Latest news with #LittleRockCentralHighSchool
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - Trump seeks a return to America's racist roots — and he's moving fast
The Trump administration is fighting against diversity, equity and inclusion and for a return to extreme racial exclusion, inequality and white supremacy. This was evident from the first few weeks of his presidency, when President Trump adopted a series of executive orders and guidance seeking to end affirmative action, eliminate efforts to address discriminatory hiring practices in the federal government, and to no longer prohibit segregation for government contractors. We have also seen orders to abolish programs that ensure equity and address racial disparities in such areas as health care, and to ban books and other materials that honestly discuss race in American history from K-12 education, higher education, the military, and even archives held at the Smithsonian. One recent effort by the Trump administration designed to exacerbate racial inequality and exclusion in American schools that should not be overlooked is last month's executive order that claims to remove equity from school discipline. The order seeks to undo policies from former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden that reminded schools of their duty under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, to ensure that discipline guidance and practices do not exclude students based on race or result in disparate punishment of students of color. Nationally, Black students experience suspensions and expulsions at approximately two to three times the rate of white students, limiting their access to in-class instruction and learning. Critically, pervasive school discipline disparities are not explicable by actual differences in the conduct of students of different races or differences in socioeconomic status. There is consensus in education research that Black students are no more likely to misbehave than other students. In fact, racial disparities are most pronounced for minor, subjective offenses where educators have discretion to determine whether behavior constitutes a punishable offense. Schools did not always use suspension and expulsion to discipline students. Prior to the 1960s school suspension was rarely, if ever, used in schools. In contrast, during the first years of school desegregation, the number of Black students who were suspended and expelled jumped significantly. For example, Minnijean Brown-Trickey, one of the Black students who desegregated Little Rock Central High School in 1957, was later expelled for pushing back against the racial harassment she experienced. As she was expelled, white students chanted 'One down, eight to go,' referring to a desire to exclude the other Black students who comprised the Little Rock Nine. In a recent article, I describe how the NAACP Legal Defense Fund convened national civil rights organizations in 1972 to discuss the sudden, systematic exclusion of Black children in desegregating schools. A report released that year, titled 'The Student Pushout: Victim of Continued Resistance to Desegregation,' found that large numbers of non-white students had been pushed to drop out of many recently desegregated school systems. According to the report, by suspending and expelling Black students at higher rates, school administrators were subverting court orders to desegregate. In some desegregating school districts, upwards of one-third or one-half of Black students were suspended from their new schools. An examination of some of the 'offenses' for which Black students were suspended shows how hostile treatment of Black students in desegregated environments motivated exclusionary discipline. For example, Black male students were suspended for talking to white female students. Black female students were suspended for not saying 'yes sir' and 'yes ma'am' when speaking to white adults. A coalition of civil rights advocates pushed the Department of Education to recognize the civil rights violations and exclusion occurring through racially disparate school discipline. This advocacy would eventually lead to the Title VI disparate impact regulations that Trump now seeks to eliminate. Reflecting on the history of suspensions and expulsions, and the reasons Black students are punished more harshly, is critical to creating change today. This history is necessary to understand persistent biases. Research shows that adults in schools are more likely to interpret the behavior of Black students as disrespectful, aggressive, threatening and dangerous compared to white students engaged in the same behavior. Deep-seated racial stereotypes lead to adultification bias, or the perception of Black children as older, less innocent and less worthy of nurturing and support. Educators and policymakers must address adult biases and eliminate subjective and discriminatory discipline policies. Change is possible. In October 2023, California passed Bill 274, which prohibits schools from issuing suspensions for discipline categories, including 'willful defiance,' tardiness and truancy, that have been shown to disparately exclude Black students for offenses that pose no danger to others. As California legislators recognized, suspensions and expulsions serve no educational purpose and unfairly exclude Black and other marginalized students. Exclusionary punishment is not an effective deterrent for student misbehavior and negatively impacts learning and life outcomes for students. It's time for lawmakers across the country to act to ban unfair and discriminatory school discipline practices and adopt adopt research-based strategies, like restorative justice, to improve school climates. Cara McClellan is director of the Advocacy for Racial and Civil Justice Clinic and practice associate professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
