, by not allowing Dodd and Richardson to respond in Spanish, they pandered to the Democrats who still treat latinos as a political ghetto from where to get voting servants to work for their "mainstream" agendas.

Richardson complained, and with good reason, about not being able to speak in Spanish. Hillary, Obama, Edwards, they need to get over it. Spanish is the official second language of the United States, thanks in part to that little colony nobody ever mentions in these forums anyway, Puerto Rico. If they couldn't deal with it, then their muscling in the “English-only” requirement for the forum should be used against them at the voting booth.

In LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO, the Supreme Court makes it almost impossible for workers who already are paid inequitably to sue for pay discrimination because, as Scalito wrote, "We have previously held that the time for filing a charge of employment discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) begins when the discriminatory act occurs [PDF]". Meaning that, if you find out years later (like most people) that you were paid less or passed by for promotions, you are bound by statutes of limitation and thus cannot sue an employer for discrimination retroactively if it is beyond the 180 to 300 days from the time that the discrimination occurred.

From the The ACLU's Amicus Brief :

Cross-posted at http://francislholland.blogspot.com/

This is an historical and political analysis of the central premise that underlies John Edwards' claim to the Presidency.  This essay asks and explores the question, "Why Will Electing John Edwards Raise Women and Minorities Out of Poverty?" Everything in the above graphic represents only my own original paraphrased appreciation of the thrust of arguments made by others.

Everyone who has superficially studied the problem of American poverty knows that, although all demographic groups are represented among the poor, women and minorities are more likely to be poor than other segments of our society (e.g. white men).  

In fact, historical patterns of discrimination that legally prevented women and minorities from buying and owning property, opening bank accounts, and moving to areas where opportunities were greater - all of these governmentally sponsored factors and more led to the feminization and the "racialization" of poverty.  The poverty of Blacks began when we were forced to work for free, with government returning us to our "owners" if we escaped slavery with the intention of being paid for our own labor.

A white woman's spite turns into a racist political campaign now passed into law. A law that would allow public universities and civil service departments to discriminate against minorities.

What does Jennifer Gratz think? That it will give the advantage to white women over white men?

This in from Michigan:

The ballot proposal was headed by Jennifer Gratz, the Southgate Anderson High School graduate who sued University of Michigan in 1997 to challenge its use of racial preferences in admissions.

Her case went all the way to the Supreme Court. When the court upheld the use of race as a factor in university admissions she and Connerly went to work to put the question before voters.

The passage of Prop 2 effectively overhauls the University of Michigan's selective admissions process and puts outreach, recruitment and financial aid programs for minorities and women in jeopardy. While U-M's use of affirmative action has been widely publicized, other less-selective Michigan colleges have gender- and race-specific programs and scholarships that would likely be challenged.

U-M President Mary Sue Coleman will address the university at noon today about the impact of Prop 2's passage. Leaders predict that enrollment of black, Hispanic and Native American students combined will plummet from 12-14 percent of the student body to about 4-6 percent.