U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Saturday told an Hispanic civil rights group that the nation's fight to ensure racial equality, fairness and justice for all "remains far from over" and he vowed to step up prosecution of those who discriminate against Latinos, African-Americans and other minorities.
He thanked the National Council of La Raza for leading the way for decades to protect Latinos and other disenfranchised immigrants and Americans. And he said President Barack Obama's Justice Department would work hard this election year to ensure voters have equal ballot access no matter their heritage or race.
"Our nation's struggle to overcome injustice and eliminate disparities remains far from over," Holder said, speaking to a luncheon audience of 1,850 people on the opening day of the four-day conference in Las Vegas. "We have further to travel on the road to equality."
The nation's first African-American attorney general, Holder was the keynote speaker at the conference of the largest U.S. civil rights organization representing Latinos, a rising political power in Nevada and the nation. In general, Hispanics are a Democratic-leaning voting bloc that could decide the White House race.
President Obama is sending Vice President Joe Biden to address the group on Tuesday, the last day of the conference of 5,000 La Raza members at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center.
Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney sent one of his top Hispanic advisers to the conference. Former U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez wasn't offered a speaking role, but he greeted people attending a Latino Expo on Saturday as part of the conference.
Holder appeared relaxed, joking it was good to get out of Washington. Two weeks ago, lawmakers voted to hold him in contempt of Congress as Republicans pummel him over a botched government gun-tracking operation nicknamed " Fast and Furious."
"It's particularly nice to be outside of Washington, D.C.," Holder said.
A member of the audience shouted, "We love you!"
"I love you back," Holder said. "It's been an interesting few weeks in Washington."
In his 18-minute speech, Holder said he was pleased the U.S. Supreme Court recently threw out most of an Arizona law to crack down on illegal immigrants in the border state next to Mexico. But Holder said he was disappointed the high court upheld the most controversial part of the law that would allow police to ask for papers proving a person's immigration status if the person is stopped for some other reason.
The "show me your papers" part of the law must be narrowly enforced, the high court said, or it, too, would be open to a separate legal challenge.
The attorney general said the Justice Department would be watching enforcement of the Arizona law carefully, ready to intervene if it is abused and used to indiscriminately stop suspected illegal immigrants.
"Such laws cannot be seen as a license to engage in racial profiling," Holder said to applause.
Holder praised Obama for recently instructing federal authorities not to deport young adult children of undocumented immigrants who grew up in the United States. Instead, the Obama administration will launch a program to let young immigrants apply for two-year work permits.
Holder said the administration would continue to press Congress to pass the DREAM Act, which would provide a path to U.S. citizenship for those young immigrants who attend college or join the U.S. military. Meanwhile, he said there's no reason to waste money and effort to deport them.
Obama's new policy will "make our immigration enforcement effort not only more efficient and cost-effective, but also more just," Holder said. "There's no question this action represents a significant and a long overdue improvement of our immigration policy."
U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., addressed the conference lunch ahead of Holder. She, too, praised Obama's actions on immigration and called for passage of the DREAM Act . She also contrasted her views with those of her Republican opponent for U.S. Senate, incumbent Sen. Dean Heller, who doesn't support the DREAM Act and has praised the Arizona law.
"He says he wants to bring it here to Nevada," Berkley said. "Nevada doesn't want the Arizona law. Nevada doesn't need the Arizona law. And Nevada will do just fine without it."
Holder praised Berkley, calling the Democratic supporter of Obama "an extremely effective advocate for the people of Nevada."
"And I think she would make an excellent U.S. senator," he said.
Heller did not attend the La Raza conference. His campaign said he was spending the weekend celebrating his 28th wedding anniversary with his family and campaigning in Reno. Heller is among the Nevada politicians on the conference's honorary host committee, however.
Heller and Romney campaign officials manned booths at the Latino Expo, a free event for Hispanics and other members of the community being held with the conference. Democrats also reached out to the Latino crowd with more than 25,000 people expected to visit the free expo.
In an interview at the expo, Romney's Hispanic adviser, Gutierrez, said Latinos should have a natural affinity for Republicans' conservative policies, including "family, faith and hard work."
Gutierrez criticized Obama for not working on comprehensive immigration reform and only offering Hispanics short-term solutions in an election-year pitch for votes. He said stimulus spending didn't offer long-term job prospects for Americans, including Hispanics who suffer higher rates of unemployment - about 11 percent compared with 8.2 percent overall.
Gutierrez said Obama's offer of two-year work permits for young adult children of immigrants was a "patchwork solution" that didn't solve the long-running undocumented immigrant problem.
The presidential election, Gutierrez said, would come down to who could do a better job at boosting the economy to create jobs and improve the lives of Hispanics and all Americans. He said Romney's business experience makes him more qualified than Obama, a former U.S. senator.
"It's about who can do the job because this country is in trouble," Gutierrez said. "We need the right leadership. This is the biggest CEO job in the world. … It is obvious that we need a change. We need a positive change."
In recent weeks, Romney has been stepping up his outreach to Latinos, particularly in battleground states such as Nevada where they made up about 15 percent of the electorate in the last election. Four years ago, Obama overwhelmingly won Hispanics in Nevada by a ratio of 3 -to-1 over his GOP presidential foe, John McCain, and he remains popular among Latinos.