16-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Trump seeks a return to America's racist roots — and he's moving fast
The Trump administration is fighting against diversity, equity and inclusion and for a return to extreme racial exclusion, inequality and segregation. This was evident from the first few weeks of his presidency, when President Trump adopted a series of executive orders and guidance seeking to end affirmative action, eliminate efforts to address discriminatory hiring practices in the federal government, and to no longer prohibit segregation for government contractors. We have also seen orders to abolish programs that ensure equity and address racial disparities in such areas as health care, and to ban books and other materials that honestly discuss race in American history from K-12 education, higher education, the military, and even national archives held at the Smithsonian. One recent effort by the Trump administration designed to exacerbate racial inequality and exclusion in American schools that should not be overlooked is last month's executive order that claims to remove equity from school discipline. By its own terms, the order seeks to undo policies from former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden that reminded schools of their duty under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, to ensure that discipline policies and practices do not exclude students based on race or result in disparate punishment of students of color. Nationally, Black students experience suspensions and expulsions at approximately two to three times the rate of white students, limiting their access to in-class instruction and learning. Critically, pervasive school discipline disparities are not explicable by actual differences in the conduct of students of different races or differences in socioeconomic status. There is consensus in education research that Black students are no more likely to misbehave than other students. In fact, racial disparities are most pronounced for minor, subjective offenses where educators have discretion to determine whether behavior constitutes a punishable offense. Schools did not always use suspension and expulsion to discipline students. Prior to the 1960s school suspension was rarely, if ever, used in schools. In contrast, during the first years of school desegregation, the number of Black students who were suspended and expelled jumped significantly. For example, Minnijean Brown-Trickey, one of the Black students who desegregated Little Rock Central High School in 1957, was later expelled for pushing back against the racial harassment she experienced. As she was expelled, white students chanted 'One down, eight to go,' referring to a desire to exclude the other Black students who comprised the Little Rock Nine. National civil rights organizations convened in 1972 to discuss the sudden systematic exclusion of Black children in desegregating schools. A report released that year, titled 'The Student Pushout: Victim of Continued Resistance to Desegregation,' found that large numbers of non-white students had been pushed to drop out of many recently desegregated school systems. According to the report, by suspending and expelling Black students at higher rates, school administrators were subverting court orders to desegregate. In some desegregating school districts, upwards of one-third or one-half of Black students were suspended from their new schools. An examination of some of the 'offenses' for which Black students were suspended shows how hostile treatment of Black students in desegregated environments motivated exclusionary discipline. For example, Black male students were suspended for talking to white female students. Black female students were suspended for not saying 'yes sir' and 'yes ma'am' when speaking to white adults. A coalition of civil rights advocates pushed the Department of Education to recognize the civil rights violations and exclusion occurring through racially disparate school discipline. This advocacy would eventually lead to the Title VI disparate impact regulations that Trump now seeks to eliminate. Reflecting on the history of suspensions and expulsions, and the reasons Black students are punished more harshly, is critical to creating change today. This history is necessary to understand persistent biases. Research shows that adults in schools are more likely to interpret the behavior of Black students as disrespectful, aggressive, threatening and dangerous compared to white students engaged in the same behavior. Deep-seated racial stereotypes lead to adultification bias, or the perception of Black children as older, less innocent and less worthy of nurturing and support. Educators and policymakers must address adult biases and eliminate subjective and discriminatory discipline policies. Change is possible. In October 2023, California passed Bill 274, which prohibits schools from issuing suspensions for discipline categories, including 'willful defiance,' tardiness and truancy, that have been shown to disparately exclude Black students for offenses that pose no danger to others. As California legislators recognized, suspensions and expulsions serve no educational purpose and unfairly exclude Black and other marginalized students. Exclusionary punishment is not an effective deterrent for student misbehavior and negatively impacts learning and life outcomes for students. It's time for lawmakers across the country to act to ban unfair and discriminatory school discipline practices and adopt research-based strategies to improve school climates. Cara McClellan is director of the Advocacy for Racial and Civil Justice Clinic and practice associate professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.
