Negative Effects Of Affirmative Action

The story below needs no pre-comment from
me cause it's an issue that's very close to many
of us who are trying to make a way in this man's
land. So just check it out and leave us your opinion.


IMAGINE, FOR A MOMENT, that a program designed to aid disadvantaged students might, instead, be seriously undermining their performance. Imagine that the schools administering the programs were told that the programs might be having this boomerang effect -- but that no one

investigated further because the programs were so popular and the prospect of change was so politically controversial.

Now imagine that an agency had collected enough information on student performance that it might, by carefully studying or releasing the data, illuminate both the problem and the possible solutions. What should the agency do?

This is not a hypothetical question. The schools involved are dozens of law schools in California and elsewhere, and the program is the system of affirmative action that enables hundreds of minority law students to attend more elite institutions than their credentials alone would allow. Data from across the country suggest to some researchers that when law students attend schools where their credentials (including LSAT scores and college grades) are much lower than the median at the school, they actually learn less, are less likely to graduate and are nearly twice as likely to fail the bar exam than they would have been had they gone to less elite schools. This is known as the "mismatch effect."

The mismatch theory is controversial. One of us (Sander) has advanced it in the academic literature. The other (Amar) believes that while it raises substantial questions, it has not been empirically proved. Some dismiss the whole idea as nothing more than a politically motivated attack on affirmative action or, even worse, an attack on blacks and Latinos -- the main recipients of current preferences. Many rightly point out that definitive conclusions are difficult because the data available to researchers thus far have been limited in very important ways.

Still, certain facts are indisputable. Data from one selective California law school from 2005 show that students who received large preferences were 10 times as likely to fail the California bar as students who received no preference. After the passage of Proposition 209, which limited the use of racial preferences at California's public universities, in-state bar passage rates for blacks and Latinos went up relative to out-of-state bar passage rates. To the extent that students of color moved from UC schools to less elite ones (as seems likely), the post-209 experience is consistent with the mismatch theory.





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Hip-Hop Comes Under Congressional Scurtiny

Testifying today before a congressional house panel,
rappers Master P and David Banner gave two opposing
views about cleaning up rap's lyrical content. Read the
story below and feel free to make your own suggestions.


Two rappers, sitting side-by-side in a House hearing room, went in different directions Tuesday on the need for hip-hop artists to expunge their work of sexist and violent language.

One, Master P, apologized to women for past songs that demeaned them, while another was defiant.

Former gangsta rapper Master P, whose real name is Percy Miller, told a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing that he is now committed to producing clean lyrics. The angry music of his past, he said, came from seeing relatives and friends shot and killed.

But he said now that he doesn't want his own children to listen to his music, "so if I can do anything to change this, I'm going to take a stand and do that."

"I want to apologize to all the women out there," he said. "I was honestly wrong."

But rapper and record producer Levell Crump, known as David Banner, was defiant as lawmakers pressed him on his use of offensive language. "I'm like Stephen King: horror music is what I do," he said in testimony laced with swear words. "Change the situation in my neighborhood and maybe I'll get better," he told one member of Congress.

The two rappers were joined by music industry executives and scholars. They disagreed over who was to blame for sexist and degrading language in hip-hop music but were united in opposing government censorship as a solution.

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"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
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excerpts from this treasured
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Jesse's Loose Lips?

Looks as if Jesse Jackson has once more found a way
to get his foot and mouth together. I won't ad much
more to this because for those of us that have been
around we are well aware of Jesse's loose lips.


Jesse Jackson was quoted as saying Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was "acting like he's white" for not speaking out more forcefully about a racially charged schoolyard beating in Louisiana.

Wednesday's (Columbia) State newspaper said Jackson made the comment about Obama and the Jena, La., case after speaking Tuesday at Benedict College, a historically black school. "If I were a candidate, I'd be all over Jena," Jackson said in his remarks after the speech, according to the published account.

"Jena is a defining moment, just like Selma was a defining moment," Jackson said. In 1965, demonstrators were attacked by police with billy clubs during a peaceful voting rights march in Selma, Ala. "Bloody Sunday" shocked the nation and helped bring attention to the voting barriers that kept blacks from the polls.

Jackson later told the newspaper he did not remember making the "acting like he's white" comment about Obama, who is black.

On Wednesday, the civil rights activist said in a statement that he was "taken out of context." It said he commended Obama "for speaking out and demanding fairness on this defining issue. Any attempt to dilute my support for Sen. Obama will not succeed."

The newspaper's deputy managing editor, Steve Brook, said the newspaper was standing by its story.

The Illinois senator, in a statement late Wednesday reacting to Jackson's comment, said "outrage over an injustice" such as in the Jena case "isn't a matter of black and white. It's a matter of right and wrong." Obama cited earlier statements in which he "demanded fairness" and said they "were carefully thought out with input and support" from one of his national campaign chairmen _ Jesse Jackson Jr., a Chicago congressman and son of the elder Jackson.

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"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
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excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
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Is L.A. Going To Be The Testing Grounds For New Gadgets?

As the 21st century moves on so does technology within
L.A.'s law enforcement as it tries to find non-lethal ways
of dealing with combatant individuals. The L.A. Sheriff's
department known for shooting first and asking questions
later is trying to turn it's track record around with space-
age weapons. Read the article below and feel free to ring in.



