The Kansas African American Museum unveils new exhibit to promote Prematurity Awareness

The Wichita Branch NAACP, The Kansas African American Museum, The March of Dimes and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc and other collaborating organizations are working together to promote Prematurity Awareness.

Pre-term birth/low birth weight is one of the leading causes of infant deaths in Kansas. Across all races and ethnicities, infant deaths occur most often for young mothers under the age of 20, who are single parents, and who have less than a high school level of education.

According to the March of Dimes, “While the national infant mortality rate continues to decline, the Kansas rate is nearly 20 percent higher. While many states have made progress in closing the gap between white and black infant mortality, Kansas has not. Kansas ranks highest in the nation for black infant mortality.”

By coming together, we hope to ensure that every woman has a healthy pregnancy, gets early prenatal care and support services, learns about safe sleep, and makes choices that promote healthy lifestyles for a lifetime.

The Kansas African American Museum is now hosting a display entitled “Prematurity: A visual perspective”. An open house will be held tonight (November 29th) from 6-7pm, refreshments will be provided. Please join us in our efforts to address this important public health issue. For more information about the event please go contact J’Vonnah Maryman at 316-706-7776.


Every pregnant woman should be considered at risk of preterm birth. Around the 20th week of pregnancy, all pregnant women should learn the signs and symptoms of preterm labor and what they can do if they occur. To help prevent preterm birth, women should:

• Know the warning signs of preterm labor.
• Get regular prenatal checkups.
• Reduce stress.
• Quit smoking, drinking alcohol or using illegal drugs.
• Avoid secondhand smoke.
• Call a healthcare provider if she feels burning or pain when urinating (possible sign of an infection that can increase the risk of preterm birth).

To learn more please visit:
http://www.marchofdimes.com/kansas/
www.datacounts.net/infant_mortality/
www.kdheks.gov/bcyf/infant_mortality_campaign.htm

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The Wichita NAACP Youth Council meets with City Leaders to address Police response to violence

On November 21st, the Kappa Leadership League sponsored a party on the campus of Wichita State University. The party was intended to be a "coming-out" event for the newest inductees into the Leadership Organization. Around two hundred 14 through 17 year olds were in attendance.

At one point, a fight broke out within th building which was quickly stopped. However, as the youth who were involved were exiting the building, they began to fight again in the stairwell. At this point, campus police decided to shut the party down and send everyone home. Police started moving all of the students into the parking lot.

At one point, gunshots were heard coming from the parking lot. WSU Police are now investigating an officer who reportedly fired their weapon at a vehicle from which additional shots may have also been fired.

Once the shooting began, the frightened crowd of 14 through 17 year olds began running back towards the building, trying to get away from the gunfire in the parking lot. But the Campus Police were still posted at the building forcing the High School students out into the Parking lot.

Because these were High school students, most of them did not have cars and had no way to get home. The party was stopped an hour before it was scheduled to end so most of the students had to wait for rides, but virtually none felt safe waiting around in a parking lot where they've just heard gunshots and so many left to wander through the neighborhoods at 11pm while waiting for family members.

Last Tuesday, members of the Wichita NAACP Youth Council met with City Manager Bob Layton and Deputy Police Chief Tom Stoltz. Representing the youth were Kyron Cox (President of the Wichita NAACP Council and President of the Kappa Leadership League), Isaiah Myles (First Vice President of the Wichita NAACP Youth Council), Kendall Graham (NAACP Youth Council Secretary), Jowonia Bowen, Kelsie Graham, and Amani Myles (President of the Kansas State NAACP Youth Conference).

The Youth stressed the fact that they were not seeking to excuse bad behavior and that they understood that the ultimate responsibility for the events that evening was with the bad actors at the party. But they also wanted to express their concerns about policy; namely the fact that children, without cars or a way to exit, were being pushed into a parking lot where gunshots were being fired. The youth also sought to explore ways in which event organizers and the City can better coordinate to avoid these types of incidents in the future.

