Rutgers Women's Basketball Coach Hits 800th Win: What Advice Does She Have for You? 

Rutgers University women's basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer claimed her 800th win Wednesday in a tough victory over the 19-5 DePaul University. Stringer, who began her coaching career at Cheyney State before moving to Iowa, was hired by Rutgers before the 1995 season and is the first coach, men's or women's, to take three different programs to the Final Four. She also guided Rutgers to the national championship game last year, reports The New York Times, which was when her team was put in the national spotlight after radio talk-show host Don Imus referred to the mostly Black girls' team as a bunch of "nappy-headed hos." Rutgers handed No. 1 seed UConn its only upset of the season earlier this month. How does Stringer do it? Find out in the upcoming March 2008 issue of DiversityInc magazine, which features Stringer and seven other "women we love" who have made amazing strides in their lives and others'.  

Why Won't Clarence Thomas Speak Up?

He wants to be known as "the listening Justice," but two years and 142 oral hearings without a word from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has some people wondering what he's doing on the court, reports AlterNet.org. Thomas hasn't asked a question during a court proceeding since last February during a death-penalty case out of South Carolina. He's remained silent during many turbulent times in and out of court, including during two Supreme Court cases involving voluntary school-integration plans last summer and allegations of sexual harassment against him from Anita Hill. He even skipped the president's final state of the union address. "One thing I've demonstrated often in 16 years is you can do this job with asking a single question," Thomas told the Federalist Society during his book tour. When an audience member followed Thomas' statement by asking why the other justices asked "so many questions," Thomas replied, "That's a fine question. When you figure out the answer, you let me know." Read national political commentator Earl Ofari Hutchinson's take on "the truth about Clarence Thomas." 

Blacks continue to lag whites in median income, a new study by the Eisenhower Foundation, a private urban-policy institute, finds. The study found that the median household income for Blacks was $31,696, which is 60 percent of whites' median household income, reports USA Today. The study also found a 9 percent drop in Blacks in poverty but countered those numbers, saying Blacks are three times more likely than whites to live in extreme poverty. On Wednesday, Senate Democrats announced they will include $35 billion in aid to jobless workers and low-income families, which would extend the time that workers can claim unemployment benefits and increase funding for low-income heating-assistance programs, reports The Wall Street Journal. Is Black income declining? Our baloney meter checks it out.

Where Are All the Blacks, Latinos and Asians in Media?

There is a shortage of Blacks, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans in the media and some are saying the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s latest efforts to push for more diversity on television are outdated in a world of the Internet and niche communications, reports NPR. Blacks, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans made up 13.62 percent of America's daily newsrooms, according to the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE). However, these groups represent 33 percent of the nation's population, reports AlterNet.org. So will the FCC's efforts pan out? If there's anything we learned from Don Imus, it's that TV needs new faces.

Obama Reaches Out to LGBTs

Sen. Barack Obama has managed an 11-state primary sweep and weakened his competition's hold on women, whites, and older voters over the last several weeks. Now, he is courting another major group backing rival Sen. Hillary Clinton: the LGBT community. Late last week, Obama rolled out new advertisements in gay newspapers in Ohio and Texas and, according to his campaign, has organized LGBT steering committees in Ohio and Texas. Obama also wrote an op-ed piece in which he assured the LGBT community that he would "never compromise on my commitment to equal rights for all LGBT Americans," reports Queerty.com. While there are no numbers on LGBT voters in the heavily contested states, they could be the deciding factor to either extend the senator's lead or even settle the score. But would either Clinton or Obama push to make it illegal to discriminate against these constituents?

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