LOS ANGELES -- The Walt Disney Co. is defending its newest princess following a backlash over her Hispanic-influenced ethnicity.
A new character named Sofia will star in the TV movie "Sofia the First: Once Upon a Princess" airing Nov. 18 on the Disney Channel and Disney Junior. Hispanic advocacy groups have questioned whether the fair-skinned, blue-eyed young princess is an accurate representation of the Hispanic population and wondered why Disney isn't doing more to promote its first princess with Hispanic-inspired roots.
"They seem to be backpedaling," said Lisa Navarrete, spokeswoman for the National Council of La Raza. "They've done such a good job in the past when they've introduced Native American, African-American and Asian princesses. They made a big deal out of it, and there was a lot of fanfare, but now they're sort of scrambling. It's unusual because Disney has been very good about Latino diversity."
Craig Gerber, co-executive producer of "Sofia the First," clarified in a Facebook post on Friday that Sofia is "a mixed-heritage princess in a fairytale world." He said her mother and birth father respectively hail from kingdoms inspired by Spain and Scandinavia, though Sofia was born and raised in Enchancia, a "make-believe 'melting pot' kingdom" patterned after the British Isles.
Sofia is voiced by Caucasian "Modern Family" actress Ariel Winter, and her mother is played by Hispanic "Grey's Anatomy" actress Sara Ramirez.
The film and a subsequent TV series will follow the young princess as she adjusts to royal life after her mother marries the king of Enchancia.
"Sofia considers herself a normal Enchancian girl like any other," said Gerber. "Her mixed heritage and blended family are a reflection of what many children today experience."
Inez Gonzalez, executive vice president of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, said Monday that the organization wanted to meet with Disney to discuss "Sofia the First."
"Sofia's world reflects the ethnically diverse world we live in, but it is not our world," said Nancy Kanter, senior vice president of original programming for Disney Junior. "It is a fairytale and storybook world that we hope will help spur a child's imagination. It's one where we can have flying horses, schools led by fairies, songs that have a Latin beat and towns with markets like those found in North Africa."
Kanter added that the "Sofia the First" series set to debut next year would include storylines about a holiday called Wassailia, which is reminiscent of a Scandinavian Christmas; and the characters would go on a picnic in Wei-Ling, an Asian-inspired kingdom.
Marcela Davison Aviles, president of the Mexican Heritage Corporation, said that calling Sofia a Latina princess is "not an accurate use of the term as many in our community understand its meaning." Davison Aviles has worked with Disney on the TV series "Handy Manny," which features a bilingual Hispanic handyman character. She added that "Disney leadership embraces the complexity, diversity and beauty" of the Hispanic community.
"I'll bet folks at the company are using this as a teachable moment to improve on that effort," said Davison Aviles. "I'm looking forward to meeting Sofia and to Disney's future efforts to illuminate our diverse melting pot, including the varied colors which thread our tapestry of Latino identity."
Over the past two decades, Disney has introduced such culturally diverse female protagonists as Jasmine, Pocahontas, Mulan, Merida and Tiana, the African-American princess from 2009's "Princess and the Frog." Disney's 2000 animated film "The Emperor's New Groove" and its subsequent spin-offs were set amid the Incan Empire in South America.
"Little girls look to these characters to see themselves represented," said Navarrete. "If they don't see themselves, it makes a difference. It would be nice to see Disney make a full-out push for a Latina princess, whether it's 'Sofia the First' or not."
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/22/3879709/disney-defends-new-hispanic-influenced.html#storylink=cpy
Broadcasting to the Latino Community in Kansas City and Worldwide
Friday, October 26, 2012
The overlooked Latinos - KansasCity.com
PUEBLO, Colo. -- Like many Latinos in Colorado, Earl Payne can trace his lineage to Spaniards who came to the New World more than 400 years ago. With his surname, light complexion and sandy brown hair now gone gray, the commercial loan officer never much felt the sting of discrimination of some of his forebears, like his brown-skinned, World War II vet father.
Like his four brothers and sisters, he graduated from college and found success, as did his children. But he also grew up poor and remembers summers picking crops with his siblings for $1.40 an hour. Those memories are one reason he can't vote Republican, he said.
"I think the Democratic Party is more geared toward low-income and middle-income individuals, trying to help people get ahead the way I got ahead through education," said Payne, 59. "Romney said if you need to go to college, get a loan from your parents. That wasn't possible for us growing up. We were a very poor family."