The investigation into the incident is still ongoing and the youth will continue to meet with the other involved agencies. And they will also begin working to create a dialogue within the community and among their peers about stopping the violence.

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USD259 Public Budget meeting scheduled for Tuesday 11-30

On Tuesday at 6:30pm, a committee made up of district staff, parents and business representatives will meet to hear preliminary budget projections and set a course for gathering input from the public. The meeting is open to the public.

Despite a new 1 percent increase in the state sales tax, the State is expected to face a $450 million dollar financial shortfall this session which will have a serious impact on school funding. Kansas lawmakers will also have to find ways to replace about $200 million in federal funds that expire in June. Absent those dollars, schools could see state aid reduced by as much as $300 per child.

This will be the third year of serious cuts to the district's budget. USD259 cut about $14 million from its budget last year. The district eliminated 117 positions, cut the driver's education program in high schools, closed Metro-Midtown Alternative High School, consolidated bus routes, suspended the Grow Your Own Teacher program and did away with school resource officers at middle schools. And those reductions followed $34 million in cuts that the district made in 2009.

"It was hard this past year," said school board president Connie Dietz. "But depending on what the extent (of state-aid cuts) is, it could be devastating."

At Tuesday's meeting, which is open to the public, the committee will get "a first look at what the budget reality looks like and what our plans are for moving forward," Allison said.

What: School Budget Meeting featuring a discussion on current budget projections and possible cuts for the coming school year.
Where: School Service Center training room, 3850 N. Hydraulic
When: 6:30 p.m. Tuesday

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US Senate PASSES funding for Pigford II Black Farmer Racial Discrimination Lawsuit

In February of this year the US Department of Agriculture and the US Department of Justice announced a settlement to provide as many as 70,000 African American farmers, many of whom suffered blatant racial discrimination at the hands of the U.S. Department of Agriculture for decades, with cash damage awards and debt relief. This settlement is known as the Pigford II settlement. Sadly, efforts to appropriate the $1.25 billion necessary to fund Pigford II have consistently stalled in the U. S. Senate (the money has twice been approved by the U.S. House so far this year, only to be struck both times by the Senate). These claims cannot even begin to be investigated, let alone settled, until after Congress has appropriated the funding. Similarly, the $1.41 billion needed to fund an agreement between the US Department of Interior and Native American Indians over centuries of land abuse and mismanagement by the US government and lost royalty funds, known as the Cobell settlement, had heretofore been stalled in the United States Senate.

Late in the evening of November 19, 2010, however, and due in large part to the consistent efforts of Senators Harry Reid (NV), Chuck Grassley (IA) and others the United States Senate passed a bill to fund the Pigford II and Cobell settlements. The bill must pass the House of Representatives before the Congress adjourns in December, and will then go to the President for his signature.

There is an urgency to pass this appropriation to settle the class action lawsuits of African-American farmers and Native Americans. Many of the farmers who would qualify for monies under the settlement have waited as long as 10 years to be compensated; some have already died or lost their farms. After years of discriminatory treatment by USDA credit and program agencies, these farm families have already waited almost a decade for compensation for these well-established claims. It is time to allow these farmers to focus on the future, and move forward unencumbered by the racial discrimination of the past.

THE NAACP URGES THE HOUSE TO NOW ACT AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE TO FULLY FUND THE PIGFORD II AND COBELL SETTLEMENTS. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!!!

CLICK HERE for the Action We Need You To Take

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Senate filibuster kills the Paycheck Fairness Act (S.3772)

The Paycheck Fairness Act (S.3772) was designed to update and strengthen the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which made it illegal for employers to pay unequal wages to men and women who perform substantially the same work. An identical measure was passed in the House of Representatives as HR12 back in March of 2009.