Charles "Sid" Heal stands excitedly in the parking lot of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's station in San Dimas, tinkering with a prototype for the ominously named "Active Denial System."
With one zap from what looks like a satellite dish on a tripod, those within target range feel a burning sensation on their skin.

Heal, a Sheriff's Department commander, tested the device on himself.

"It is like stepping into a scalding shower. You are going to step back quickly," Heal said. "It just stops them in their tracks."

Heal likes the system because he sees it as one day making rubber bullets or tear gas obsolete -- giving police a less violent way to control crowds and combative suspects. Heal said he believes the Sheriff's Department will be deploying some form of the weapon within a few years.

Heal, a barrel-chested veteran with a street-fighter's nose and bulging biceps, knows a lot about deadly force.

He was a beat cop in southeast L.A. County, headed the sheriff's SWAT unit and had tours in Vietnam, Somalia, Kuwait and Iraq as a Marine and Marine reservist.

But for the last decade, Heal has dedicated himself to helping cops avoid deadly confrontations. As head of the sheriff's Technology Exploration Unit, he has tested hundreds of high-tech law enforcement gizmos -- some backed by huge corporations, others the brainchild of garage inventors.

The 32-year veteran of the department is not a scientist, and he doesn't develop products. But a bad review from him can doom or delay an invention, while endorsements can have buyers lining up at the maker's door. Some, such as Tasers and pepper-spraying flashlights, are now a part of deputies' everyday lives.

His pursuit of improving policing through advanced technology has made him a national figure in law enforcement circles. Guys without last names from the CIA seek his advice. If James Bond were an American, colleagues joke, Heal would be Bond's gadget guy, Q.

"He is a silent warrior. He brings a skill set few possess," said Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Mike Hillman, a friend of 30 years. "He has been able to integrate technology designed for the military into law enforcement to save lives and wrote the bible on SWAT."




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It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
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excerpts from this treasured
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Review Board Criticized!

At issue is whither the board setup to oversee the complaints
against the New York police department is doing their job. Not
so according to a local civil rights group. Read the article and let
us know your thoughts on the issue.


A civil rights group yesterday criticized New York City’s system of investigating police misconduct, charging that a civilian agency responsible for the task had failed to pursue complaints aggressively, and that punishment was too lenient when misconduct was established.
The New York Civil Liberties Union, which has long been critical of the agency, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, said that the board dismissed more than half its cases before fully investigating them, and that only about 5 percent of the cases were ultimately substantiated.

“Our analysis concludes that the civilian oversight system has failed,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the civil rights group.

The report, which the civil liberties union said was based mainly on data made public by the board, says the board has failed to keep pace as the volume of civilian complaints about police misconduct, ranging from improper use of force to discourtesy, has risen by 86 percent since 2000.

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly dismissed the findings yesterday, calling the analysis flawed. “They are going to bash us every chance they get,” he said of the civil rights group.

Mr. Kelly attributed the increase in citizen complaints to the city’s 311 hot line, which went into operation in 2003, providing a convenient way to express displeasure with the police.

Andrew Case, a spokesman for the board, which employs 147 investigators, said its most recent records showed that 60 percent of the civilian complaints were being dismissed before they were completely investigated — but only because those who made those complaints decided not to follow through. He said none of those cases would have been dropped if those who had complained, mainly through calls to 311, had been willing to appear and make formal statements at the board’s office in Lower Manhattan, as city rules dictate.

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"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
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excerpts from this treasured
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One Bad Apple!

When one is sworn to uphold the violates it the he is
worse than the criminal he put behind bars. And in the
story below an F.B.I. agent lied in his testimony that
resulted in in a man being locked away for 12 years.
What do you think the agents punishment should be
for his criminal actions?


A coalition of national nonprofit groups asked the Justice Department on Tuesday to investigate and suspend an FBI employee who was found by a jury to have falsified evidence against a man who served 12 years in prison before being exonerated by DNA evidence.

The National Innocence Network, which is dedicated to clearing people who are wrongfully convicted, asked Justice Department officials to investigate former Riverside County Sheriff's Deputy Danny Miller, who now works for the FBI.

A federal jury found in April that Miller had helped wrongly convict Herman Atkins on robbery and rape charges 19 years ago.

The jury, seated in Los Angeles to hear Atkins' civil rights claim over the wrongful conviction, unanimously concluded that Miller had "intentionally attributed a statement" to a witness that the man did not make.

The jury also unanimously concluded that Miller had "failed to disclose" that he had "fabricated" the statement and that there was a "reasonable probability" that if he had told the truth the outcome of Atkins' trial "would have been different."

During the trial, Miller testified that he now works as an intelligence analyst for the FBI, focusing on homeland security, at the agency's Little Rock, Ark., office.

Tuesday's action marked the first time that the National Innocence Network, made up of organizations at 31 law schools, "has ever asked that a law enforcement officer be suspended and investigated for misconduct that led to a wrongful conviction," said Kathleen Ridolfi, executive director of the Northern California Innocence Project at Santa Clara University Law School.





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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/