Saturday, November 05, 2011
U.S. Supreme Court halts execution, says trial had racist bias
From The Hindu
The United States Supreme Court has blocked the state of Texas from carrying out the execution of Duane Buck, an African-American man convicted of murder, on the grounds that a psychologist expert witness at his trial introduced racist bias into the case before sentencing.
The highest court in the land has dealt a severe blow not only to the legitimacy of the trial process in Texas, which executes more inmates than any other U.S. state, but also to the political capital of Texas Governor and 2012 presidential hopeful Rick Perry.
Mr. Perry was earlier refused a petition by the legal team of Mr. Buck to approve a 30-day reprieve on the execution after it emerged that testifying psychologist Walter Quijano had told the jury at Mr. Buck’s sentencing hearing that “he was a danger to the public because he is black... [and that] that black people posed a greater risk to violent reoffending if released from jail.”
In 2000, that testimony was criticised even by erstwhile Attorney General and current Senator John Cornyn, who conceded that Mr. Buck’s case and those five others had been “unconstitutionally tainted by the racial testimony” of Mr. Quijano. The other five men were said to have received new sentencing trials – and all were re-sentenced to death.
According to reports Kate Black, Mr. Buck's lawyer, said after the Supreme Court’s decision, “No one should be put to death based on the colour of his or her skin. We are confident that the court will agree that our client is entitled to a fair sentencing hearing that is untainted by considerations of his race.”
Labels: African-Americans, Duane Buck execution, Duane Buck trial
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
African-Americans face discrimination in U.S.
From The Hindu
In recent years innumerable studies have examined the disadvantages that minority groups in the United States face, particularly the effect of material deprivation on livelihood prospects.
In an unusually self-critical appraisal the National Institutes of Health, the government-run facility that oversees $31.2 billion annually in medical research, announced that a study that it had commissioned found that African-American applicants from 2000-2006 were 10 percentage points less likely than Caucasian applicants to be awarded research project grants from the NIH.
According to a statement by the NIH it had initiated the study in 2008 to determine if researchers of different races and ethnicities with similar research records and affiliations had similar likelihoods of being awarded a new NIH research project grant.
The findings, which have raised a storm over the discriminatory nature of the peer-reviewed funding process at NIH, were part of a study called Race, Ethnicity, and NIH Research Awards.
While the study suggested that Asians faced a less harsh discrimination in this area even they had to contend with being 4 percentage points less likely than Caucasians to receive medical research grants.
Science magazine quoted NIH Director Francis Collins saying, “I was deeply dismayed... This is simply unacceptable that there are differences in success that can't be explained.”
Along with NIH Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak, Mr.Collins quickly authored a response in the magazine in which they outlined the steps the agency would take to address such racial disparities.
“As much as the U.S. scientific community may wish to view itself as a single garment of many diverse and colourful threads, an unflinching consideration of actual data reminds us that our nation's biomedical research workforce remains nowhere near as rich as it could be,” they said.
The finding comes on the back of numerous, sometimes troubling, race-relations questions focussing on the negative social and livelihood outcomes for African-Americans under the Obama administration.
Several high-profile incidents over the last two years had raised questions about whether African-Americans had seen any welfare improvements at all since an African American President had entered the White House.
Notably the cases of the Henry Louis Gates, a Harvard University professor wrongfully arrested by the police, and of Shirley Sherrod, who was fired from her job as Director of Rural Development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture over false allegations of racism, suggested that racial harmony in the U.S. has by no means improved since 2009.
In recent years innumerable studies have examined the disadvantages that minority groups in the United States face, particularly the effect of material deprivation on livelihood prospects.
However a new study published in Science magazine this week shows that in the case of African-Americans, it is not poverty or illiteracy that holds them back from ascending the professional ladder but insidious discrimination in terms of opportunities made available to them.
In an unusually self-critical appraisal the National Institutes of Health, the government-run facility that oversees $31.2 billion annually in medical research, announced that a study that it had commissioned found that African-American applicants from 2000-2006 were 10 percentage points less likely than Caucasian applicants to be awarded research project grants from the NIH.
According to a statement by the NIH it had initiated the study in 2008 to determine if researchers of different races and ethnicities with similar research records and affiliations had similar likelihoods of being awarded a new NIH research project grant.
The findings, which have raised a storm over the discriminatory nature of the peer-reviewed funding process at NIH, were part of a study called Race, Ethnicity, and NIH Research Awards.
While the study suggested that Asians faced a less harsh discrimination in this area even they had to contend with being 4 percentage points less likely than Caucasians to receive medical research grants.
Science magazine quoted NIH Director Francis Collins saying, “I was deeply dismayed... This is simply unacceptable that there are differences in success that can't be explained.”
Along with NIH Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak, Mr.Collins quickly authored a response in the magazine in which they outlined the steps the agency would take to address such racial disparities.
“As much as the U.S. scientific community may wish to view itself as a single garment of many diverse and colourful threads, an unflinching consideration of actual data reminds us that our nation's biomedical research workforce remains nowhere near as rich as it could be,” they said.
The finding comes on the back of numerous, sometimes troubling, race-relations questions focussing on the negative social and livelihood outcomes for African-Americans under the Obama administration.
Several high-profile incidents over the last two years had raised questions about whether African-Americans had seen any welfare improvements at all since an African American President had entered the White House.
