What a week it has been. Grutter v. Bollinger and the value of diversity in higher education reaffirmed in the Fisher v. Texas case – but a tragic loss for voting rights in Shelby County v. Holder. And the gay marriage cases remind us that the spirit of the “long arc” continues to bend toward justice in spite of our many setbacks. In the meantime, we have a few less front-page items to report this week:
U.S. CERD Report issued: Last week the State Department released its long overdue third periodic report on U.S. compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. This treaty, ratified by the Senate in 1994, extends beyond U.S. civil rights law (particularly in this era of retrenchment) – and we will be working with the U.S. Human Rights Network over the next six months to help inform the U.N. CERD Committee about the progress the U.S. has made since its 2004 report, and the ways it continues to fall short. In the meantime, visit our human rights page to review where we are and join the Network in its petition for a National CERD Action Plan.
Intergenerational impacts of concentrated poverty: This week, we co-hosted (along with the “Spotlight on Poverty & Opportunity”, the NYU Furman Center for Real Estate and the Urban Institute) a national audio conference featuring a discussion with Patrick Sharkey, author of Stuck in Place: Urban Neighborhoods and the End of Progress toward Racial Equality. If you have not yet read Sharkey’s book, this one-hour interview, moderated by Jodie Levin-Epstein of CLASP, is a great introduction. Listen here.
Other news and resources
New mapping tool: Appropos of both Sharkey’s book on concentrated poverty and the recent Brookings analysis of increasing suburban poverty, this new interactive map from the Urban Institute graphically shows shifts in poverty rates in both urban and suburban areas from 1980 to 2010 – zoom in to see how your metro area has changed (and hasn’t changed).
New education blog from Derek Black (University of South Carolina School of Law) gives a progressive take on new developments in education law and policy and provides a good overview of what’s happening in the legal academic literature – see Education Law Prof Blog.
