CUNY student journalists tracking hate incidents

By: SHARON CROWLEY POSTED:DEC 27 2016 06:40PM EST UPDATED:DEC 27 2016 06:55PM EST (FOX 5 NEWS) - Since Election Day, the New York Police Department's Hate Crimes Task Force has seen an increase in the number of reported hate crimes, including one against one of their own officers of Muslim faith.

CUNY Professor Jere Hester, the news director at the Graduate School of Journalism, says one way to keep attention on hate crimes is the newly founded Hate Index. He and other professors, students, and volunteers use the website to track reports of hate crimes around the country. It is a record of alleged crimes like anti-Semitic graffiti recently discovered on the campus on Nassau Community College and reports of verbal insults and other incidents of intolerance.

The increase in reports of hate crimes has caught the attention of U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch. She recently spoke about it during a visit to Harvey Milk High School in Manhattan.

The CUNY professors involved in working on the Hate Index also can tell who is looking at the website. They say it has hits from people all over the country. It has also caught the interest of members of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Justice Department

Predictions! Experts Look Ahead to 2017 in New York Politics December 28, 2016 | by Ben Max

As we usually do around this time of year, Gotham Gazette asked New York politicos to look into their crystal balls for predictions for the year ahead. Below you'll find insights from elected officials, journalists, advocates, analysts, and others who are tuned in to New York politics.

We know that 2017 will be interesting given it’s a city election year, and there’s always plenty of action in Albany, where the focus will be as the year begins. But what *exactly* will happen? Read below for some ideas.

Looking back at last year's predictions for this year, some of our forecasters did quite well (see Kathy Wylde, Alyssa Katz, Michael Benjamin, and others); while others missed the mark (see Jeff Smith, Luis Sepulveda, and others); and a few had mixed results (see Carol Kellerman and Doug Muzzio).

Wylde predicted that the City Council would pass the mayor’s mandatory inclusionary housing plan, and was right; Katz predicted that 421-a would flounder and that either Bill Bratton or Carmen Fariña would depart city government, and was right; and Benjamin predicted that neither Andrew Cuomo nor would be the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee, and was right. Meanwhile, Smith predicted that Keith Wright would succeed Charles Rangel; Assemblymember Sepulveda predicted ‘raise the age’ would become a reality; and Muzzio predicted that Michael Bloomberg would make another mayoral run - none of which came true. Muzzio was right, though, that Preet Bharara would keep the indictiments coming, just not for Gov. Cuomo.

See a new round of political predictions, these for 2017, below.

PREDICTIONS for 2017 in NEW YORK POLITICS: Carol Kellerman, executive director, Citizens Budget Commission -The City misses the opportunity to save money on city infrastructure projects as the state legislature again does not extend design-build authority to NYC. -The City finally acknowledges that taxi medallions aren’t worth what they used to be and removes $700 million+ in projected revenue from their sale from its financial plan. -After spending millions to launch the program, the City closes down the IDNYC program because Trump-induced fears cause undocumented immigrants to cease participating.

Jonathan Bowles, executive director, Center for an Urban Future -Frustration with overcrowded trains and mounting subway delays boils over, making the state of the transit system a big quality of life issue in the 2017 mayoral election. -After several years of unprecedented economic growth, NYC’s economy starts to slide in the second half of the year, but too late to have a big impact on the election. -CUNY becomes the latest flashpoint in the Cuomo/de Blasio feud, with the mayor pointing out that CUNY is a key launchpad for economic mobility in today’s economy and needs more state support.

Dr. Christina Greer, political science professor, Fordham University, and author of Black Ethnics -Bill de Blasio will win reelection and continue as the 109th Mayor of NYC -The Bdb-Cuomo beef now becomes a triangular set of fights with President Trump, his new role as president, and the expenditures incurred by NYC and NYS. -The Second Ave subway line will continue to be a money pit, providing service at only three stations in upper Manhattan.

Michael Benjamin, editorial board, The New York Post -Governor Andrew Cuomo finally learns the lesson his predecessors learned: the Assembly and Senate leaders are better at playing the long game than governors, especially those whose feet of clay get exposed. -A dark horse rides onto the NYC political scene to make Mayor de Blasio the one-term Mayor he has feared becoming. -Carl Paladino finally gets the professional help he has long denied.

City Council Member Laurie Cumbo More people will become engaged in social justice issues than ever before, in part fueled by a new generation of young activists. City Council Member - lives up to its history as our unique mix of patriotism and chutzpah lead the nation to triumph over dangerous demagoguery. -After a first few chilly hours at an original Gilmore Girls marathon, Andrew and Bill finally realize the whole thing was just a silly misunderstanding.

City Council Member Bill de Blasio wins re-election by a landslide.

Robert George, editorial board, -Indictments for de Blasio political staffers (more likely from Cy Vance’s grand jury than Preet Bharara’s) embolden de Blasio’s foes. , Tish James and at least one dark horse candidate jump into the primary. -It will be a surprisingly contested Republican mayoral primary. -NYCLASS horse activists say “NEIGH” to supporting former ally Bill de Blasio. - and HUD Secretary Ben Carson force reforms on NYCHA that housing advocates grudgingly admit were needed. -With Cuomo looking at 2020, de Blasio and Trump find areas of common interest.

