Army Drill Sergeant Sues Army Over Discrimination

The Army’s first woman drill sargeant is suing the Army over racial and sexual discrimination by her two superiors…

Command Sgt. Maj. Teresa King

Army drill sergeant boss Teresa King takes legal action to get job back, alleges racism, sexism

The first woman to command the Army’s drill sergeant training took legal action Monday to reclaim her job, alleging she was improperly suspended last year because of sexism and racism and demanding that two of her superiors be investigated for abuse of their authority.

Command Sgt. Maj. Teresa King still does not know what exactly her superiors were investigating when they suspended her Nov. 29, according to her attorney, James Smith. He said the Army has declined to say specifically what it was looking into, beyond a general statement that it involved her conduct.

Smith on Monday filed a legal complaint with the Army against two of King’s superiors, and wants to have King reinstated to her position. Smith is also asking South Carolina’s two senior members of Congress, Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rep. James Clyburn, for a congressional probe of King’s treatment.

Army officials said they wanted to study the complaint first before commenting.

King, who is black, made headlines in 2009 when the Army named her as the first woman to head the Drill Sergeant School at Fort Jackson, the Army’s largest training installation.

Smith has statements from King’s deputy at the school and an Army colonel who worked with King contending she is a victim of sexism and racism on the part of soldiers who resented her promotion and the national attention it drew.

“It’s abundantly clear that there was nothing to warrant her removal. The Army should reinstate her and restore her honorable name,” Smith said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The attorney said King, 50, has declined to comment on the actions, saying the complaint stands on its own. But in a rebuttal to the Army, King wrote her superiors, “My instincts tell me that if I were a male, that none of this would have happened.”

Smith said he believes the Army is delaying its investigation in order to force King to take retirement when she becomes eligible later this year.

Smith, who has handled military legal cases as an executive officer in the National Guard, said Army regulations require that investigations must be handled “expeditiously” and the one against King has gone on far too long.

After she took charge of the training program, reporters and TV crews descended on King, making much of her background as the daughter of a North Carolina sharecropper who dispensed stern discipline to his 12 children. She was featured on national TV, on newspaper front pages and in women’s magazines, sometimes with photos of her car sporting “noslack” vanity plates. (more)

The New Jim Crow – Workplace Discrimination Claims Rise in Congress

This is costing taxpayers millions… Says something about our elected officials who can’t, or won’t obey the law of the land.

Taxpayers foot bill for Hill harassment claims

The number of discrimination and harassment claims on Capitol Hill has doubled in the past five years — and taxpayers have shelled out hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle those disputes.

A new report out Thursday says 168 claims were made in fiscal 2010 alleging discrimination and harassment — compared to 87 claims reported in fiscal 2006. Fifty-seven of the claims made last year were based on race, while 41 claims involved age, 34 involved gender and 28 involved disabilities, according to the report from the congressional Office of Compliance.

The harassment and discrimination claims stem from 105 cases filed with the Office of Compliance last year, meaning one person could make more than one claim. The vast majority of cases involve the large workforce under the Architect of the Capitol and Capitol Police, with about a fifth of the cases coming from House and Senate offices.

While the total number of complaints has risen, the payouts in settlements fluctuate year to year.

In fiscal 2010, taxpayers paid $246,271 to settle nine matters brought to the OOC over the years. That’s a big drop from the previous year, when $831,360 was spent to settle 13 claims. The cash awards settled matters of discrimination and harassment, as well as retaliation claims and disputes over contracts and pay. Since fiscal 1997, taxpayers have footed the bill for more than $13.2 million in cases resolved by the OOC.

Claims of retaliation and intimidation have also grown in the congressional workplace — from 46 claims in fiscal 2006 to 69 in fiscal 2010.

