You Can Be Fired for Wearing Dreadlocks

In a decision that delimits the concept of race to physical characteristics that are “immutable,” a federal appeals court ruled last week that firing an employee for wearing her hair in dreadlocks is not racial discrimination.

The case centers on Chastity Jones, a black woman who accepted a job at a Mobile, Alabama, insurance claims processing company in 2010. The company, Catastrophe Management Solutions, required its employees to project “a professional and businesslike image”; Jones claims a white human resources employee told her that she’d need to get rid of her dreadlocks because they “tend to get messy.” When Jones refused to modify her hairstyle, the company rescinded her offer of employment.

Last week, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s dismissal of Jones’ Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit from 2013. The EEOC’s initial claim contended that Catastrophe’s actions, and all policies forbidding dreadlocks, are racially discriminatory because “dreadlocks are a manner of wearing the hair that is physiologically and culturally associated with people of African descent.” Essentially, the EEOC was arguing for a theory of race as a social construct, rather than some kind of biological classification with easily definable bounds. Race “has no biological definition,” the claim read, and besides that, “hairstyle can be a determinant of racial identity.”

Read more: A Federal Court Ruled That Companies Can Fire People Just for Having Dreadlocks

Carnival Corporation to Donate $2 Million to the National Museum of African American History & Culture

Carnival Corporation, through its philanthropic arm, Carnival Foundation, is donating $2 million to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History & Culture.  Eleven years in the making and built at a cost of $540 million, the museum opened Sept. 24 on the National Mall with a dedication ceremony featuring remarks by President Barack Obama and a three-day music and spoken-word festival called "Freedom Sounds: A Community Celebration." In recognition of the gift, NMAAHC has designated Carnival Corporation a Founding Donor of the museum.

"The National Museum of African American History & Culture is a celebration of the many contributions African Americans have made to the history, culture and community of the United States," said Linda Coll, executive director of Carnival Foundation. "The organizations that Carnival Corporation supports through Carnival Foundation reflect the great value the company places on diversity and inclusion in the communities that we touch, and we are honored to be a part of this new museum."

The 390,000-square-foot National Museum of African American History & Culture is located on a 5-acre site adjacent to the Washington Monument. Its 12 inaugural exhibitions feature more than 3,000 objects and cover topics ranging from military and sports history to performing arts and the western and northern migration.   

Each day of the three-day "Freedom Sounds: A Community Celebration" had a theme: Friday was "Homecoming," Saturday was "Celebration" and Sunday was "Call and Response." The events and concerts highlighted music traditions such as jazz, R&B, gospel, folk, classical, New Orleans brass band, Afro-Latin jazz and hip-hop.

Black engineers in Silicon Valley get big assist

Ime Archibong was eating lunch on Facebook's Silicon Valley campus with former colleague Makinde Adeagbo last year when Adeagbo pitched the idea for /dev/color, a nonprofit organization to bring together and grow the ranks of African-American software developers.

"We sat outside, right in front of the ice cream shop, and he was painting this vision for me of what he wanted to do," Archibong recalls.

Adeagbo, who at the time worked at Pinterest, was one of the first black software engineers at Facebook and had forged a career path for other black engineers to follow. Now he aspired to do the same thing, only on an industrywide scale.

"That is something I cannot help but get behind," Archibong, a software engineer who is now Facebook's director of strategic partnerships, told USA TODAY.

/dev/color, a support network for engineers of color, officially launched a year ago and has since grown to 114 members, all black, many of whom often found themselves feeling isolated while navigating an industry dominated by white and Asian men.

On Friday, /dev/color held its inaugural conference on Facebook's campus — "Onwards and Upwards: Advancing the careers of black software engineers" — headlined by venture capitalist Ben Horowitz and Facebook chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer and featuring sessions on such topics as how to go from engineer to manager and how to build a business with an engineering background.

Read more: Black engineers in Silicon Valley get big assist

Early voting boosts voting among minorities

Here is the real reason Republican led state legislatures have been trying to eliminate or limit early voting in their states. African Americans who typically vote democrat tend to use it more which drives up voter participation rates among that group. George L. Cook III AfricanAmericanReports.Com

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 37 states now offer voters some way to cast ballots early and avoid lining up at the polls on Election Day.

These options are popular. About one-third of voters made use of them in the 2012 election.

But so-called “convenience voting” remains controversial: In some states, various types of early balloting has been challenged on grounds that it opens the door to fraud, though there’s been little evidence that such fraud is taking place.

Supporters of early voting say partisan politics is what really drives the objections. Research shows early voting increases turnout by 2 percent to 4 percent. In some cases, it particularly boosts voting among minorities, a constituency that tends to vote Democrat.

A GOP consultant acknowledged as much after a federal judge struck down North Carolina’s effort to curtail some kinds of convenience voting on the basis that legislators had targeted measures that disproportionately aided African Americans.

Read more: http://www.salon.com/2016/10/01/which-voters-show-up-when-states-allow-early-voting_partner/

Howard University: Only HBCU in national college/university rankings

Howard University, the only Historically Black College and University (HBCU) to be ranked on U.S. News & World Reports’ Best Colleges Ranking of National Universities, is #124 in the 2017 Edition rankings, which were released today. This represents an 11-point improvement from last year’s overall ranking of #135.

Howard was one of the two institutions that showed the greatest improvement in ranking nationally. The University was one of six universities that went up 10 points or more last year. The latest rankings represent a two-year increase of 21 points. (http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/howard-unive...)

Additionally, Howard University once again was ranked #2 on the Top 10 List of Best HBCUs. It was also ranked #82 among Best Colleges for Veterans and #83 among High School Counselor Rankings.

Howard University President Dr. Wayne A.I. Frederick stated, “We are very pleased to see progress in the improvement of our ranking status. However, we realize that Howard University is often faced with specific challenges because of our mission. For instance, student retention is a challenge since most of our students who do not finish on time do so because of financial reasons and not because of academic reasons.

In the fall of 2016, Howard admitted a smaller class despite the fact that the University had a 21% increase in applications. This decision was made so that we could increase aid to our neediest students. In the long term, the University remains committed to academic rigor and providing an enhanced academic environment with high-quality teaching and research.”

The U.S. News & World Report’s Best Colleges rankings take into account the following categories: Undergraduate Academic Reputation, Student Selectivity, Faculty Resources, Graduation and Retention Rates, Financial Resources, Alumni Giving, and Graduation Rate Performance. For more information about U.S. News & World Report’s ranking methodology, visit http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/ranking-criteria-....
Howard University remains one of the nation’s leadership universities. Howard is a comprehensive research university as well as a premier Historically Black University. One of its many great achievements is that it is able to successfully provide an excellent education to a diverse array of students who often come from very challenging economic, geographic and educational backgrounds. The value of Howard University’s contribution to the nation and the world is evident in the many stellar alumni of the institution who are in leadership roles throughout society.

Dr. Frederick noted that “It is important to note that this improvement in the rankings is the result of a lot of hard work by faculty and staff at the University. Please join me in extending a profound thank you to all faculty and staff for their invaluable contributions and commitment.”