Dick Dadey, executive director, Citizens Union -At the ballot box in November 2017, New Yorkers will vote to hold a state constitutional convention. After a year where citizen confidence in how our democracy functions dropped even further, in part shown in the movements behind Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, an unexpected citizen uprising will forcefully emerge in New York in 2017, manifesting itself as New Yorkers vote for holding the first citizen-called state convention since 1937. -Buoyed by still more political corruption charges by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, the rising view that the state’s political institutions are not operating transparently or fairly enough will push New Yorkers to vote to take back our democracy, sending shockwaves across the state as broad democratic reform will now be possible.

Nicole Gelinas, Manhattan Institute Come New Year's Eve 2017 into 2018, the horse carriages will continue to ply their trade in Central Park. David Bloomfield, professor of education, College and CUNY Graduate Center -The day after Mayor de Blasio's re-election, Chancellor Carmen Fariña resigns and, in a surprise move, is replaced by out-of-work ex-Secretary of Education John King who turns his back on his past advocacy of testing and charters to focus on desegregating New York City public schools. -King hires Daily News reporter Ben Chapman as his top press aide after the News, in further retrenchment, joins the NY Post in devoting its entire education beat to reprinting press releases from Families for Excellent Schools. -In Washington, the Republican-led Congress aided by renegade Democratic senators, severely cuts back on Title I aid to cities, creating massive out-migration of students to federally supported charter, private, and for profit cyber-schools.

Evan Siegfried, Republican strategist & author of GOP GPS -Preet Bharara will finish out 2017 as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, while hearing "pleas" to run for Governor and clean the cesspool of Albany. -Mayor de Blasio runs on the slogan of: "De Blasio, the Mayor with the guts to kill the animals."

Morgan Pehme, Effective NY The People's Convention will pass!

Evan Thies, Democratic strategist & founder of Pythia public relations -The 2017 mayoral election becomes about who hates de Blasio the most on the Republican side and who hates Trump the most on the Democratic side. -Senator Gillibrand emerges as one of the Democrats' most vocal and effective voices against the Trump administration. -Cuomo and de Blasio duel in Weehawken, N.J. Both miss, hitting and seriously wounding New York taxpayers. Lin-Manuel Miranda writes a play about it.

Gerald Benjamin, professor, SUNY New Paltz Over vigorous opposition of public employee unions and incumbent state legislators (or perhaps because of this opposition), New Yorkers vote to call a constitutional convention. John Kenny, publisher, NYTrue.com -The New York State constitutional convention ballot question is approved. -Paul Ryan is no longer the Speaker of the House.

Heath Brown, professor, City University of New York, John Jay College Immigrant voters will emerge as an even more powerful force in the 2017 mayoral election than they have in the past. Organizations representing immigrants will feature prominently in shaping the agenda of the campaign especially on how New York City will react to new immigration policies coming from Washington. The candidate that can get ahead of this issue will win in 2017.

James Parrott, deputy director and chief economist, Fiscal Policy Institute -As a hedge against likely reductions in federal aid coming to New York, Albany will extend the millionaire’s tax with some of the increased revenues being used to increase general purpose aid to localities (except for NYC, of course) for the first time in six years. -Recognizing that the sky didn’t fall in the wake of the largest minimum wage increase in New York City in 60 years, many employers start to invest in raising the skills of their lowest-paid workers as they contemplate another increase at the end of 2017. -After repeated stock market gyrations triggered by bizarre late-night tweets, Carl Icahn and the ex-Wall Streeters and generals on the White House staff ask Twitter’s Jack Dorsey to engineer a 5-minute delay for the President’s Twitter messages to allow Ivanka and Jared time to screen outgoing tweets.

Jeff Foreman, director of policy, Care for the Homeless -The City Council will fund a right to counsel in housing court in the 2017-18 budget, jumpstarting a major national movement for right to counsel for tenants facing eviction. -New York State will fund its commitment for supportive housing this year, with no strings (or MOUs) attached, and consider Assemblymember Alan Hevesi's modernized rental subsidy plan. -Advocates and others more fully begin to realize just how important and innovative NYC's "HomeStat" street outreach program is, as street homelessness begins to decline. -New York advocates and policy-makers will be leaders in a burgeoning national effort that will activate the progressive movement in defense of health care, housing, education and food security measures for very low-income people and those in poverty and to protect people of color, immigrants, and others who feel under attack in the new year. Theodore Hamm, professor and editor of Frederick Douglass in Brooklyn, which comes out in January. -Carl Paladino will be named Director of Strategic Outreach by Trump's Alt-White House. -The grandeur of the fourth new station of the 2nd Avenue subway will far exceed that of the first three. -Bill de Blasio will spend lots of time at the Park Slope Y.

Alex Vitale, professor of sociology, Brooklyn College -This is the year that de Blasio starts to look a lot like Bloomberg. Major fiscal pressure brought on by Trump-driven cuts to federal spending, declining real estate activity, and financial retrenchment on Wall Street drive de Blasio to clamp down on spending, creating disaffection among core constituencies. He will not use this as an opportunity for progressive tax reform, which could alleviate the need for austerity. -De Blasio will also maintain his core allegiance to Broken Windows policing, undermining his support in African-American communities and possibly contributing to one or more high profile acts of police abuse. -Little additional progress will be made on reducing the Rikers population or the number of warrants issued in connection with minor crimes and summonses.

WE’LL SEE WHICH OF THESE PREDICTIONS AND WHAT ELSE HAPPENS IN 2017 -- STAY WITH GOTHAM GAZETTE AS WE TAKE YOU THROUGH THE POLITICS OF THE NEW YEAR.