The Act would have revised the remedies for, enforcement of, and exceptions to prohibitions against sex discrimination in the payment of wages. Wage Rate Differentials (differing pay rates for persons performing essentially the same job) are generally prohibited but with some exceptions. The Paycheck Fairness Act would have limited the exceptions to the prohibition against wage rate differentials to bona fide factors, such as education, training, or experience. It would have made employers who violated sex discrimination prohibitions liable in a civil action for either compensatory or (except for the federal government) punitive damages. And lastly, it also would have partially closed the loophole in discrimination cases caused by the Courts allowance of alternate definitions of the term "similarly situated" when determining whether disparate treatment and actions rise to the legal standard of Discrimination. And it would have pushed back against the trend in discrimination cases to so limit considerations and to require such specific evidence as to place an unreachable burden on plaintiffs. The Act stated:

(b) The Director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs shall ensure that employees of the Office--
(1)(A) shall use the full range of investigatory tools at the Office’s disposal, including pay grade methodology;
(B) in considering evidence of possible compensation discrimination--
(i) shall not limit its consideration to a small number of types of evidence; and
(ii) shall not limit its evaluation of the evidence to a small number of methods of evaluating the evidence; and
(C) shall not require a multiple regression analysis or anecdotal evidence for a compensation discrimination case;
(2) for purposes of its investigative, compliance, and enforcement activities, shall define ‘similarly situated employees’ in a way that is consistent with and not more stringent than the definition provided in item 1 of subsection A of section 10-III of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Compliance Manual (2000)

In addition to strengthening the language and penalties of the original Equal Pay Act, this bill would have also made grant funding available to provide negotiation skills training programs for girls and women. It also called for the convening of a national summit to discuss, and consider approaches for rectifying pay disparities.

Opponents of the act argue that the status quo is just fine. They falsely claim that the current system for determining pay discrimination (known as the Interpretative Standards for Systemic Compensation Discrimination) has been hugely successful and therefore need not be altered. They further claim that any alteration of the system would likely result in additional claims being ruled in favor of plaintiffs (alleging discrimination) and that THAT would be "bad for business"...

But the truth is, it is NEVER good business to discriminate.

We here at the Wichita NAACP Blog have been sounding the alarm for years now that the Civil Rights that we take for granted are under real threat. Laws are dynamic; once passed, they must be protected. No victory is permanent and every gain, if taken for granted, can be lost. This bill was an offensive salvo; a bill intended to push us back in the direction of level playing fields and fundamental fairness... this bill was killed today - but the fight must go on.

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City of Wichita to restructure and relaunch its Civilian Review Board

On Monday the 15th, Bob Layton (Wichita City Manager) announced the formation of a new citizen review board that will investigate major complaints against police and report to the City Manager's Office. The city has had a review board in place for years, but it had not met in a number of years.

The new board will meet quarterly and is intended to be more aggressive than its predecessor. The Review Board will review professional standards, allegations of excessive use of force, racial profiling and policies and procedures in the Police Department.

Its members are:

• Timothy L. Sims, pastor of Progressive Missionary Baptist Church
• Brian Carduff, president and owner of Baysinger Police Supply
• David Robbins, former president of Robbins Truck Trailer Sales and a former employee of the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitative Services
• Michael Ackerman Jr., president and owner of Michael's Complete Lawn Care
• Jason Watkins, director of government relations for the Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce and a former state lawmaker
• Jaya Escobar, academic director at Hope Street Youth Development
• Sheila Officer, education and training coordinator with Goodwill Industries of Kansas
• Shala Jean Perez, who teaches administration of justice courses at Butler Community College and is project director of the Governor's Task Force on Racial Profiling.
• Kevin Myles, president of the Kansas State Conference of the NAACP and president of the Wichita Branch NAACP

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NAACP LDF files Amicus Brief in AT&T v Concepcion to protect the rights of petitioners in Class Action cases

In its friend-of-the-court brief, the NAACP LDF stresses the significant adverse implications of class-action bans for civil rights litigation. Thanks to notable class-action suits, such as Brown v. Board of Education and Griggs v. Duke Power Company, our nation has made significant progress toward the Constitutional aspiration of a “more perfect Union.” But class actions remain an indispensable tool for promoting equal opportunity. Class-action bans could prove extremely detrimental in many spheres where class actions have been successful over the past two decades in redressing civil rights violations. The NAACP LDF’s brief illustrates this fact by surveying recent cases challenging discrimination by large employers, mortgage lenders, insurers, and vehicle financing companies.

