News from November 2014
Suspect Race: Causes and Consequences of Racial Profiling
Suspect Race: Causes and Consequences of Racial Profiling (Oxford University Press, 2014) is the culmination of Professor Jack Glaser’s research on racial profiling, stereotyping and implicit bias, particularly as it pertains to law enforcement. What is implicit bias and what does it have to do with racial profiling? Implicit biases are the stereotypes and prejudices that reside and operate in our minds outside of conscious awareness. One commonly held stereotype associates minorities, particularly Blacks, with crime. Many people explicitly…
100 Women in Congress - And Still No Adequate Voice
“It’s the year of women!” “Women’s votes will decide this election.” Such declarations are fairly common in the lead-up to election day, but say little about the actual representation of women in the House and the Senate. The female voting bloc might be becoming more powerful, but that doesn’t mean women get more of a say in our country’s decision-making processes. The Nov. 4 midterm election marked the first…
Who Pays More? Who Pays Less?
On Wednesday and Thursday of this week the Regents [of the University of California] are scheduled to have a critical vote on President Janet Napolitano's proposed five year budget plan which includes, in the absence of significant increases in state funding, 5% annual increases in tuition. Not surprisingly, this proposal has already received extraordinarily strong responses from the media, Sacramento, students and the general public. Much of the response has, in my view, been…
The Case for a Child Protection Czar
On Friday, Gov. Mark Dayton’s Task Force on the Protection of Children met for the fourth time. While the issues the group is trying to tackle may seem grown in the Midwest, they have strong parallels with what is going on all the way out in Los Angeles County. By looking west to L.A.’s current child protection reform process, Minnesota’s child welfare leaders may find some ideas to consider — one being…