New NPR Chief, Jarl Mohn, Vows to Foster Diversity; New York Times, 6/29/14

Elizabeth Jensen, New York Times; New NPR Chief, Jarl Mohn, Vows to Foster Diversity:

"When Jarl Mohn takes the helm as NPR’s chief executive on Tuesday, he will call on lessons learned from public radio in Los Angeles to address what he says is one of NPR’s most pressing priorities: increasing its reach into communities of color.

Mr. Mohn, who was named to the NPR post on May 9, was chosen in part because of the strong record of diversity at Southern California Public Radio, parent of the Los Angeles station KPCC, where until recently he was the board chairman.

At the time of his appointment, NPR’s board adopted a strategic plan intended to “increase the diversity of the audience by age, ethnicity and geography,” as well as the sources it quotes and the “diversity of NPR talent;” NPR’s newsroom staff is 77 percent white, and its audience even more so, according to a report from NPR’s ombudsman.

Eleven days later, however, NPR announced that it would end “Tell Me More,” its daily show meant to attract African-Americans and other listeners of color...

If NPR is to change, however, accountability is needed, many in the public radio sphere say. “Without some kind of financial ramification, nothing happens,” said Farai Chideya, who hosted a daily show focused on issues affecting African-Americans, which was canceled in 2009."

Among Gay C.E.O.s, the Pressure to Conform; New York Times, 6/28/14

James B. Stewart, New York Times; Among Gay C.E.O.s, the Pressure to Conform:

"That’s not to say there haven’t been any gay chief executives at major corporations — Mr. Browne is unique only because he was outed — and there are gay chief executives today, some of whom lead relatively open lives. But thus far, none have been willing to publicly acknowledge being gay. I reached out to several of them for this article, and all refused to be identified.

That makes the corporate corner suite one of the last frontiers for gay civil rights, now that even a professional football draft pick, Michael Sam, has publicly acknowledged being gay.

This seems especially baffling given recent advances in gay civil rights. And corporate chief executives are ostensibly evaluated by objective measures of financial performance, which should render their sexual orientation irrelevant.

But conforming to social norms has long been an unspoken requirement for the top jobs at public corporations. And even for gay people who have managed to get there, coming out publicly violates a norm that chief executives don’t court personal publicity or raise issues that might distract from the company’s business. “There may be what’s known as ‘pioneer fear,’ ” said Kenji Yoshino, professor of constitutional law at New York University and co-author of “Uncovering Talent, a New Model for Inclusion.” “No one wants to be first, with some asterisk after their name.”

Professor Zweigenhaft added that chief executives typically don’t have the personality of civil rights trail blazers. “The kind of person who becomes a C.E.O. isn’t going to surprise the board by coming out in The New York Times,” he said.

Although women and blacks are more visible, they face similar pressures in the executive suite. “Corporate boards tend to be older, white, male and conservative, and they want C.E.O.s they feel comfortable with,” Professor Zweigenhaft said. “Women who make it to the top need to show they can be one of the guys. African-Americans can’t seem threatening. You’re not going to find Jesse Jackson on any Fortune 500 boards.”"

U.S. Companies Less LGBT-Friendly Than They'd Like You To Believe; HuffingtonPost.com, 6/27/14

Hunter Stuart, HuffingtonPost.com; U.S. Companies Less LGBT-Friendly Than They'd Like You To Believe:

"Yet behind these policies lies a corporate culture years away from actually achieving equality, according to interviews with advocates, diversity leaders and LGBT employees of large U.S. corporations.

One statistic tells that story: There are no openly gay CEOs at any of the country's 1,000 biggest companies, as The New York Times reported last month. Until there are LGBT people filling the top slots at these businesses, no policy change will level the playing field within corporate America, said activists and workers at these companies...

For LGBT workers, having to cover up who you are at work can mean changing everything from your mannerisms and voice to the kinds of pictures you frame on your desk. It also affects casual conversations with coworkers. "You're gonna be careful about how you describe your evenings and weekends. You're going to have to change pronouns," said Tom Lynch of Out and Equal Workplace Advocates, a San Francisco-based nonprofit devoted to making workplaces safe and equitable for LGBT employees...

"Covering," as it's called, is widespread. Twenty-three percent of gay men and 15 percent of gay women believe that covering their identity has helped their careers, according to a 2013 report from the Center for Talent Innovation, a New York-based organization that helps corporations leverage talent from women and minorities."

Harvey Milk honored with postage stamp; Washington Post, 5/22/14

Katie Zezima, Washington Post; Harvey Milk honored with postage stamp:

"The U.S. Postal Service dedicated a stamp to Harvey Milk, one of the nation’s first openly gay elected officials, in a White House ceremony Thursday.

