Brown v. Board of Education - Why We Need to Keep Pushing Forward

The 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education is an important reminder to advocates for civil rights, in all contexts, to remember why it is we do the work we do.

Taking even a quick look back at some of the clips over the weekend was, for me, nothing short of inspirational.  That racial justice advocates could believe in their mission and win during a time of deep-seated racial discrimination and violence is nothing short of a miracle.

So that hopefully you could get the same feeling, I decided I had to find and post a video that at least begins to remind us of this most basic fight for equality in America.

Here is a slightly dated but still inspirational PBS video of that victory.

 

This weekend I basked in the glow of this video, and a few others, secretly congratulating myself for being an, albeit tiny, modern part of this oldest of struggles for equality in America.

And then the New York Civil Liberties Union was a complete killjoy - I received the below  email from them Sunday.

Well - back to work folks...

NY Has the Most Segregated Schools in America

 

Sixty years ago, the Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, ending legal segregation in public schools.

But equal education for all New York children remains a dream deferred.

New York has the most segregated schools of any state in the country–with the worst segregation upstate. Some schools have been called "apartheid schools" because racial isolation is so extreme.

It's time to reaffirm our commitment to Brown. Tell New York's policy makers that you want real solutions that fix school segregation in New York.

Racial isolation is harmful to children. On top of that, children in mostly black and Latino schools have shockingly fewer resources such as certified teachers, computers, libraries, art classes and textbooks. Unsurprisingly, they receive lower scores on standardized tests from grade school to high school and are far less likely to graduate.

Honor this proud moment in our country's history by telling New York's political leaders it's time to fulfill Brown's 60-year-old promise of equal education.

Thank you for helping New York keep its promise of equal education for all children, regardless of the color of their skin. Please forward this message to your friends.

Sincerely,

 

Donna Lieberman
Executive Director
New York Civil Liberties Union

 

Studies: Foreclosures Literally Bad for Your Health?

A little bit grizzlier than I would have wanted for a Sunday morning, but here it is anyways. 

A recent study, described below, by a Dartmouth professor found that state foreclosure rates may have been linked to suicide rates at the state level.  Previously, a different study had potentially linked foreclosures to increased blood pressure for the neighborhood - not just for those people actually in foreclosure. 

As if there weren't reason enough to get a handle on foreclosures - economic stabilization and economic justice and the like - now it looks like there may be another - public health.

The Dartmouth professor's study:

"Appearing in the June issue of the American Journal of Public Health, is the first to show a correlation between foreclosure and suicide rates.

The authors analyzed state-level foreclosure and suicide rates from 2005 to 2010. During that period, the U.S. suicide rate increased by nearly 13 percent, and the number of annual home foreclosures hit a record 2.9 million (in 2010).

'It seems that foreclosures affect suicide rates in two ways,' says co-author Jason Houle, an assistant professor of sociology at Dartmouth. 'The loss of a home clearly impacts individuals and families, and can arouse feelings of loss, shame or regret. At the same time, rising foreclosure rates affect entire communities because they’re associated with a number of community-level resources and stresses, including an increase in crime, abandoned homes, and a sense of insecurity.'

The impact of foreclosures on the incidence of suicides was strongest among adults 46 to 64 years old; those in this age group also experienced the highest increase in suicide rates during the recessionary period.

. . .

'Foreclosures are a unique suicide risk among the middle-aged,' Houle says. 'Middle-aged adults are more likely to own homes and have a higher risk of home foreclosure. They’re also nearing retirement age, so losing assets at that stage in life is likely to have a profound effect on mental health and well-being.'" (link)

 

Eric Holder: Subtle Racism is the Greatest Threat to Racial Equality

Earlier today, Attorney General Eric Holder cited subtle forms of discrimination as the greatest danger to racial equality today:

"Speaking during the commencement ceremony at Morgan State University, a historically black college in Baltimore, Holder referred obliquely to a series of racially charged episodes that have “received substantial media coverage” in recent weeks — an apparent reference to the controversial comments made by Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling and Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy. But Holder also said that the “outlandish statements that capture national attention” obscure a more troubling reality.

These outbursts of bigotry, while deplorable, are not the true markers of the struggle that still must be waged, or the work that still needs to be done,” he said.

“The greatest threats,” he said, “are more subtle. They cut deeper. And their terrible impact endures long after the headlines have faded and obvious, ignorant expressions of hatred have been marginalized.” (link)

The Attorney General backs me up on the importance of confronting non-explicit racism:

"Holder spoke broadly about the struggle for racial equality and what he suggested was the failure of some to fully grasp the degree to which minority groups can be marginalized. He took direct aim at the chief justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, who famously wrote in a 2007 opinion that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

“This presupposes that racial discrimination is at a sufficiently low ebb that it doesn’t need to be actively confronted,” Holder countered. “In its most obvious forms, it might be. But discrimination does not always come in the form of a hateful epithet or a Jim Crow-like statute. And so we must continue to take account of racial inequality, especially in its less obvious forms, and actively discuss ways to combat it.”  (link)

Today's speech was given on the 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark Civil Rights rights desegregation decision.

The full transcript of the speech is available here.

Obamacare-COBRA Loophole Partially Plugged

At least in part by the efforts of Donna Ballman at the Screw You Guys I'm Going Home blog:

"The Obama Administration just announced that it will allow people on COBRA to enroll in ACA through July 1, 2014. You'll have to call 800-318-2596 and let them know you qualify for the special enrollment period. They'll activate the special enrollment for you and you can choose from the exchanges." (link)

Read the full explanation here.

Report: Stalled New York Foreclosure Settlement Conferences

Anybody who has ever represented a homeowner in a New York foreclosure settlement conference knows all to well the contents of a report about bank misconduct in these conferences.

