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  • Louisiana redistricting case seen as crucial test of Voting Rights Act

    6/04/11
    Source: 
    The Washington Post

    In a racially mixed corner of Shreveport, La., a small group of white voters protested loudly this year that they did not want to be part of a majority black district when the legislature redrew the state’s political boundaries. The Republican-led statehouse complied, drawing a line around the community to accommodate them.

    That line is at the heart of a case before the Justice Department that is seen as a critical test of how the Obama administration will interpret the controversial Voting Rights Act as it rules on a new wave of redistricting plans.

  • More schools rethinking zero-tolerance discipline stand

    6/02/11
    Source: 
    The Washington Post

    Nearly two decades after a zero-tolerance culture took hold in American schools, a growing number of educators and elected leaders are scaling back discipline policies that led to lengthy suspensions and ousters for such mistakes as carrying toy guns or Advil.

  • In Shift, Justice Department is Hiring Lawyers With Civil Rights Backgrounds

    5/31/11
    Source: 
    The New York Times

    WASHINGTON — Under the Obama administration, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has reversed a pattern of systematically hiring conservative lawyers with little experience in civil rights, the practice that caused a scandal over politicization during the Bush administration.

  • Rights groups ask court to join prisoner-redistricting suit

    5/27/11
    Source: 
    Thomson Reuters

    NEW YORK, May 27 (Reuters) - Three civil-rights organizations have requested permission to join as defendants in a lawsuit brought by state senators and citizens who wish to block a law changing the way New York's prisoners are counted for census purposes.

  • Civil Rights Groups Call for Retroactive Application of Guidelines for Cocaine Sentencing

    5/25/11
    Source: 
    civilrights.org

    A group of seven prominent national civil rights organizations that includes The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights sent a letter to the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder urging him to support the retroactive application of a new set of sentencing guidelines that accompany the implementation of the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA), which reduced the discriminatory sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine offenses.