“This stamp reflects our longstanding commitment to civil rights,” said Deputy Postmaster General Ronald Stroman. “Harvey Milk joins other civil rights pioneers who have been honored with stamps including Martin Luther King, Jr. and Caesar Chavez.”

Milk was a San Francisco city supervisor when he and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated at city hall Nov. 27, 1978, by a former city supervisor. Milk was posthumously awarded a Medal of Freedom in 2009."

Untold Stories: The Park Service strives to tell the history of all Americans, but one group has gone almost entirely overlooked; National Parks Magazine, Summer 2014

Rona Marech, National Parks Magazine; Untold Stories: The Park Service strives to tell the history of all Americans, but one group has gone almost entirely overlooked:

"In 1965, most gay men and lesbians never dreamed of coming out publicly. So when a small group of picketers gathered at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on July 4 of that year with signs that seemed to broadcast their sexual orientation, bystanders were perplexed. One man instructed his children to hold their noses as they walked by. “But you couldn’t really be gay?” people asked. Some thought that they were actors. Or that it was a joke...

Participating in such a protest could lead to arrest, job loss, social rejection, or physical harm. Yet this determined crew of around 40 marched single file for nearly two hours carrying homemade signs with messages such as “Support Homosexual Civil Rights.” They had carefully selected the location at Independence National Historical Park because they wanted to remind—or inform—the public that gay and lesbian citizens did not enjoy the rights enshrined in the nation’s founding documents. To that end, they called the pickets, which recurred each year through 1969, “Annual Reminder Days.”

Historians consider the picket one of the country’s first organized gay rights demonstrations and view it as a momentous step in the global movement for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality. Forty years after that fateful march, the state installed a historic marker commemorating the event. “We marched out of the closet and into American history,” Lahusen says.

But the historic marker isn’t on park property, so millions of visitors pass through the park and never learn about the groundbreaking protest. Finally last summer, park guide Michael Doveton decided to do something about what he considered a glaring omission. During Philadelphia’s gay pride festival, he organized a slide show and talk about the demonstration and the history of LGBT rights, a program he plans to continue this year. Next summer, the 50th anniversary of the original protest, a temporary exhibit on gay rights in 1960s America will open at the National Constitution Center.

“We owe it to the public to tell these stories, to tell this history,” Doveton says. “We love to talk about the beautiful moments of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution but we also talk about some of our shortcomings as well. That’s important because that’s what makes us who we are as a people, as a culture, as a nation. That’s our history. Both the shining and the dark moments.”

Doveton is not a rogue employee. He isn’t fighting against a current. In fact, he was backed by his superiors, all the way to the top reaches of the National Park Service administration, where the call to document LGBT history has been noticeably amplified in recent years. In drips and drabs, park employees are revisiting existing sites to incorporate LGBT history that had been overlooked or actively obscured. At the same time, the Park Service is actively seeking places with a vital connection to gay and lesbian history to add to the National Register of Historic Places or the National Historic Landmark (NHL) program.

The Park Service hasn’t done a great job telling LGBT stories in the last 30 years, says Alexandra Lord, the branch chief for the NHL program, which recognizes sites of national significance. “Now we’re looking to tell this story much more aggressively,” she says.

The attitude within the Park Service reflects a much larger shift—even a groundswell—in the world of public history."

Is Real Inclusiveness Possible?; The Stone, New York Times, 6/22/14

Justin E. H. Smith, The Stone, New York Times; Is Real Inclusiveness Possible? :

"Like many institutions that have become more concerned with equality in the past few decades, academic philosophy today aims to be more inclusive. In general, university departments are now striving to consider the experiences and concerns of a broader range of people than have traditionally played the social and professional role of the philosopher. This makes sense. In an increasingly global intellectual landscape, the removal of barriers to entry for previously excluded groups of people and schools of thought is productive and fair.

It may be, however, that the full implications of the project of inclusiveness have not fully been grasped by the people promoting it. A dwindling number believe that it would be enough to simply change the make-up of philosophy departments without changing the content. Increasingly, these two projects are seen as connected: philosophy will not attract long-excluded groups of people if members of these groups do not see themselves — their traditions, standpoints, and idioms — represented in syllabi and in publications. But what would it mean to reconceive philosophy in order to adequately represent these?"

Elite, Separate, Unequal: New York City’s Top Public Schools Need Diversity; New York Times, 6/22/14

Richard D. Kahlenberg, New York Times; Elite, Separate, Unequal: New York City’s Top Public Schools Need Diversity:

"New York City’s eight selective public high schools base admissions on a single two-and-a-half-hour assessment — the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test — a practice that is unusual among other large public school systems in the nation. The N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense and Education Fund, along with other groups, has filed a federal civil rights complaint against this arrangement.

