According to a New York Times article titled “Target Settles Web Suit” (New York Times, August 27, 2008), Target Corporation has settled an Americans with Disabilities Act case with the National Federation of the Blind.  The class action lawsuit against Target Corporation alleged blind persons were unable to use Target’s website.  Target Corporation will place six million dollars in an account for claimants and agreed to make the website accessable to the blind.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/business/28target.html?ref=business 

In Houston and nationwide, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is receiving increasing quantities of inquiries about workplace law, employment related discrimination, as well as harassment complaints, and the number of discrimination-based workplace lawsuits has risen in Houston federal courts during the past few months compared with the same period last year, according to the Houston Chronicle.  Flood, Mary, “Job Bias Lawsuits On The Increase,” Houston Chronicle, 8/24/08, p. B1.  One Houston attorney cited in the article who defends businesses against discrimination complaints said he has seen an uptick in the number of discrimination cases and another Houston employment discrimination attorney said he has seen more age discrimination and medical leave complaints.  Id.

As reported by the Houston Chronicle, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reviews discrimination complaints and files some lawsuits itself while other discrimination cases may be filed by attorneys on behalf of victims and, in some cases, the victim represents themselves in their own case.  Id.

Discrimination charges are at their highest level in five years, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and, in this regard, the EEOC reportedly received 82,000 private sector discrimination charges last year, noting that this is the highest volume of incoming charges since 2002 and the largest annual increase (9%) since the early 1990s.  See, Rosenberg, Richard, “Bias Charges Up Sharply As Settlements On The Rise,” San Fernando Valley Business Journal, http://www.entrepreneur.com , 7/21/08. Workplace retaliation claims were the second highest category behind race discrimination while pregnancy discrimination charges and sexual harassment, including sexual harassment charges by men, surged to record high levels.  Id.  According to the EEOC, it resolved a record number of charges through its internal mediation process, with more than 96% of the EEOC mediation participants, including employers, saying they were satisfied with that process.  Id.

One reason for the increase in complaints with the EEOC may be attributable, in part, to the EEOC’s online access, citizen meetings and other educational programs in which citizens are made aware of their rights and what steps they can take to protect their rights.  See, Flood, Mary, “Job Bias Lawsuits On The Rise,” Houston Chronicle, 8/24/08, p. B7.

In Houston,  inquiries about employment discrimination made to the EEOC between April 1, 2007 and August 17, 2007 totaled 2,338 and that number for the same period this year rose to 3,241.  Id.  However, the number of actual formal complaints filed in Houston has remained fairly static, according to the article in the Houston Chronicle.  Id.

Historically, race has been the charge most frequently filed since the EEOC became operational in 1965.  See, Rosenberg, Richard, “Bias Charges Up Sharply As Settlements On The Rise,” San Fernando Valley Business Journal, http://www.entrepreneur.com , 7/21/08. 

Whether workplace discrimination or retaliation occurs in Beaumont, Dallas, Houston or elsewhere, victims of bias may contact the EEOC or an attorney to discuss their rights.

Accoding to Libby Quaid of the Associated Press, a quarter of a million schoolchildren got paddled, swats or licks last year — and blacks, American Indians and kids with disabilities got a disproportionate share of the punishment, according to a study by a human rights group. Even little kids can be paddled. Heather Porter, who lives in Crockett, Texas, was startled to hear her little boy, then 3, say he’d been spanked at school. Porter was never told, despite a policy at the public preschool that parents be notified.  “We were pretty ticked off, to say the least. The reason he got paddled was because he was untying his shoes and playing with the air conditioner thermostat,” Porter said. “He was being a 3-year-old.”

For the study, which was being released today, Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union used Education Department data to show that, while paddling has been declining, racial disparity persists. Researchers also interviewed students, parents and school personnel in Texas and Mississippi, states that account for 40 percent of the 223,190 kids who were paddled at least once in the 2006-2007 school year.

Porter could have filled out a form telling the school not to paddle her son, if only she had realized he might be paddled.  Yet many parents find that such forms are ignored, the study said.  Widespread paddling can make it unlikely that forms will be checked. A teacher interviewed by Human Rights Watch, Tiffany Bartlett, said that when she taught in the Mississippi Delta, the policy was to lock the classroom doors when the bell rang, leaving stragglers to be paddled by an administrator patrolling the hallways. Bartlett now is a school teacher in Austin, Texas.  And even if schools make a mistake, they are unlikely to face lawsuits. In places where corporal punishment is allowed, teachers and principals generally have legal immunity from assault laws, the study said.  “One of the things we’ve seen over and over again is that parents have difficulty getting redress, if a child is paddled and severely injured, or paddled in violation of parents’ wishes,” said Alice Farmer, the study’s author.