MFY Legal Services has, however, compiled the information in a convenient report available to all - advocate and non-advocate alike:

"New York has coped with the foreclosure crisis by implementing a pioneering settlement conference process administered by the court system, designed to promote negotiation of affordable home-saving solutions. These conferences present a remarkable opportunity for lenders and borrowers to meet face- to-face in a court supervised settlement conference at which creative solutions can be forged, and have allowed thousands of New Yorkers to avert foreclosure. But banks routinely flout the law by appearing without required information or settlement authority, causing delays that cost borrowers money and can make home-saving settlements impossible.  The process can be far more effective, and less prone to delay, if the courts rigorously enforce the requirements of the settlement conference law, as this report recommends." (link)

To make the point:

"Non-profit legal services attorneys representing low-income New York City homeowners in New York State Supreme Courts recently concluded a survey to monitor compliance with New York State’s law requiring that lenders and the law firms representing them appear at foreclosure settlement conferences with full authority to settle and resolve such cases

. . .

The survey confirmed what homeowners’ advocates in the settlement conference have long-known:

• The banks routinely violate the settlement conference law requiring them to appear at conferences with full authority to negotiate settlements and with required information needed for meaningful settlement conferences— they violated the law in 80% of the observed settlement conferences.

• The banks’ systemic violation of clear law frustrates New York’s policy to foster the early settlement of foreclosure actions as a means of preserving homeownership.

• The delay caused when the banks violate the settlement conference law harms homeowners, because interest and fees add up with each month that banks delay the process.

• Courts should rigorously enforce the settlement conference law and deter banks from violating it by penalizing parties who appear in court without the authority and information needed to negotiate in good faith" (link)

Time for a more aggressive revised foreclosure settlement conference law in New York?

Sounds like it.

Female Lawyers Still Paid Less Than Their Peers

From the WSJ:

"Despite notching significant gains in the legal world, female law-firm partners continue to lag behind their male counterparts when it comes to billing rates, commanding on average 10% less for their services, according to a new analysis of $3.4 billion in legal work.

The gap begins at the junior lawyer level, and is more pronounced among seasoned attorneys at major firms, persisting even when partners possess similar levels of experience and work in the same market, according to the review by Sky Analytics Inc., a provider of software to help companies track legal spending and invoices." (link)

Here in New York:

[T]he average male partner at a 1,000-plus lawyer firm with 13 to 24 years of experience representing investment banks was billed out at about $679 an hour, nearly 25% more than the average female partner, whose rate was $544." (link)

And as to upward advancement:

"Women make up only 17% of so-called equity partners with ownership stakes at the 200 top-grossing U.S. law firms, according to the National Association of Women Lawyers, and they are similarly underrepresented in management roles and on powerful governing committees." (link)

These number are far from encouraging.

NY Times Editorial: A New Fire Commissioner

The New York Times editorial addresses the previously covered pledge by the new NYC Fire Department Commissioner to take on the Department's past history of discriminatory hiring:

The commissioner, Daniel Nigro, struck the right tone at his appointment ceremony last week when he promised to end racial injustice in a department with more than 15,000 employees. “We must no longer wait for a judge’s ruling to tell us what fairness means,” he said. “We must get out front. We must point the way to change.” He also acknowledged that integrating the department — which is about 83 percent white in a majority-minority city — would be “a great challenge.”

. . .

Mr. Nigro clearly knows the department from the ground up. He joined in 1969 and took over the command of rescue operations on Sept. 11, 2001, when the chief of the department was killed at the World Trade Center. His long experience gives him instant credibility with the rank-and-file. It will not be easy to end discrimination in a department that has been a bastion of white male privilege for nearly 150 years. (link)

 

 

Barclays Accused of Predatory Lending Targeting Minority Homeowners in NYC

The story is available here, the class action complaint filed by MFY Legal Services is available here, and the press release is excerpted below:

"Plaintiff Tony Wong, a long-time Staten Island homeowner and school security officer for the New York City Police Department, alleges he fell prey to Barclays’ scheme to market risky, predatory mortgages in New York City’s minority neighborhoods. He claims that in September 2007, he was duped into refinancing with Barclays’ wholly owned subprime subsidiary EquiFirst Corporation.  With high monthly payments and an 11.075% interest rate, Mr. Wong’s mortgage was engineered to fail but only after his savings ran dry in his attempt to keep up with the mortgage payments. 

According to publicly available records, Mr. Wong was not the only minority who received a disastrous EquiFirst loan. During the year Mr. Wong’s loan was originated, the vast majority of the predatory loans EquiFirst issued in the New York City area were for homes in minority neighborhoods. Taking advantage of New York’s segregated housing market, Barclays, through EquiFirst, sold nearly 50% of its predatory loans to homeowners who lived in neighborhoods with 80 percent or greater minority populations. Mr. Wong’s home is located in a neighborhood that is now 69 percent minority and was 56 percent minority in 2007. These subprime mortgages were largely bundled, securitized and sold on Wall Street by investment banks like Barclays in the form of mortgage-backed securities. (link)"

MFY attorney Elizabeth M. Lynch explains:

“This lawsuit demonstrates that the profits Barclays made in the housing market run-up in the mid-2000s came on the backs of minority borrowers in New York City like Mr. Wong,” said Elizabeth M. Lynch, a staff attorney at MFY. “Barclays should be held responsible for its fraudulent conduct, and borrowers like Mr. Wong should be made whole for the suffering Barclays caused them. While the media touts the recovery of the housing market, communities of color are still reeling from the effects of the mortgage crisis.” (link)