Friday, March 4, 2011

Prosecutors considering death penalty in abortion doctor case

From Sarah Hoye, CNN

March 2, 2011 3:39 p.m. EST

Dr. Kermit Gosnell faces eight counts of murder in the deaths of seven babies and a 41-year-old woman.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Prosecutors may seek the death penalty against abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell
Gosnell faces murder charges for seven babies and one 41-year-old woman
Authorities allege infants were born alive and then killed with scissors

RELATED TOPICS

Philadelphia (CNN) -- Philadelphia prosecutors say they may seek the death penalty against abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, who is charged with murder after allegedly performing illegal late-term abortions at a dirty facility.

Authorities allege that some of the infants were born viable and alive during the sixth, seventh and eighth months of pregnancy and then were killed with scissors, which were used to cut their spinal cords.

Prosecutors "did preserve the right to seek the death penalty at a later date by giving a notice of aggravating circumstances in court today," said Tasha Jamerson, spokeswoman for the district attorney's office, in a statement released Wednesday. The circumstances in this case are the deaths of people under age 12 and multiple murder charges

Gosnell, 70, faces eight counts of murder in the deaths of seven babies and a 41-year-old woman.

Karnamaya Mongar died November 19, 2009, after overdosing on anesthetics prescribed by the doctor, according to Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams.

Gosnell's defense attorney, Jack McMahon, appeared in court Wednesday for the formal arraignments. Gosnell's presence was not required, and he was not in court. McMahon promised to "vigorously defend" Gosnell against the charges.

Last month, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett fired a half-dozen employees and announced changes in two departments, calling state oversight of an abortion clinic where the deaths occurred "despicable." The Department of Health and the Department of State have primary oversight over such clinics.

"This doesn't even rise to the level of government run amok. It was government not running at all. To call this unacceptable doesn't say enough. It's despicable,'' Corbett said.

Seven employees from the Department of Health, as well as the Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs, a branch of the Department of State -- are no longer employed by the state, having either resigned or been terminated since the situation came to light, Corbett said in statement.

In addition, four other former employees named in the grand jury investigation had previously resigned.

District Attorney Williams earlier called the facility "a house of horrors" that performed "botched and illegal abortions" and was full of containers of fetuses' body parts.

Six other defendants face charges. All had some role at the Women's Medical Society clinic, which was run by Gosnell and served mostly low-income minority women, Williams said.

A grand jury investigation determined that health and licensing officials had received repeated reports about Gosnell's practices for two decades, but had taken no action, even after learning that women died during routine abortions, Williams has said.

College Sport and Gender Report Card: Number of black football coaches rises dramatically

On Dec. 8, 2008 there were just three FBS college football coaches. Now there are 16.

That was the most positive note in a pretty good 2010 College Sport and Gender Report Card released on Thursday by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports at UCF.

The report, which used data collected from the 2008-09 and 2009-10 seasons, said that college sport increased its grade for racial hiring practices from a C+ to a B in the 2010 while maintaining a strong B for gender hiring practices. The combined grade was a B.

"There is good news overall, no question about it." said Richard Lapchick, the principal author of the study and director of the institute. "The college sports had dipped to a C+ last cycle, but made some obvious progress."

Lapchick was quick to point out that, while the report was encouraging, there were still some areas of concern. All the commisioners of FBS conferneces, for example, are white men. And only 8.3 percent of Division I athletics directors are women.

And over the past four years the number of black coaches decreased 4.8 percent from high of 25.2 in 2005-06. That was also down 1.9 percent from the last report.

"Those numbers are pretty amazing when you consider the number of student athletes who are competing," Lapchick said.

"So there was some progress, and that's good. But there is still a lot of room to improve."

Below are some of the report's other highlights:

University leadership positions at Football Bowl Subdivision institutions

• The level of diversity within the athletic director position at FBS schools declined from last year's study, as 14 (11.7 percent) people of color hold this position. However, this total does not include any women of color.

• Of the 266 offensive and defensive coordinators in the FBS, there were three more African-American coordinators from last year's total of 30.

Conference commissioners

• In all of Division I, excluding the Historically Black conferences, all 30 (100 percent) of Division I conference commissioners were white. Five were led by white women, accounting for 16.7 percent of the commissioners.

• In terms of associate commissioner roles at the FBS level, there are 18 women occupying these posts.

Student-athletes

• In Division I football, African-Americans account for 45.8 percent of the athletes and whites hold 45.1 percent, indicating the levels of participation between these two races continue to remain very close.

• In Division I basketball, African-Americans account for 60.9 percent of the athletes and whites hold 30.5 percent.

• African-American female student-athletes accounted for 51 percent of the Division I basketball participants, representing a 0.5 percentage point decrease from last year.

