Diversity in the News

Gender

• Tenure at MIT still largely a male domain
• Columbia Law School’s Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic Sets a Precedent
• What's it like for a woman at the top?
• Firms with More Women on Boards Perform Better than Those that Don't - During the span of a study, Fortune 500 companies with the highest percentage of women on their boards saw equity returns 53 percent higher than companies with the fewest number of women on their boards.
• Working Caregivers get a Protective Lift - Bosses who refuse a dad -- but not a mom -- a family leave, or shuttle a new mother away from plum work assignments, or allow co-workers to harass a colleague whose spouse is disabled should beware.
• State Legislators to Review Gender Bias at Public Universities - Legislators plan to investigate the extent of gender discrimination in the state's public universities following a former volleyball coach's landmark legal victory this week against the California State University, Fresno.
• The Woman who Forced the Caritas Shake Up - ..when the news broke last weekend that she was calling for the Caritas president, Dr. Robert M. Haddad, to be fired because of sexual harassment, a few of her colleagues picked up the phone.   
• Many female lawyers dropping off path to partnership - A prime example of how even as women are entering the law profession in unprecedented numbers, they eventually have to drop out due to the inflexibility of the law firms.  As they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
• Harvard Improves on Tenure Offers to Women - During a year in which the status of women at Harvard University was the focus of unprecedented attention, the university's Faculty of Arts and Sciences reversed the decline in tenured job offers to women that occurred in each of the first three years of Lawrence H. Summers's presidency.
• Bennett College New President - trustees have named noted commentator and economist Dr. Julianne Malveaux president of the Women's college, effective June 1.
• Harvard Names Faust First Woman President - Harvard University named Drew Gilpin Faust on Sunday as the 28th president and first woman to hold the office in the school's 371-year history.

Race

• Zora's Roots - Paying tribute to the most prolific woman writer of the Harlem Renaissance, the film traces Zora Neale Hurston's life and work from her childhood in the all-black township of Eatonville, Florida, to her days as a Barnard student in New York City, to her anthropologic field work in Honduras and Haiti, and eventually back to Florida, where she died penniless and was buried in an unmarked grave.
• Top 25 Colleges for Latinos - Hispanic Magazine ranks the top institutions of higher leaning.
• In Professor's Model, Diversity = Productivity - Dr. Scott E. Page, a professor of complex systems, political science and economics at the University of Michigan, is a fresh voice.  His recently published book, “The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools and Societies” (Princeton University Press), uses mathematical modeling and case studies to show how variety in staffing produces organizational strength.

• Rare Slave Manuscripts Tell Stories of Escape - NPR review of
  "A Slave no More"

• Doctorates to Minority-Group Members Increased in 2006, New Report Says - Twenty percent of the more than 26,000 research doctorates awarded to U.S. citizens by American universities in 2006 went to members of minority groups, according to a newly released report sponsored by a cross-section of federal agencies. The number of minority-group members who earned Ph.D's grew to 5,211 in 2006, up from 5,075 in the prior year.
• University of California tries to better understand Asian students
• The “Eddie Robinson Rule” Could Boost Number of Minority College Sports Coaches
• At the Elite Colleges: Dim White Kids - Researchers with access to closely guarded college admissions data have found that, on the whole, about 15 percent of freshmen enrolled at America's highly selective colleges are white teens who failed to meet their institutions' minimum admissions standards.
• Latino War Vets Changed World at Home, Abroad and related NPR stories
• School Choice and Self-Selected Segregation and related NPR stories 
• A Historical Omission - Dr. Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez and colleagues were puzzled to learn of major World War II documentary to air without the voices of Latino veterans
• Culturally Savvy Management Leads To Higher Retention - As the workforce increasingly reflects the diversity of the United States, managers must develop multicultural skill sets and new ways of evaluating employees. 
• Racial Diversity Improves Group Decision Making In Unexpected Ways, According to Tufts University Research - Research indicates that diverse groups perform better than homogenous groups when it comes to decision making.
• Diversity Still Lagging in Bay State Boardrooms
• Groups look to boost minority ranks in office - Minority leaders, spurred by Deval Patrick's successful run for governor and increasing voter participation by blacks and Hispanics in recent years, are launching an effort to produce a wave of candidates for political office across the state.
• Improvements at OFCCP - Produce Record Financial Recoveries for Record Number of American Workers in FY 06
• Many Bowl-Bound Football Teams Failed to Meet NCAA's Academic Standards
• High Court Sets Standard for Retaliation Cases - Ruling likely to further complicate employment decisions and invite litigation.
• Winning with Diversity - Affinity Groups, also called networking groups, provide forums for employees to gather socially and share ideas
  

GLBT

• Georgetown President delivers a speech on LGBTQ Student Resources 
• Local police officer testifies on Employment Nondiscrimination Act
• House passes Hate Crimes Bill Protecting GLBT Americans, Women, and People with Disabilities

Disability

• Campuses Widen the Mainstream - Program welcomes some with cognitive disabilities
• Decline of People with disabilities in the federal workforce - Commission takes aggressive steps to stem decline in number of federal workers with targeted disabilities, Workers With Disabilities Fleeing Federal Work Force

People

• White police officers awarded $10 million -Three White officers openly opposed racist mistreatment and bias directed toward their African American co-workers.  The City settled a race discrimination suit brought by the African American police officers.  Then the White officers who had spoken out against the discrimination were subjected to retaliatory harassment by other officers and supervisors.  They sued the City and nine other personally-named officers and supervisors under Title VII and 42 U.S. Code §1983.  A jury awarded the three officers respectively $5 million, $3 million and $2 million. 
• Employers bear burden to show layoff criteria where reasonable -The U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision that could significantly impact layoff decisions.  In Meacham v. Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, the Supreme Court ruled that when an employer makes an employment-related decision that disproportionately negatively impacts older workers, the employer bears the burden of persuasion to show that its action was based on reasonable factors other than age.
• Post-September 11 - Muslim students increasingly hyperconscious of their identity
• Who Changed your Life? - Sometimes, a good part of what we become depends on the people who helped us along the way
• Second Acts - There are those who take to retirement not as if it were a well-deserved rest, but more of a career second act.
• Getting to Know: Margaret E. Montoya - As the only Latina to be admitted to Harvard Law School in 1972, Margaret E. Montoya feels quite comfortable writing and lecturing about issues surrounding race, racism, gender and the law.
• Job Shuffle, Streamlining at UMass