Recognizing the important public interests served by class actions, courts have held that class-action bans are unenforceable under the generally applicable laws of California and at least nineteenth other states. Contrary to the claims of AT&T Mobility, neither the Federal Arbitration Act nor any other federal law prevents courts from invalidating class-action bans under ordinary state contract law principles. To the contrary, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, federal antidiscrimination statutes, and even the Supreme Court have all recognized the importance of class actions, especially in the civil rights context.

Click HERE for the Brief

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The 2011 Kansas State Conference Legislative Agenda

The 2011 Kansas State Conference Legislative Agenda:

CINC Code – We support changes to the Child in Need of Care (CINC) code that would extend 'Interested Party' status to family and kin. Currently Interested Party status is extended to the Foster parents and is available to the Grandparents only if specifically requested in writing.

Kinship Care – We support changes to the definition of kin that would allow the parents to designate persons to be regarded as kin and to expand family notifications in child welfare and child in need of care cases to family members and kin as designated by the parents.

Racial Profiling – We support revising the definition of Racial Profiling to include pretext stops as an act of racial profiling and to prohibit the use of race in determining which citizens would be subjected to routine investigatory activities except in cases where race is a part of a description of a person the Police Department is seeking to question or apprehend.

Kansas Open Records Act – The Kansas Open Records Act currently has more than 40 exemptions. These exemptions make little distinction between personal and personnel information. We support revisions to the Kansas Open Records Act to eliminate excessive exemptions and to properly distinguish between Personal information and personnel information

Wrongful Termination – We support legislation that would require employers to provide written notification to terminated employees of the reason for their termination

Public Defenders – We support legislation that would cap the number of felony cases that could be handled by a single public defender at 150 as recommended by the American Bar Association. When case loads are in excess of 150, additional funding should be provided for the hiring of additional public defenders

Ballot Initiatives – We are opposed to any proposed constitutional amendment that would allow ballot initiatives

Juvenile Justice/Child Welfare – Currently, juveniles in the child welfare system can not take advantage of services that are available within the Juvenile Justice system and vice versa. A child in the child welfare system would have to be placed in the Juvenile Justice system in order to qualify for those services, and similarly, a child in the Juvenile Justice system would have to be placed in the child welfare system in order to qualify for those services. We support legislation that would make youth services portable and would eliminate the barriers to providing services across populations.

Officer Discretion – KSA 38-2330 the revised Kansas Juvenile Justice code mandates that any time a Juvenile is taken into custody by a Law Enforcement Officer, they must be taken without unnecessary delay to an intake facility. The effect of this statute is that it eliminates the discretion of Officers to release youth to their parents in the event of minor offenses or issues that the Officer does not see as rising to the level of requiring an intake into the Juvenile Justice system. We support changes in the Kansas Juvenile Justice Code to restore the discretion of Officers to determine whether or not youth should be arrested and taken into the system

Standards for Mandatory Reporters – We support policies and/or legislation that would develop and institute uniform standards for mandatory reporters in Child Welfare/CINC cases

Voter ID – We oppose any bills or amendments that would require registered voters to produce or purchase Government Issued Photo ID to vote

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Sobering report highlights need for a NEW conversation on the achievement gap

On Tuesday  November 9th, the Council of the Great City Schools released an alarming new report (Link: A Call for Change), on the academic achievement gap. The data is not entirely new to those who have been following issues surrounding the gap and the need for reforms, but the report does a masterful job of compiling the relevant statistics into a single document, amplifying them and making them increasingly difficult to ignore...