In June, Romney named dozens of top Republican Hispanics as national and state advisers to his campaign, including Gutierrez and Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval. Gutierrez was commerce secretary for four years under former President George W. Bush.
Sandoval delivered a videotaped welcome to the La Raza conference.
Lisa Navarrete, an adviser to the president of the La Raza organization, said Romney lost a good chance to address Latinos. She said his Hispanic adviser Gutierrez could only come on Saturday and the conference organizers couldn't fit him into the schedule at the last minute.
"We think it was a missed opportunity," Navarrete said. "Our community doesn't know Governor Romney very well. If he wants to engage the community he has to address the community. For us, we're disappointed."
New data released by Pennsylvania officials suggests that as many as 750,000 voters in the crucial battleground territory could be impacted by a stringent new voter ID law. The law, passed this May ostensibly to prevent voter fraud, requires all voters in Pennsylvania to show a valid photo ID at the polls.
Among those acceptable forms of photo ID include a state-issued driver's license, a valid U.S. passport, a U.S. military ID, a government-issued employee ID, an ID card from an accredited Pennsylvania higher learning institution, or a photo ID card issued by a Pennsylvania care facility, such as an assisted living residence or personal care home.
According to the survey, 758,939 voters - 9.2 percent - could not be matched in state databases as having Pennsylvania driver's licenses, the most common form of photo ID in the state.
Of those 9.2 percent, about 22 percent - or 167,566 people - are categorized as "inactive" voters, according to the data. A person can be characterized as an "inactive" voter if he or she has not voted in five years and has not responded to a state inquiry about his or her current address. Federal and state law also mandate that an "inactive voter" be kept on the state registration list until he or she fails to vote in two consecutive general elections for federal office following the notification.
"Even though many voters identified in this comparison as not having PennDOT IDs are 'inactive voters', most of whom have not voted since 2007, we will err on the side of caution and include them in this mailing," said Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele in a statement released alongside the study.
Even if voters are classified as "inactive" with 100 percent accuracy, however, that leaves nearly 600,000 "active" voters who lack driver's licenses and may not be able to cast their votes on Election Day.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele had previously said that 99 percent of Pennsylvania voters had the photo ID they needed to vote this November.
The controversial legislation has come under particular scrutiny in the last few weeks after Republican Mike Turzai, Pennsylvania's House Majority Leader, suggested during a June Republican State Committee meeting that the legislation aimed to benefit Mitt Romney's electoral prospects this November.
"We are focused on making sure that we meet our obligations that we've talked about for years," Turzai said in June, listing off a litany of Republican accomplishments in the state, according to Politics PA. "Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it's done. First pro-life legislation - abortion facility regulations - in 22 years, done. Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done."
The remarks inspired widespread criticism from Pennsylvania Democrats, who decried it as an admission that Republican legislators were attempting to disenfranchise Democratic voters.
The Pennsylvania Department of State, however, maintains that the law merely aims to deter people from voting illegally.
"We are committed to helping any eligible voter who does not have an acceptable ID get one to be able to vote in November," Aichele said. "We are continuing our outreach to get the word to voters about this law. The goal of this law is to allow every legal voter to cast a ballot, but detect and deter anyone attempting to vote illegally."
The N.C. NAACP President (Rev. William Barber) decides to speak out on Public School Re-Segregation and his right to Freedom of Speech!
Oh yes I remember now. Rev. Barber was recently arrested for protesting. He was alone in his efforts because fellow NAACP members were afraid to support him.
Earlier this year during a Wake County (N.C.) School board on Diversity the Chairman called Black parents attending this meeting "Animals & Coons".
Did the national NAACP leaders speak up? No! The N.C. NAACP President sought help from National NAACP leaders but received little assistance, actually he received NO help!
Do you think Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have sat quietly if such a thing had occurred on his watch? I think not!
The President of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP spoke out after he and three others were arrested during a Wake County School Board meeting last month.
Rev. William Barber and the others were charged with trespassing for disrupting the June 15 meeting. Following the arrests, officials sent a letter warning them to stay off school property or face legal action.
In response, Barber issued a statement Friday which said, "let them send us a thousand letters. What they need to do is send a letter of apology for wrecking the nationally acclaimed diversity policy and slowing the struggle to improve excellent educational opportunities for poor and minority children."
School officials said they can attend meetings if they provide written notice ahead of time and ask for permission
Meanwhile, Barber plans to hold a news conference before Tuesday's Wake County School Board meeting to make several demands from the board of education.
They include stopping segregation and promoting diversity, providing equity in funding, hiring and retaining high quality teachers, creating smaller class sizes, focusing on math, science, history and reading, promoting parent and community involvement and eliminating inequities in suspensions, graduation rates and performance.
The news conference is scheduled for Tuesday at 10 a.m. at the State Capitol building.
Jennifer Shelton is not a Politician but for the last few days she has been lobbying lawmakers in Raleigh.
"I believe that a person is tried for their crime and not for the color of their skin," said Shelton.
