Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit struck down a Michigan ballot initiative that unconstitutionally limited access to opportunity at the state’s public universities and in other contexts. Passed in 2006 and commonly known as “Proposal 2,” the initiative was a deliberate effort to prohibit precisely the types of race-conscious admissions policies that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) as constitutionally permissible approaches to ensuring pathways to leadership in our nation’s civic, political, and economic life.

By Kenneth J. Cooper
One of the more important but overlooked provisions of No Child Left Behind was aimed at making sure poor children get a fair share of the better teachers. In the decade since the federal education law was adopted, however, the “teacher equity” provision has not been widely implemented, and the national pattern of low-income students receiving instruction from less qualified teachers has not changed much.

On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rebuffed a request to reconsider its prior ruling upholding the constitutionality of the admissions program utilized by the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) to assemble a diverse student body.

By Tarice L.S. Gray
Despite their value, finding mentors still proves elusive to many who need them.

Zero-tolerance rules, once hailed as the panacea to an explosion of serious student misbehavior in schools, are now recognized more and more as part of the problem, not the solution.

By Tarice L.S. Gray
Slavery as a topic needs no introduction to most Americans. But it does need an introduction to children; and how the facts of Negro Slavery in America has been taught to schoolchildren has often been as fraught with tension and controversy as other spheres what used to be know as “race relations.”

By Lee A. Daniels
The death in February 2010 of Theodore Lamont Cross deprived the world of a man, as Legal Defense Fund President and Director-Counsel said in tribute, “of remarkable achievements in several different careers.”

One of those careers was as the founder and publisher for 17 years of The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, a gold mine of information about the status of African Americans in higher education – and, in broader terms, of their status in American society as a whole

Last week, LDF joined more than a dozen civil rights organizations in authoring a letter urging Congress to incorporate key accountability provisions as it reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).

This week, the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) requested leave to file a friend-of-the-court brief opposing further appellate review in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin).

By TaRessa Stovall
A quick round-up of recent education stories offers a glimpse into the complex stew of progress, setbacks and conflicting news that represents race and learning in America today.