4 I March 6, 2015
The GuiLFORDiAN
WORLD & NATION
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WWW.GUILFORDIAN.COM/WORLDNATION
Higher black suspension rates raise questions
BY WILLIAM BURTON
Staff Writer
On Jan. 30, 2015, the News & Record published an
article on the disparity between black and white students’
suspension rates. According to the article, black students are
being suspended at much higher rates than white students in
Guilford County schools.
This issue was first brought up at a school board meeting
and is now being addressed as a major issue by the board of
education and other officials in the school system.
“Locally they have a variety of disproportionahties that
has been acknowledged from both staff as well as ... from
educational advocates, civil rights attorneys as well as a host
of other people,” said Lissa Harris, co-founder of Parents
Supporting Parents, a - grassroots educational advocacy
organization based in Guilford County.
This issue appears to have the most impact on black males
in particular. They are suspended more than any other group
of students in Guilford County. This pattern is seen nationally
as well.
“The disparity numbers show that African-American
students, in some cases African-American males, are three to
four times more likely to be suspended than their white peers,”
said Lissa Harris.
In Guilford County there are a total of 37,588 males, and
15,269 of them are black. In the fust half of the 2014-2015
school year, however, 1,482 black males were suspended where
only 421 white males were suspended.
Black females were also suspended more than either white
males or white females. 712 black females were suspended
compared to only 117 white females.
“(It is) a real problem nationally, not just in North
Carolina, but we see that pattern repeated across the country,”
said Lynden Harris, director of Hidden Voices, a nonprofit
organization that works to share personal stories in the public
sphere.
Suspending students is very costly to the student and
has a negative impact on their education. Once a student is ^
suspended they get behin^in thejr |:pufsework, .which in tufrfi*
mikS them more likely to faifahH drop out of school entirely.
“The difference in suspension rates between black and white
students is one of the most serious issues in American public
education,” said Sherry Giles, professor of justice and policy
studies, in an email interview. “When students are suspended, kinds of subjective decisions
they lose valuable instruction time, fall behind in learning and
are at greater risk of dropping out of school altogether.”
“(Bringing) really effective cultural competency training
to the teachers is so very important because teachers do
not intend to discriminate, but they do it, and they do it
for cultural reasons that they are not aware of,” said Lynden
Harris.
Both Lissa Harris and Lynden Harris stated that there have
been cases where black kids were suspended and white kids
where not suspended for committing the same infraction.
“I have come into situations where these white students
were not as harshly disciplined as the African-American males
for the same incident, as well as various rule violations where
white are treated very different as it relates to disciplinary
action versus black students that do the same thing,” said
Lissa Harris.
The disparity between white suspension rates and black
suspension rates is an important problem that needs to be
addressed. Fortunately steps are already being taken to correct
this issue. Lissa Harris and Lynden Harris both work to make
sure that issues like this are addressed.
National initiatives like My Brother’s Keeper,
the White House program aimed at young ' »
black males, will also help to solve the
problem, not only in Guilford County
but across the nation as well.
Another solution would be to get
rid of zero tolerance pohcies, where
the punishment is based on teacher
or administrative judgment in the
school system.
“Zero tolerance discipline policies
(are policies) which suspend students
according to strict^guidelines with
predetermihed harm consequences
or punishments for a broad range of
violation of rules,” said Giles. “Some
of the categories of violation are
based'on the«ubjective judgment
of a teacher or administrator,
such as ‘disruptive behavior’ or
‘insubordination.’ Implicit racial
bias inevitably influences these
Regardless of the approach used, the board of education
and others in the community will continue to try and address
these disparities in Guilford County schools.
Guilford County
Schools Student
Suspensions
Fall 2014
Female student suspension
Yellow & Blue: Black students—712
Purple & Green: White students—117
Male student suspension
Yellow & Blue: Black students—1482
Purple & Green: White students—421
Study-
PHOTDISWEEK
Abroad
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Amalfi Coast, Italy
Hayley Johnson '14 visted the Sorrentine Peninsula in Salerno, Italy when she studied in Sienna
during the Fall of 2014.
Each week we will feature a picture from students' experiences abroad. Whether you have or are
currently abroad, we would love to see photos from your trip. Please email photos to Sara Minsky at
minskysj@guilford.edu with information about the subject and where & when you studied.
SIM card data leak prompts
concerns about phone security
BY CORBIN BARWICK
Staff Writer
Gemalto, the largest manufacturer of
SIM cards in the world, was recently hacked
by American and British spies. Gemalto
provides SIM cards, which allow devices
to connect to cellular networks, to more
than 450 wireless network providers. They
produce more than 2 million SIM cards a
year under the motto “security to be free.”
A joint effort from the National
Security Agency and its British counterpart
Government Communications Headquarters
recovered encryption keys for every SIM
card provided by Gemalto all over the world.
These keys help bypass the requirement
to receive a warrant or any approval from
companies or government, as intelligence
agencies can now intercept and decode all
communications from either voice or text
data.
Gemalto had no knowledge of the
penetration into its system and is currently
in the process of investigating how the hack
happened and ensuring that it does not
happen again.
In April 2010, the Mobile Handset
Exploitation Team, which until now had
never been disclosed, was formed. Their
main goal when formed was to penetrate
the computer networks of corporations that
manufacture SIM cards and the wireless
network providers. The formation of MHET
includes members of both the NSA and
GCHQ,
The hack happened when GCHQ^ spies
planted malware into the computer systems
of Gemalto. U.S. and British intelligence
performed in great stealth to pull off this
encryption key heist. No alerts to any wireless
network providers, foreign government or
individual users were seen.
“As an average user, I feel this could
help governments come across information
that could cause a serious problem,” said
sophomore Miranda Martin. “I have
nothing to hide but at the same time I do
feel this is somewhat wrong that Gemalto
was just hacked and their software was just
taken from them.”
There is a current gaping hole with
the protection of cellphone and network
providers as they do not support Perfect
Forward Secrecy, which is designed to
help with the damage caused by theft of
encryption keys. PFS is, however, involved
in Internet and social media sites like Google
and Twitter. PFS helps prevent hacking
by discarding encryption keys after a few
minutes and generating new ones.
“The only effective way for individuals
to protect themselves from Ki (key) theft-
enabled surveillance is to use secure
communications software, rather than
relying on SIM card-based security,” said
Jeremy Scahill and Josh Begley in an article
for The Intercept.
This hacking is a basic effort to help get
one step ahead of the current fight against
terrorism. With the current movements of
the Islamic state of Iraq, the Levant and Al-
Qaeda, this will ultimately help get both
foreign governments and the United States
ahead by being able to monitor cellular data
more progressively.
“I do not feel this will cause any harm
whatsoever to Gemalto or its customers.
The whole point of this it seems is to help
keep people safe,” said Assistant Professor
of Political Science and former CIA Analyst
Robert Duncan.. “I am all for the Patriot
Act, and I understand the safety it ensures to
me and our country. I have nothing to hide,
I don’t associate with terrorists or those
organizations so this does not seem to be a
problem to me. These intelligence agencies
are doing the right thing to help protect us.”
For those who are worried about their
personal privacy being invaded, there are
applications for your cellular device that can
help provide you a more secure network.
Applications like TextSecure and Silent Text
are secure ways for your SMS messages.