Her husband, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Officer Jeff Shelton, and his partner Sean Clark were gunned down three years ago as they answered a domestic disturbance call in east Charlotte at the Timber Ridge Apartments.
Demeatrius Montgomery was scheduled to go on trial for the murders in July, but a judge postponed it until October, which stunned the families.
"None of us saw that coming. We were all taken aback by that," Jennifer Shelton said.
The trial was delayed because of the N.C. Racial Justice Act. It requires experts to examine data on a county-by-county basis to determine if Blacks are more likely to get the death penalty than whites for committing the same types of crimes.
Proponents counter that the unintended consequences should not be a surprise to anyone because it's written in the bill that the N.C. Racial Justice Act can be used prior to a trial.
"From the moment I saw it, I saw it as a fatally flawed bill that was as likely to create as many injustices as it was supposed to correct," said Republican House Whip Thom Tillis.
He believes changes need to be made and he's glad Shelton is helping him make that case.
"In a case such as ours it gives a person charged with murder a chance to avoid a death sentence based on statistics from other cases," Shelton said. "I believe people should pay for their crimes. I believe victims deserve justice."
Shelton says the lawmakers she talked to seemed receptive to her plea. She is hoping that will be enough.
A Black N.C. Star High School Football player is challenging the charges against him, stemming from a run-in with N.C. deputies that ended up with the player being stunned with a Taser.
West Rowan High School running back Kevin Parks and his attorney, Ken Harris, are also conducting their own investigation into what happened.
They're hoping to find answers to what they say are several unanswered questions and see whether their findings constitute enough to proceed with a civil lawsuit.
Parks, who goes by KP, never met an end zone he couldn't reach in a flash while running over defenders.
"59 touchdowns this year," he said.
That's just one of his many football records.
Others include being named to the 2010 Parade All-American Team as well as the Old Spice Red Zone National Player of the Year. That prowess earned Parks a football scholarship to Virginia.
But it's another record Parks is fighting, which includes accusations of improper passing, following too closely and resisting a public officer.
"I was feeling like -- is this really happening right now?" Parks said, referring to an incident two weeks ago in Davie County.
"This day started with him traveling to see a friend. It ended up with him Tased and unconscious," said Harris.
Investigators say Parks was driving too closely to an off-duty trooper, who was on his motorcycle with his wife, and then Parks passed the motorcycle in a no-passing zone on Highway 601 in Davie County.
Plus, police say Parks' car was weaving and the trooper suspected impairment.
That trooper followed Parks until he stopped. Help arrived to take Parks into custody. Investigators say that's when an argument ensued and Parks was stunned with a Taser.
Parks isn't talking about the arrest, but Harris says there are plenty of questions his investigation hopes to answer.
"Whether or not Mr. Parks should have been stopped in the first place, whether or not he engaged in any traffic violation to begin with, whether or not he should have been restrained, whether or not he should have been arrested, whether or not he should have been Tased," Harris said.
Harris says other issues includes Parks' Taser injury and when the off-duty, non-uniformed officer flashed a badge.
"Is it shown 8 miles after you follow someone?" Harris said. "The mere showing of a badge doesn't give you license to do whatever you want to do."
Since Parks' arrest, investigators now say Parks was not impaired, even though that's what they suspected.
Parks hasn't filed a civil suit, but Harris says that could change depending upon what their investigation finds.
Highway Patrol officials say the trooper was doing his job -- on or off duty -- and did what he felt was right.
They also say Parks likely is an outstanding young man but in their words, "they arrest outstanding young men all the time."
The family of two murdered police officers will have to wait a few months longer for a trial.
For the second time, lawyers for the alleged cop killer tried to have their client declared mentally incompetent. The judge didn't buy the claim, but the trial will still be delayed.
Now, the families of officers Sean Clark and Jeff Shelton will have to wait until October to go to trial.
The suspected killer, Demeatrius Montgomery, walked into court Thursday without a hint of emotion and has continued to remain silent, even refusing to speak with his attorneys.
"His behavior has become increasingly bizarre, odd," said defense attorney Duane Bryant.
Montgomery's attorneys say he is not competent to stand trial, but the judge disagreed with their assessment.
Still, the newly enacted Racial Justice Act proved to be a winning hand in delaying the trial.
"It is an act that looks at the reasons or reported reasons behind the exposure to death or life in prison," Bryant said.
The act is designed to determine if there is racial bias in the system when it comes to the death penalty. Prosecutors say they have looked at 10 years worth of death penalty cases and found no bias.
But the judge agreed to wait for the completion of a statewide study, which includes Mecklenburg County. Prosecutors argued there is no reason to make the families of Clark and Shelton wait any longer.
"I think the Legislature did not make a provision for this hearing on purpose, and therefore it's the state's position that there is no need to hear this," said assistant district attorney Marsha Goodenow.
Officers Shelton and Clark were killed three years ago in March. They were both shot in the head as they stood outside the Timber Ridge apartments while responding to a domestic dispute.
The N.S. State Department of Public Instruction has ordered the Wake County school system to develop a new alternative program for long-term suspended students after concluding that the district had violated state and Federal law for Special Education students.
State investigators concluded late last month that around 200 Wake County long-term suspended students who are being educated at home this year are not receiving a free and appropriate public education.