Notably the cases of the Henry Louis Gates, a Harvard University professor wrongfully arrested by the police, and of Shirley Sherrod, who was fired from her job as Director of Rural Development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture over false allegations of racism, suggested that racial harmony in the U.S. has by no means improved since 2009.
Labels: African-Americans, Caucasians, Harvard professor, race issue in U.S., racial discrimination, U.S. scientific community
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Senate Bill delivers overdue justice to minorities
From The Hindu
Even in the face of partisan bickering in the United States over the approval of an arms reduction treaty, Democrats and Republicans came together last week to address a long-standing claim of underpayment and resource mismanagement brought by the African-American and American-Indian communities here.
On Friday the U.S. Senate passed a Bill that sought to provide $4.55 billion in compensation to the two minority communities. Its passage marks the culmination of an effort by the Obama administration and the 111th Congress to finally settle a backlog of claims relating to allegations of racism and unfair practice in land purchased from African-American farmers and “historical injustice” meted out to the American-Indian community in the management of their funds.
Of the funds earmarked, $1.15 billion has been set aside by the Senate for claimants from the African-American farming community. The money will specifically address the needs of “late petitioners” or farmers who missed the filing deadline in a long-standing class-action suit that was settled back in 1999.
Commenting on the Bill’s passage the Network of Black Farm Groups and Advocates said, “Two years after the provision in the 2008 Farm Bill that provided the opportunity for late petitioners in the Black farmer lawsuit to file their claims against the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Senate has finally passed an appropriations bill that will fund the lawsuit. It was a vote of unanimous consent... [and] a momentous occasion.”
An NBFGA official also said that at a time when people had decried the divisiveness that prevailed in Congress the Bill showcased an impressive collaboration between the Republicans, Democrats and the Obama Administration.
In addition to the African-American farmers’ cause the Bill set aside $3.4 billion for the American-Indian community under another long-standing case, Cobell versus Salazar.
According to the Bill’s mandate the funds would be disaggregated as $1.4 billion for settlement of accounting and mismanagement claims and another “$2 billion for addressing fractionation of individual Indian land” the National Congress of American-Indians said in a statement.
The tribes that would benefit from this settlement included the White Mountain Apache Tribe in Arizona, the Crow Tribe in Montana, the Aamodt in New Mexico, and Pueblo of Taos in New Mexico.
Speaking after the Bill passed in the Senate Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said, “With the Senate’s approval of the Cobell settlement and... four Indian water rights settlements, this is a day that will be etched in our memories and our history books.”
Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk added that the water settlements in particular were nothing short of historic for Indian nations as they would meet the needs of tribes as well as neighbouring communities through provisions for sharing shortages and investing in critical infrastructure needs.
The Bill is still awaiting ratification by the House of Representatives and a Presidential signature. President Barack Obama has already indicated his intention to sign the Bill into law and in an earlier press conference described the settlement as “fair” and “just” and said his administration would “continue to make it a priority.”
Even in the face of partisan bickering in the United States over the approval of an arms reduction treaty, Democrats and Republicans came together last week to address a long-standing claim of underpayment and resource mismanagement brought by the African-American and American-Indian communities here.
On Friday the U.S. Senate passed a Bill that sought to provide $4.55 billion in compensation to the two minority communities. Its passage marks the culmination of an effort by the Obama administration and the 111th Congress to finally settle a backlog of claims relating to allegations of racism and unfair practice in land purchased from African-American farmers and “historical injustice” meted out to the American-Indian community in the management of their funds.
Of the funds earmarked, $1.15 billion has been set aside by the Senate for claimants from the African-American farming community. The money will specifically address the needs of “late petitioners” or farmers who missed the filing deadline in a long-standing class-action suit that was settled back in 1999.
Commenting on the Bill’s passage the Network of Black Farm Groups and Advocates said, “Two years after the provision in the 2008 Farm Bill that provided the opportunity for late petitioners in the Black farmer lawsuit to file their claims against the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Senate has finally passed an appropriations bill that will fund the lawsuit. It was a vote of unanimous consent... [and] a momentous occasion.”
An NBFGA official also said that at a time when people had decried the divisiveness that prevailed in Congress the Bill showcased an impressive collaboration between the Republicans, Democrats and the Obama Administration.
In addition to the African-American farmers’ cause the Bill set aside $3.4 billion for the American-Indian community under another long-standing case, Cobell versus Salazar.
According to the Bill’s mandate the funds would be disaggregated as $1.4 billion for settlement of accounting and mismanagement claims and another “$2 billion for addressing fractionation of individual Indian land” the National Congress of American-Indians said in a statement.
The tribes that would benefit from this settlement included the White Mountain Apache Tribe in Arizona, the Crow Tribe in Montana, the Aamodt in New Mexico, and Pueblo of Taos in New Mexico.
Speaking after the Bill passed in the Senate Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said, “With the Senate’s approval of the Cobell settlement and... four Indian water rights settlements, this is a day that will be etched in our memories and our history books.”
Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk added that the water settlements in particular were nothing short of historic for Indian nations as they would meet the needs of tribes as well as neighbouring communities through provisions for sharing shortages and investing in critical infrastructure needs.
The Bill is still awaiting ratification by the House of Representatives and a Presidential signature. President Barack Obama has already indicated his intention to sign the Bill into law and in an earlier press conference described the settlement as “fair” and “just” and said his administration would “continue to make it a priority.”
Labels: African-Americans, American-Indians, Barack Obama administration
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