A brief exploration stemming from some 3 AM musings.

I’m not well-versed enough in college football to know if this is fair analysis by the LGM crowd. But I do know that the lack of Black coaches in D-I football is a long-standing problem, and one the NCAA has bent over backwards to avoid correcting. LGM’s story is about the coaching moves by Auburn University, which just fired Tommy Tuberville after a disappointing 5-7 2008 season. Tuberville, prior to that, had gone 42-9 over the past four seasons. Still, college football is tough business...

After radical Israeli settlers launched what can only be described as a pogrom against innocent Palestinians outside of Hebron, are we finally seeing the formation of a broad-based anti-settler backlash amongst mainstream (and even conservative) Israeli and American Jewish elements? Because if so, it will be well past time.

CNN has a video story up about high school cheerleaders who were kicked off the team, after it was revealed they had texted nude pictures of themselves to their boyfriends. Everyone CNN talked to was in 100% righteous fury mode, absolutely convinced the school did the right thing, lamenting how today’s girls are sluts, and slamming the parents for trying to get their daughters reinstated. Can I try and offer a dissenting opinion here? Read the rest of this post

The University of Ottawa chapter of PIRG (Public Interest Research Group — one of the largest and most mainstream sources of college student activism) rejected a request by the campus Hillel to fund a speech on interfaith education efforts and sustainable development projects by the African Jewish community. The reason? Hillel’s “relationship” with “apartheid Israel”.

Israeli groups are fighting back against ultra-Orthodox Judaism’s version of the Taliban. These people make my entire religion look bad.

Some conservatives are now claiming that the Mumbai massacre was made worse because Indians simply aren’t tough and manly enough. We heard this same refrain from these characters after Virginia Tech. It was appalling and juvenile then, and it’s appalling and juvenile now.

That’s the lesson drawn by a 14 year military veteran who volunteered as an interrogator during the height of violence in Iraq. Torture is immoral, unnecessary, and gets Americans killed. It’s as simple as that.

If most American Catholics are pro-choice, what will they do if the Church hierarchy decides that a vote for the Freedom of Choice Act is grounds for “automatic excommunication”?

A female Egyptian “human rights” attorney made that statement in the course of urging Arab men to, at the very least, sexually harass Israeli women as part of their “resistance” to Zionism.

Joe’s post about al-Qaeda’s recent foray into racial commentary raises an easily-overlooked opportunity. For years, the United States was plagued in its Cold War battles with the USSR because our domestic racism was so easily wielded against our protestations of righteousness and morality. Why not learn from our own mistakes? Racial progress tends to smoke out the reactionaries, as al-Zawahiri as so conveniently demonstrated. I wonder how well his racist commentary will play in Pretoria,...

New research indicates that in highly disadvantaged neighborhoods, GPA has a positive correlation with juvenile delinquency. This, to put it mildly, is distressing news, and really throws a kink into how we address the obstacles faced by urban youth.

Obama was elected President this week (didja hear?). And that’s fantastic. But most people of color are not Barack Obama. And declaring that his victory means the era of significant racial inequality is over, or that racism is effectively dead for the Black community writ large is a serious mistake that must be avoided.

It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of the moment. For someone like me, this is really the first time I’ve seen a Democrat win on the national stage. The historic nature of the candidacy only adds to the emotion. But I wanted to focus on some other things. First, an open letter to my conservative friends, who still have a valuable role to play in our democracy for the next four years. I look forward to your engagement. And second, and more somberly, it’s important to remember...

I flagged this study by Yale law professor Ian Ayres in the civil rights roundup [The link in which I've now fixed -- DS], but I just wanted to block quote some of the findings: We found persistent and statistically significant racial disparities in policing that raise grave concerns that African Americans and Latinos in Los Angeles are, as we put it in the report, “over-stopped, over-frisked, over-searched and over-arrested.” After controlling for violent crime rates and property crime...

I didn’t do a roundup today, but I did write two posts that are pretty directly tied to civil rights (not including the Sarah Palin’s wardrobe post I just linked to below). First, the data is now out on how barring affirmative action affected minority enrollment at Michigan’s state universities. The result? It’s a mixed bag, but the overall trends are a shift in minority enrollment to less-prestigious universities, a greater difficulty in attracting even qualified minority...

What feminism can tell us about the high price of Sarah Palin’s wardrobe (and whether she should pay taxes on it).

It was interesting to watch General Powell’s endorsement. It is clear that Powell thinks the modern Republican Party has stretched way beyond where he’s willing to go in terms of its race rightward. The concerns he laid out about the current GOP extend from the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as VP, to the prospect of two more conservative judges on the Supreme Court, to the steady increase of Islamophobic fear-mongering that has characterized the Party since 9/11. Now, it is fair to say...

On the ballot in California is a proposal (Prop. 4) which would require teenagers seeking abortions to notify their parents. It doesn’t require their consent, and it has exceptions for abusive parents and a judicial bypass option. Sound okay to you? Well then play Modern Mitzvot’s Choose Your Own Adventure: Prop. 4 Saga! Fun for the whole family (except the pregnant teenage daughter, of course)!

So Barack Obama has asked that an special prosecutor be appointed to investigate allegations of voter registration fraud (aka, the ACORN controversy) and voter suppression efforts. The McCain campaign’s response? Not exactly in line with what you’d expect if you thought they were seriously and honestly concerned that this issue was “destroying the fabric of democracy.” To the twenty people left in the country who think the McCain campaign is serious or honest about anything...