The report faulted Wake for not having developed an adequate replacement to the Richard Milburn High School for long-term suspended students that was discontinued last year for budget reasons.
Wake annually issues more than 1,000 long-term suspensions, meaning those students are out of their regular school for the rest of the school year. Many of those students are also classified also receive special-education services that are protected under state and federal law.
At Richard Milburn, students attended classes in a building with both physical and virtual teachers. This year, students take online courses only.
The report said the new program didn’t meet the needs for students with disabilities.
In the absence of Richard Milburn, the report noted that long-term students were receiving instruction at home on weekends and after-school. But the report found that the Wake was providing these students with less than six hours of weekly instruction.
The report also found that many of the long-term suspended students receiving homebound instruction had not been promoted several times and had been suspended several times without getting proper special education services.
The investigation began after a complaint was filed by Advocates for Children’s Services, a non-profit group which has represented a number of students who’ve received long-term suspensions.
A group of Wake County residents filed a lawsuit this morning asking the court to throw out recent votes ending the diversity policy on the grounds that the school board violated N.C. state law.
In the lawsuit filed in Wake County Superior Court, the residents say the Wake County school board violated the N.C. State Open Meetings Law by not holding the March 23 meeting at a large enough venue and by requiring people to get tickets to attend.
During the meeting, the board passed by a 5-4 vote a resolution calling for the creation of community-based schools and the end of the district’s socio-economic diversity policy.
The lawsuit asks the court to throw out the March 23 vote.
The lawsuit also asks that the court throw out Tuesday's initial board vote on changes to the student assignment policy that would make family proximity to school a priority while also eliminating socioeconomic diversity. The suit contends that Tuesday's vote has been tainted by the board's continued refusal to move meetings to a larger venue.
"This is about democracy and the way we make decisions in this country," said Swain Wood, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs.
A final board vote on the student assignment changes is scheduled for May 18.
School board chairman Ron Margiotta said the lawsuit was merely a tactic by opponents who couldn't accept that the elected board has the right to move forward.
"I think we bent over backwards to allow people to speak," he said. "If they want to just bring us into court, all this will do is take more money from the children of this county. Accept the wishes of the people of this county."
Wood said that a 2 p.m. hearing has been scheduled for the case on Wednesday in courtroom 5B of the Wake County Courthouse.
Citing security and crowding concerns, the school district had required people to get tickets for a seat in the board room.
The overflow crowd at the meeting stretched into the hallways and outside the building. Three people were arrested at a protest.
The lawsuit cites the offer by The News & Observer and Capitol Broadcasting to pay for the cost of relocating the meeting to a larger site. Citing logistical concerns, school board chairman Ron Margiotta turned down the request.
The civil rights groups representing the people filing the lawsuit had also raised concerns that day about the ticket policy.
Carrying signs saying "Stop Deporting Families!" and "No Human Being is Illegal," dozens rallied yesterday afternoon in downtown Manhattan against Arizona's new law making it a state crime to be in the country illegally.
"It's unthinkable to have a law like that," said Soledad Villacis, 34, at the rally in front of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offices.
"When they are looking for our votes we don't look undocumented to them," said Villacis, who came to Ridgewood, Queens, from Ecuador without documentation but later became a legal resident. "Just because you eat guacamole and listen to Latin music doesn't mean you are undocumented."
"This is not just about Politics. This is about the soul of our country," said the Rev. Michael Ellick, assistant pastor of Judson Memorial Church in the West Village.
Meanwhile in Washington yesterday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano -- a former governor of the Grand Canyon State -- also balked at the bill: The Arizona law "will detract from and siphon resources that we need to focus on those in the country illegally who are committing serious crimes, in addition to violating our nation's immigration laws," Napolitano told Senate Judiciary Committee members.
Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department is considering launching a court challenge to the Arizona statute, which was signed into law Friday.
New York advocacy groups said they have sent a letter to President Obama demanding he strike down the Arizona law, and filed a lawsuit to get records that show police cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
N.C. State law says some neighbors' concerns about a proposed Affordable Housing project in Ballantyne doesn't matter when it comes to voting for approval or denial.
N.C. Senate Bill 810 was signed into Law by Gov. Bev Perdue last fall.
The legislation says a development can't be denied simply because it contains Affordable Housing.
It means meetings like one held past Monday at Harrison United Methodist Church are good for airing concerns -- and that's about it.
He listens to his constituents, but says his hands are tied on the vote, thanks to the New Law.
"We run the risk from either side, depending upon what the vote is of Legal Action, saying you didn't do this right," said Cooksey.
Warren Cooksey says the evaluation whether it's an appropriate land use is the issue, not the impact on neighboring property values and not potential concerns about crime.
Police say some of the most crime-ridden areas in Charlotte are Affordable Housing neighborhoods.
At Ballantyne Crossing, about one-third of the 86 units are proposed low-income.
"If crime is perceived to be a shorthand for a perception of Affordable Housing, we are prohibited from Discriminating against Affordable Housing in a land use decision," Cooksey said.
To ease neighbors' concerns, the city says they can request conditions to the agreement, like requesting improved roads, sidewalks, green space and lighting.