In his campaign for mayor, Bill de Blasio called for diversifying these schools...

Demographers rank Chicago’s census tracts from most to least advantaged by six criteria: median family income, average level of education attained by parents, percentage of single-family homes, percentage of homes where English is not the first language, percentage of homeowner-occupied residences, and school achievement scores by attendance area.

The policy has resulted in far more racial and ethnic diversity than in New York City’s elite public schools."

Here Lies Progress: Asian Actors Fill the Playbill; New York Times, 6/22/14

Patrick Healy, New York Times; Here Lies Progress: Asian Actors Fill the Playbill:

"After decades of inching toward center stage, Asian-American theater actors are facing something that they’ve rarely enjoyed in New York: demand.

An unusual bonanza of jobs is in the offing from new shows as well as two anticipated Broadway revivals, “The King and I” and “Miss Saigon.” More plays and musicals are also telling stories from Asian viewpoints, a long-held goal of Asian-American artists. And increasingly, Asians are landing roles that traditionally go to non-Asian actors...

Actors say they are also making steady gains in smaller theaters, landing more roles that they describe as “nontraditional.” In recent months a Japanese-born actor played Romeo opposite a white Juliet at the Classic Stage Company and a Filipino-American actor was Bill Sikes in “Oliver!” More Asian-Americans have also been creating characters named Heather and Claire who were not written specifically as Asian.

“Casting directors are starting to take Asian diversity seriously, after focusing mostly on black and Hispanic actors,” said Pun Bandhu, an actor who was cast as several minor characters in the 2012 Broadway revival of “Wit.”"

Voices: Why our girls are going to coding camp; USA Today, 6/16/14

Elizabeth Weise, USA Today; Voices: Why our girls are going to coding camp:

"Coding's like that. It's a skill, a language, and once you get the concept down, you can apply it elsewhere.

Too often, I sit in meetings or conferences and see something that involves programming come up, and half the people in the room just go blank. It's as if the discussion has moved into Swahili, behind an impenetrable barrier.

What's happening behind that barrier is increasingly the real stuff of civilization. It's what makes our phones work, keeps our schedules, amuses us while waiting in line and even runs the heart monitor on a sick friend.

Whatever our girls end up doing in life, they need to be able to follow those conversations. Maybe they'll become fluent and end up working for Alibaba in Beijing. Or maybe they'll just be able to get by.

Either way, we don't want a huge part of modern life to be utterly alien to them. For too many people, and especially too many girls, computers and the code that runs them make up a country they've never visited."

George Takei Is Still Guiding the Ship; New York Times, 6/13/14

Michael Schulman, New York Times; George Takei Is Still Guiding the Ship:

"Given Mr. Takei’s cheeky advocacy, it is hard to believe that he came out publicly just nine years ago. For that, his admirers can thank Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, when he was governor of California, vetoed a marriage-equality bill. Watching the news on TV at home, Mr. Takei felt his blood boil.

“We agreed that I had to speak out, which meant my voice had to be authentic,” he said in an interview with his husband in their Midtown Manhattan apartment."

U.S. Patent And Trademark Office Cancels Redskins Trademark; Huffington Post, 6/18/14

Shandee Ashtari, Huffington Post; U.S. Patent And Trademark Office Cancels Redskins Trademark:

"The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office canceled six federal trademark registrations for the name "Washington Redskins" on Wednesday on the grounds that the football team’s name is “disparaging to Native Americans” and thus in violation of federal trademark laws banning offensive or disparaging language.

“We decide, based on the evidence properly before us, that these registrations must be cancelled because they were disparaging to Native Americans at the respective times they were registered,” the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board wrote in its opinion Wednesday.

The landmark ruling was filed on behalf of a group of Native Americans."

In Silicon Valley, Searching for Diversity in an Algorithm; Fox Business, 6/9/14

Jennifer Booton, Fox Business; In Silicon Valley, Searching for Diversity in an Algorithm:

"Mountain View, Calif.-based Google said its 46,000-person workforce is “miles” away from where Google would like to be. It blamed education, and touted its efforts to try and fix the problem such as sending engineers to historically black colleges to reinvent IT curriculums and investing in education for girls...

“My concern is the 99% of other companies who want and need diverse teams but don’t have the team to recruit them,” Bischke said. “This could help level the playing field.”

What Entelo provides is more than 20 million profiles of potential employees filled with publicly-available data pulled from sites like Twitter (TWTR) and LinkedIn (LNKD).

