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www . thEskaNNER . COM s EptEMBER 28, 2011 s EattLE , w ashINgtON V OLuME XXXIII, N O . 48 25 CENts MBE 2 0 1 1 Minority Business Enterprise Special Edition C hallenging P eoPle to S haPe a B etter F uture n ow Reform the NCaa Troy Davis vigil A few ideas for changing young athletes’ lives By roger M. Groves, Professor of Law Florida coastal School of Law T Photo BY SuSan Fried Chris harris hands out flyers about georgia death row inmate troy Davis, at a vigil held prior to his execution on wednesday, sept. 21, at westlake park. Davis was executed despite lingering doubt about his guilt. susan Fried photo author Isabel wilkerson in seattle Oct. 9 Pulitzer-winner reads from her book, ‘The Warmth of Other Suns’ T he Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas hosts Isabel Wilkerson reading from her award-winning nation- al bestseller, “The Warmth of Other Suns,” Oct. 9, at 7 p.m., at Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave. Winner of the National Book Critic Circle Award for Nonfiction, The Warmth of Other Suns, chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades- long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities in search of a better life. The book was named one of New York Times’ 10 Best Books of 2010 and among Amazon’s Five Best Books of 2010. Wilkerson, as Chicago Bureau Chief of The New York Times, won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing for her coverage of the historic floods in the Midwest and for her profile of a ten-year-old boy growing up with a man’s obligations on the South Side of Chicago. The award made her the first black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in indeX News ........................2,3 Calendar ....................2 Opinion .......................4 MBE ..........................5-8 Bids/Classifieds............7 journalism and the first black American to win for individual reporting in the history of the prizes. She also won the George Polk Award for her coverage of the Midwest and was named Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists. Wilkerson spent most of her journalism career at The Times, and her work has been widely anthologized. She has come to be known for nonfiction narra- tives that combine the disci- plines of journalism and ethnog- raphy. She has written exten- sively on issues of social policy and the human condition, as well as on major stories of the day, such as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the chal- lenges of upward mobility for the Times’ 2005 series and book, Class in America. She has lectured on narrative nonfiction at universities, at newspapers and at professional writing workshops throughout the country and has conducted writing seminars at the Nieman See author on page 3 he NCAA enforcement problem has festered beneath the surface for decades, and allowed to grow into a multi-institutional monster. I think its prob- lems are too complex for a single simple solution. There are root causes we still don’t dig down and deal with. Some societal, some economic, some just plain greed or ignorance. Nor can all the issues be ade- quately treated in a single post. But there are some issues that seem obvious to me that no one seems to what to address. I have a few suggestions or considerations. One seeks to inspire players to do the right thing. The other is more drastic, borrowing from crim- inology and technology. That’s for those who still don’t get it. But I’ll save that for another post. First, we need an enhanced way of inspir- ing the at-risk teenagers to do the right thing. The reason is because the university setting is not supposed to act like the crimi- nal justice system. We must admit that we are asking for voluntary compliance by players to comply with NCAA rules. The problem with getting at-risk star players to conform to NCAA rules doesn’t start with college. Grown-ups identify and coddle those with superior athletic ability at or before puberty. Then the adoring communi- ty that loves to see their schools win, includ- ing some teachers, sends the subtle but con- sistent message that for these youngsters, the normal rules do not apply. It should not then surprise us that some of these mixed- messaged 10-12 year olds become teenagers who are high risks for rules violations. And then there is often family dysfunction where too often the absent or incarcerated father is replaced by AAU coaches or other sports pimps of sorts. The player becomes more a commodity than the loved one. Yet the essence of fatherhood is irreplace- See ncaa on page 3 Feds Launch Civil Rights Investigations Feds looks at cases in which white students receive more services By nadra Kareem nittle Special to the nnPa from america’s Wire WaShinGton—The U.S. Department of Education is seeking to improve the qual- ity of education for minority and poor pub- lic school students by aggressively launch- ing civil rights investigations aimed at pre- venting district administrators from provid- ing more services and resources to predom- inantly white schools. Faced with public schools more segre- gated today than in the 1970s, the depart- ment is using the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to improve the quality of education for stu- dents from minority and low-income back- grounds. The department has outpaced the Bush administration in initiating civil rights probes. During 33 months under the Obama administration, the department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has launched 30 com- pliance reviews compared with the 22 begun during the eight-year Bush adminis- tration. Investigators determine whether school districts have violated Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits See education on page 3