The OOC, which is charged with protecting congressional workers and facilities, is urging lawmakers to take extra measures to ensure Hill staffers are well aware of their rights. The OOC called for all offices to post a list of workers’ rights and require training for managers and staffers on how to prevent inappropriate conduct at the workplace….(more)

US Dept. of Education Looking At Education Re-segregation Impact

At least DOE is doing something… No wonder the Tea Bagger set wants to get rid of the Department.

The New Jim Crow…Just Like the Old Jim Crow, Just 

Camouflaged

U.S. Department of Education Investigating Record Number of Civil Rights Complaints

Department of Education is seeking to improve the quality of education for minority and poor public school students by aggressively launching civil rights investigations aimed at preventing district administrators from providing more services and resources to predominantly white schools.

Faced with public schools more segregated today than in the 1970s, the department is using the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to improve the quality of education for students from minority and low-income backgrounds. The department has outpaced the Bush administration in initiating civil rights probes.

During 33 months under the Obama administration, the department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has launched 30 compliance reviews compared with the 22 begun during the eight-year Bush administration. Investigators determine whether school districts have violated Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.

“The civil rights laws are the most sorely underutilized tool in education reform and closing the achievement gap,” says Russlynn Ali, assistant secretary for civil rights, who has run the department’s OCR since May 2009. She said President Barack Obama has emphasized that he wants the department investigating education-related civil rights violations. “This is the most important civil rights issue of our time,” she says.

Last year, Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced on the 45th anniversary of Bloody Sunday—the day that Alabama state troopers brutalized civil rights activists marching on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma—that the department’s OCR would significantly increase enforcement actions. Duncan acknowledged that over the last 10 years, the office had not aggressively pursued Title 6 investigations to improve the quality of education for minority and poor students.

The OCR received about 7,000 complaints last year, a record for the department. School districts are being investigated for a range of possible violations, including failure to provide minority students with access to college- and career-track courses, not assigning highly qualified teachers to schools with predominantly minority students and disproportionately placing such students in special education courses and suspending minority students.

The OCR has also investigated schools for failing to protect female students of color from sexual violence and not offering access to higher-level math and science courses.

Judith A. Browne Dianis, co-director of the Advancement Project in Washington, D.C., which advocates for quality education, acknowledges a significant change in direction for the department’s OCR. Ali served as deputy co-director of the organization from 1999 to 2000.

“For years, we couldn’t rely on the federal government to enforce civil rights law, so now we have an Office for Civil Rights that is finally taking up the torch,” Browne Dianis says. “During the Bush administration, we wouldn’t encourage anyone to file a complaint. The feeling was that even if you filed a complaint, they probably wouldn’t investigate or would say there was no racial discrimination.”… (more)

Yeah…

That New Jim Crow.

Congressman Lewis and Voter ID Laws

This is why I have little respect for the Congressional Black Caucus. With 42 members in the US House, the CBC can pretty much do to Republicans what Republicans did to Democrats between 2008 and 2010…

Stop damn near everything in the House, unless they got Bill Riders or legislation voted on they care about.

Sooooo… WTF aren’t they being proactive about derailing Jim Crow Voter ID? Why don’t you pass a Bill that every state that enacts a Voter ID requirement must meet Federal Civil Rights review by the Justice Department before receiving any federal funds?

Close down Military Bases, and federal facilities in any state with Voter ID laws. Now those are pretty extreme – but I think you get my drift.

Fillibuster and shut down the next “Symbolic Vote” by the tea Baggers in Congress.

If I were head of the CBC, you wouldn’t be able to pass water in Congress without a bill doing something about black unemployment.

Seems to me these guys could be doing a lot more than just speechifying and playing the victim card.

VOTER ID SPARKS BLACK IRE

Washington – Black Congressman John Lewis of Atlanta is joining several other Democrats arguing that the rise of voter–identification laws across many states is a coordinated attempt by Republicans to suppress minority and elderly votes.

Lewis, a civil-rights activist in the 1960s said, “We must fight back. We must speak up and speak out. We must never, ever go back. We will not stand idly by while millions of Americans are denied their right to participate in the democratic process.”