• In Division I softball, Latinas saw a 0.1 percentage point increase to 7.4 percent, continuing the trend of increased participation by this demographic in every year since 2001-02.

• People of color had 22.5 percent of the softball positions while having only 16.6 percent of the men's baseball positions.

• The percentage of white male athletes in all Division I stands at 62.5 percent, which is a decrease of 1.3 percentage points. Of all Division I male athletes, 24.9 percent are African-American, representing an increase of 0.1 percentage points from last year's total.

• The percentage of white male student-athletes at the Division I, II and III combined were 70.4 percent, 18.7 percent for African-American males, 4.3 percent for Latinos, 1.5 percent for Asian men and 0.3 percent for American Indian/Alaskan Natives males.

• The percentage of white female student-athletes at the Division I, II and III combined were 77.2 percent, 11.6 percent for African-American females, 4.0 percent for Latinas, 1.5 percent for Asian females and 0.3 percent for American Indian/Alaskan Native females.

Coaching

• Whites dominate the head coaching ranks on men's teams holding 89.3 percent, 89.2 percent and 92.3 percent of all head coaching positions in Divisions I, II and III, respectively.

• African-Americans held 6.6 percent, 4.8 percent and 3.7 percent of the men's head coaching positions in the three NCAA divisions, respectively.

• Likewise on the women's teams, whites held 87.7 percent, 89.5 percent and 91.9 percent of all head coaching positions in Divisions I, II and III, respectively.

• African-Americans held 7.2 percent, 4.8 percent, and 3.9 percent of the women's head coaching positions in the three NCAA divisions, respectively.

• Only 5.5 percent of Division I head baseball coaches were people of color, with 2.6 percent Latino and only 1.1 percent African-American.

• More than three-and-a-half decades after the passage of Title IX, women coaching women's teams still do not represent the majority of coaches in the women's game. In addition, this year's numbers show no progress in women coaching women's sports in most sports. Women head coaches in Division I basketball increased slightly (65.9 percent in 2009-10 and 64.7 percent in 2007-08). Head coaches of Division I Track/Cross Country, which combines the head coaches of Cross Country, Indoor Track and Outdoor Track, saw a slight decrease in female head coaches from 20.2 percent in 2007-08 to 19.7 percent in 2009-10. In all other sports, men led 55.5 percent of the women's teams while women were head coaches in only 45.5 percent of the programs.

• African-American women held 11.4 percent and African-American men held 3.9 percent of women's head coaching positions in Division I basketball for a combined percentage of 15.3 percent (up from 13.6 percent). Nonetheless, the 13.6 percent stood in stark contrast to the 51.5 percent of the student-athletes playing women's basketball who were African-American.

• On the men's teams in 2009-10, whites held 76.8, 79.5, and 87.3 percent of the assistant coaching positions in the three divisions, respectively, which was slightly improved from 76.9, 79.0, and 88.1 percent respectively in 2008. In 2009-10, African-Americans held 18.1, 13.3, and 8.1 percent, respectively.

• Among the women's teams in 2009-10, whites held 78.8, 81.8, and 88.9 percent of the assistant coaching positions in Divisions I, II and III, respectively, which was comparable to the 79.1, 81.2 and 88.8 percent respectively in 2007-08. In 2009-10 African-Americans had 14.2, 9.7, and 5.9 percent respectively. In 2007-08 African-American held 13.5, 10.3 and 6.4 percent of the assistant coaching jobs on women's teams in the respective Divisions.

• The percentage of women assistants on women's teams declined in Division I and Division III and saw a slight increase at the Division II level. As assistants, women in 2009-10 held 49.0 percent of the positions in Division I, 49.7 percent in Division II and 49.3 percent in Division III.

Athletics Directors

• Whites held the overwhelming percentage of positions of athletics directors in all three divisions at 88.8, 92.7, and 96.2 percent in Divisions I, II and III, respectively. This compared to 90.0, 92.0 and 97.0 percent in 2007-08 respectively.

• African-Americans held 7.4, 3.1 and 2.2 percent respectively in Divisions I, II and III. This compared to 7.2 percent, 3.8 percent and 1.8 percent in 2006 respectively.

• Latinos accounted for 2.2, 3.1, and 0.4 percent of the ADs at Division I, II and III. This compared to 1.9, 3.0 and 0.0 percent in 2008 respectively.

• Asians accounted for 0.0, 0.8, and 0.6 percent of the ADs at Division I, II and III and Native Americans accounted for 0.9, 0.0, and 0.2 percent of the ADs at each level.