Payne is part of a largely overshadowed swath of the Latino experience - multigenerational U.S. citizens who have little or no recent connection to Latin America.
The U.S. Latino population now exceeds 50 million, with more than 60 percent born in the United States. Many go back three generations or more, meaning they do not have immigrant parents or grandparents.
Politicians can't reach these Latino voters only through Spanish-language ads, appearances on Univision or Telemundo, or by sprinkling speeches with Spanish, as members of both parties did during this year's political conventions.
Census and election data suggest that those who go back at least three generations - a large proportion of Latinos in Colorado - may vote at lower rates than immigrants who became U.S. citizens and their second-generation children, said Mark Hugo Lopez, associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center.
Some experts suspect that voter-turnout efforts might disproportionally target the first two generations, which are more closely tethered to a hot-button issue like illegal immigration.
"One theory is the political conversation is not addressing the need of U.S. citizen Latinos who were born here and are multigenerational, for which immigration is not a personal issue to be resolved," said Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.
Leading Republicans, including Karl Rove, Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, have warned about alienating Latinos with harsh rhetoric over illegal immigration, but Colorado is a reminder that the Republicans' problem with this group goes well beyond that issue.
Latinos are a primary reason that the state remains a hotly contested battleground. President Barack Obama is polling slightly stronger here - upward of 70 percent - than among Latinos nationwide.
Payne said that voting Republican, for him, would be akin to voting for cuts to education, health care and social programs that helped him when he was growing up.
At Christ the King Lutheran Church in suburban Denver, where she helps lead weekly meetings of the Colorado Society of Hispanic Genealogy, Bertha Gallegos put it more bluntly.
"I still don't get how Hispanics can be Republicans. The only time they're nice to us is when they want our vote," said Gallegos, 80, who describes herself as pro-life and Catholic. "Republicans work to make the rich richer. They don't care about the poor."
Resurgent Republic, a conservative think tank and polling operation, concluded from a survey in Colorado, Florida and New Mexico that Republicans had to increase their share of the Latino vote to "remain competitive in future national elections in states with significant Hispanic populations," many of which are now battlegrounds.
Romney said as much during a controversial recorded conversation at the Florida home of a donor: "If the Hispanic voting bloc becomes as committed to the Democrats as the African-American voting bloc has in the past, why, we're in trouble as a party and, I think, as a nation."
William Howell, president of the Northern Colorado Hispanic Republicans, said trying to persuade Latinos to join the GOP was paramount. A retired Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy and third-generation Mexican-American, Howell moved to Colorado nine years ago. Latinos share many conservative values with Republicans, he said, but changing minds won't be easy.
"Even my mom would be turning in her grave if she found out what I was doing right now. Seriously. She was a hard-core Democrat," Howell said. "The real work is going to start not before the election but after the election. One of the things I try to tell people is that regardless of what happens, we'll be there for them after."
For many Latinos whose families go back many generations, illegal immigration evokes mixed feelings, and frames broader questions about social class and the political parties.
During the genealogical society meeting, Harold Romero, a 69-year-old Marine veteran, and Manuel Castillo, a 75-year-old Navy veteran - both of whom trace their family history in North America entirely north of the Rio Grande - expressed ambivalence about the undocumented.
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/24/3882374/the-overlooked-latinos.html#storylink=cpy
Like his four brothers and sisters, he graduated from college and found success, as did his children. But he also grew up poor and remembers summers picking crops with his siblings for $1.40 an hour. Those memories are one reason he can't vote Republican, he said.
"I think the Democratic Party is more geared toward low-income and middle-income individuals, trying to help people get ahead the way I got ahead through education," said Payne, 59. "Romney said if you need to go to college, get a loan from your parents. That wasn't possible for us growing up. We were a very poor family."
Payne is part of a largely overshadowed swath of the Latino experience - multigenerational U.S. citizens who have little or no recent connection to Latin America.
The U.S. Latino population now exceeds 50 million, with more than 60 percent born in the United States. Many go back three generations or more, meaning they do not have immigrant parents or grandparents.
Politicians can't reach these Latino voters only through Spanish-language ads, appearances on Univision or Telemundo, or by sprinkling speeches with Spanish, as members of both parties did during this year's political conventions.
Census and election data suggest that those who go back at least three generations - a large proportion of Latinos in Colorado - may vote at lower rates than immigrants who became U.S. citizens and their second-generation children, said Mark Hugo Lopez, associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center.