People who are in favor of the Ballantyne Crossing complex say there's a need for Affordable Housing for people who work in Ballantyne, who want to live there as well.
The meeting started inside while people were still lining up outside. Hundreds showed up to hear more about a proposed public housing complex in the Ballantyne area. One by one, they fired questions and comments at the developers, Republic Development Group:
"What experience do you have creating something like this?"
"Can you not find a more suitable place than what is the southern gateway to our community?"
"Where I'm coming from is I don't want it here.
My house is over one million dollars and I don't want the crap next to me."
The project took a hit Monday afternoon when the Charlotte Housing Authority issued a statement that it would not participate in the mixed income housing development.
"Questions about certain aspects of the project's structure, including its Density (the total number of apartment units relative to the cost of the land) and funding, prompted our decision," said Jennifer Gallman with the Charlotte Housing Authority.
"We keep going," said Stuart Proffitt of Republic Development.
Proffitt says he still hopes to build the 86 unit complex with another affordable housing developer. A representative from the Crosland Company told News Channel 36 the developer has asked if Crosland would manage the property if it were approved.
One man, who asked not to be identified, said he believed this was a case of "not in my backyard." "I live on the West side and this will be pushed to some other part of town," he said.
But opponents say that's not the case. They point to the fact that the proposed site, south of Ballantyne, off of Johnston Road, has no easy access to public sidewalks, little public transportation and already overcrowded schools.
Cynthia Jennings lives in the Ballantyne area. "People who live in low income housing want the same thing we all do. A nice place to live for their families. But the way the developer came in, through the back door, was sneaky and shady," she said.
A proposal to build 90 apartments for working class families is drawing criticism and resentment from homeowners who would live near the development.
More than 4.5 acres of land near the northeast corner of Westinghouse Boulevard and South Tryon was purchased for the rental homes last December.
About 200 residents of the Ayrsley community filled a meeting room Tuesday evening for what the project's developer called a "courtesy meeting".
Several of the homeowners carried signs which read "Save Ayrsley" and "No Low Income Housing"
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing Partnership, a non-profit agency, would build the two and three-bedroom apartments for families who make less than $32,000 per year.
"We don't have people who are just goofing off," said Patricia Garrett, the agency's president. "They have jobs. They go to school."
Garrett said neighbors are often misinformed about affordable housing communities. She said her managers often screen prospective tenants more thoroughly than at other, privately-run apartments.
Still, some Ayrsley homeowners told NewsChannel 36 they are concerned about the potential impact of more rental units in a community with an abundance of vacant apartments and town homes for lease.
"Build more when you have vacancies all over? "It doesn't make sense," said homeowner Monica Ainslie.
Because another 52-unit apartment community for low-income families, Summerfield, is less than a half-mile from the proposed site, developers must ask Charlotte's city council for permission to build the new apartments. The city's development rules are designed to prevent a heavy concentration of subsidized housing in one neighborhood.
"Nobody here is opposed to Subsidized Housing," Ayrsley homeowner Lauren Widrick told NewsChannel 36. "It's the violation of city council's policy in regard to clustering subsidized housing."
Garrett said her agency believes an additional 90-unit apartment community is not unreasonable for the area and is needed to provide housing for families who cannot afford to lease a home at the market rate.
Vacant apartments in Ayrsley are not eligible for the federal and state tax credits which would pay for most of the $10 million project, she said.
Council is expected to vote on the apartment community next month. An exact date has not been set.
Charlotte City leaders will also be asked to approve $1 million from the city's Housing Trust Fund for the development.
Council member David Howard is a vice-president with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing Partnership and part of the development team for the proposed apartments. He said Tuesday he will recuse himself from council's decision.
Angry demonstrators opposed to health reform legislation gathered outside the Capitol on Sunday, hours before a climactic vote on Democrats' overhaul of the nation's health care system.
Democratic leaders were heckled as they made their way to the Capitol from a nearby House office building. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led her caucus across the street with a gavel in one hand and the other on the arm of Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, who had been harassed by protesters on Saturday. Protesters shouted Pelosi's name and chanted "kill the bill."
Police arrested two people in the House gallery Sunday after they yelled during a debate session on the bill. Disruptions are banned in the chamber. Several Republican lawmakers stood up and cheered during the interruption.
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who has also reportedly been a target of heckling by health bill opponents, called the cheering GOP lawmakers "clowns."
"I've never seen this — for the Republicans to stand up and cheer the guy on," he said.
The disruptions came one day after a raucous protest including chants laced with racial epithets aimed at black members of Congress.
The tone was set outside the Capitol. Clogging the sidewalks and streets of Capitol Hill were at least hundreds — no official estimate was yet available — of loud, furious protesters, many of them tea party opponents of the health care overhaul.
Rallies outside the Capitol are typically orderly, with speeches and well-behaved crowds. Saturday's was different, with anger-fueled demonstrators surrounding members of Congress who walked by, yelling at them.
The motorcade that carried Obama to Capitol Hill to whip up support for the bill drove past crowds waving signs that read "Stop the spending" and "Get your hands out of my pocketbook and health care." Many booed and thrust their thumbs down as Obama rode by.