• Women lost ground as athletics directors in Divisions II and gained ground in Divisions I and III since the last Report Card in 2008. At the Division II level, the percentage of female athletic directors dropped slightly by 0.1 percentage points to 15.5 percent. In contrast, the percentage of female athletic directors increased to 8.3 percent (up 0.5 percentage points) and 27.4 percent (up 0.3 percentage points) in Division I and Division III respectively.

College Associate and Assistant Athletic Directors

• At the associate athletic director position, whites comprised 88.5, 82.8, and 92.6 percent of the total population at Division I, II and III respectively. These numbers were all lower than that of 2007-08 (89.2, 88.8 and 96.4 percent respectively). African-Americans held 8.2, 14.4, and 5.4 percent of the positions at each level. Latinos held 1.8 percent, 1.0 percent and 0.4 percent of the positions at each level. Asians held 0.7 percent and 1.0 percent in Divisions I and II. There were no Asians in Division III in this position and no Native Americans in Divisions II and III. In Division I, Native Americans had 0.3 percent of the associate athletic director positions.

• The percentage of women filling associate athletic director positions was 31.1 percent in Division I, 42.0 percent in Division II and 46.1 percent in Division III.

• Women held 100 percent of the Senior Woman Administrator jobs in Division I, II and III. White women continued to dominate the SWA position holding 85.1, 81.1, and 93.7 percent in Division I, II and III, respectively. African-American women represented 10.1, 15.4 and 4.2 percent at each respective level.

• Whites continue to fill the majority of the FAR positions with 84.4, 86.4 and 94.2 percent in Divisions I, II and III, respectively.

Black Brits Shut Out of Top Universities

By: Huw Evans

Posted: March 1, 2011 at 12:21 AM

You'll find very few Britons of African or Caribbean origin at Oxford and Cambridge. A sharp increase in tuition fees could make it even less likely.

England's university system has an enviable reputation, unless you are black. Even though the number of black students at English universities has tripled over the last 12 years, such students are at a disadvantage in comparison with white students at every stage of their higher education.
Black children are being graded below their performance by teachers who are unconsciously stereotyping them. A report co-authored by Simon Burgess, a professor of economics at the University of Bristol, has shown that black students performed better in Sats, the national exams that are marked remotely, than would be expected from assessments made by their teachers in the classroom.
The report's findings suggest that low expectations by both teachers and pupils are damaging children's prospects. Some teachers require training in order to stop seeing black students through the damaging lens of stereotype, consciously or unconsciously assuming that "all black children are great at sports" and less able in "English, math and science." The report concludes that when some black pupils have a teacher who they feel does not understand or appreciate them, the students do not try as hard, thus suffering from the double whammy of being more harshly assessed by the teacher and not trying to do their best.
Gaining entry to a top university is another major issue. The top 20 British universities -- which include Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College and St. Andrews in Scotland -- are collectively known as Russell Group universities. They are the British equivalent of the U.S. Ivy League. However, there are more black students studying at London's Metropolitan University than at all 20 universities in the Russell Group combined.
Metropolitan University, which is ranked 115th in Great Britain by the Complete University Guide, is not a member of the Russell Group. This ranking is significant because it takes into account such criteria as the degree-completion rate and the average amount each university spends per student. Metropolitan University suffers a 33 percent drop-out rate and a spend rate per student that is approximately half that of the Russell Group.
And yet the situation for blacks at Oxford and Cambridge is actually worse -- because there are so few of them there. Both universities (unlike most in the U.K.) are subdivided into a number of largely autonomous colleges that may operate their own admission policies. Twenty colleges at Oxford and Cambridge made no offer to a black undergraduate candidate last year, and one Oxford college has not admitted a single black student in five years. Of Cambridge's 1,500 academic and lab staff members, none are black.
The U.K.'s new Conservative government has raised the limit for university fees, and both Oxford and Cambridge want to charge the new maximum of £9,000 ($14,500) a year -- three times the previous limit. But if these universities do, they may be pressed by politicians to set targets for giving applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds greater access. Even though a fee of £9,000 may seem low in comparison with those in the U.S., the average income after taxes for a U.K. family of four is just under £24,000 ($39,000).
Both Oxford and Cambridge would have a long, hard road in front of them in trying to meet such targets, since 30 percent of their colleges made no offers to black students for entry in 2009. Harvard's figure of 8.9 percent African-American students looks good by contrast.
Life does not get easier once black students in the U.K. graduate from university. On leaving, 56 percent of black students found work within one year, compared with 66 percent of white students. When black students do find work, it may not be the work they want to take. Approximately 45 percent of black students started their work lives in nongraduate occupations, compared with 39 percent of white graduates. Black graduates also have a higher unemployment rate 3½ years after graduation. The reasons for this are not entirely clear, and more research is required.
The paucity of blacks at top British universities also affects opportunities in corporate management and business. Sandra Kerr, national director of the Race for Opportunity campaign, says, "Only if more [students] from ethnic-minority backgrounds study at Oxford, Cambridge and other high-achieving universities are we likely to see a breakthrough in the progression of ethnic minorities into senior management in [the U.K.]."
One such student is Edwin Broni-Mensah, who recently completed a Ph.D. in mathematics at Manchester University and has been named Britain's top black student for his business idea of selling water bottles that can be refilled for free at businesses in the Manchester area. His company donates 70 percent of the profits from the sale of the bottles to projects in drought-hit regions of Africa.
However, as uplifting as Broni-Mensah's story may be, only 16 percent of black-Caribbean young men go to university in the U.K. For Britain to have its own Barack Obama, its secondary schools and universities need to do more to raise the aspirations of its black youths, boys and girls. Once both sexes have access to a high-quality British university education, they can start on a path to leading their communities and, one day, their country.
Huw Evans is a freelance writer and journalist based in Glasgow, Scotland.
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Sonny Rollins, Quincy Jones among U.S. Cultural medalist

