Supreme Court upholds Michigan's ban on using race as factor in college admissions

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld Michigan's ban on using race as a factor in college admissions.

The justices said in a 6-2 ruling that Michigan voters had the right to change their state constitution in 2006 to prohibit public colleges and universities from taking account of race in admissions decisions. The justices said that a lower federal court was wrong to set aside the change as discriminatory.

Justice Anthony Kennedy said voters chose to eliminate racial preferences, presumably because such a system could give rise to race-based resentment.

Kennedy said nothing in the Constitution or the court's prior cases gives judges the authority to undermine the election results.

"This case is not about how the debate about racial preferences should be resolved. It is about who may resolve it," Kennedy said.

In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the decision tramples on the rights of minorities, even though the amendment was adopted democratically. "But without checks, democratically approved legislation can oppress minority groups," said Sotomayor, who read her dissent aloud in the courtroom Tuesday. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sided with Sotomayor in dissent.

At 58 pages, Sotomayor's dissent was longer than the combined length of the four opinions in support of the outcome.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas agreed with Kennedy.

Justice Elena Kagan did not take part in the case, presumably because she worked on it at an earlier stage while serving in the Justice Department.

In 2003, the Supreme Court upheld the consideration of race among many factors in college admissions in a case from Michigan.

Three years later, affirmative action opponents persuaded Michigan voters to change the state constitution to outlaw any consideration of race.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the issue was not affirmative action, but the way in which its opponents went about trying to bar it.

In its 8-7 decision, the appeals court said the provision ran afoul of the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment because it presents an extraordinary burden to affirmative action supporters who would have to mount their own long, expensive campaign to repeal the constitutional provision.

Similar voter-approved initiatives banning affirmative action in education are in place in California and Washington state. A few other states have adopted laws or issued executive orders to bar race-conscious admissions policies.

Black and Latino enrolment at the University of Michigan has dropped since the ban took effect. At California's top public universities, African-Americans are a smaller share of incoming freshmen, while Latino enrolment is up slightly, but far below the state's growth in the percentage of Latino high school graduates.

The case was the court's second involving affirmative action in as many years. In June, the justices ordered lower courts to take another look at the University of Texas admissions plan in a ruling that could make it harder for public colleges to justify any use of race in admissions.

The case is Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, 12-682.

Supreme Court upholds Michigan's ban on using race as factor in college admissions

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld Michigan's ban on using race as a factor in college admissions.

The justices said in a 6-2 ruling that Michigan voters had the right to change their state constitution in 2006 to prohibit public colleges and universities from taking account of race in admissions decisions. The justices said that a lower federal court was wrong to set aside the change as discriminatory.

Justice Anthony Kennedy said voters chose to eliminate racial preferences, presumably because such a system could give rise to race-based resentment.

Kennedy said nothing in the Constitution or the court's prior cases gives judges the authority to undermine the election results.

"This case is not about how the debate about racial preferences should be resolved. It is about who may resolve it," Kennedy said.

In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the decision tramples on the rights of minorities, even though the amendment was adopted democratically. "But without checks, democratically approved legislation can oppress minority groups," said Sotomayor, who read her dissent aloud in the courtroom Tuesday. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sided with Sotomayor in dissent.

At 58 pages, Sotomayor's dissent was longer than the combined length of the four opinions in support of the outcome.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas agreed with Kennedy.

Justice Elena Kagan did not take part in the case, presumably because she worked on it at an earlier stage while serving in the Justice Department.

In 2003, the Supreme Court upheld the consideration of race among many factors in college admissions in a case from Michigan.

Three years later, affirmative action opponents persuaded Michigan voters to change the state constitution to outlaw any consideration of race.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the issue was not affirmative action, but the way in which its opponents went about trying to bar it.

In its 8-7 decision, the appeals court said the provision ran afoul of the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment because it presents an extraordinary burden to affirmative action supporters who would have to mount their own long, expensive campaign to repeal the constitutional provision.

Similar voter-approved initiatives banning affirmative action in education are in place in California and Washington state. A few other states have adopted laws or issued executive orders to bar race-conscious admissions policies.

Black and Latino enrolment at the University of Michigan has dropped since the ban took effect. At California's top public universities, African-Americans are a smaller share of incoming freshmen, while Latino enrolment is up slightly, but far below the state's growth in the percentage of Latino high school graduates.

