Newsclips
December 18, 2018
The Associated Press
COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) — An internet troll who harassed a black college student with racist messages on social media has agreed to a court settlement requiring him to get “anti-hate training,” apologize in writing and on video and publicly renounce white supremacy.
Tuesday’s settlement agreement would resolve Taylor Dumpson’s claims against one of the defendants she sued in April over an online harassment campaign orchestrated by a neo-Nazi website publisher.
The “troll storm” started after she became the first black woman to serve as American University’s student government president. Her suit says The Daily Stormer publisher Andrew Anglin directed his site’s readers to cyberbully her. Dumpson sued Anglin and two people who harassed her. Her settlement agreement is with Evan James McCarty, who posted online under a pseudonym. Anglin hasn’t responded to the suit.
December 12, 2018
CNN
(CNN)Over the course of four days, five reports of hate-related incidents recently made national headlines. The news illustrates a disturbing trend, civil rights groups say.
On Friday, December 7, a fire destroyed a Jehovah’s Witnesses house of worship. It was the fifth attack this year targeting the religious group in Washington state, federal officials said.
The next day, a black man was assaulted at a bar in Lynnwood, Washington, by eight self-professed members of a neo-Nazi skinhead group, according to the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office. Members of the group allegedly yelled racist slurs during the incident, and an employee identified as an Asian man was injured as he tried to intervene. On Sunday, Pittsburgh officials said that anti-Semitic pamphlets were being spread throughout the city, including in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, the site of a mass shooting that targeted Jews in October.
December 12, 2018
The Washington Post
A federal judge this week ordered Maryland to remedy the lack of investment in the state’s historically black colleges and universities, in an effort to resolve a decade-old lawsuit over inequality in public higher education.
The state must establish a set of new, unique and high-demand programs at each historically black institution, the judge declared.
Since 2006, a coalition of alumni from Maryland’s four historically black institutions have been locked in litigation with the state to dismantle what they say are vestiges of racial segregation. The group says Maryland has underfunded Morgan State University, Coppin State University, Bowie State University and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, and allowed other state schools to duplicate their programs, placing pressure on enrollment.
December 4, 2018
Reuters
(Reuters) – Georgia voters return to the polls on Tuesday to elect a new elections chief in a state where critics accused Republicans this autumn of exploiting the position to suppress minority voting rights. Republican Brad Raffensperger and Democrat John Barrow were forced into a runoff in the secretary of state race after neither candidate secured a majority of the vote in the Nov. 6 general election as required by state law. The contest has showcased the partisan divisions still rankling the state after its hard-fought governor’s contest, which saw widespread reports of voting problems during an election overseen by the Republican candidate, Brian Kemp, then secretary of state. Kemp’s narrow victory over Democrat Stacey Abrams, who sought to become the nation’s first female African-American governor, followed complaints of hours-long waits in heavily minority precincts, polling equipment failures and concerns about absentee ballots getting rejected under stringent rules that voters’ signatures exactly match the records on file.
The principal mission of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law is to secure equal justice for all through the rule of law, targeting in particular the inequities confronting African Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities. The Lawyers’ Committee is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to enlist the private bar's leadership and resources in combating racial discrimination and the resulting inequality of opportunity - work that continues to be vital today.