Some experts suspect that voter-turnout efforts might disproportionally target the first two generations, which are more closely tethered to a hot-button issue like illegal immigration.
"One theory is the political conversation is not addressing the need of U.S. citizen Latinos who were born here and are multigenerational, for which immigration is not a personal issue to be resolved," said Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.
Leading Republicans, including Karl Rove, Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, have warned about alienating Latinos with harsh rhetoric over illegal immigration, but Colorado is a reminder that the Republicans' problem with this group goes well beyond that issue.
Latinos are a primary reason that the state remains a hotly contested battleground. President Barack Obama is polling slightly stronger here - upward of 70 percent - than among Latinos nationwide.
Payne said that voting Republican, for him, would be akin to voting for cuts to education, health care and social programs that helped him when he was growing up.
At Christ the King Lutheran Church in suburban Denver, where she helps lead weekly meetings of the Colorado Society of Hispanic Genealogy, Bertha Gallegos put it more bluntly.
"I still don't get how Hispanics can be Republicans. The only time they're nice to us is when they want our vote," said Gallegos, 80, who describes herself as pro-life and Catholic. "Republicans work to make the rich richer. They don't care about the poor."
Resurgent Republic, a conservative think tank and polling operation, concluded from a survey in Colorado, Florida and New Mexico that Republicans had to increase their share of the Latino vote to "remain competitive in future national elections in states with significant Hispanic populations," many of which are now battlegrounds.
Romney said as much during a controversial recorded conversation at the Florida home of a donor: "If the Hispanic voting bloc becomes as committed to the Democrats as the African-American voting bloc has in the past, why, we're in trouble as a party and, I think, as a nation."
William Howell, president of the Northern Colorado Hispanic Republicans, said trying to persuade Latinos to join the GOP was paramount. A retired Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy and third-generation Mexican-American, Howell moved to Colorado nine years ago. Latinos share many conservative values with Republicans, he said, but changing minds won't be easy.
"Even my mom would be turning in her grave if she found out what I was doing right now. Seriously. She was a hard-core Democrat," Howell said. "The real work is going to start not before the election but after the election. One of the things I try to tell people is that regardless of what happens, we'll be there for them after."
For many Latinos whose families go back many generations, illegal immigration evokes mixed feelings, and frames broader questions about social class and the political parties.
During the genealogical society meeting, Harold Romero, a 69-year-old Marine veteran, and Manuel Castillo, a 75-year-old Navy veteran - both of whom trace their family history in North America entirely north of the Rio Grande - expressed ambivalence about the undocumented.
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/24/3882374/the-overlooked-latinos.html#storylink=cpy
Friday, October 19, 2012
CEO Drops $1 Million for Undocumented Immigrant College Scholarships, Partners with North Carolina Universities
A Latino CEO who donated a $1 million to launch a non-profit organization that offers full college scholarships for undocumented immigrants is in final partnership talks with up to five North Carolina colleges, he says.
Ric Elias, the Puerto Rican-born CEO of a technology company called Red Ventures, has launched Golden Door Scholars in the middle of a presidential race where illegal immigration, particularly for young undocumented immigrants or so-called DREAMers, is a contentious issue.
This is much more a humanitarian pursuit than a political pursuit. Kylie Craig, Director of Communications for Red Ventures
“I don’t really care,” Elias told the Charlotte Observer of his critics. “It doesn’t faze me. If we can get people talking about this, (criticism) may not actually be a bad thing, given the lack of understanding out there on this issue.”
The scholarship will be available to all undocumented immigrants in the U.S. this fall and promises to pay for all four years of a college in North Carolina, including room and board, while offering students mentorship, internships and job placement.
Details of how the partnerships will work are not entirely known, but the yet-to-be named four-year institutions are making these promises: To either cut their tuition rates by at least half, donate money to the fund, or help pay for a set number of scholarships so that the organization can help more undocumented students nationwide.
The non-profit is run by Elias’ Red Ventures volunteers. Elias said he hopes other CEOs and corporations will join him in offering thousands of undocumented students across the country an opportunity to go to college.
The scholarship announcement comes during a growing national debate over whether or not undocumented immigrants should be allowed to attend college, through legislative acts like the DREAM Act, and whether they should be allowed to pay in-state tuition rates.
Anti-illegal immigration opponents like Roy Beck, the head of Numbers USA, an organization in favor of strict immigration policy, stand by Elias’ right to start a private scholarship as an “act of charity.” But he wonders how many citizens, especially in North Carolina, could use similar help.