As police held demonstrators back to clear areas for lawmakers outside the Capitol Obama's speech, some protesters jeered and chanted at the officers, "You work for us."
Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., told a reporter that as he left the Cannon House Office Building with Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a leader of the civil rights era, some among the crowd chanted "the N-word, the N-word, 15 times." Both Carson and Lewis are black, and Lewis spokeswoman Brenda Jones also said that it occurred.
"It was like going into the time machine with John Lewis," said Carson, a large former police officer who said he wasn't frightened but worried about the 70-year-old Lewis, who is twice his age. "He said it reminded him of another time."
Kristie Greco, spokeswoman for Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., said a protester spit on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., who is black and said police escorted the lawmakers into the Capitol. Cleaver's office said he would decline to press charges, but Sgt. Kimberly Schneider of the U.S. Capitol Police said in an e-mail later: "We did not make any arrests today."
Clyburn, who led fellow black students in integrating South Carolina's public facilities a half century ago, called the behavior "absolutely shocking."
"I heard people saying things today that I have not heard since March 15, 1960, when I was marching to try to get off the back of the bus," Clyburn told reporters.
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who is gay, said protesters shouted "abusive things" to him as he walked from the Longworth building to the Rayburn building. "It's a mob mentality that doesn't work politically," he said.
The national NAACP is now joining the call for Wake County school board chairman Ron Margiotta to resign following his "here come the animals out of the cages" comment at last week's board meeting.
In a press release today, national NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous said he's joining the state NAACP in calling for Margiotta's resignation as board chairman. He said Margiotta's comment was 'racially insensitive."
“The racial insensitivity exhibited by Mr. Margiotta underscores the lack of consideration for the interests, needs, and concerns of Blacks and other racial and ethnic minorities in North Carolina,” said Benjamin Todd Jealous in the press releae. “We support the North Carolina NAACP in their call for justice and sensitivity in Wake County, and believe the resignation of Mr. Margiotta is a necessary step in that direction.”
Last week, the Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP, had said Margiotta was "unfit" to be chairman. Barber used the remark as part of the complaint filed last week with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
Margiotta has said he was "out of line" for the remark. But he's denied it had racial intent. He's pointing out that he was upset that a mostly white crowd was booing a black speaker for criticizing the diversity policy.
Here's the press release:
NAACP PRESIDENT BENJAMIN TODD JEALOUS, NC NAACP CALL FOR RESIGNATION OF BOARD CHAIRMAN IN LIGHT OF RACIST COMMENTS WAKE COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD CHAIRMAN RON MARGIOTTA REFERRED TO PEOPLE OF COLOR AS "ANIMALS OUT OF THEIR CAGES"
NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous joined the North Carolina NAACP State Conference in calling for the resignation of Wake County School Board Chairman Ron Margiotta based on comments made by Margiotta the organization deems racially insensitive. In a recent public school board meeting, Margiotta referred to several stakeholders of color as “animals out of their cages.”
“The racial insensitivity exhibited by Mr. Margiotta underscores the lack of consideration for the interests, needs, and concerns of Blacks and other racial and ethnic minorities in North Carolina,” said Benjamin Todd Jealous, President and CEO of the NAACP. “We support the North Carolina NAACP in their call for justice and sensitivity in Wake County, and believe the resignation of Mr. Margiotta is a necessary step in that direction.”
Margiotta’s comments come in the midst of a contentious and racially charged battle over proposed changes to Wake County school district busing policy that will effectively re-segregate the county’s school system. While the battle for good jobs, good schools and economic solutions continue statewide, North Carolina NAACP State Conference President Rev. Dr. William Barber II asserts that attitudes like that of Margiotta will only increase the divide between people of all races who are affected by the surrounding social conditions.
“The vivid imagery evoked by Mr. Margiotta of uncaged wild animals takes another step toward dehumanizing African Americans while trivializing our concerns,” said Barber. “The racial undertones present in Mr. Margiotta’s comments stand to undermine cohesiveness between racial groups at a time when it is most needed as we work together to achieve a better North Carolina for all.”
Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting voter mobilization and monitoring equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.
The new Wake County school board majority plans to put its official stamp Tuesday on sweeping changes that will drop the school district's socioeconomic diversity policy and embrace neighborhood schools.
The majority is expected to pass a resolution that calls for children to be assigned to schools within their own communities. Wake, the state's largest school system, would be divided into separate community zones, each with year-round and magnet school options.
The resolution calls for the new system to be phased in over three years, with the board working out details for the zones over the next nine to 15 months.
Board members say most of the changes likely won't go into effect until the 2012-13 school year.
"People are going to know the schools in their community," said Debra Goldman, a member of the new board majority who co-wrote the resolution, on Friday. "I'll know I can be more invested in the schools because they'll still be my schools a few years from now."
But board member Kevin Hill, a member of the minority faction, said things are moving too quickly. He and other supporters of the diversity policy have warned that eliminating it could lead to economic re-segregation of the schools.
Hill said he thought the board was going to have a work session about the direction of student assignment before any changes were voted on.
"I find it perplexing that it will be voted on before we've had a chance to discuss it," he said.