Robotic bridge inspection, preservation is focus of new transportation center

By Missouri S&T Reports Your commute to work may be smoother in the future, thanks to new federally funded research at Missouri University of Science and Technology.

Missouri S&T will receive a $1.4 million 2016 University Transportation Centers (UTC) tier 1 grant to develop robotic tools to inspect and maintain bridges and portions of highway from the air or from the side of the structure. The U.S. Department of Transportation's Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology announced the award Monday, Dec. 5.

"We plan to develop a robotic arm for both flying and climbing unmanned vehicles to inspect and maintain bridges and other transportation infrastructure," says Dr. Genda Chen, the Robert W. Abbett Distinguished Chair in Civil Engineering at Missouri S&T and director of the UTC. "Once this technology is developed and in use, we will never need to close traffic for bridge or highway inspection and preservation."

Instead, robotic unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or robots capable of crawling up along the sides of bridges will inspect or fix bridges from beneath the flow of traffic, Chen says. The robotic arms could also apply sealant or paint to bridge sections, while engineers guide the work remotely and monitor on a screen and visually verify the results as needed. Chen envisions equipping the robots with sensors and microwave cameras capable of detecting potential problems inside bridge beams and decks before they become problematic.

"With the arrival of the robotic era, we expect bridge inspection to be reinvented and transformed into a more consistent, reliable and rapid process," Chen says.

Missouri S&T will lead a consortium of 10 colleges and universities in the effort. The grant is one of 35 five-year grants awarded under the UTC program, which was reauthorized under the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act).

The federal funding is renewable annually for five years and must be matched by non-federal sources.

The Missouri S&T-led UTC is called Inspecting and Preserving Infrastructure through Robotic Exploration, or INSPIRE. In addition to the research, a portion of the grant will be used to "train and expand the transportation work force," Chen says.

Missouri S&T's partners in the project are City College of New York, Institute of Technology, University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Nevada-Reno, University of Nevada-Las Vegas and four Missouri institutions: Lincoln University, East Central College, St. Louis Community College and Ozarks Technical Community College.

11 things to think about when you lose hope over the rise of white nationalism The number of women of color in the Senate quadrupled. Simone Manuel won. 2016 wasn’t 100 percent terrible. Updated by Jenée Desmond- [email protected] Dec 27, 2016, 12:00pm EST

In 2016, a year that’s been marked with more than its fair share of tragedy and high-profile deaths, things in America have been especially grim when it comes to dealing with racism.

Central to that is Donald Trump’s election win despite (or because of, depending on your analysis) his unabashedly racist remarks and promises during his campaign to sanction discrimination. He went on to appoint Steve Bannon, whose primary professional accomplishment was mainstreaming white nationalism at the helm of the website Breitbart, as his "chief strategist and senior counselor." Next, he pegged Jeff Sessions, who in 1986 was deemed too racist to be a federal judge, as the next likely head of the Department of Justice.

Trump has loudly celebrated black people (to be clear, not all potential Clinton supporters, just black people) who didn’t vote, since their votes likely would not have been for him. And it looks like he hasn’t let go of his campaign trail idea that Muslims should be temporarily banned from entering the United States. Asked by reporters this week whether he’d reevaluate this stance — and his proposed registry of Muslim citizens — he replied, "You know my plans." It’s no wonder civil rights advocates fear that decades of progress will be reversed under Trump’s administration — or that the white nationalists who say they’ve been emboldened by his win are delighted to make the same prediction.

But the same night Trump was elected, something else happened. The number of women of color in the Senate quadrupled: Kamala Harris (D-CA), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) won their races, and they’ll join Mazie Hirono, a Japanese-American woman who represents Hawaii. Those wins boosted the count from one woman of color in the US Senate to four. Of course, four is still a small number considering there are 100 Senate seats. But it’s a significant increase — and the largest leap in any one election.

Largely unnoticed amid shock over Trump’s win and panic about what his presidency would mean for the country, this was a moment that stood out against the rest of 2016 as a sign of progress — a moment when racism didn’t appear to win. And it wasn’t the only one.

Women of color had an incredible Olympics — in terms of medals and representation

Simone Manuel made history when she became the first black American woman in the Olympics to earn an individual swimming gold medal and the first African-American woman to win an individual medal. The groundbreaking win in the 100-meter freestyle event, where Manuel tied with Canada’s Penny Oleksiak, would be worth celebrating in the context of any sport. But the particularly racist history of American swimming pools — and resulting lack of opportunities for black swimmers for decades — makes it an even more poignant victory.

Meanwhile, in gymnastics Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas, Madison Kocian, and Laurie Hernandez made up the most racially and ethnically diverse group of Olympic athletes in the US team’s history. Biles and Douglas are African-American, Hernandez is Latina, and Kocian and Raisman (who is Jewish) are both white. Fans cheered the sign of inclusiveness in a sport that in the United States has historically had mostly white participants and, on a global level, is still plagued by lazy stereotypes about the abilities of athletes who aren’t white. In the words of the social media celebrations of the many fans who shared images of the five leotard-clad young women, "Representation matters!" As a bonus, the team won gold. The first Somali-American lawmaker was elected, and got right to work speaking out about bigotry

Ilhan Omar’s November 8 election to Minnesota’s House of Representatives made her America’s first Somali-American lawmaker. She won southeast Minneapolis’s House District 60B seat with 80 percent of the vote.

