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Roy Wood Jr. Roasts and Reflects at WHCD 2023

By Jennifer M. Wood Roy Wood Jr. wanted to accomplish two things during his White House Correspondents’ Dinner speech Saturday night: laughs and reparations, as he told NPR earlier this week. He got half his wish. On Saturday evening, Wood took some mainly innocuous shots at Joe Biden, largely targeting his age (“When the retirement age went up two years to 64 [in France] they rioted because they didn’t want to work till 64. Meanwhile in America, we have an 80-year-old man begging us for four more years of work.”) But he really rode roughshod over several newsmakers who weren’t in the room at the Washington Hilton Hotel to

Biden Honors Emmett Till With National Monument Designation

By Juliana Kim President Biden will designate a national monument at three sites in honor of Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley — both of whom served as catalysts for the civil rights movement. Biden is expected to sign a proclamation on Tuesday, which will be the 82nd anniversary of Till’s birth. The new monument will be established across three locations in Illinois and Mississippi in an effort to protect places that tell Till’s story, as well as reflect the activism of his mother, who was instrumental in keeping the story of Till’s murder alive. In August 1955, two white men

Kamala Harris Slams Florida’s New Black History Standards

By Zoë Richards Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to travel to Florida on Friday to deliver critical remarks in response to the state Board of Education’s approval of new standards for how Black history will be taught in schools. The trip to Jacksonville will highlight efforts to “protect fundamental freedoms, specifically, the freedom to learn and teach America’s full and true history,” a White House official said in an announcement first shared with NBC News. Harris, whose mother was a civil rights activist, will also meet with parents, educators, civil rights leaders and elected officials, the official said. Her last trip to Florida was

ACSUS Hosts Africa-U.S. City Relations Dialogue in Joburg

By Hluma Luvo Ralane the African Centre for the Study of the United States (ACSUS), University of the Witwatersrand, held the Inaugural Multidisciplinary Dialogue on Africa-U.S. City Relations at the ANEW Hotel Parktonian, Johannesburg.  The dialogue sought to serve as a catalyst for addressing social, economic, political and cultural challenges confronting cities. The stakeholders tackling these issues were diverse, ranging from academics and scholars, to city and corporate officials.  Dr Bob Wekesa, the Deputy Director of ACSUS, presided over the three day conference. In the opening ceremony, Cllr Thapelo Amad, the Executive Mayor of the City of Johannesburg, commended the

Supreme Court Ruling Renews Focus on HBCU Equity

By E.R. Shipp Chief Justice John Roberts has convinced himself the United States has reached the Promised Land, while those of us focused on social justice are still climbing the rough side of the mountain. Viewing the world from his differently focused glasses, he has declared over a 10-year period that there is no longer a need for federal voting rights protections (Shelby County v. Holder, 2013) and there is no longer a place for affirmative action in higher education (Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. University of North Carolina et

Morgan State Responds to Supreme Court’s Affirmative Action Ban

By President David K. Wilson The ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court declares that race can no longer be a factor in higher education admissions, which for many institutions will erode decades of progress in cultivating diversity on their campuses. Affirmative action has long been a scale-balancing tool in addressing historical and systemic inequalities, allowing educational institutions to consider an applicant’s race or ethnicity as one of several factors in the admissions process. Its purpose has been to promote equal access to higher education for underrepresented BIPOC groups, including African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans, who have historically faced significant

Students React to Supreme Court Affirmative Action Ruling

By Char Adams, Kimmy Yam, Sandra Lilley, Emi Tuyetnhi Tran and Cora Cervantes As a rising high school senior trying to figure out the next several years of her life, Gabrielle Wilson sees Thursday’s Supreme Court decision on race-conscious admissions as a possible hurdle. “I think if affirmative action was taken away, it would make me not as hopeful about getting into the higher institutions I would like to apply for, such as Harvard,” said Gabrielle, 17, who will be a senior at the private De La Salle Institute in Chicago this fall. Gabrielle spoke to NBC News before the Supreme Court decision Thursday that vastly restricts race-conscious

Voting Rights Erode 10 Years After Shelby v. Holder Ruling

By Char Adams The Black-white voter turnout gap in Alabama and other states has widened in the 10 years since the Supreme Court gutted part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that for decades restricted states from enacting voting policies that stanched Black voter participation, data shows. In 2013, the court ruled 5-4 in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder that Section 4 of the act was unconstitutional. This meant that the nine states and other smaller divisions once subject to what’s known as “preclearance” due to their histories of voter discrimination no longer had to clear changes to voting access rules with

SCOTUS Ruling Reshapes College Admissions and Diversity

By Anemone Hartocollis In the Supreme Court decision striking down racial and ethnic preferences in college admissions, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. had harsh words for Harvard and the University of North Carolina, calling their admissions process “elusive,” “opaque” and “imponderable.” But the court’s ruling against the two universities on Thursday could lead to an admissions system that is even more subjective and mysterious, as colleges try to follow the law but also admit a diverse class of students. Officials at some universities predicted that there would be less emphasis on standardized metrics like test scores and class rank, and more emphasis on

Gregory Robinson Led NASA’s James Webb Telescope Launch

By Rachel Treisman NASA released the first batch of images from the James Webb telescope this week, wowing the world with never-before-seen views of ancient and distant galaxies. The approximately $10 billion telescope was decades in the making, a partnership with the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency that involved some 20,000 collaborators across 29 countries and 14 U.S. states. It finally launched in December 2021 after a long string of setbacks and delays that led some astronomers to fear it might never get off the ground. Gregory Robinson wasn’t one of them. The career NASA employee was brought in as director of the

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