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VOLUME 96 - NUMBER 32
GOP Warned To Be Fair In Redistricting
by Cash Michaels
contributing writer
CashWorks Media
What kind of legislative voting district maps will the
Republican leadership of the NC
General Assembly come up with by Sept. 1st, and
what’s behind a new House bill designed to
redistrict state judges? Those are two of the pressing
questions hovering over state lawmakers
as many gathered for the third Joint Select Committee
on Redistricting today to further consider
criteria for new voting maps ordered by a three-judge
US District Court panel two weeks ago.
Democrats, and members of the general public, during
a legislative hearing last week,
made it clear that they want an above-board process,
free of racial (as ordered by the US
Supreme Court and partisan gerrymandering. Today’s
committee meeting was scheduled to focus
adopting the criteria to determine what the revamped
maps should look like once redrawn.
Democrats are concerned about the process because
GOP legislative leaders have rehired
Thomas Hofeller, who drew the 2011 maps that the US
High Court recently ruled were illegal because
28 North Carolina districts were racially gerrymandered.
“That doesn’t do much to restore people’s trust in the
process,” said Senate Minority Leader Dan Blue.
At an August 2nd press conference, Sen. Ben Clark (D-
Cumberland), offered criteria that he
and Senate Democratic leadership felt should definitely
be considered in the mix, including partisan
advantage in redrawing the districts; no splitting of
voting districts (except when necessary to comply
with zero deviation population requirements; and
ensuring the none of the nine Senate districts and
19 House districts deemed as unconstitutional by the
US Supreme Court shall have a total black voting
age population higher than that which existed in those
enacted NC legislative districts that were in
effect in 2010.
Sen. Ben Clark (D- Cumberland) is in the front, Senate Minority Leader Dan
Blue (D-Wake) is behind him. (Photo by Cash Michaels/CashWorks Media)
Justice denies broad move
against college affirmative action
North Carolina lawmaker
faces opposition
in naming bill
AP) - A North Carolina lawmaker has met opposi
tion in an attempt to name a federal courthouse for a
black attorney.
The News & Observer of Raleigh reports Democratic
Rep. G.K. Butterfield introduced a bill seeking to name
the federal courthouse in Durham for his late mentor,
John Hervey Wheeler. But Butterfield said Republi
can Reps. George Holding and Robert Pittenger won’t
back his bill because he wouldn’t sign a bill to name
another federal building in North Carolina after U.S.
Sen. Jesse Helms.
Spokesman Stephen Billy said Pittenger deferred
comment to Holding because “the building of inter
est” to honor Helms is in Holding’s district. Holding’s
spokesman didn’t immediately respond to an email
seeking comment on Tuesday.
Wheeler was a lawyer who challenged educational
segregation in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. He
also headed The Durham Committee on the Affairs of
Black People.
Butterfield’s bill, HR 3460, was introduced in the U.S.
House last Thursday and was referred to the House
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
chaired by U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa. If the com
mittee votes in favor of the bill, it would move to the
House floor for a vote. A favorable vote would send
the bill to the Senate.
Congress looks for all of a state’s representatives to
support such legislation, Butterfield said, and without
full support, passage may be a challenge.
“Mr. Helms was an international figure who was high
ly controversial and John Wheeler was a state figure,
who was a state leader, who was not controversial. .
Register Now to
Vote in 2018
By SADIE GERMAN and MARIA DANILOVA
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department said Wednesday it had no broad plans
to investigate whether college and university admission programs discriminate against
students based on race, seeking to defray worries that a job posting signaled an effort to
reverse course on affirmative action.
News reports of the posting inflamed advocacy groups that believed it would lead to
legal action against universities for not admitting white students over minorities with
similar qualifications.
But a day after The New York Times reported the department was seeking current
attorneys interested in “investigations and possible litigation related to intentional race-
based discrimination in college and university admissions,” the Justice Department said
the job ad was related to just one complaint.
“The posting sought volunteers to investigate one administrative complaint filed by a
coalition of 64 Asian-American associations in May 2015 that the prior administration
left unresolved,” spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said. The groups sued Harvard Uni
versity, saying that school and other Ivy League institutions are using racial quotas to
admit students other than high-scoring Asians. Isgur Flores said the Justice Department
had received no broader guidance related to university admissions in general and “is
committed to protecting all Americans from all forms of illegal race-based discrimina
tion.”