The celebrations around her win were followed by sobering news when Omar, who is Muslim, reported being harassed by a Washington, DC, cab driver who called her "ISIS" and threatened to remover her hijab. But thanks to the higher profile that came with her new office, her account of the incident and her graceful reaction ("I pray for his humanity and for all those who harbor hate in their hearts") recounted on her Facebook page received national attention.

Speaking out about the incident was one of the first small ways she made good on the promises she made in her acceptance speech, in which she told supporters, "Injustices that are rooted in our society are the root of all of our problems. I will never give up fighting for you, and I hope you never give up fighting for me."

Courts eviscerated voter ID laws meant to keep black people from voting

In July, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit struck down North Carolina’s requirement that voters show certain identification at the polls. The law was enacted after the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder freed up states with histories of discriminatory practices from the requirement of federal approval before making new voting rules. And the judges’ decision minced no words: The law was "passed with racially discriminatory intent."

The ruling provided refreshing clarity. When it comes to restrictive voting laws, as J. Gerald Hebert and Danielle Lang wrote for , "This racial strategy is just barely below the surface of many of these laws," and is often vehemently denied.

Passing laws that are neutral on their face but make it harder for certain groups to cast ballots will be tougher to do going forward: The three-judge panel wrote that legislatures had created the law to "target voters who, based on race, were unlikely to vote for the majority party. Even if done for partisan ends, that constituted racial discrimination." In August, a divided Supreme Court’s ruling denied North Carolina’s request to reinstate the law and let the ruling stand. Allison Riggs, a lawyer for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, told , "This decision opens the door for fair and full access to the democratic process for all voters."

A court convicted a white man who killed black people

On December 15, Dylann Roof, the 22-year-old white supremacist who killed nine people at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, was found guilty on all 33 charges, including the nine murder charges, against him. He’d confessed to the crime, saying, "I went to that church in Charleston, and I did it," so, legally speaking, there shouldn’t have been much doubt about what the outcome of his trial would be.

But for plenty of people left skeptical of whether a court would deliver justice for black victims, it indeed did. Does relief that racism didn’t derail a cut-and- dried case reflect a pretty low standard? Definitely. But here we are.

In one church basement, people worked to tackle their own racism, proving that this is actually an option

In August, North Carolina’s WCNC reported that a "Racists Anonymous" group had begun holding meetings in Concord’s Trinity United Church of Christ fellowship hall.

The news was, understandably, met with skepticism — was this group "a trap," as a Twitter used fretted? Was it a place of support for bigoted views? "If this is real this is so disgusting ... ashamed of them," said one Twitter user. But a closer look revealed that the group didn’t aim to do either of these things.

Instead, a Racists Anonymous organizer told WCNC, "[The goal is to] change systematic racism in the United States of America." The leader, Trinity United’s Rev. Nathan King, said the group’s goal was to "deal with the racism" among members and to "eliminate the racism within ourselves."

The techniques for that elimination weren’t made totally clear, but during a year in which racism was more politically powerful and hotly debated than usual, it was refreshing to learn that, in one fellowship hall at least, people were examining and remedying their own racism instead of finding ways to redefine the term so it wouldn’t apply to them. Even combined with the existence of organizations like Showing Up for Racial Justice, a national network of groups and individuals organizing white people against racism, it would be a stretch to say this approach is the beginning of a trend. But it’s a reminder that it’s possible.

University of Texas’s tactics for creating a racially diverse student body were okayed

In July, the use of race-based affirmative action in college admissions survived a Supreme Court challenge. The Court ruled 4-3 that the procedures the University of Texas used to decide which students to admit were constitutional, after a challenge by Texas student Abigail Fisher, who was denied admission to the school in 2008.

As Vox’s Libby Nelson reported, the academically selective UT Austin has specific goals for the diversity of its student body, and uses race as one factor to decide who, in addition to the top 10 percent of students in each high school class across Texas, is admitted. The Court’s majority was convinced by the university's argument that it could not achieve those goals in any other way.

Because the school’s plan is unique, the decision didn’t provide much guidance on how other universities could ensure their admissions procedures were constitutional — and a note in the decision warned, "It is the University's ongoing obligation to engage in constant deliberation and continued reflection," about how to achieve its goals.

Still, as City University of New York law professor Victor Goode wrote for Colorlines, "This case represents a rare, important victory for the civil rights community and leaves the door open for educators to continue employing carefully crafted affirmative admissions plans." The result: a diverse student body that, as UT has argued, is actually a good thing for students of all races.

A modern, multicultural musical made a statement — literally

Hamilton, the hit musical that tells the story of the Founding Fathers with a multicultural cast and a rap and pop soundtrack, has been wildly successful. Forbes reported that it beat record-holder Wicked for highest gross in a single week, bringing in $3.26 million over Thanksgiving. The $303-per- seat ticket price was the highest in history. Beyond the ways these economic measures powerfully affirmed an appetite for diversity onstage, the cast made a point to connect the production’s cultural significance to real life: namely, the threats to nonwhite Americans and immigrants indicated by the Trump campaign. Shortly after the election, Vice President-elect Mike Pence made a visit to the theater. That night, cast member Brandon Victor Dixon called out to him, and delivered the following speech as the rest of the cast linked arms behind him:

Vice-president elect Pence, we welcome you and we truly thank you for joining us at Hamilton: An American Musical. We really do.

We, sir, are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents — or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, sir.

But we truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and work on behalf of all of us. All of us.