“There is always an opportunity cost, if your charity is for one group, it’s not going to another,” Beck said of the state’s lower income students, who are primarily black and Hispanics.
Beck also said college opportunities and in-state tuition rates for undocumented immigrants serve to entice more illegal immigration.
“In state tuition it is one of many enticements but it’s a second-level enticement,” he said. “The real enticement is the jobs enticement, it’s the failure of congress to mandate E-Verify.”
Proponents say young undocumented immigrants, particularly DREAMers, those brought illegally to the United States through no fault of their own, should be allowed to go to college and are in desperate need of private scholarships because they are not eligible for federal financial aid.
“There is going to be negative feedback. The thing we have been trying to make clear, this is not a political issue,” Kylie Craig, director of communications for Red Ventures and a volunteer for the non-profit, told Fox News Latino. “This is about doing what we believe is right. This is much more a humanitarian pursuit than a political pursuit.”
Currently, 13 states (many with large immigrant populations) have laws allowing undocumented students to receive in-state tuition rates. Other states, including Arizona and Colorado, prohibit in-state tuition rates for undocumented students.
The North Carolina legislature is considering a bill that would bar schools from offering in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants. But that bill remains stuck in committee after a contentious debate within the state’s academic community.
In North Carolina, an estimated 1,500 undocumented immigrants graduate each year from public high schools.
Since its website has gone public, Golden Scholars has received over 100 applications and inquiries about the scholarship as well as donation inquiries, Craig said.
“We,” Craig said. “Have just been completely blown away by the positive responses.”
This is much more a humanitarian pursuit than a political pursuit. Kylie Craig, Director of Communications for Red Ventures
“I don’t really care,” Elias told the Charlotte Observer of his critics. “It doesn’t faze me. If we can get people talking about this, (criticism) may not actually be a bad thing, given the lack of understanding out there on this issue.”
The scholarship will be available to all undocumented immigrants in the U.S. this fall and promises to pay for all four years of a college in North Carolina, including room and board, while offering students mentorship, internships and job placement.
Details of how the partnerships will work are not entirely known, but the yet-to-be named four-year institutions are making these promises: To either cut their tuition rates by at least half, donate money to the fund, or help pay for a set number of scholarships so that the organization can help more undocumented students nationwide.
The non-profit is run by Elias’ Red Ventures volunteers. Elias said he hopes other CEOs and corporations will join him in offering thousands of undocumented students across the country an opportunity to go to college.
The scholarship announcement comes during a growing national debate over whether or not undocumented immigrants should be allowed to attend college, through legislative acts like the DREAM Act, and whether they should be allowed to pay in-state tuition rates.
Anti-illegal immigration opponents like Roy Beck, the head of Numbers USA, an organization in favor of strict immigration policy, stand by Elias’ right to start a private scholarship as an “act of charity.” But he wonders how many citizens, especially in North Carolina, could use similar help.
“There is always an opportunity cost, if your charity is for one group, it’s not going to another,” Beck said of the state’s lower income students, who are primarily black and Hispanics.
Beck also said college opportunities and in-state tuition rates for undocumented immigrants serve to entice more illegal immigration.
“In state tuition it is one of many enticements but it’s a second-level enticement,” he said. “The real enticement is the jobs enticement, it’s the failure of congress to mandate E-Verify.”
Proponents say young undocumented immigrants, particularly DREAMers, those brought illegally to the United States through no fault of their own, should be allowed to go to college and are in desperate need of private scholarships because they are not eligible for federal financial aid.
“There is going to be negative feedback. The thing we have been trying to make clear, this is not a political issue,” Kylie Craig, director of communications for Red Ventures and a volunteer for the non-profit, told Fox News Latino. “This is about doing what we believe is right. This is much more a humanitarian pursuit than a political pursuit.”
Currently, 13 states (many with large immigrant populations) have laws allowing undocumented students to receive in-state tuition rates. Other states, including Arizona and Colorado, prohibit in-state tuition rates for undocumented students.
The North Carolina legislature is considering a bill that would bar schools from offering in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants. But that bill remains stuck in committee after a contentious debate within the state’s academic community.
In North Carolina, an estimated 1,500 undocumented immigrants graduate each year from public high schools.
Since its website has gone public, Golden Scholars has received over 100 applications and inquiries about the scholarship as well as donation inquiries, Craig said.
“We,” Craig said. “Have just been completely blown away by the positive responses.”