The memo caused much hand-wringing Wednesday, with questions reaching the
White House, where spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she doesn’t know
whether President Donald Trump believes that white college applicants are victims of
discrimination.
Advocacy groups have been closely watching how Attorney General Jeff Sessions has
worked to reshuffle the priorities of the Civil Rights Division, which is not unusual when
administrations change. Some groups assumed the job ad marked a continuation of the
Trump adminisration’s shift away from its Democratic predecessor in the areas of gay
rights, voting rights and investigations of troubled police departments.
Anurima Bhargava, who was head of the Civil Rights Division’s Educational Oppor
tunities Section during the Obama administration, said any move to investigate affirma
tive action policies would be a “fear and intimidation tactic” because the Supreme Court
has upheld such admissions programs.
“'My very strong sense is that it’s nothing other than politics,” she said.
But Roger Clegg, a civil rights official during the Reagan era who now runs the con
servative Center for Equal Opportunity, said it was an encouraging sign.
“Anytime a university discriminates on the basis of race it ought to creep people out,
and it doesn’t make any difference who’s being discriminated against on the basis of
race,” Clegg said. “I’m delighted that the Trump administration is doing this.”
Clegg said conservatives were displeased with what they saw as the Obama adminis
tration’s support for race-based admissions by universities.
The Supreme Court last year upheld a University of Texas program that considers
race, among other factors, in admissions, offering a narrow victory for affirmative ac
tion. A white Texan who was denied admission to the university sued, but the high court
said the Texas plan complied with earlier court rulings that let colleges consider race in
an effort to bolster diversity.
At America’s elite private colleges, many of which have drawn criticism over race-
conscious admission policies, incoming classes have become increasingly diverse in
recent years.
Minority students made up more than 40 percent of the freshman classes at nearly all
Ivy League schools in 2015, according to the most recent federal data, while only two
topped that mark in 2010. At Columbia University, about half of the incoming class in
2015 was made up of minority students, the data show.
Similarly, top public universities have also become more diverse. At some University
of California campuses, for example, nonwhite students made up more than 60 percent
of the incoming class in 2015.
Newspaper:
51
unsupervised
jail inmates
died over
5 years
RALEIGH (AP) - A news
paper investigation shows
that 51 inmates died in North
Carolina county jails over five
years when they were left un
supervised for longer than state
regulations allow.
The News & Observer of
Raleigh analyzed state records
and found that the deaths were
in 38 different jails, in urban
and rural areas. The deaths oc
curred over the five-year period
through 2016.
Under state regulations, de
tention officers are required to
check on jail inmates at least
twice an hour. If inmates are
mentally ill or suicidal, checks
must be done four times an
hour. Those checks are to be
documented.
Inmates considered a sui
cide risk must be in cells clear
of items that could be used to
kill themselves.
In 2013, Durham County
inmate Terry Demetrius Lee,
21, hanged himself on window
bars after he had been left alone
in a cell for nearly six hours,
the newspaper reported, citing
electronic records of officers’
rounds.
A state investigation found
that Lee had a history of men
tal illness and should have been
watched more frequently. The
detention officer who was sup
posed to observe Lee was fired.
Sheriffs and jail adminis
trators told the newspaper that
keeping inmates safe is a high
priority.
“We’re not insensitive
people,” said Durham County
Sheriff Mike Andrews. “We
all have families and we all
have loved ones and have had
those we know that have been
incarcerated. So I don’t want
anything to happen to anybody,
and neither do the men and
women who work here in this
facility.”
The sheriff said that he’s
taken measures to make cells
safer in the past five years, in
cluding removing window bars
of the type that Lee used to
hang himself.
An expert on jail and prison
security who has served as a
court-appointed monitor, Jef
frey Schwartz, said the number
of deaths indicates a potentially
larger problem in jail supervi
sion.
When detention officers
don’t follow supervision regu
lations, he said, “they are put
ting inmates at risk, and it’s a
life or death matter.”
North Carolina’ 113 jails,
which are overseen by sheriffs,
house about 24,000 inmates at
any given time.
It’s up to sheriffs to deter
mine proper staffing levels for
the jails. Some sheriffs have
asked their county commis
sions for more money to pay
detention officers, or better-
designed jails.
State officials say there’s
not a statewide standard for jail
staffing levels. But state inves
tigations have shown that some
jails were understaffed or over-
crowded.