We truly thank you for sharing this show — this wonderful American story told by a diverse group of men, women of different colors, creeds, and orientations. An artistic ode to black women dominated the charts — and managed to get a Black Panther theme into the Super Bowl halftime show

Celebrated as an "ode to black womanhood" and a "revolutionary work of black feminism," Beyoncé’s visual album, Lemonade (arguably a feature film), was another massive pop culture success that put marginalized identities at its center, and won. It debuted at No. 1 on the US Billboard 200 in the last week in April and made Beyoncé the first artist to top the list with each of her six albums. It broke a slew of other records, and the BBC dubbed it music critics’ favorite album of the year.

The lead single, "Formation," was its own triumph: The Daily Beast called the song "a fiery black power anthem and call to arms." Rolling Stone declared that "in the era of #BlackLivesMatter, 'Formation' felt downright necessary." And Beyoncé’s Super Bowl halftime performance of the powerful song, complete with dancers with Afros and Black Panther–inspired costumes, brought the issues at the center of "Formation" — mainly, police brutality and the movement for black lives — right into America’s living rooms, whether or not they were inclined to agree. A "genius" champion for immigrant children got $625,000 to further his work

Ahilan Arulanantham is the deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and an advocate for children as young as 3 years old who’ve fled their home countries and are facing deportation. This year, he received a MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant — a $625,000 check to honor his work and help him to do more of it.

He was chosen for his advocacy and successful litigation of a series of landmark cases that expanded immigrant detainees’ access to legal representation and limited the government’s power to detain them indefinitely.

"Through his incremental approach and careful selection of cases, Arulanantham works to demonstrate the human costs of denying due process to immigrants and to set vital precedents to expand the rights of non- citizens," the foundation wrote in its announcement. Arulanantham told Fusion that "it doesn’t take a genius" to understand the purpose of his work: Kids facing deportation can’t defend themselves in court against professional government prosecutors.

Obama made it much harder for Trump to build his "Muslim registry"

As Vox’s Dara Lind has reported, from 2002 to 2011 a version of one of Donald Trump’s most extreme proposals was standard US government policy: requiring certain people in the US on visas from Muslim-majority countries to register with the government.

President Obama suspended the program and stopped using it to track anyone in 2011, and his White House has spoken strongly against any sort of discrimination against Muslim immigrants. But while the Obama administration’s rhetoric made it clear they thought the program was a bad idea, they didn’t fully get rid of it. What they did, instead, was just clear out the list of countries from which people would be registered, Lind explained.

That means the program’s tools, until recently, were still available for the Trump administration to use for the kind of registry Trump has said he’d like to see.

Not anymore. Lind reported Thursday: The Department of Homeland Security published a regulation that would totally get rid of the National Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) — forcing the Trump administration to take the time to create something new, and giving civil rights groups an opportunity to stop them.

The regulation goes into effect Friday, December 23, well before President Trump is inaugurated. So when his administration takes office — if it’s serious about finding a way to register people from Muslim-majority countries in the US — it’s going to have to find another way to do it.

Depending on one’s outlook, these moments could be interpreted as confirmation that there’s a reason for hope, or as a spotty series of exceptions to the many reasons to despair about race in America. While none of them rival Trump’s win when it comes to the scope of their potential impact, they’re reminders that for people who would like to see progress toward racial equality (and, with the very vocal rise of white nationalists, it’s clearer than ever that that’s not everyone), there were at least a handful of days when 2016 wasn’t a disaster.

Little Data on Whether Charters Make a Difference When College is the Goal

By Erica Jackson

Bryanna Scott, 18, is a student at Brooklyn College. Having attended elementary school at a public school before she transferred into a charter middle school called Achievement First Bushwick, she says the experience was drastically different.

“It wasn’t that bad. But there were so many more rules,” says Scott. “There was raising your hand to go to the bathroom or the uniform. I wasn’t used to uniforms. That was new for me.”

Her experience at Achievement First Brooklyn High School was filled with no shortage of schoolwork and limited free time. Scott is now a student at Brooklyn College and says it was that charter school experience that’s making college feel like a breeze. “I feel like they over- prepared us in a sense,” she added

While Scott says her charter school education has helped her in the transition to college, little is known about the broader impact of charter elementary and middle school education on a student’s college prospects. While the city’s Department of Education, says college enrollment data can be obtained by the elementary and middle school a student attended, charter schools say they track the data unevenly. The debate about whether and why charter schools are uniquely valuable to students is over 10 years old, but it has focused on performance factors such as standardized tests, which students typically take in elementary and middle school. Largely unmeasured has been how charter students compare with people who attended regular schools when it comes to longer-term education goals, like getting into college, attending good colleges and completing a college degree.

A Texas study from 2016 is one of the small number of known studies to look into the subject. It looked at students who attended charter schools in Texas; and found that among students who attend charter schools with a “No Excuses,” approach—schools that according to the study have “higher behavioral expectations, stricter disciplinary codes, uniform requirements, and an extended school day and year”—enrollment in two and four-year colleges increased by 1.2 percentage points. The study also found that black and Hispanic students who attended “No Excuses” charter schools were significantly more likely to graduate from high school or enroll in a two or four-year college.

Promising signs

While some charter schools have started tracking students, others are relatively young so there is little or no data to show success based on college completion. In schools such as Success Academy High School of the Liberal Arts, which opened in 2014, the oldest students are in 11th grade.

While Achievement First tracks their students at Achievement First Brooklyn High School (Achievement First Director of Communications Amanda Pinto says the percentage of former students currently enrolled in college was 84 percent for the class of 2015 and 98 percent for the class of 2016) its other high school, Achievement First University Prep High School, opened its doors in August 2013, and will have its first graduating class this spring.