Kansas schools face many, major changes next year | Local News - KMBC Home
The state's education commissioner said possible policy changes will make next year one of the busiest years in a decade for Kansas educators.
Commissioner Diane DeBacker told the State Board of Education Tuesday that 2013 could be the busiest year since the No Child Left Behind law was enacted in 2001.
DeBacker said the board will consider changes such as adopting new science standards, new history and government standards and deciding how to tie teacher evaluations to student achievement. Educators also will be implementing Common Core State Standards and deciding what type of assessments will be used.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reported that at least four of the 10 state board members will be newly elected, and they'll be working with a Legislature where several members will also be new.
Commissioner Diane DeBacker told the State Board of Education Tuesday that 2013 could be the busiest year since the No Child Left Behind law was enacted in 2001.
DeBacker said the board will consider changes such as adopting new science standards, new history and government standards and deciding how to tie teacher evaluations to student achievement. Educators also will be implementing Common Core State Standards and deciding what type of assessments will be used.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reported that at least four of the 10 state board members will be newly elected, and they'll be working with a Legislature where several members will also be new.
Read more: http://www.kmbc.com/news/kansas-city/Kansas-schools-face-many-major-changes-next-year/-/11664182/17023718/-/4226wk/-/index.html#ixzz29kPM4N00
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Labor secretary affirms her department’s work and integrity - KansasCity.com
In Kansas City to meet with educators, business leaders and co-workers, Solis reserved a few minutes to emphasize the inability of the political process to “tinker or manipulate” data published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Solis reacted to a tempest created by former General Electric CEO Jack Welch, who suggested in a tweet that Obama backers made the September national unemployment rate look better than it really was.
“You can’t penetrate that system,” Solis said of the statistical process used by the census and labor bureaus. “It follows through on a method laid out for the last 70 years. It’s ludicrous to suggest manipulation, and you can quote me on that.”
Welch later wrote an essay that backed away from the political accusation and focused on the inherent problems of statistical gathering processes that rely on individuals’ answers to formulaic questions.
Solis spent part of her Kansas City visit touring the Kansas City Kansas Community College Technical Education Centers.
The school recently received $2.96 million in Labor Department grants to help train workers for high-skill manufacturing and technology jobs. The school has a new technical training center at 6535 State Ave., augmenting its current center at 2220 N. 59th St.
Solis said the grant illustrated an important partnership among government, education and industry, a union that’s necessary to train or retrain workers to fill current and new jobs.
Legal path to US from Cuba still complicated - KansasCity.com
Would-be immigrants and tourists still need permission from the U.S. government to enter America legally. With a multiyear wait for a visa, the average Cuban may not be leaving home any time soon.
"This may end up being ado about nothing," said a Cuban-immigration expert, Jose Azel of the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies.
A State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, said Tuesday that the U.S. welcomes "any reforms that'll allow Cubans to depart from and return to their country freely. We remain committed to the migration accords under which our two countries support and promote safe, legal and orderly migration. Our own visa requirements remain unchanged."
Under those 1994 accords, Washington agreed to stop allowing Cubans caught at sea to enter the U.S. In 1995 the U.S. government began its "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy that allows anyone who makes it to shore to stay, while those caught at sea are turned back.
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/17/3871541/legal-path-to-us-from-cuba-still.html#storylink=cpy
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Broadcasting Live from Alta Vista High School-Conexión Azteca TV
Broadcasting Live from Alta Vista High School-Conexión Azteca TV Episode 1
Monday, October 8, 2012
Obama: 'Today we celebrate Cesar Chavez' - KansasCity.com
KEENE, Calif. -- President Barack Obama on Monday designated the home of Latino labor leader Cesar Chavez as a national monument, calling Chavez a hero who brought hope to millions of poor, disenfranchised farm workers who otherwise might have remained "invisible" to much of the nation.
""Today, we celebrate Cesar Chavez," Obama said at a ceremony at La Paz, the California farmhouse where Chavez lived and worked for more than two decades. "Our world is a better place because Cesar Chavez decided to change it."
Chavez, who died in 1993 at age 66, is buried on the site where the monument was dedicated. His widow, Helen, still lives there.
The 187-acre site, known as Nuestra Senora Reina de la Paz (Our Lady Queen of Peace), or simply La Paz, was the union's planning and coordination center starting in 1971. Chavez and many organizers lived, trained and strategized there.
Obama's action designates 105 acres at the site near Bakersfield, Calif., as a national monument, the fourth monument he has designated under the Antiquities Act.