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Obama honored 20 artists, scholars and writers — from James Taylor to Quincy Jones, from Philip Roth to Joyce Carol Oates— in a salute to the arts and humanities that embraced both celebrity and quiet achievement.

By Mark Wilson, Getty Images
President Obama presents a National Medal of Arts to jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins during a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday.

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By Mark Wilson, Getty Images

President Obama presents a National Medal of Arts to jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins during a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday.

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The president and first lady Michelle Obama filled the East Room of the White House Wednesday with an array of talent that transcended generations and reached into the worlds of letters and music, history and dance, criticism and film.

"One of the great joys of being president is getting a chance to pay tribute to the artists and authors, poets and performers who have touched our hearts and opened our minds," Obama said, adding with a knowing look, "or in the case of Quincy Jones and James Taylor, set the mood."

Multiple Oscar winner Meryl Streep and Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, were also honored, but were unable to attend the ceremony.

The president bestowed 10 National Medal of Arts and 10 National Humanities Medals.

"I speak personally here because there are people here whose books or poetry or works of history shaped me," he said. Nodding conspiratorially toward arts medalist and jazz artist Sonny Rollins seated before him, he said: "I've got these thumb-worn editions of these works of art and these old records where they were still vinyl, Sonny, before they went digital that helped inspire me or get me through a tough day or take risks that I might not otherwise have taken."

Later, Taylor made his way to the White House press briefing room where he marveled at the nearly saucer-sized medal around his neck.

"I'm just over the moon, sailing," he said.

Taylor, who campaigned for Obama in 2008 and had to cancel a concert with his son Ben in Des Moines to attend Wednesday's ceremony, offered the president a bit of political advice

"I think that the administration has been almost too modest in their accomplishments," he said. "I'm hoping the American public understands who we've got here, what we've got in this president."

In his salute, Obama noted that the honorees had contributed to both the intellectual growth of the nation, but also had provided the nation with diversion — a chance to laugh or escape from the pressures of the moment.

"We also remember the art that challenged our assumptions; the scholarship that brought us closer to the events of our history; the poetry that we loved — or at least the poetry that we might recite to a girlfriend to seem deep," he said. "Of course, we still hum the great songs by the musicians in this room — songs that in many cases have been the soundtrack of our lives over decades."

As the honorees and guests made their way out the East Room, the Marine Band, a fixture at ceremonies such as this, played some familiar strains — it was a medley of Taylor favorites.

Others receiving arts medals:

•Van Cliburn, the world-renown pianist who broke into the international scene in 1958 by winning the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.

•Quincy Jones, musician, composer, record producer, and arranger of multiple musical fusions.

•Mark di Suvero, the abstract expressionist sculptor.

•Donald Hall, the poet laureate of the United States from 2006 to 2007.

•Robert Brustein, theatre critic, producer, playwright, and founder of the Yale Repertory Theatre and the American Repertory Theatre.

•Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, the longest running American dance festival, based in the Berkshires in Massachusetts.

Receiving medals for the humanities:

•Daniel Aaron, founding president of the Library of America.

•Bernard Bailyn, Pulitzer Prize winning historian focused on early U.S. history.

•Jacques Barzun, scholar and a leader in the field of cultural history.

•Wendell E. Berry, poet and conservationist and author of more than 40 books.

•Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, scholar and literary critic.

•Stanley Nider Katz, president of the American Council of Learned Societies.

•Arnold Rampersad, biographer and literary critic known for books that profiled W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Jackie Robinson, and Ralph Ellison.

•Philip Roth, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of 24 novels, including Portnoy's Complaintand American Pastoral.

•Gordon Wood, scholar, historian and Pulitzer Prize winner.