In schools with a longer lifespan, such as KIPP NYC, which keeps track of its students for college completion starting in eighth grade, the results look promising. According to the KIPP NYC Website, 89 percent of students matriculate into college. As of Spring 2016, 45 percent of KIPP Alumni completed a four-year degree compared to an average of 36 percent of students who graduated from New York City’s public high schools in 2006.

More than 85 percent of KIPP NYC students come from low-income families. National figures indicate that only 9 percent of students from low-income backgrounds completed a four-year degree.

Some of those students were probably college material before they entered a charter school. “I feel like I’ve always a naturally smart kid and I would have gone to a nice college or nice high school regardless,” says Damani Strasner, 18, who attended KIPP NYC College Prep high school after attending KIPP Star Middle School. But he does believe the high standards at KIPP helped him. Strasner recalled one of those moments in his high school, when his AP Global Teacher gave him an 80. “Before that class I never got below a 90 in that class ever in my entire life,” says Stasner.”I had to step my game up like I couldn’t just coast in history like I always did in my life. He really motivated me to do well and do better and I ended up having the highest grade in the class.”

Now a freshman at Vanderbilt studying human and organizational development, he adds:

“I feel like KIPP, they did a really job preparing us as writers because I was kind of scared coming in [to college]. I’ve only gotten lower than a B one time on an essay I’ve written.”

A fellow KIPP alum, Alicia Rodriguez, credits the school’s mindset. After she left public school for KIPP NYC Infinity School in seventh grade college was everywhere to be seen. Homerooms were organized according to the alma matter of homeroom teachers.

“I was in Northwestern and in seventh grade I was in Georgetown at some point and I remember I was in Howard,” says Rodriguez, who graduated from KIPP NYC College Prep. “There were just colleges everywhere. College banners everywhere. They talked to us about college. They took us to colleges in like almost every grade,” she added.”I felt like I was pushed to believe that I was going to go to college.” Now, a freshman at Bard College studying biology, Rodriguez says she’s doing well and is getting mostly A’s and one B.

Others point more to the specific instruction they received. Paige Banks, who attended the Democracy Prep charter school switched there during her freshman year of high school after attending Washington Irving, a public school in Manhattan.

“I wanted to be challenged more,” she says. Now a junior who majors in elementary education and minors in journalism at Knox College, Banks says writing was a major focus that paid off. “I came into college writing really strong papers and my professors would always tell me you’re a really strong writer and that’s not common for someone who’s just coming into college out of high school,” she says.

Gaps in the data

Given all the variables that affect an individual student’s success, anecdotes only tell us so much about the difference that charter schools do or don’t make. More comprehensive data is hard to come by.

For one thing, charter networks are uneven in how they track students depending on when each enters or leaves the network. At KIPP, college completion data is only tracked for students starting in eighth grade; and while Achievement First, tracks college admission and completion data for students who attended Achievement First Brooklyn High School, they don’t track the same data for students who only attended the elementary and middle schools and then left. Ralph Johnson, the Senior Director for College Success at Democracy Prep, also says that college data is only tracked for students who graduate from Democracy Prep High Schools.

New York City education organizations aren’t tracking the data either. The Research Alliance for New York City Public Schools, say they haven’t done analyses that look at high school graduation, college enrollment and college completion by elementary or middle school. Families for Excellent Schools, a non-profit pro-charter organization, also says they don’t have access to data to map high school students outcomes based on the elementary and middle school a student attended.

Pedro Noguera, a professor of education at UCLA, says the question of charter schooling’s effects on college outcomes is one of the areas where more work needs to be done.

“We need to hold them accountable both [public and charter school’s] on long term outcomes but given that many charters make very bold claims about how they serve kids. I think there’s a scenario where more data is needed,” he says. “We would hope is that there is in fact a strong foundation— academic foundation for kids during the early years that it’s going to show up in the long term performance— high school, college, et cetera.”

Even a fuller dataset, however, won’t answer every question about charters—whose unique funding streams and demographics often differ from the public schools to which they’re compared. Education advocate Zakiyah Ansari says one of the issues that can impact long term performance for students at public schools in New York City is a lack of funding.

“When you don’t fund schools is it shuts down opportunities for children to be successful all around. It shuts down opportunities for us as parents to really engage in schools the way we need to,” says Ansari, the Advocacy Director with the Alliance for Quality Education, which opposes charters. “But it also shuts down— it denies dreams of our young people to go on to college if that’s what they choose to. It kind of halts that.”

Scott remains optimistic about her own dreams. But she does say her hyper-structured charter experience has left her having to deal with one challenge at college—having too much time on her hands. “You have all the time in the world and you have no idea to do with yourself,” she says.

Hunter College Jews Are Thriving

December 27, 2016

I am deeply troubled by The Algemeiner’s inclusion of Hunter College on its list of The 40 Worst Colleges for Jewish Students in America.

I spent four years on Hunter’s campus as a student and an additional six months as a Hillel professional, and I speak from experience when saying that Hunter’s Jewish life on campus is not only a presence, but a strong aspect in the lives of many of its students. Hillel, Chabad, Emet, and other Jewish organizations have worked hard to establish a space on campus for students to proudly celebrate their Jewish identity and help students of minority groups and the LGBT community find a safe space through the comfort and warmth of the Jewish community.