Its proprietary algorithms then sort through this information using big data, predictive analytics and social cues, to determine the likelihood that people fall into a number of demographic subsets: female vs. male, white vs. black, etc.. It also identifies U.S. military veterans.

"We realized we could do this with a high degree of accuracy,” Bischke said.

The idea is that it would help companies to more cost-effectively and efficiently scour a wider group of potentially ethnically-diverse and qualified candidates, freeing up resources to focus on innovation, training, and ideally develop these people into future industry leaders."

Colleges and Evangelicals Collide on Bias Policy; New York Times, 6/9/14

Michael Paulson, New York Times; Colleges and Evangelicals Collide on Bias Policy:

"Similar conflicts are playing out on a handful of campuses around the country, driven by the universities’ desire to rid their campuses of bias, particularly against gay men and lesbians, but also, in the eyes of evangelicals, fueled by a discomfort in academia with conservative forms of Christianity. The universities have been emboldened to regulate religious groups by a Supreme Court ruling in 2010 that found it was constitutional for a public law school in California to deny recognition to a Christian student group that excluded gays...

Cal State officials insist that they welcome evangelicals, but want them to agree to the same policies as everyone else. “Lots of evangelical groups are thriving on our campuses,” said Susan Westover, a lawyer for the California State University System. However, she said, there will be no exceptions from the antidiscrimination requirements. “Our mission is education, not exclusivity,” she said.

At Vanderbilt, the decision to push groups to sign antidiscrimination policies was prompted by a Christian fraternity’s expulsion of a member who came out as gay. About one-third of the 35 religious groups on campus have refused to sign and are no longer recognized by the school; they can still meet and recruit informally, and the campus Hillel has even opened its building for meetings of one of the Christian groups.

“I am hopeful for a better future, but I’m not naïve, there are some issues that are irresolvable,” said the Vanderbilt chaplain, the Rev. Mark Forrester, who is a United Methodist minister. “This is a larger social and ethical struggle that we as a society are engaged in.”"

Michael Sam: Rams Teammates 'Respect Me As A Human Being And As A Football Player'; Associated Press via HuffingtonPost, 6/6/14

R.B. Fallstrom, Associated Press via HuffingtonPost; Michael Sam: Rams Teammates 'Respect Me As A Human Being And As A Football Player' :

"Michael Sam is confident he'll be judged on performance.

The first openly gay player drafted in the NFL said Friday there have been no issues fitting in with his St. Louis Rams teammates, no awkward moments in the locker room and that he was accepted right away.

"They respect me as a human being," he said. "And as a football player."

Being a bit of a cut-up helps cut the ice, too. Sam skipped all of the media days last season at Missouri while saving his announcement for February, but teammates will tell you he has quite a sense of humor and is not the least bit sensitive about off-color jokes that can fly behind closed doors.

"If anybody had any reservations about who he was to begin with, he wins them over pretty quick," said wide receiver T.J. Moe, who played with Sam at Missouri. "They're laughing so hard, they can't breathe."

Defensive tackle Michael Brockers said Sam was asked to stand up and tell a joke on Friday. The verdict: "Totally funny."

"We don't really focus on the outside stuff," Brockers added. "He's our brother, he's on our D-line and that's where it sits.""

Expand the Rooney Rule to businesses, too: It should apply to hiring across the Pittsburgh region to equalize opportunities for minorities; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 6/7/14

Tim Stevens, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Expand the Rooney Rule to businesses, too: It should apply to hiring across the Pittsburgh region to equalize opportunities for minorities:

"The roundtable’s first annual event took place May 13, 2013. It was lauded by all parties as a powerful conversation during which companies and corporations looked at how they could move from “well meaning to well doing,” that is, how they could raise their level of commitment and urgency in making the regional workforce more diverse, equitable and inclusive.

The second annual event, hosted by Duquesne University President Charles Dougherty, Mr. Fitzgerald and Mayor Bill Peduto, will take place Monday from 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at Duquesne University’s Power Center Ballroom.

The purpose of the Corporate Equity & Inclusion Roundtable is to see more African-Americans and people of color employed, from entry-level positions to the ‘C’ suite, become business owners and win more public and private contracts for construction projects, goods and services throughout the region.

The roundtable’s vision is to bring about measurable and lasting breakthroughs in workforce diversity, equity and inclusion and in economic opportunities.

The roundtable seeks to identify, develop and implement strategies to overcome challenges within the corporate sector by facilitating collaboration among educational institutions, community organizations, workforce-development agencies and professional organizations.

