March 2, 2016 The Skanner Page 3
News
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“And it’s a very positive
place to be,” Causey said.
Just two years ago ad-
ministrators pulled the
plug on Causey’s Black
education program at
Portland
Community
College on the Monday
after her first success
summit attracted 300
students.
College officials at the
So we bring in community,
we bring in businesses; we
are actually trying to create
a pipeline
time said the program
had run out of money,
but within a year former
PCC President Jeremy
Brown was forced out of
his job, with a $300,000
severance from the col-
lege.
Left without a venue,
Causey didn’t give up
advocating for cultural-
ly competent education.
Last year she helped
re-launch the Black Bac-
calaureate program for
high school students — a
major accomplishment
for local families push-
ing to keep their kids in-
terested in school.
Oregon’s high school
graduation rates are
among the lowest in the
nation for students of all
races. That’s why Causey
said she has expanded
her approach to reach
kids as young as middle
school through a new
program for young teens
called the Middle Pas-
sage to Education, held
in January.
Almost 100 middle
schoolers showed up a
few weeks ago for the
first Black Student Suc-
cess Summit tooled just
for them. Causey said
high schoolers and col-
lege students volun-
teered their time at the
event to support the
youngsters’ goals and vi-
iPhone
see themselves in the
curriculum, they need
time to be together and
have connections to oth-
er students and adults
that look like them,” Cau-
sey said.
Her big idea is to bring
in people from outside of
education. “So we bring
in community, we bring
in businesses; we are ac-
tually trying to create a
pipeline,” she said.
“I hear people all the
time saying they’re going
to diversify, we’re going
to diversify.
“My thought is that if
we continue to do what
we’ve done, we’ll contin-
ue to get what we’ve got.”
Causey said she was
inspired to dedicate her
life to student success
when she was in gradu-
ate school.
“When I was working
for the community col-
lege, I was watching a
lot of students take any-
where between three and
five years to get a two-
year degree,” she said. “A
lot of our students were
walking out with $30,000
and $40,000 worth of
debt and I thought it was
outrageous.”
Black students bear the
burden of an education-
al system that doesn’t
work for them starting
in grade school, she said.
Justice
cont’d from pg 1
national Safety and Justice Chal-
lenge, a project that seeks to re-
duce over-incarceration. It was
released internally to county offi-
cials last fall but only made public
in mid-February.
The report broke down experi-
ences like referrals to the district
attorney’s office, arraignment
and prosecutorial charging, as-
signment of court-appointed
counsel and pretrial release by
demographics.
It found cases where the suspect
of a crime is Black were 440 per-
cent more likely to be referred
for prosecution; Black offenders
were 29 percent less likely to have
cases diverted and 700 percent
more likely to be referred to jail
or prison.
The report also shows nota-
ble disparities for other racial
minorities – including dispro-
portionate representation of
Hispanic and Native American
populations in jail.
What it doesn’t do is ask why
the disparities exist, or make rec-
ommendations for change. Now
stakeholders – including Met-
ropolitan Public Defenders, the
ACLU, Oregon Justice Resource
Center and Partnership for Safe-
ty and Justice — are asking the
county to take steps to address
those disparities.
Lane Borg, the executive direc-
tor of Metropolitan Public De-
“
particularly African American
youth, are much more likely to be
tried as adults than White youth.
That report showed that while
just 4 percent of youth under 18
in Oregon are Black, they repre-
sent 19 percent of Measure 11 in-
dictments.
A majority of indicted youth
It found cases where the suspect of a
crime is Black were 440 percent more
likely to be referred for prosecution
fender Services, said in a press
statement released by the ACLU
of Oregon that the organization
would like to see “measurable
goals in place” to understand and
reduce disparities.
“Multnomah County is to be
commended for participating in
the Safety and Justice Challenge.
But now all of us working within
the criminal justice system need
to take ownership,” Borg also said.
A 2011 report on youth tried as
adults in Oregon produced sim-
ilar findings: that youth of color,
end up with plea deals that allow
them to sidestep mandatory sen-
tences, but still leave them with
adult convictions on their record.
In general, hard data offering
demographic breakdowns in the
criminal justice systems can be
scarce, at least in local jurisdic-
tions. An internal report show-
ing Black inmates in Multnomah
county jails are more likely to be
subject to use of force didn’t be-
come public until February, after
local media filed public records
requests for it.
cont’d from pg 1
any iPhone -- not just Syed Farook’s.
At one point during the demonstra-
tion a man shouted that the protestors
were supporting terrorism. He contin-
ued goading the crowd as he walked,
still screaming when he was a block
away.
His counter protest was mostly
drowned out by booing from the crowd
and calls for the right to privacy.
Raiford spoke about the history of
“
RGB in the CD
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and a couple of boys from the community cut a ribbon, to officially dedicate the newly painted crosswalk on
Martin Luther King Blvd at Powell Barnett Park. The crosswalk was painted in the Pan-African colors of red, green and black as a way
of acknowledging the history of the African American community in the Central District.
pening because you are investigating
against us, because you think that we
are a threat, we need to keep you out
of our business,” Raiford said. “It’s not
your business until we bring it to you.
It ain’t your business until we are sit-
ting at the table talking to you about it.”
The poster Raiford carried read “Se-
cure Phones Save Lives.”
Raiford knows she is being watched
because of her Don’t Shoot Portland
If killing us is something that is happening
because you are investigating against us, be-
cause you think that we are a threat, we need
to keep you out of our business
COINTELPRO activities to spy on polit-
ical organizations. She mentioned the
surveillance of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Malcolm X, and John F. and Bobby Ken-
nedy, who were all later assassinated.
“If killing us is something that is hap-
activism. She said she has organized
protests where she wasn’t sure any-
one would show up, and yet there was
a large police presence waiting for her.
In November of last year the Oregon
Department of Justice came under fire
for investigating people
who used the hashtag
#BlackLivesMatter
on
social media. The inves-
tigation profiled social
media users as part of an
assessment of potential
police threats. Even the
Director of Civil Rights
for the State Justice De-
partment, Erious John-
son, was profiled.
The ACLU of Oregon
said this investigation
was illegal -- state and lo- Demonstrators gathered in front of the Apple Store last week to ask
cal police cannot collect the company continue to protect their privacy.
information about the
information about our private lives;
political, religious or social views of from conversations, to locations, to
any individual or group that is unrelat- banking information and much more.
ed to a criminal investigation.
Armstrong said the new request of
Sarah Armstrong, the outreach direc- Apple is much different than previous
tor of the ACLU of Oregon spoke in sup- requests for information.
port of Apple standing up for personal
security. She said the smartphones of
Read the full story at TheSkanner.com
today carry an enormous amount of
PHOTO BY ARASHI YOUNG
“
sions for the future.
“I’m from Portland, Or-
egon and so I’m a prod-
uct of the school system
here,” she said. “I remem-
ber a time when I used
to have Black teachers,
before the school district
started busing students.
“Now you talk to stu-
dents and they don’t have
Black teachers, they don’t
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
Summit