During my time at Hunter I participated in and helped to organize Hanukkah Celebrations, Holocaust Memorials, numerous Shabbat dinners, and events geared towards interfaith dialogue. Students worked hard to welcome their classmates of all faiths and backgrounds, and show them the beauty of Jewish traditions.

Instead of evaluating these experiences and others aspects of Jewish life on campus, Algemeiner has written a cheap sensationalist listicle, one which lacks the tangible information Jewish students need to make a decision when choosing a college. While the editors’ ostensible hope was “to draw attention to the problem of rising hostility faced by many Jewish students on campus today,” I fear this will have the opposite effect, and drive students away from campuses where they are most needed. Universities where anti-Israel clubs are most prominent are exactly the campuses to which Jews and pro-Israel allies should flock.

Jewish students on campus should channel the words of Zionist Union leader Tzipni Livni, who warned Israelis against developing a “ghetto mentality”:

“Strong enough to deal with the threats. Strong enough to be a part of the world and not just withdraw into itself with the feeling of a ghetto. Strong enough to fight its enemies, and strong enough to establish peace with it neighbors.”

Colleges with anti-Semitic incidents are the best campuses for Jewish students, not the worst. These campuses provide opportunities for Jewish students to proudly display their heritage, create conversations, inform others about the beauty of the Jewish community, and build friendships with students of all different backgrounds. Hunter’s Jewish life on campus is a perfect example of this positive approach to combat anti- semitic incidents on campus.

Hillel, Chabbad, Emet, other Jewish organizations and students at Hunter have built a welcoming environment to proudly express and celebrate Jewish heritage and identity. Jewish students at Hunter are not in a “plight,” as Algemeiner claims. They are thriving.

Thousands sign petition demanding Hunter College fire professor whose husband criticized Ivanka Trump

A few thousand people want a Hunter College professor fired after his husband heckled Ivanka Trump. As of early Wednesday, more than 5,300 signed a Change.org petition to have urban studies and planning professor Matt Lasner removed after the run-in. Lasner and his husband, Dan Goldstein, were booted last week from a JetBlue flight to San Francisco at Kennedy Airport when Goldstein went on a rant against President-elect Donald Trump’s policies as Ivanka waited for takeoff with her husband and kids.

“Matt Lasner’s conduct is a direct representation of Hunter College,” the petition says.

Lasner tweeted the incident, posting a photo with the message “Ivanka just before @JetBlue kicked us off our flight when a flt attendant overheard my husband expressing displeasure about flying w/ Trumps.”

NYC college group seeking to delegitimize Israel A pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel group at a college in New York City announced at the end of last month the launch of what students are calling the "Hunter College Apartheid Divest" campaign.

The Palestine Solidarity Alliance at Hunter College in the Big Apple is accusing Israel of an "ongoing system of military occupation, apartheid, genocide" and more.

Tammi Rossman Benjamin, who serves as director of the AMCHA Initiative – a organization that tracks anti-Semitism – contends that the charges are ridiculous.

"These are defamatory lies,” Benjamin argued. “This is not true. Israel is not perpetrating genocide. Israel is not an apartheid state. If you call Israel such, it's really in order to defame Israel – to demonize Israel [and] to paint Israel in such a way as to make it worthy of eliminating."

The activists want a resolution passed, urging the university to divest from companies doing business with Israel.

However, Benjamin asserts that passage of the resolution is only incidental.

"There's going to be anti-Semitism on the campus,” the pro-Israel advocate conceded. “There's going to be anti-Jewish hostility – whether or not the resolution passes. And they manage to inject into the campus extreme and virulent anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic sentiment."

Benjamin also points out that the pro-Palestinian group's campaign follows the same playbook as what other similar pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel groups are doing on campuses around the nation.

Family Of Bodega Worker Fatally Shot By Panhandler With A Cop's Gun To Sue NYPD BY NATHAN TEMPEY IN NEWS ON DEC 27, 2016 1:33 PM

The family of the Bronx bodega worker killed in August by a man who grabbed a cop's gun from its holster is planning to sue the city and the officer for $20 million, according to a court filing. Lawyers for the family of the victim, Wali Camara, 49, announced the lawsuit today.

Camara was working at A&M Deli on Valentine Avenue near Lehman College early the morning of August 9th when police say he got into an argument with a panhandler named Efrain Guzman. Camara gave Guzman the boot, and when he tried to beg at a nearby store, a fight erupted, Camara rushed to the store to help, and workers called police.

Officer Jorge Monge was one of the cops who responded, and police say that when Monge tried to remove Guzman, Guzman grabbed Monge's 9-mm pistol from its holster and let off 15 rounds. One bullet caught Camara in the groin, killing him. Monge's partner shot and wounded Guzman.

The notice of claim names Monge, the city, and the NYPD, accusing them of sharing blame for Camara's death, and negligence in hiring, training, and supervision. Monge, lawyers plan to argue, failed to use care as he escorted Guzman away from the store, failed to handcuff him, and failed to safeguard his gun. The city also knowingly uses "shoddy" gun holsters with an easy-to-open clasp mechanism, the notice states. The holster, according to the filing, "allowed this individual easier access to [the] weapon and make [sic] Police Officers susceptible to having their weapons taken from their holsters." The Daily News reported after Camara's death that the NYPD bought the holsters at a discount in the 1990s after the LAPD passed on them because they were too chintzy, and that it's common for officers to have to replace the holsters in the course of their careers. In October, the NYPD announced to officers that the department will replace the holsters with new, auto-locking ones.