The report focuses on six areas of the lives of African American males. Highlights of the report's findings show:

• In readiness to learn, black children were twice as likely to live in a household where no parent had fulltime or year round employment in 2008. And in 2007, one out of every three black children lived in poverty compared with one out of every 10 white children.
• In black male achievement at the national level, first time analysis of the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) reveals that on the 2009 fourth grade reading assessment only 12 percent of black male students nationally and 11 percent of those living in large central cities performed at or above proficient levels, compared with 38 percent of white males nationwide. In eighth grade, only 9 percent of black males across the country and 8 percent living in large cities performed at or above the proficient level in reading, compared with 33 percent of white males nationwide. Math results were similar in both grades. Moreover, the average African American fourth and eighth grade male who is not poor does no better in reading and math on NAEP than white males who are poor; and black males without disabilities do no better than white males with disabilities.
• In black male achievement in selected big city school districts, 50 percent of fourth and eighth grade black males in most urban districts and nationwide scored below Basic levels.
• In college and career preparedness, black males were nearly twice as likely to drop out of high school as white males. In 2008, 9 percent of black males dropped out of high school compared with 5 percent of white males. In addition, black male students nationally scored an average 104 points lower than white males on the SAT college entrance examination in reading. And black students generally were about one third as likely to meet ACT college readiness benchmarks as white students.
• In school experience, black students were less likely to participate in academic clubs, more likely to be suspended from school, and more likely to be retained in grade than their white peers.
• In postsecondary experience, the unemployment rate among black males ages 20 and over (17.3 percent) was twice as high as the unemployment rate among white males of the same age (8.6 percent) earlier this year. In 2008, black males ages 18 and over accounted for 5 percent of the college population, while black males accounted for 36 percent of the nation’s prison population.

But one of the thing I found most promising about the report, was its break from common wisdom when examining the root causes. Most discussions around the academic achievement gap end up ascribing the gap to poverty or issues related to poverty. And while there is certainly some correlation between household income and achievement, the idea that the correlation was the cause was always tenuous at best. There was always too much conflicting and contradictory information in the margins to accept this simple explanation.  This report examines that claim and refutes it plainly, detailing the fact that African American youth who are not in poverty score no better than their White counterparts who are.

I found this distinction to be promising because if we are going to eliminate the academic achievement gap we must first be willing to confront it openly and without flinching. Poverty is too convenient an excuse; a large, complex issue that is perhaps beyond our collective capacity to solve. If poverty is the culprit then the gap is the product of societal inequities, not a reflection of our failures; and we are not accountable. I believe that the academic achievement gap is the the complex result of shifts in values and expectations within the African American community (please read: The Crisis of Aspiration), which are exacerbated by poverty, which are further exacerbated by a legacy of low expectations, and even further exacerbated by subsequently formulaic approaches to pedagogy. And while each issue has a synergistic effect on  the others, they are entirely severable (please read: Mixing Metaphors)

Of course this is only my theory; one of perhaps a thousand that have been conceived. Solving the problem and ending the gap will require that we be willing to consider them all, and that we avoid the easy answers... I think this report is a good start... Now let's start talking

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The Supreme Court to decide the future of Class Action suits in AT&T Mobility vs. Concepcion

The basic question before the court is whether companies can bar class actions lawsuits in the fine print of their take-it-or-leave-it contracts with customers and employees.

High courts in California and elsewhere have ruled that class-action bans are unconscionable and contrary to public policy.

At issue at next week's court hearing is whether the Federal Arbitration Act of 1925 preempts state courts from striking down class-action bans. The federal law requires both sides in a dispute to take their grievance to an arbitrator, rather than a court, if both sides have agreed in advance to do so.

Vincent and Liza Concepcion sued AT&T in 2006 after signing up for wireless service that they'd been told included free cellphones. The Concepcions alleged that they and other Californians had been defrauded by the company because the phones actually came with various charges.