The case was the court's second involving affirmative action in as many years. In June, the justices ordered lower courts to take another look at the University of Texas admissions plan in a ruling that could make it harder for public colleges to justify any use of race in admissions.

The case is Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, 12-682.

Drones unearth more details about Chaco culture

ALBUQUERQUE: Recently published research describes how archaeologists outfitted a customized drone with a heat-sensing camera to unearth what they believe are ceremonial pits and other features at the site of an ancient village in New Mexico.

The discovery of the structures hidden beneath layers of sediment and sagebrush is being hailed as an important step that could help archaeologists shed light on mysteries long buried by eroding desert landscapes from the American Southwest to the Middle East. The results of the research were published earlier this month in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Since the 1970s, archaeologists have known that aerial images of thermal infrared wavelengths of light could be a powerful tool for spotting cultural remains on the ground. But few have had access to million-dollar satellites, and helicopters and planes have their limits.

Now, technology is catching up with demand.

Archaeologists can get quality images from very specific altitudes and angles at any time of day and in a range of weather using inexpensive drones and commercially available cameras that have as much as five times the resolution of those available just a few years ago. A basic eight-rotor drone starts at about $3,700.

Jesse Casana, an archaeologist at the University of Arkansas, teamed up with University of North Florida professor John Kantner last summer to test the drones in a remote area of northwestern New Mexico, south of Chaco Canyon - once the cultural and religious center of ancient Puebloan society.

Kantner has been studying a village in the area known as Blue J. He found two households at the village's edge through test digs, but much of Blue J's secrets remain buried under eroded sandstone and wind-blown silt.

Blue J was most active close to 1,000 years ago, around the same time as Chaco. So finding structures such as kivas and great houses at the site would help solidify the theory that Chaco's influence spread far and wide. Kivas are circular, subterranean meeting places associated with ceremonial activities. Great houses were massive multistory stone buildings, some of which were oriented to solar and lunar directions and offered lines of sight between buildings to allow for communication.

Aside from dozens of anthills, the drone picked up on much larger, unnatural circular shapes that are thought to be kivas. From the surface, these structures are invisible, Kantner said. He said crews can use the drone information to plan a dig at the location to search for the archaeological remnants.

"Really within a few hours we were able to survey this area that took me a long time, years of what we call ground reconnaissance and excavation to see what's below the surface," he said. "So this is great for quickly and pretty cheaply being able to find sites."

There already is talk about using the drones in other dry environments such as Saudi Arabia and Cyprus, where the difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures would be great enough to allow the heat signatures of buried stone structures or other features to pop up on the thermal images.

Some researchers also have suggested using drone technology to search for a lost Spanish fort in Georgia and along the banks of Florida's St. Johns River, Kantner said.

Sarah Parcak, an archaeologist at the University of Alabama in Birmingham who was not involved in the New Mexico research, said she's excited about the potential for using the technology in her work in Egypt. She said drones outfitted with sensors can hone in on what's most important in archaeology - the landscape and features that are buried beneath the ground.

"We think we know a site, and we've been working there for a long time, and lo and behold, new technologies show us things we weren't even expecting," Parcak said. "The great thing about remote sensing is it really gives you a new set of eyes in the sky to see what is otherwise invisible."

The drones have their limits. For example, flights usually are less than 15 minutes depending on battery power and camera weight, and the eight-rotor mini copters have been known to stop and come crashing to the ground.

There also are questions about whether federal regulators will toughen rules governing drone flights.

Kantner said as drones become more reliable, their ability to survey vast areas quickly will become even more important. He pointed to potential threats of oil and gas development and coal and uranium mining throughout the Chaco region.

"There are resources that we obviously need for our nation's self-sufficiency, but on the other hand, we don't want to give away our cultural patrimony by losing these archaeology sites," he said.

 

 

 

 

Drones unearth more details about Chaco culture

ALBUQUERQUE: Recently published research describes how archaeologists outfitted a customized drone with a heat-sensing camera to unearth what they believe are ceremonial pits and other features at the site of an ancient village in New Mexico.

The discovery of the structures hidden beneath layers of sediment and sagebrush is being hailed as an important step that could help archaeologists shed light on mysteries long buried by eroding desert landscapes from the American Southwest to the Middle East. The results of the research were published earlier this month in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Since the 1970s, archaeologists have known that aerial images of thermal infrared wavelengths of light could be a powerful tool for spotting cultural remains on the ground. But few have had access to million-dollar satellites, and helicopters and planes have their limits.

Now, technology is catching up with demand.