"We saw that there might have been an issue with that," NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill told reporters, referring to "that incident up in the Bronx."

"So going forward, there’s a different level [of holster] that we’re going to," O'Neill added. The notice of claim says that the Civilian Complaint Review Board, NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau, and anti-corruption Mollen Commission all criticized the holsters or the NYPD's holstering training. The NYPD and CCRB did not immediately confirm this, and a worker at the firm representing Camara's family said he could not point us to documents backing the assertion.

Camara immigrated to the U.S. from Timbuktu in 1992, and sent most of his money to relatives, including his son, who is in medical school in Paris, his sister told the New York Post. Camara was buried in a family plot in Mali.

Monge remains on active duty, according to an NYPD spokesperson.

Former Student Is Charged in Killings of Ex-Teacher and Their Son By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN and AL BAKER DEC. 27, 2016 It was a minor tabloid scandal: a Bronx high school teacher caught having a sexual relationship with a student. She was 32. He was in high school, 17 or 18. Soon, they moved in together and she was pregnant. They bought wedding bands.

But they began to argue: about how they would raise their son when he was born; about how the student, though still a minor, drank rum. And as quickly as it had begun, the illicit relationship seemed to be over and they had resumed their separate lives at DeWitt Clinton High School, she as a science teacher, he as a student.

Over the next four years, the woman, now a former teacher — her teaching certification was revoked because of the relationship — attended graduate school and raised their son. The former student, Isaac Duran Infante, paid child support and occasionally visited, but was otherwise kept at a distance.

On Monday, the former teacher, Felicia Barahona, and the boy, Miguel, 4, were found dead in their apartment in Upper Manhattan. By Tuesday, detectives were trying to learn as much about Mr. Duran Infante as possible. And on Tuesday night, the police announced that Mr. Duran Infante, 23, had been charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

The charges against Mr. Duran Infante made for a shocking turn in a story that, until her death, had cast Ms. Barahona as a malefactor or a punch line. Her photograph has appeared in The New York Post and The Daily News in recent years, as the tabloids chronicled a spate of prohibited, and often illegal, student-teacher relationships.

One law enforcement official, who was not authorized to discuss a continuing investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Mr. Duran Infante had given detectives a statement, although its contents were not immediately known.

The details of the intimate relationship between the two are laid out in a 2012 memorandum by the office of the special commissioner of investigation for New York City’s schools. It was not immediately clear how closely they had been involved in each other’s lives since then. Mr. Duran Infante’s family could not immediately be reached for comment. It appears that he lived in the Bronx as well as in Pennsylvania in recent years. On Tuesday, law enforcement officials and relatives of Ms. Barahona offered differing versions of his surname, with some calling him Isaac Duran and others, including the police in the news release announcing the charges, referring to him as Isaac Duran Infante.

Ms. Barahona’s half brother, Jaime Bravo, said she and Mr. Duran Infante argued over how Miguel was being raised. “It was over who gets the kid, how do we figure out what payments are done, if he’s going to pay support or not,” Mr. Bravo said.

Mr. Bravo said he believed Mr. Duran Infante had paid child support and had visitation rights.

According to Mr. Bravo and other relatives, Ms. Barahona had been moving on with her life. “She had a fall from grace and was piecing things back together,” Mr. Bravo said, adding that she was studying forensic science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and worked there as well.

A more distant relative, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Ms. Barahona was quite busy given her involvement with the Coast Guard Reserve, working and studying at John Jay and raising Miguel and a daughter who was around 8.

“It’s horrible,” the relative said, adding, “whatever her transgressions, she certainly didn’t deserve a death sentence.”

“Little Miguel certainly didn’t do anything wrong,” this person said. Mr. Bravo described the boy as “your basic, happy 4-year old,” and a fan of Thomas the Tank Engine who was always reaching for his mother’s phone.

Miguel and his mother were found dead in their West 153rd Street apartment on Monday morning, the police said. Ms. Barahona, 36, was found on the living room floor with an electrical cord wrapped around her neck; Miguel was in the bathtub, the police said.

Julie Bolcer, a spokeswoman for the city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, said in an email that both deaths had been ruled homicides.

Detectives continued on Tuesday to try to track Mr. Duran Infante’s actions in recent days.

The 2012 memo written by school district investigators offers an account of the relationship between Ms. Barahona and Mr. Duran Infante, although his name is redacted and he is identified as Student A in the version obtained by The New York Times. The report indicates that Ms. Barahona had been his teacher. On Halloween 2011, the memo says, Ms. Barahona and the student met to take her daughter trick-or-treating in Manhattan. Within a few weeks, Ms. Barahona and the student had begun to have sex, according to the memo. Soon, Ms. Barahona was pregnant and the student was accompanying her to doctor appointments.

The student moved in with Ms. Barahona in January 2012. They lived together for five days, in Ms. Barahona’s telling; Mr. Duran Infante said it was three weeks, according to the memo. They argued about alcohol, about a comment Mr. Duran Infante had made to Ms. Barahona’s daughter, and about whether Mr. Duran Infante would take their son to visit his relatives.

“Barahona responded that Student A was not going to take the baby anywhere and they argued,” according to the memo.

Before long, they split up, the memo says.

The relationship came to the attention of the authorities in February 2012 based on a tip from someone who had talked to Mr. Duran Infante. When investigators contacted him, he acknowledged that he had “fallen in love” and had had a sexual relationship with Ms. Barahona. He told investigators that she was pregnant.

“He embraced the idea of being a father,” the memo says.