Lewis spoke along with other Democrats and warned that the state laws must be rejected.

“These new policies are a clear attempt to prevent certain pre-determined segments of the population from exercising their right to vote,” said Rep. Marcia Fudge. “To be frank, Mr. Speaker, these efforts have an all-too familiar stench of the Jim Crow era.”

Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) said the voter-ID laws are a Republican response to President Obama’s election.

“Is this a serious voter problem? No,” he said. “Unfortunately, it is a cynical and malicious Republican attempt to suppress minority and elderly voters who turned out in historical numbers for the ’08 elections.”

Others said the laws are akin to a poll tax, something used more than 100 years ago in an effort to discourage minority voters. The lawmakers said the requirement of an official government identification is a cost that many cannot afford, and which interferes with their right to vote.

Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.) argued the laws are an “organized effort to turn back the clocks back to the period prior to the 1965 voting rights act.”

Think it is time for another “Yellowback Donkey Award”!

Covenants and Blockbusting – How Developers Leveraged Racism to Change Cities and Make Millions

This is a good historical background on Baltimore, and how first restrictive Jim Crow era covenants, and later – racial blockbusting was used by developers not only to make millions – but to manipulate homeowners. This is how American cities developed segregated neighborhoods.

Part II of the series -

Herman “Lawn Jockey” Cain At It Again

Hermain Caine - Just Another Uncle Ruckus

This one wouldn’t be so tragic, if this first class hypocrit Lawn Jockey wasn’t running in a party which believes this is a “Christian Nation”, and which tries to infuse their religion into everyone’s daily lives through legislation.  He said at a Tea Bagged Rally -

“It was during the Fifties that the United States Congress voted to add ‘one nation under God’ with liberty and justice for all, because we are a God-fearing Christian nation!”

Before that, Herman Cain wrote that non-religious Americans should submit to Christian control over the government.“Stay out of our way,” Cain warned. “Too many Americans are guided and implicitly threatened by the misinterpretations of the Constitution’s establishment clause that found a non-existent ‘separation of church and state.’”

Cain’s newest buckdance?

Cain: Americans should be able to ban mosques

Herman Cain says voters across the country should have the right to prevent Muslims from building mosques in their communities.

In an exchange on “Fox News Sunday,” the Republican presidential contender said that he sided with some in a town near Nashville who were trying to prevent Muslims from worshiping in their community.

“Our Constitution guarantees the separation of church and state,” he said. “Islam combines church and state. They’re using the church part of our First Amendment to infuse their morals in that community, and the people of that community do not like it. They disagree with it.”

Asked by host Chris Wallace if any community could ban a mosque if it wanted to, Cain said: “They have a right to do that.”

Cain, an African-American who grew up during the civil rights era, claimed he was not discriminating against Muslims. He said it was “totally different” than the fight for racial equality because there were laws prohibiting blacks from advancing.

Nonetheless, Cain has drawn backlash for comments about Muslims in the past, saying that he would be uncomfortable if a Muslim served in his Cabinet if he were elected president.

“I’m willing to take a harder look at people that might be terrorists,” Cain said Sunday. “If you look at my career, I have never discriminated against anybody. … I’m going to err on the side of caution.”

Cain is an ordained minister. With the Tomming done by Mr. Cain…

I can see why is afraid folks in his church might want to convert to Islam.

The New Jim Crow – Does Google Marketing Data Empower Racial Discrimination?.

Is Google Empowering a New Generation of Jim Crow?

This from a 3 part series on how Google collects user data and utilizes it as a product to sell to companies wishing to market products.

The question is, and remains – how is that data utilized by companies? Turns out the data can not only be utilized to segregate consumers by income – but by race.

The implication here after the sub-prime mortgage scandals targeting blacks and other minorities for higher priced, and predatory loans, is that the basic tools for racial discrimination are present in the data collected by Google. Tools which will be utilized by the folks who brought you higher interest rates for black folks on everything from cars to houses – to further economic and job discrimination.