AT&T asked the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California to dismiss the case because its contract forbade class actions. The court declined, ruling that a class-action ban violates state law and is not preempted by the federal law.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower-court ruling last year. AT&T subsequently petitioned the Supreme Court to hear the case.

If the Supreme Court rules for the petitioner AT&T, it would likely lead to more and more companies adding language to their contracts to prohibit customers from filing or entering into Class Action suits. Furthermore, this could also have a chilling effect in employment as similar language could be added to employment contracts as well.

So far, all of the Amicus Briefs filed in the case have been from agencies in support of the Petitioner. And given that the Supreme Court has demonstrated its sympathies towards business and corporate interests, this case ranks right up there with Citizens United vs. the FEC, Gross vs. FBL Services, and Ricci vs. DeStephano, in its potential to radically alter the American legal landscape.

Amicus Briefs

• Brief for Equal Employment Advisory Council in Support of Petitioner
• Brief for American Bankers Association, American Financial Services Association, Consumer Bankers Association, Financial Services Roundtable and California Bankers Association in Support of Petitioner
• Brief for the Chamber of Commerce of the United States in Support of Petitioner
• Brief for the New England Legal Foundation in Support of Petitioner
• Brief for CTIA - The Wireless Association in Support of Petitioner
• Brief for DRI—The Voice of the Defense Bar in Support of Petitioner
• Brief for Pacific Legal Foundation in Support of Petitioner
• Brief for the States of South Carolina and Utah in Support of Petitioner
• Brief for Distinguished Law Professors in Support of Petitioner
• Brief for the Center for Class Action Fairness in Support of Petitioner

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Many years in the making, Gordon Parks Academy achieves IB Status

Gordon Parks Academy is officially an International Baccalaureate World School — the only public IB middle school in Kansas — and officials say the achievement could increase its appeal to families across the district. ~Wichita Eagle, Sat 10/30/10

In June of 2006 when it was announced that USD259 would be looking at building a new K-8 Magnet school in Northeast Wichita, within the predominantly African American Community, the Wichita NAACP Education Committee and Branch President Kevin Myles attended a meeting with then Superintendent Brooks to discuss the planned school's program and curriculum.

The school at that time had been envisioned by District officials as a 'Performing Arts' Magnet. The Branch proposed and advanced the argument that the new Magnet school should be opened as an IB school. We argued that 'IF' we really have high expectations for all children, and believe that all children are capable of achieving great things... If we believe in all of our children's potential for academic success, then we should invest in that idea. We should meet the achievement gap and scholastic shortcomings with high standards, academic rigor, and high quality teachers. We should raise the bar and give our children the needed support to help them reach it. - An IB School would provide that. And the program itself would require additional teacher training and certifications that would also serve to ensure that the students of the new school would always be taught by high quality and highly experienced teachers.

We also advanced the argument that as the district looked for ways to maintain diversity without a formal busing for desegregation program, a challenging and attractive curriculum was perhaps the lowest hanging fruit. This high quality, high rigor, academic program (the first of it's kind in Kansas) could attract students from all races, all ethnicities, and all socio-economic backgrounds to a school in the heart of the African American community.

Thankfully the District responded, and in 2008, Gordon Parks Academy opened as an "IB Candidate" school.

Even after the school opened, there was still a healthy dose of skepticism in the community as to whether or not the school would ever truly be awarded its IB status. To become a part of the IB program, schools and teachers must undergo a series of trainings and certifications which can be costly and take years to complete. But the Wichita Eagle reported on Saturday that the middle school component of the Gordon Parks Academy has now officially received its IB designation and the district is hopeful that the Elementary program will receive its designation soon as well - just two years since it's opening.

On behalf of the Wichita Branch of the NAACP, I'd like say thank you to the district, both staff and administrators, for really 'putting our money where our mouths are' and taking this incredible leap for children; particularly those in the high minority/low SES areas of the city. This is an investment in the potential of children that will pay great dividends, and we are happy to partner with you to ensure its success.

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