IOL News
25-04-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
House of Truth
IF you're shocked by the speed with which Fascism has taken hold in the United States, you must have been sleeping under a rock for the past, oh... 150 years. American Democracy was always more sham than reality, an idea promoted to the rest of the world through countless movies, TV shows, news broadcasts, and the sprawling machinery of U.S. popular culture that's been pumping out this propaganda for over a century. But let's not kid ourselves: America is not now, nor has it ever been, a bastion of freedom or equality - unless you happen to be white, male, and wealthy. The truth of the matter is that white Americans, after having nearly wiped out all the Native Americans, never quite got over the outcome of the Civil War, which made it illegal for one person to own another. Oh sure, slavery ended with the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, but did anyone really think that would stop centuries-old systems of oppression? The South immediately set about reinventing bondage under a new name - Jim Crow - and thus began the long nightmare of legalised segregation. By 1896, thanks to Plessy v. Ferguson, 'separate but equal' became the law of the land, enshrining racism into the very fabric of American society. It wasn't about equality, it was about control, plain and simple. In the 1920s and '30s, while Europe was busy flirting with fascism, white Americans were hosting lynching parties all over the South to express their views about the notions of 'Freedom,' 'Liberty,' and 'Equality.' We have all their grotesque postcards to prove it, postcards showing grinning white crowds gathered around mutilated Black bodies hanging from trees. These weren't isolated incidents; they were rituals meant to terrorise an entire population into submission. And yet somehow we still call this country the 'land of the free.' Fast forward to the 1950s, when Black people dared to demand access to buses, toilets, and water fountains without being treated like second-class citizens. You'd think something as basic as sitting where you please on public transportation wouldn't spark outrage, but no, the mere presence of Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat sent shockwaves through the nation. The Montgomery Bus Boycott followed, proving that collective action could challenge even the most entrenched systems of oppression. But change didn't come that easily. When nine brave students attempted to integrate Little Rock Central High School in 1957, they needed federal troops just to walk through the doors. Even then, the message was clear: integration would be fought tooth and nail every step of the way. Meanwhile, as America lectured the world on the evils of communism during the Cold War, its soldiers were busy dropping bombs on Black and brown people across the globe who dared to show signs of wanting to control the resources of their own countries. From Vietnam to Guatemala, from Iran to Congo, the United States propped up dictators and destabilized nations, all while claiming to fight for democracy abroad. Irony? Hypocrisy? Call it what you will, but the parallels between America's foreign policy and its domestic treatment of minorities are impossible to ignore. By the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement had gained momentum, forcing the nation to confront its ugly truths. In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and delivered his iconic 'I Have a Dream' speech during the March on Washington. Yet even as he dreamed of a better future, Black Americans were being beaten, jailed, and murdered for simply demanding their rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were supposed to signal progress, but ask any Black voter in Georgia today how much those laws protect them. Voter suppression tactics may have evolved since the days of poll taxes and literacy tests, but their purpose remains the same: to silence voices inconvenient to those in power. And then there's the ironic twist of Barack Obama's presidency in 2008, a moment hailed as proof that America had finally overcome its racist past. How quaint. What followed instead was a resurgence of white nationalism so brazen that it culminated in the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and his re-election last year. If Obama's presidency represented hope, Trump's represents fear: fear of losing privilege, fear of losing dominance, fear of a country that might actually live up to its ideals. His new administration has rolled back civil rights protections faster than you can say 'Make America Great Again,' reminding us once again that progress is never linear. Today, movements like Black Lives Matter carry the torch lit by generations before them. Founded in 2013 after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin, BLM has become a global force challenging systemic racism and police violence. And yet critics accuse activists of being divisive, as if pointing out injustice is somehow worse than perpetuating it. Tell that to the families of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and countless others whose lives were stolen because of the colour of their skin. So here we are, staring down the barrel of history repeating itself. White supremacy isn't some relic of the past: it's alive and well, thriving in boardrooms, courtrooms, and statehouses across the USA. The question isn't whether fascism has taken hold in America; the question is whether Americans will finally wake up and do something about it. Ryan Fortune is a writer, thinker and builder of AI-powered web applications. He can be contacted via his email: ryanfortunecomms@