A majority of states have outlawed it, but corporal punishment remains widespread across the South. Behind Texas and Mississippi were Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Florida and Missouri.  African American students are more than twice as likely to be paddled. The disparity persists even in places with large black populations, the study found. Similarly, Native Americans were more than twice as likely to be paddled, the study found.

The study also found:

—In states where paddling is most common, black girls were paddled more than twice as often as white girls.

—Boys are three times as likely to be paddled as girls.

—Special education kids were more likely to be paddled.

More than 100 countries worldwide have banned paddling in schools, including all of Europe, Farmer said. “International human rights law puts a pretty strong prohibition on corporal punishment,” she said.  In rural Drew, Miss., Nickolaus Luckett still remembers the paddlings he got in fifth and seventh grades. One happened when he called a teacher by her first name, the other when a classmate said, wrongly, that he threw a spitball.

“I didn’t get any bruises, but they still hurt, and from that point on, I told myself and my parents I wasn’t going to take any more paddlings,” said Luckett, who is about to be a sophomore at the University of Mississippi. 

It’s not an easy choice. In many schools, kids can avoid a paddling if they accept suspension or detention, or for younger kids, if they skip recess. But often, a child opts for the short-term sting of the paddle. And sometimes teachers don’t have the option of after-school detention, because there are no buses to take kids home later. During the three years Evan Couzo taught in the Mississippi Delta, he refused to paddle kids, offering detention instead. But others — teachers, parents, even kids — were accustomed to paddling. “Just about everyone at the beginning of the year said, ‘If he or she gives you any trouble, you can paddle them. You can send them home, and I’ll paddle them. Or you can have me come out to the school, and we can both paddle them.’ “It’s really just a part of the culture of the school environment there,” Couzo said.

There is scant research on whether paddling is effective in the classroom. But many studies have shown it doesn’t work at home, said Elizabeth Gershoff, a University of Michigan assistant professor of social work.

“The use of corporal punishment is associated almost overwhelmingly with negative effects, and that it increases children’s problem behavior over time,” Gershoff said. Children may learn to solve problems using aggression, and a sense of resentment might make them act out more, Gershoff said.

The practice is banned in 29 states, most recently in Delaware and Pennsylvania. While some education groups haven’t taken a position on the issue, the national PTA believes paddling should be banned everywhere.

“We teach our children that violence is wrong, yet corporal punishment teaches children that violence is a way to solve problems,” said Jan Harp Domene, the group’s president. “It perpetuates a cycle of child abuse. It teaches children to hit someone smaller and weaker when angry.”

Houston Chronicle, August 20, 2008 (written by Libby Quaid of the Associated Press).

In Broward County, Florida, a manager at a Davie apartment complex turned away African-American applicants, then tried to use the lack of black tenants to appeal to whites, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday by the U.S. Justice Department. The lawsuit accuses C.F. Enterprises LLC and on-site apartment manager Don Murroni of discriminating against black people trying to rent at College Square Apartments in violation of the Fair Housing Act. Evidence was gathered through the department’s Operation Home Sweet Home initiative, where individuals pose as renters to identify possible discriminatory practices.  Susannah Bryan (South Florida Sun-Sentinel).

Murroni could not be reached for comment despite a call to the apartment complex at 6600 SW 39th St.  Craig Forman, Baco Raton-based president of D.F. Enterprises, could not be reached for comment depsite two calls.

The complaint alleges the defendants discouraged African-Americans from applying and offered to waive the application fee and other costs for white applicants only. The lawsuit, filed in Fort Lauderdale federal court, seeks an injunction against further discrimination, money damages for victims and civil penalties to be paid to the United States.  Marsha Ellison, Fort Lauderdale president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said she hopes the lawsuit sends a message to other apartment managers who might try the same thing.

“It’s disappointing. However, it’s not surprising,” Ellison said of the allegations. “We would love to shut the doors of the NAACP, but this stuff goes on every single day, so we still exist.” On Wednesday, Mayor Tom Truex said the claims, if true, are no reflection on the town.

“The town of Davie has no tolerance for people who are discriminating based on race,” Truex said. “That kind of conduct has no place in Davie.”

The black population of Davie has stayed relatively stable since 2000, with about 3,400 residents who make up about 4 percent of the town’s population, census data show. In Broward County, the black population increased to 461,000 in 2007, or about 26 percent of the population. Davie has a long history of racial strife. Susannah Bryan(South Florida Sun-Sentinel).

The 2007-2008 Supreme Court term was a mixed blessing for the civil rights community, as the Court handed down decisions in crack cocaine sentencing guidelines, employment discrimination, voter ID laws, and execution by lethal injection.  Ardina Applebaum (Civilrights.org:http://www.civilrights.org/library/features/007-supreme-court-term-ends.)

