By The Editors
Some educational and political observers readily ascribe President Obama’s proposals unveiled Friday to restrain the increasing costs of college-going for students and their families while compelling colleges to improve the “value” of their curricular offerings as more symbolic than substantive – as political theater meant for the campaign trail.

By Kenneth J. Cooper Brown University’s daring self-examination of its historical ties to slavery has prompted a second Ivy League school, venerable Harvard University, to do the same. The 2006 report that Brown President Ruth Simmons, “Slavery and Justice,”  commissioned found deep connections between the university in Providence, R.I. and slavery and the slave trade. [...]

Today the United States Department of Education and the Department of Justice issued policy guidance that provides greater clarity and encouragement to school districts and higher education institutions as they seek to explore available options for promoting and maintaining meaningful diversity.

By Kenneth J. Cooper
Studies show that only a small percentage of high school seniors from poor African-American or Hispanic families even apply to the country’s best colleges. Most of these students incorrectly assume they would never get into top schools or couldn’t possibly afford to attend them.

By Kenneth J. Cooper
Tennessee State University, a historically black school in Nashville, has devised a program to improve math instruction in the state’s K-8 schools that could help narrow gaps in student achievement and college completion rates.

By Lee A. Daniels
The equality-loving – so they say – College Republican club at the University of California at Berkeley yesterday held what they described as a satirical “bake sale” on the storied campus to publicize their opposition to any change in 15-year-old ban against state institutions adopting affirmative action policies.

By Kenneth J. Cooper
Emerson went on a spree of hirings and promotions of minorities, capped by the installation in July of its first African-American president, M. Lee Pelton, former president of Willamette University in Oregon.

By The Editors
A newly-published study states that, contrary to the conventional belief, students of color, and especially black students, are not favored more than whites in gaining grants and scholarships.

The scholarships awarded by the Lehman Fund and the Warren Program have provided over $19 million in financial support to undergraduates and law students, making it possible for hundreds of highly qualified students to attend the nation’s most competitive colleges, universities and law schools.

The ACLU, NAACP and NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) announced today that they oppose the Michigan Attorney General’s request to convene a special 16-judge panel to reconsider the court’s decision this month striking down Michigan’s Proposal 2.  The attorney general expressed his plans to request a rehearing by the full court of appeals today.