The action could shore up support from some Hispanic and progressive voters for Obama, whose 2008 "yes we can" slogan borrowed from Chavez's motto, "Si, se puede."
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/08/3857779/obama-today-we-celebrate-cesar.html#storylink=cpy
""Today, we celebrate Cesar Chavez," Obama said at a ceremony at La Paz, the California farmhouse where Chavez lived and worked for more than two decades. "Our world is a better place because Cesar Chavez decided to change it."
Chavez, who died in 1993 at age 66, is buried on the site where the monument was dedicated. His widow, Helen, still lives there.
The 187-acre site, known as Nuestra Senora Reina de la Paz (Our Lady Queen of Peace), or simply La Paz, was the union's planning and coordination center starting in 1971. Chavez and many organizers lived, trained and strategized there.
Obama's action designates 105 acres at the site near Bakersfield, Calif., as a national monument, the fourth monument he has designated under the Antiquities Act.
The action could shore up support from some Hispanic and progressive voters for Obama, whose 2008 "yes we can" slogan borrowed from Chavez's motto, "Si, se puede."
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/08/3857779/obama-today-we-celebrate-cesar.html#storylink=cpy
High court looks at race in college admissions - KansasCity.com
WASHINGTON -- Nine years after the Supreme Court said colleges and universities can use race in their quest for diverse student bodies, the justices have put this divisive social issue back on their agenda in the middle of a presidential election campaign.
Nine years is a blink of the eye on a court where justices can look back two centuries for legal precedents. But with an ascendant conservative majority, the high court in arguments Wednesday will weigh whether to limit or even rule out taking race into account in college admissions.
The justices will be looking at the University of Texas program that is used to help fill the last quarter or so of its incoming freshman classes. Race is one of many factors considered by admissions officers. The rest of the roughly 7,100 freshman spots automatically go to Texans who graduated in the top 8 percent of their high school classes.
A white Texan, Abigail Fisher, sued the university after she was denied a spot in 2008.
The simplest explanation for why affirmative action is back on the court's calendar so soon after its 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger is that the author of that opinion, Sandra Day O'Connor, has retired. Her successor, Justice Samuel Alito, has been highly skeptical of any use of racial preference.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, a dissenter in the 2003 decision, probably holds the deciding vote, and he, too, has never voted in favor of racial preference.
As a result, said Supreme Court lawyer Thomas Goldstein, "No matter what the court does, it is quite likely that the UT program is going to be in big trouble."
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/08/3857648/high-court-looks-at-race-in-college.html#storylink=cpy
Nine years is a blink of the eye on a court where justices can look back two centuries for legal precedents. But with an ascendant conservative majority, the high court in arguments Wednesday will weigh whether to limit or even rule out taking race into account in college admissions.
The justices will be looking at the University of Texas program that is used to help fill the last quarter or so of its incoming freshman classes. Race is one of many factors considered by admissions officers. The rest of the roughly 7,100 freshman spots automatically go to Texans who graduated in the top 8 percent of their high school classes.
A white Texan, Abigail Fisher, sued the university after she was denied a spot in 2008.
The simplest explanation for why affirmative action is back on the court's calendar so soon after its 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger is that the author of that opinion, Sandra Day O'Connor, has retired. Her successor, Justice Samuel Alito, has been highly skeptical of any use of racial preference.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, a dissenter in the 2003 decision, probably holds the deciding vote, and he, too, has never voted in favor of racial preference.
As a result, said Supreme Court lawyer Thomas Goldstein, "No matter what the court does, it is quite likely that the UT program is going to be in big trouble."
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/08/3857648/high-court-looks-at-race-in-college.html#storylink=cpy
Alta Vista Charter High School's Principal receives the award from the Missouri Charter School Association.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
UN agency to stop calculating Chile poverty stats - KansasCity.com
SANTIAGO, Chile -- A prestigious U.N. agency will no longer help Chile calculate its poverty numbers after the government was accused of misrepresenting the data. Alicia Barcena directs the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, which has double-checked the math on Chile's economic surveys for 25 years, providing a stamp of approval that has reassured investors. Now Barcena says the commission will treat Chile just like every other country, and will no longer correct mistakes in the data. Chilean President Sebastian Pinera celebrated numbers in July suggesting a drop from 15.1 percent to 14.4 percent of Chileans living in poverty, but months passed before he released an error margin that cast doubt on the gains, and meanwhile the UN agency said it wouldn't use the government's criteria.
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