Kathleen Sullivan, former dean of Stanford Law School and partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, LLP, told an audience at a July 1 American Constitution Society (ACS) event that the term could best be described as the “familiar ideological divide…but not every time.” 

This term, the Court made significant progress in the area of criminal justice reform with its 7-2 decision in Kimbrough v. United States.  In Kimbrough, the Court upheld the discretion of judges to depart from harsh federal sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine offenses, which disproportionately affect people of color in the guidelines’ crack cocaine 100-1 ratio for sentencing, and to impose more lenient verdicts.At the ACS event, John Payton, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said that Kimbrough exemplified how the court is “conservative but is not afraid of recognizing rights.” 

And in a decision that surprised many observers, the Supreme Court adopted a broad interpretation of worker’s rights by holding in Gomez-Perez v. Potter that the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) prohibits retaliation by federal employers against employees who have filed discrimination complaints.  Similarly, in CBOCS v. Humphries, the Court said that Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which bars discrimination in the making and enforcement of contracts, bars retaliation for lawsuits under that law.

Unfortunately however, the term also had a number of decisions that greatly restrict Americans’ civil rights. 

In Crawford v. Marion County Election Board and Indiana Democratic Party v. Rokita, the Supreme Court upheld a controversial Indiana voter ID law – the most restrictive in the nation – which has been widely criticized by civil rights and voting experts for creating unnecessary obstacles for individuals less likely to own such IDs, including the poor, people with disabilities, the elderly, and people of color. 

Civil rights groups and voting rights experts say that barriers like the ones created by the Indiana law may actually make voting harder for Americans and erode public confidence in the election process.  Justice John Paul Stevens, in his majority opinion, said that the law was justified in part by the state’s interest “in preventing voter fraud,” even though the state had not brought forward any evidence of voter fraud.

In another criminal justice case, Baze v. Rees, the Court held in a fractured 7-2 decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts that execution by lethal injection did not violate the 8th Amendment prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishment.”  The three-drug cocktails used in lethal injection have been controversial as evidence suggests that when the mixture does not work properly, it can cause extreme pain during execution.  

In his concurring opinion, Justice Stevens noted the continuing risk of racial discrimination in death penalty sentences and called for a re-examination of the U.S.’s use of the death penalty.  Concurring opinions agree with the holding of the majority, but are written to express a particular judge’s reasoning.

The civil rights community expressed profound disappointment with the Court’s decision.  Steven Shapiro, ACLU’s legal director, said that the decision “upheld a lethal injection protocol that veterinarians in nearly half the states, including Kentucky, are prohibited from using when putting our pets to sleep.”

The case brought national attention to the debate over death penalty reform.  Panelists at the ACS Term Review noted how this decision’s polarized 7-2 vote demonstrated a strategy of the more liberal-oriented justices “picking their fights,” perhaps as a way to break from a strategy from the previous term. 

Legal experts at the ACS panel forecasted an increasingly internationalist focus, as well as a significant voting rights case, in the Court’s next term. http://www.civilrights.org/library/features/007-supreme-court-term-ends.html

In its August 2008 issue, Black Enterprise reported that Democrat Karen Bass, a member of the California State Assembly, has been sworn in as California’s State Assembly Speaker, becoming the first African American woman in United States history to head a state legislative body.  According to the article, she will oversee the operation of the 80-member-assembly.  Priorities will include adressing the state’s budget, overhauling California’s tax structure and improving California’s foster care system.  A source quoted in the article stated that Ms. Bass has a reputation as a consensus builder.  We congratulate her on this historical moment.

Regardless of income level, racial and ethnic minorities tend to pay more for their mortgages than Whites, according to a new study done by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC).   Jon Jackson (Civilrights.Org)
August 14, 2008

In 71 percent of the 155 metro areas examined in the study, middle- and upper-income  African Americans were twice as likely to receive high-cost loans then Whites in the same income brackets. High-cost, or subprime, loans are those with an interest rate significantly higher than conventional mortgages.  NCRC found that as the income level for minority borrowers increases, lending disparities also increase. 

“The data reminds us that the current housing crisis was overwhelmingly the result…of bad loan products in financially vulnerable communities.  It is not surprising that foreclosures have been concentrated among African Americans and Latinos, because predatory and problematic loans are most prevalent in those communities,” said John Taylor, president & CEO of NCRC.

The NCRC study says that the prevalence of these high-cost loans has contributed to the current foreclosure crisis and “impedes” wealth-building in minority communities, particularly in metro areas where racial disparities in loans are most prevalent, such as Milwaukee, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Huntsville, Ala.  There is no indication that the study included Houston, Dallas or San Antonio Texas.

The NCRC study is one of several studies that have examined the effect of race and ethnicity in lending practices. 