Archaeologists can get quality images from very specific altitudes and angles at any time of day and in a range of weather using inexpensive drones and commercially available cameras that have as much as five times the resolution of those available just a few years ago. A basic eight-rotor drone starts at about $3,700.

Jesse Casana, an archaeologist at the University of Arkansas, teamed up with University of North Florida professor John Kantner last summer to test the drones in a remote area of northwestern New Mexico, south of Chaco Canyon - once the cultural and religious center of ancient Puebloan society.

Kantner has been studying a village in the area known as Blue J. He found two households at the village's edge through test digs, but much of Blue J's secrets remain buried under eroded sandstone and wind-blown silt.

Blue J was most active close to 1,000 years ago, around the same time as Chaco. So finding structures such as kivas and great houses at the site would help solidify the theory that Chaco's influence spread far and wide. Kivas are circular, subterranean meeting places associated with ceremonial activities. Great houses were massive multistory stone buildings, some of which were oriented to solar and lunar directions and offered lines of sight between buildings to allow for communication.

Aside from dozens of anthills, the drone picked up on much larger, unnatural circular shapes that are thought to be kivas. From the surface, these structures are invisible, Kantner said. He said crews can use the drone information to plan a dig at the location to search for the archaeological remnants.

"Really within a few hours we were able to survey this area that took me a long time, years of what we call ground reconnaissance and excavation to see what's below the surface," he said. "So this is great for quickly and pretty cheaply being able to find sites."

There already is talk about using the drones in other dry environments such as Saudi Arabia and Cyprus, where the difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures would be great enough to allow the heat signatures of buried stone structures or other features to pop up on the thermal images.

Some researchers also have suggested using drone technology to search for a lost Spanish fort in Georgia and along the banks of Florida's St. Johns River, Kantner said.

Sarah Parcak, an archaeologist at the University of Alabama in Birmingham who was not involved in the New Mexico research, said she's excited about the potential for using the technology in her work in Egypt. She said drones outfitted with sensors can hone in on what's most important in archaeology - the landscape and features that are buried beneath the ground.

"We think we know a site, and we've been working there for a long time, and lo and behold, new technologies show us things we weren't even expecting," Parcak said. "The great thing about remote sensing is it really gives you a new set of eyes in the sky to see what is otherwise invisible."

The drones have their limits. For example, flights usually are less than 15 minutes depending on battery power and camera weight, and the eight-rotor mini copters have been known to stop and come crashing to the ground.

There also are questions about whether federal regulators will toughen rules governing drone flights.

Kantner said as drones become more reliable, their ability to survey vast areas quickly will become even more important. He pointed to potential threats of oil and gas development and coal and uranium mining throughout the Chaco region.

"There are resources that we obviously need for our nation's self-sufficiency, but on the other hand, we don't want to give away our cultural patrimony by losing these archaeology sites," he said.

 

 

 

 

Hamid Mir’s condition improving

KARACHI: The condition of Geo News senior anchor Hamid Mir is improving, while doctors have restricted visitors from meeting the renowned journalist for next three days.

According to hospital sources, Hamid Mir is in immense pain from his injuries and doctors are giving him medicine to deal with the pain. The medicine being given to Hamid Mir keeps him in a state of drowsiness, doctors add.

There has been no decision to remove the three bullets which still remain lodged in Hamid Mir’s body.

Hamid Mir’s condition improving

KARACHI: The condition of Geo News senior anchor Hamid Mir is improving, while doctors have restricted visitors from meeting the renowned journalist for next three days.

According to hospital sources, Hamid Mir is in immense pain from his injuries and doctors are giving him medicine to deal with the pain. The medicine being given to Hamid Mir keeps him in a state of drowsiness, doctors add.

There has been no decision to remove the three bullets which still remain lodged in Hamid Mir’s body.

Teachers force Muslim, lower caste students to clean toilets in India: Report

NEW DELHI, AFP: Some Indian teachers force children from lower castes and minority religions to clean toilets and sit separately from their classmates as part of "persistent" discrimination in classrooms, a rights group said on Tuesday.

Human Rights Watch said pupils from marginalised communities often dropped out of school and started working as labourers rather than face continued humiliation at the hands of teachers and principals.

The 77-page study on schools was compiled through interviews with more than 160 teachers, principals, parents and students in four states which have large populations of low-caste poor, indigenous tribals and Muslims.

"India's immense project to educate all its children risks falling victim to deeply rooted discrimination by teachers and other school staff against the poor and marginalised," said the report's author Jayshree Bajoria.

