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N-Word 'Slip' Forces Law-School Name Change
N-Word 'Slip' Forces Law-School Name Change Amid outrage from students, school leaders and legislators over his use of the N-word, Ralph Papitto, who has donated millions of dollars to the Are Americans Egocentric? New Study Says Yes "American individualism" could hinder Americans' ability to understand other peoples' point of view, while the Chinese are more skilled at empathy because they live in a "collectivist" society, a new study suggests. Chinese participants in the study did not exhibit the strong, egocentric communication of Westerners but were able to put themselves in the shoes of another when they were communicating, said study co-author and cognitive psychologist Boaz Keysar of the Blacks, Latinos Most Likely to Live Near Toxic Waste If you're black or Latino, you're more likely than white people to live near hazardous waste. More than half of the 9 million people living within two miles of the nation's hazardous waste facilities are people of color, according to "Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty, 1987-2007: Grassroots Struggles to Dismantle Environmental Racism," a recent report co-written by Robert Bullard, professor at Clark Atlanta University and the director of that university's Environmental Justice Resource Center. In response to Bullard's report, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) points out that since 1993, it has awarded more than $30 million in grants to more than 1,100 community-based organizations focused on addressing local environmental and public-health issues. The EPA is also developing an Environmental Justice Smart Enforcement Assessment Tool, which will look at environmental, health, socioeconomic and compliance factors to ensure that the EPA's enforcement activities will focus on communities that need it most. Read more. Are You Guilty of Accent Discrimination? Jose Rodriguez, a FedEx employee, was not selected for a supervisory position he sought. A FedEx customer-service manager allegedly told Rodriguez that "he would have hired Rodriguez except for [Rodriguez's supervisor] stated concern that Rodriguez's accent and speech pattern would adversely impact Rodriguez's ability to rise through the customer ranks." Rodriguez sued and lost. But the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision, concluding that such statements were direct evidence of discrimination--"evidence, which, if believed, requires the conclusion that unlawful discrimination was at least a motivating factor in the employer's actions." Read more. Read former Equal Employment 'Ugly Betty' Wins Emmy Nomination The Emmy nominations were released today, and among the shows nominated was freshman hit "Ugly Betty," based on a Colombian telenovela. "Ugly Betty" was nominated for best comedy series, and the show's star, America Ferrera, was recognized with a nomination for her starring role. Read more. 'Hairspray' Makes Big Ladies Beautiful "Growing up, all I saw were the really thin actors and pop singers of the world. Everybody was so thin and tall and blond and everything I was not," says actress Nikki Blonsky, the hefty 4-foot-10 newcomer who plays Tracy Turnblad in the film adaptation of "Hairspray." The movie is based on the Broadway musical about a plump teenager who sets out to appear on a 1960s TV dance program in Baltimore and ends up leading a fight to integrate the show. Turnblad also sings and dances up a storm, gets the hunkiest guy in town, becomes a TV darling and foils the schemes of the station's ex-beauty-queen manager. The stage musical in turn was based on John Waters' 1988 cult flick, which put Ricki Lake, the original Tracy Turnblad, on the road to stardom. "It's going to have made three young girls a big star. Three fat girls. That's even greater," Waters says. "I always thought a big girl, every outsider could identify with that. Everyone feels like an outsider nowadays, so I thought everyone could identify with
NYPD: A Leader in Diversity The New York Police Department's unparalleled recruiting efforts have made the 35,000-officer NYPD the nation's largest police force and its most internationally diverse. A 1,103-member police-academy class that graduated earlier this month included 264 rookies born in 48 foreign countries, including EEOC Strengthens Age-Discrimination Laws In order to be in line with a Supreme Court decision, the EEOC has strengthened its Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) of 1967. Language in the EEOC's ADEA regulations that prohibited discrimination against relatively younger individuals has been deleted in the final rule, with the rule instructing that the ADEA only prohibits employment discrimination based on old age and, thus, does not prohibit employers from favoring relatively older individuals. The rule is effective (See also: Age Discrimination: What You Need to Know) Schwarzenegger Slammed for Poor Judicial Diversity The Calif. legislature's minority caucuses are urging that funding for new state judges be deleted from the budget because of Gov. Schwarzenegger's poor record on judicial diversity. Democrats have been pressuring the Republican governor since last year to have the judiciary better reflect the state's large, segmented population of color--and the round of appointments he made last month only raised their ire. Of those 26 appointments, none were of Asian or Pacific Islander descent, one was Latino and three were black. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 44 percent of California's population is white, 35 percent is Hispanic, 12 percent is Asian and 6.7 percent is black. As California becomes more diverse, Lieu says, it is imperative that the judiciary reflect that diversity to ensure the public's trust in the legal system. Read more. Elizabeth Edwards Out Strong for Gay Rights Elizabeth Edwards, wife to Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, supports a hate-crimes bill that protects sexual orientation. "The right to live without fear of physical violence against yourselves, or against your families, is more than important. For you, it's essential--and for us, as a nation, it's a moral imperative," says Edwards. "It's true that we need real and enforceable national hate-crimes legislation, and then we need to give local authorities the power and the means to punish those who seek out to do harm to people simply because of their sexual orientation ... The right to live without the fear of being murdered for whom we love is not a special right." Read more. How do eight major presidential candidates stand on LBGT rights and other issues important to DiversityInc readers? Read Whose Presidential Campaign Is Worst for Diversity? from the June issue of DiversityInc magazine. Ann Romney Talks About Life With MS Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998, Ann Romney, 58, wife to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, credits mainstream and alternative therapy with keeping her out of a wheelchair and putting the degenerative neurological disease in remission. As she begins to campaign on her own, she is talking more openly about her struggle and what it has taught her. "It was hard for me early on to decide whether to put it out there," Romney says. "I decided I was very comfortable with it ... Everywhere I go people come up to me, they mob me--anyone who has MS or has a relative with MS--they come up and hug and cry. I don't care what somebody else thinks about it. I know for certain people I'm championing a struggle that they're going through." Read more. Pirates' LaRoche and Gorzelanny Bonded by ADD Pittsburgh Pirates Adam LaRoche and Tom Gorzelanny, a power-hitting first baseman and a left-handed pitcher, respectively, both cope with attention-deficit disorder, a neurological affliction that can manifest in numerous ways, including forgetfulness, hyperactivity and loss of focus. It's unusual for any team to have more than one acknowledged case of ADD or ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder) in the clubhouse. But simple math says LaRoche and Gorzelanny are hardly alone. Pitchers Derek Lowe of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Scott Eyre of the Chicago Cubs are among the roughly 5 percent of the U.S. population thought to have some form of the disorder. Read more.
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