Also on Tuesday, members of the new board majority say they plan to vote on which year-round schools they'll convert to a traditional calendar for the 2010-11 school year. Staff members will make their recommendations on calendar conversions earlier in the day at a work session.
It's all part of a long day of meetings that will begin at 10 a.m. with a closed-door discussion on whether to remove Schools Superintendent Del Burns before his announced June 30 resignation date. After announcing his resignation last week, Burns criticized the new board and its proposed changes, particularly the plan to end busing for socioeconomic diversity throughout the district.
Tuesday also will include the staff's presentation of a proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year. It's likely to call for cuts and layoffs of as many as 100 school employees.
But the two items expected to draw much of the public's comments are the votes on the calendar conversions and community-based school assignments. Both were key parts of the campaign platforms of the four new board members who were elected last fall.
Moving Quickly
The four new Republican-backed members, who defeated Democratic-backed opponents, joined veteran board member Ron Margiotta in forming a new ruling coalition on the nine-member school board.
Margiotta and other members of the majority said they want to vote on the school assignment resolution to send a clear message to the community that they're carrying out what they promised to do. The resolution is supposed to guide all other school system actions.
"We're only doing what the community has asked us to do," said Margiotta, who has lobbied for community schools since he was elected in 2003. "There was never any doubt this was going to happen."
Goldman's role in drafting the resolution makes it clear that she backs the majority's efforts to eliminate the current diversity policy in favor of neighborhood schools.
Her commitment to making changes had been questioned after a Wednesday meeting in which she sought more study of the policy before acting. Since then, she hammered out the new resolution with fellow new board member John Tedesco.
The resolution's zone concept has been pushed by Tedesco, chairman of the newly formed student assignment committee. Despite the changes that would emerge, Tedesco said he still expects 75 percent to 90 percent of the county's schools to keep their current calendars and magnet programs.
Limiting The Impact
Magnet school parents and students have been among the most vocal critics of the new board. They fear that the new assignment system will cause many magnet schools to lose their programs.
"I think we can do it in a way that will limit the impact on schools," said Tedesco.
But he said there will definitely be some magnet changes in the next few years, from some schools losing their programs to others getting new ones. The resolution also calls for the immediate elimination of the use of socioeconomic diversity in filling new seats in magnet schools.
Margiotta said the majority is waiting to hear from board attorney Ann Majestic whether the resolution will require one or two votes to be approved.
On the year-round issue, Margiotta said he and other members of the majority want to finalize Tuesday which year-round schools will convert to the traditional calendar by fall. He said it is getting so late in the planning process that the board must act quickly.
"We're trying to give choice to parents," Margiotta said of the conversions. "That's what the public has been telling us. They want the school system to listen to the public."
When North Carolina's Wake County Public Schools decided to do away with race-based busing to desegregate schools, local officials came up with a novel solution to maintain balance.
The new method of assigning students by their socio-economic background rather than race helped to keep campuses integrated. Adopted in 2000, it quickly became a blueprint for other school systems.
That policy, however, has never sat well with many suburban parents -- often white and middle class -- who argue that the student assignment plan sends their kids too far from home. And a new school board, swept into office by those vocal parents, appears poised to scrap it in a vote scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.
The issue has brought the term "Segregation" and the weight of history into recent school board meetings. Some parents and students around the state capital are now imploring their newly elected leaders to back away from their plan to drastically alter the diversity policy.
"Please preserve the New South. Don't take us back to the Old South", parent Robert Siegel told the school board.
Reversing the diversity rules would follow a cascade of similar shifts around the South, and particularly in North Carolina, which once was a model of desegregation. Now the state is increasingly starting to mirror an era many thought had past: On one side of the state, in the coastal town of Wilmington, an elementary school of several hundred students has just one who is black. On the other, in the banking hub of Charlotte, a primary school of similar size has just one student who is white.
In the military town of Goldsboro, starkly divided schools have led civil rights leaders to accuse local school officials of creating ''an apartheid district.'' Ron Margiotta, the new board chairman in Wake County, vowed that the change there was in the interest of students because it would allow parents more options and refocus families on the schools in their neighborhood. He bristled at any suggestion that the move had something to do with race.
''It's something that offends me,'' Margiotta said in an interview. ''Nobody's going to go back to Jim Crow days.''
The diversity policy in Wake County became a popular model in 2007, when the Supreme Court limited the use of race in how districts assign students. Its current policy sends students to schools to achieve socioeconomic diversity, which also improved racial diversity by frequently sending lower income black children from the city's center to predominantly white schools in the suburbs. Some schools also created magnet programs to attract students from other neighborhoods with advanced courses in foreign language, science and other topics.
Margiotta said the busing program has not helped minority students and has distracted from focusing on stronger education policy.
But Ebere Collins, a black mother of two students in the district, said her son travels one hour by bus to get from his home in Raleigh to a middle school in the suburb of Wake Forest. While the trip is long, she feels it helps her son mingle with people outside of the neighborhood and ensures that all students have access to the same resources.
''Mix them up, let them experience each other,'' she said. ''By scattering them around, they will enjoy the benefits other people are enjoying.''