The roundtable aspires to brand our region as a national leader in creating a strong and meaningful commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

At last year’s inaugural roundtable event, Pittsburgh Steelers President Arthur J. Rooney II echoed the roundtable working group in urging corporate Pittsburgh to adopt a “Revised Rooney Rule,” a corporate version of the National Football League’s Rooney Rule. This would make it standard practice to interview African-Americans and people of color not only for top executive positions but for all jobs."

Chester Nez, 93, Dies; Navajo Words Washed From Mouth Helped Win War; New York Times, 6/5/14

Margalit Fox, New York Times; Chester Nez, 93, Dies; Navajo Words Washed From Mouth Helped Win War:

"To the end of his life, Chester Nez recalled the first message he sent over the radio while serving at Guadalcanal: “Enemy machine gun nest on your right. Destroy.”

Receiving the message, American forces eliminated the threat.

Mr. Nez, a former United States Marine who died on Wednesday at 93, had sent the message not in English but rather in a code he had helped create. It originally went much like this: “Anaai (Enemy) naatsosi (Japanese) beeldooh alhaa dildoni (machine gun) nishnaajigo nahdikadgo (on your right flank). Diiltaah (Destroy).”

The code was fashioned from Navajo, the language that Mr. Nez grew up speaking, was later barred from speaking and still later helped craft into a military code so impervious that it helped the United States secure victory in the Pacific in the summer of 1945.

Mr. Nez was the last surviving member of the 29 original Navajo code talkers, who at the urgent behest of the federal government devised an encrypted version of their language for wartime use. They and the hundreds of Navajos who followed them into battle used that code, with unparalleled success, throughout the Pacific theater...

Nor did every account of the code talkers’ work focus on what happened when they returned to the United States. There, for Mr. Nez and others, hardships included post-traumatic stress disorder and marginalization by the very country they had served.

In his many interviews and public appearances, Mr. Nez expressed unmistakable pride in his wartime work. But the irony of what that work entailed was far from lost on him.

“All those years, telling you not to speak Navajo, and then to turn around and ask us for help with that same language,” he told USA Today in 2002. “It still kind of bothers me.”

White House marks LGBT Pride Month on eve of legal gay marriage in Illinois: Presidential proclamation notes anniversary of Stonewall riots and changing views of same-sex marriage across US; Guardian, 5/31/14

Jessica Glenza, Guardian; White House marks LGBT Pride Month on eve of legal gay marriage in Illinois: Presidential proclamation notes anniversary of Stonewall riots and changing views of same-sex marriage across US:

"Sunday is the first day of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Pride Month, an occasion marked by the White House and couples in Illinois, the most recent state to begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses.

"This month, as we mark 45 years since the patrons of the Stonewall Inn defied an unjust policy and awakened a nascent movement, let us honor every brave leader who stood up, sat in, and came out,” read a presidential proclamation issued on Friday.

The Stonewall Inn is often referred to as the “birthplace” of the modern gay rights movement. In 1969, New York City police raided the bar and arrested customers on “public morals” charges, sparking demonstrations that summer..."

And as Friday's presidential proclamation pointed out, many LGBT couples around the world face persecution and discrimination.

"In many places around the globe, LGBT people face persecution, arrest, or even state-sponsored execution,” said the proclamation. "This is unacceptable. The United States calls on every nation to join us in defending the universal human rights of our LGBT brothers and sisters.”"

An identity to call their own: A new open life: Amid continued discrimination and harassment, the transgender community is having its moment; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 6/1/14

Mackenzie Carpenter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; An identity to call their own: A new open life: Amid continued discrimination and harassment, the transgender community is having its moment:

"The "T" in LGBT - the last letter in the acronym representing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals - is finally getting its turn in the spotlight.

Even as Pennsylvania became the 19th state last month to allow same-sex marriage, the small but increasingly visible transgender wing of the LGBT movement is moving aggressively to secure the same protections won by gay rights groups over the past two decades.

In a historic move at the end of April, federal officials codified protections for transgender students under Title IX, a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded education programs. And on Friday, Medicare lifted its ban on coverage for sex reassignment surgery...

This Friday, Pittsburgh's growing transgender movement will be out in force for 2014 Pittsburgh Pride, an LGBT celebration running through June 15. TransPride, a local advocacy and support group, will be hosting a series of events showcasing the artistic and musical talents of trans people. It's the most extensive spotlight on this community during the annual celebration of the LGBT movement so far, says TransPride co-founder Chance Thomas.

First, an explainer: Unlike the other letters in LGBT, transgender is about how an individual identifies, as male or female. Being lesbian, gay or bisexual is about sexual orientation."