"Instead of encouraging children from at-risk communities who are often the first in their families to ever step inside a classroom, teachers often neglect or even mistreat them," she said.

Children from Muslim communities were among those often made to sit at the back of classrooms or in separate rooms. They were called derogatory names, were denied leadership roles and were served food last, the report said.

The report comes as a mammoth general election is underway which is likely to vault Narendra Modi and BJP to power after a decade of Congress party rule.

Some children said they were segregated and neglected because they were considered dirty, while Muslim students said they were called "mullahs", a term for an Islamic cleric, instead of by their names.

India's Parliament passed landmark legislation in 2009 that guarantees state schooling for children aged six to 14 and enrolments have reached more than 90 percent nationally.

But HRW said the law does not contain punishments for those who discriminate in the classroom.

Most education authorities have failed to establish proper mechanisms to monitor and track children, who were at risk of dropping out, and acting to ensure they were able to remain in school, the report said.

Teachers force Muslim, lower caste students to clean toilets in India: Report

NEW DELHI, AFP: Some Indian teachers force children from lower castes and minority religions to clean toilets and sit separately from their classmates as part of "persistent" discrimination in classrooms, a rights group said on Tuesday.

Human Rights Watch said pupils from marginalised communities often dropped out of school and started working as labourers rather than face continued humiliation at the hands of teachers and principals.

The 77-page study on schools was compiled through interviews with more than 160 teachers, principals, parents and students in four states which have large populations of low-caste poor, indigenous tribals and Muslims.

"India's immense project to educate all its children risks falling victim to deeply rooted discrimination by teachers and other school staff against the poor and marginalised," said the report's author Jayshree Bajoria.

"Instead of encouraging children from at-risk communities who are often the first in their families to ever step inside a classroom, teachers often neglect or even mistreat them," she said.

Children from Muslim communities were among those often made to sit at the back of classrooms or in separate rooms. They were called derogatory names, were denied leadership roles and were served food last, the report said.

The report comes as a mammoth general election is underway which is likely to vault Narendra Modi and BJP to power after a decade of Congress party rule.

Some children said they were segregated and neglected because they were considered dirty, while Muslim students said they were called "mullahs", a term for an Islamic cleric, instead of by their names.

India's Parliament passed landmark legislation in 2009 that guarantees state schooling for children aged six to 14 and enrolments have reached more than 90 percent nationally.

But HRW said the law does not contain punishments for those who discriminate in the classroom.

Most education authorities have failed to establish proper mechanisms to monitor and track children, who were at risk of dropping out, and acting to ensure they were able to remain in school, the report said.

Indian held in Qatar for killing compatriot

ubai: A 43-year-old Indian man in Qatar has been arrested on charges of killing his compatriot with an iron rod at their company's accommodation.

Santhi Shyam Krishnan Nair was taken into custody on Saturday for killing Mohamed Rizwanul Haq (26) after an altercation over some issue.

Nair, a resident of Thiruvananathpuram district, hit Haq with the iron rod when their fellow workers were away on Friday, Gulf Times reported. Haq was from Sindhri in Madhya Pradesh.

Both of them were both employed by an air-conditioning servicing firm.

Nair was arrested from a residential compound, where he had gone into hiding following the incident, more than 24 hours later, the report said.

A co-worker said the two had an altercation earlier in the day over some trivial issue but others intervened and dispersed them.
The accused allegedly followed Haq in the afternoon when he went to the roof of their compound and hit him using an iron rod, the report said. PTI 

Indian held in Qatar for killing compatriot

ubai: A 43-year-old Indian man in Qatar has been arrested on charges of killing his compatriot with an iron rod at their company's accommodation.

Santhi Shyam Krishnan Nair was taken into custody on Saturday for killing Mohamed Rizwanul Haq (26) after an altercation over some issue.

Nair, a resident of Thiruvananathpuram district, hit Haq with the iron rod when their fellow workers were away on Friday, Gulf Times reported. Haq was from Sindhri in Madhya Pradesh.

Both of them were both employed by an air-conditioning servicing firm.

Nair was arrested from a residential compound, where he had gone into hiding following the incident, more than 24 hours later, the report said.

A co-worker said the two had an altercation earlier in the day over some trivial issue but others intervened and dispersed them.
The accused allegedly followed Haq in the afternoon when he went to the roof of their compound and hit him using an iron rod, the report said. PTI