Another report released by the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) in May 2006 cited similar findings. For many of the types of loans CRL examined, minority borrowers were more than 30 percent more likely to receive high-rate loans than those White borrowers with identical credit scores. Jon Jackson (Civilrights.Org)
August 14, 2008

According to a press release by the American Diabetes Association entitled “American Diabetes Association Applauds U.S. Senate for Introducing Bill to Protect the Rights ofAmericans with Disabilities” (www.diabetes.org, August 1, 2008), the American Diabetes Association strongly supports the amendments to the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 currently before Senate.  The bill has already pssed the House.  One major change discussed by the American Diabetes Association is to provide protection for persons excluded by the 1999 US Supreme Court decision in Sutton v. United Airlines, which excluded persons who successfully managed diabetes by ruling that they were not disabled by the disease.  The American Diabetes Association is a voluntary health organization supporting diabetes research, information and advocacy.

According KEVIN FREKING of the Associated Press, Presidential challenger John McCain said Sunday that he supports a proposed ballot initiative in his home state that would prohibit affirmative action policies from state and local governments. A decade ago, he called a similar effort “divisive.”  Houston Chronicle, July 27, 2008.

Over the years, McCain has consistently voiced his opposition to hiring quotas based on race. He has supported affirmative action in limited cases. For example, he voted to maintain a program that encourages the awarding of 10 percent of spending on highway construction to women and minorities. McCain was asked specifically Sunday whether he supported an effort to get a referendum on the ballot in Arizona that would “do away with affirmative action.”

“Yes, I do,” said McCain in an interview broadcast Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” The Republican senator quickly added that he had not seen the details of the proposal. “But I’ve always opposed quotas.” Mr. McCain did not discuss cities in Texas, such as Houston, San Antonio and Dallas.

In 1998, a resolution pending in the state Legislature would ask Arizona voters to eliminate most preferences based on race, gender, color or ethnic origin. McCain warned against using ballot proposals to outlaw quotas or racial preferences. “Rather than engage in divisive ballot initiatives, we must have a dialogue and cooperation and mutual efforts together to provide for every child in America to fulfill their expectations,” McCain said.

The 1998 story by the Associated Press said McCain was speaking to a handful of Hispanic leaders in Washington. In his comments, he stopped short of directly criticizing the resolution pending in Arizona. A spokesman for the McCain campaign said in a statement that the senator has always opposed hiring quotes based on race.

He believes that regardless of race, ethnicity or gender, the law should be equally applied,” the spokesman, Tucker Bounds, said. “He has long stood for the protection of civil rights and equal opportunity for all Americans.” For the current effort in Arizona, supporters of the state constitutional amendment banning affirmative action programs have met the filing deadline to get the measure on the November ballot.

The Arizona Civil Rights Initiative filed 334,658 signatures with the Secretary of State’s office Thursday, surpassing the necessary number by more than 100,000. State officials are trying to verify that enough signatures are valid to get the initiative on the ballot.  The application for the referendum petition said the proposal would amend the state constitution to prohibit preferential treatment or discrimination by state government, state universities, school districts, counties and local governments to any individual based on race, sex, ethnicity or national origin.

Democratic challenger Barack Obama said he is a “strong supporter of affirmative action when properly structured so that it is not just a quota.” He said he believes a university or college should be able to take into account race as well as economic class and hardship when making assessments about admissions.

Obama said McCain flipped on the issue of putting affirmative action bans on the ballot. “These are not designed to solve a big problem, but they’re all too often designed to drive a wedge between people,” Obama said.

On that point, McCain’s spokesman did not directly answer whether McCain had changed his views about the wisdom of putting bans on affirmative action policies to the voters.  Bounds said that Obama himself Sunday said that affirmative action is not a long-term solution, but has also said he’s a firm believer in affirmative action.

“So you tell me who is too inexperienced and has flipped on this issue,” Bounds said. 

By Kevin Freking Associated Press (Houston Chronicle) July 27, 2008

The Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York spent the last two years canvassing restaurants, setting up focus groups and sending 43 matched pairs into restaurants, and, according to an article in Colorlines, the group found that employers use a vague but clearly racialized set of criteria to hire an overwhelmingly male and white staff for the most lucrative positions (executive chef, captain, server, maitre d’) while people of color are sent to work in “back of the house” positions (line cooks, barbacks, bussers, runners).  The study reportedly shows that employers expressed little interest in hiring whites as rfunners and bussers because the whites are not as willing to stay at the same low wage job. 

For more information, you can go to http://www.rocny.com or the July-August 2008 issue of Colorlines at p. 9.  In addition, employees who belive they are the victims of employment discrimination, may consult the EEOC and an attorney about an employement discrimination charge and lawsuit.