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
PCSSD student selected as 2025 Arkansas Diamond Student
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A Pulaski County Special School District student has made history as the first student in the district to be selected as a 2025 Arkansas Diamond Student. Jamaya McCoy was honored Tuesday, March 18 during the Alternative Learning Environment Leadership Day at the Arkansas Capitol. PCSSD officials said McCoy was nominated by her teacher, Tonya Dixon, for the award based on her display of diligence, perseverance, sensitivity and resiliency. 'Finding the words to describe the greatness of Jamaya is hard,' Dixon said. 'She is truly going to go beyond her expectations and do absolutely great things! I cannot think of anyone more deserving of the Diamond Award.' Little Rock Central High School teacher receives Prestigious Presidential Award Officials said her nomination was vetted by a committee made up of board members of the Arkansas Association of Alternative Educators and members of the Arkansas Department of Education Alternative Education Unit. When asked about her receiving the award, McCoy said she was determined to work hard and stay focused. 'It is better to lead than to follow. Your own path is the best path,' she said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Little Rock Marathon to cause road closures
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – The Little Rock Marathon will cause some road closures in the downtown area leading up to the weekend. On Saturday, the Little Rock Marathon's 5K and 10K race will be held at 7 a.m. and the Kids Race will be held at 11 a.m. The Little Rock Marathon and Half Marathon will be held at 7 a.m. Sunday. Early start for the Sunday race will begin at 5 a.m. Zero-K race brings 'slow runners' together ahead of World's Shortest St. Patrick's Day Parade Runners will use a course that was used before the Interstate 30 Crossing project began. After crossing back into Little Rock from North Little Rock on the Broadway Bridge, runners will head east past the Clinton Library toward the Clinton National Airport before coming back into SoMa and west toward Little Rock Central High School. Road closures will begin to affect traffic Thursday morning. Below are the times and locations for street closures: Thursday 9 a.m. hard closure Eastbound LaHarpe Boulevard from State Street to Statehouse Convention will close to one lane for expo vendors. Friday 9 a.m. hard closure LaHarpe Boulevard. will close in both directions, from State Street to President Clinton Avenue. LaHarpe Boulevard from State Street to President Clinton Avenue will remain closed until 10 p.m. Sunday, March 2. Saturday 4 a.m. Cumberland northbound at Second Street (reopens around 8:30 a.m.) 5 a.m. Markham east and westbound at Scott Street (reopens around 8:30 a.m.) Second Street east and westbound at Scott Street (reopens around 8:30 a.m.) Alley between Scott and Main northbound and southbound 5:30 a.m. President Clinton Avenue westbound at Ottenheimer/Rock (reopens around 8:30 a.m.) Second Street westbound at Rock Street (reopens at 8:30 a.m.) 6 a.m. Main, Louisiana and Center streets northbound at Markham Street (reopens around 2 p.m.) Main northbound at Second Street (reopens around 1 p.m.) Broadway Bridge southbound to Cantrell Road (reopens around 2 p.m.) 7 a.m. Chester Street exit from Interstate 630 east and westbound (reopens around 9:30 a.m.) Sunday 4 a.m. Barrels, cones on Cantrell from Junior Deputy to Chester (reopens after race) Cumberland northbound at Second Street (reopens around 9 a.m.) 5 a.m. Cones on Third/Markham from Barton to Kavanaugh (reopens as course clears) Alley between Scott and Main northbound and southbound Broadway northbound at Capitol (reopens as course clears) Third Street eastbound at Arch (reopens as course clears) Riverfront Drive, northbound (reopens as course clears) Cantrell Hill eastbound curb lane from Lookout to Cedar Hill (reopens around 3 p.m.) Markham from Center to Cumberland (reopens around 11 a.m.) Markham both east and westbound at Scott Street (reopens around 9 a.m.) Second Street east and westbound at Scott Street (reopens around 9 a.m.) Main, Louisiana and Center streets northbound at Markham Street (reopens around 2 p.m.) Main northbound at Second Street (reopens around 2 p.m.) Sixth Street, from Sixth to Roundabout (reopens as course clears) Broadway Bridge southbound to Cantrell Road (reopens around 4 p.m.) 5:30 a.m. Broadway Bridge southbound on North Little Rock side (reopens around 8:45 a.m.) Broadway Bridge northbound on Little Rock side (reopens around 8:45 a.m.) President Clinton Avenue westbound at Ottenheimer/Rock Second Street westbound at Rock 7:30 a.m. Chester southbound at Sixth Street | Reopens approx. Noon Chester Street exit from I-630 east and westbound (reopens around 11:30 a.m.) 8 a.m. Brookwood southbound at Cedar Hill (reopens around 3 p.m.) Cedar Hill eastbound at Mart Markham/Third Street from Martin Luther King, Jr., to Kavanaugh (reopens as course clears) 8:15 a.m. Third Street westbound at Spring (reopens as course clears) Spring southbound at Third (reopens as course clears) Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