Gary Orfield, a UCLA professor who studies busing and civil rights, said the entire South has been resegregating for the past 20 years -- which he deemed ''a gigantic historic tragedy.'' He praised Wake County's current policy and warned that a renewed focus on neighborhood school assignment will be most damaging to children who come from poor or uneducated families because those students benefit most from integration.
''What it does when you go to 'neighborhood' schools is it means that you put the kids who are most affected by school opportunity in the schools with the weakest opportunity,'' Orfield said. ''That's a tragedy.''
If the diversity policy is pulled back, Orfield said, Raleigh can expect to see some of the same impoverished, troubled schools as Detroit, Philadelphia, New York and Chicago.
In Charlotte, the site of a groundbreaking Supreme Court case that led to three decades of busing to ensure racial balance, schools have spent much of the past several years resegregating after getting federal court approval to allow parents more choice of where to send their kids.
At Beverly Woods Elementary, just north of the Quail Hollow Country Club that hosts a namesake PGA Tour event, 79 percent of the students are white. A few miles up the road, at Montclaire Elementary, only 4 percent of the students -- just 19 out of 450 -- are white.
There are no plans in Charlotte to revisit busing. Pamela Grundy, a parent in Charlotte who has decried the divisions within the school district, said leaders in Raleigh should take notice.
''The lesson of Charlotte is that desegregation will go away so quickly. Once you lose it, you can't get it back,'' she said.
Seeking to step up enforcement of Civil Rights Laws, the federal Department of Education says it will be sending letters in coming weeks to thousands of school districts and colleges, outlining their responsibilities on issues of fairness and equal opportunity.
As part of that effort, the department intends to open investigations known as compliance reviews in about 32 school districts nationwide, seeking to verify that students of both sexes and all races are getting equal access to college preparatory curriculums and to advanced placement courses. The department plans to open similar civil rights investigations at half a dozen colleges.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan is to announce the initiatives in a speech on Monday in Selma, Ala., where on March 7, 1965, hundreds of civil rights marchers were beaten by Alabama state troopers.
Mr. Duncan plans to say that in the past decade the department’s Office for Civil Rights “has not been as vigilant as it should have been in combating gender and racial discrimination and protecting the rights of individuals with disabilities,” according to a text of the speech distributed to reporters on Sunday.
It continues, “We are going to reinvigorate civil rights enforcement.”
At the end of high school, white students are about six times as likely to be ready to pursue college-level biology courses as Black Students, and more than four times as likely to be ready for college algebra, department officials said. White high school graduates are more than twice as likely to have taken advanced placement calculus classes as black or Latino graduates.
The department enforces civil rights laws in schools and universities by responding to specific complaints from parents, students and others, but also by scrutinizing its own vast bodies of data on the nation’s school and university systems, looking for signs of possible discrimination. A school seen to be expelling Latino students in numbers far out of proportion to their share of the student population, for instance, might become a candidate for compliance review, officials said.
As it seeks to combat discrimination in schools and universities more aggressively, the administration will be acting in an area in which some Supreme Court rulings in recent years have brought more ambiguity. Federal policy for decades had aimed at compelling school districts to end racial inequality, for instance.
But in examining longstanding de-segregation efforts in the Seattle and Jefferson County, Ky., schools in 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that school authorities could not seek to achieve or maintain integration through measures that take explicit account of a student’s race, a decision that seemed to reverse the thrust of four decades of federal policy.
Some civil rights advocates said they had hoped the administration would move more quickly last year to ramp up the activity of the Office for Civil Rights, the department’s second-largest, with 600 employees.
“This whole area has been a dead zone for years, and people were worried that new actions were too slow in coming,” said William L. Taylor, chairman of the Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights, a Washington group that monitors federal policy and practices. “There had been strong hopes that they would move more quickly. This sounds like positive movement, which we’ve all been asking for.”
Russlyn H. Ali, assistant secretary of education for civil rights, said in an interview that the department would begin 38 compliance reviews before the current fiscal year ended on Oct. 1. That number compares with 29 such reviews carried out last year, 42 in 2008, 23 in 2007 and nine in 2006, she said.
“But the big difference is not in the number of the reviews we intend to carry out, but in their complexity and depth,” Ms. Ali said. “Most of the reviews in the recent past have looked at procedures.”
In cases analyzing potential sex discrimination, for instance, federal investigators would often check to see if schools and universities had grievance procedures in place, and if so, take no enforcement action, she said.
“Now we’ll not simply see whether there is a program in place, but also examine whether that program is working effectively,” she said.
The department plans to begin a major investigation on Wednesday in one of the nation’s largest urban school districts, Ms. Ali said. She declined to identify it because, she said, department officials were still notifying Congress and others of the plans.
The compliance reviews typically involve visits to the school district or university by federal officials based in one or more of the department’s 12 regional offices.
The department intends to send letters offering guidance to virtually all of the nation’s 15,000 school districts and several thousand institutions of post-secondary education, officials said.
The letters will focus on 17 areas of civil rights concern, including possible racial discrimination in student assignments and admissions, in the meting out of discipline, and in access to resources, including qualified teachers. Other areas include possible sex and gender bias in athletics programs, as well as sexual harassment and violence. Other letters will remind districts and colleges of their responsibilities under federal law with regard to disabled students.
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