This is an excerpt from the article – follow the link and read the entire article to understand how it works.

The Cost of Lost Privacy, Part 2: “Pain Points,” Discrimination and Advertiser Use of Google Data

Reempowering Racial Discrimination: This targeted price discrimination based on behavioral tracking, unfortunately, directly enhances the most traditional kinds of racial discrimination. Study after study has shown that employers, financial lenders, car salesmen and other merchants continue to charge black and Hispanic customers more for the same service when they can identify them.

For example, a study by the Urban Institute using paired “testers” — one white person and one person of color with similar economic profiles — found that non-white homebuyers received less favorable financial terms from mortgage lending institutions. Job seekers face similar discrimination with one study, where nearly identical resumes were sent to 1300 help-wanted ads, found that resumes with a “white-sounding” name were 50 percent more likely to get a call for an interview than one with a black-sounding name.

The Internet was supposed to let people escape such easy discrimination, but behavioral tracking makes such identification trivial. Add together someone’s taste in music and a few more characteristics and you have an almost perfect proxy for race. As Rebecca Goldin, a George Mason University professor, argued in a 2009 article, it’s clearly illegal to discriminate based on race, but if companies offer loan rates based on their shopping habits, it raises the question of “would it be legal or ethical to use the kind of music one buys to determine his or her loan rate?”

Given that we know straight up racial discrimination happens all the time in these commercial transactions, what the Internet supplies is a multivariate datamining opportunity to discriminate in ever more precise ways that may largely escape legal scrutiny.

Discrimination Against Muslims

In the following video, we have the Tea Party’s official Lawn Jockey Candidate, spreading love for Muslims…

This from the DOJ, discussing the impact of Cain’s type of “love”…

DOJ official: Muslims face rising discrimination

American Muslims face a rising tide of religious discrimination in U.S. communities, workplaces and schools nearly a decade after the September 11 attacks, a senior Justice Department official said on Tuesday.

Evidence of growing anti-Muslim bigotry, aired at a Senate Judiciary hearing, poses a challenge for President Barack Obama as his administration works to foster good relations with American Muslims at a time when the United States is threatened by home-grown terrorism.

“We should all agree that it’s wrong to blame an entire community for the wrongdoing of a few. Guilt by association is not the American way,” said Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who chaired the hearing.

He said Muslims account for less than 1 percent of the U.S. population but more than 14 percent of religious discrimination cases investigated by the federal government and 25 percent of religious discrimination cases involving workplaces.

The Justice Department has investigated over 800 incidents of violence, vandalism and arson against people believed to be Muslim, Arab or South Asian, since the September 11 attacks.

U.S. homeland security officials say the United States faces a home-grown threat from Islamic radicalization, including attempts by al Qaeda to radicalize and recruit U.S. Muslims to carry out attacks here and abroad.

The hearing quickly took on a partisan edge when Durbin responded to criticism from Republican Peter King, chairman of a House of Representatives panel widely criticized for a hearing on radicalization in the U.S. Muslim community less than three weeks ago.

King said on Monday that the civil rights discussion would “perpetuate the myth that there is a serious anti-Islam issue in this country.”

But at the start of the session Durbin shot back: “Inflammatory speech from prominent public leaders creates a fertile climate for discrimination.”

“All of us, especially those of us in public life, have a responsibility to choose our words carefully. We must condemn anti-Muslim bigotry and make it clear that we won’t tolerate religious discrimination.”

Thomas Perez, the assistant U.S. attorney general for civil rights, said anti-Muslim bigotry has brought a surge in the number of federal discrimination cases involving zoning boards and other local authorities that have acted to prevent mosques from opening in their communities.

The Justice Department has begun 14 such cases since May 2010, around the time when plans for a mosque near the site of the World Trade Center attack in New York seized media headlines and ignited a national political uproar.

Before last May, the government had pursued only 10 land-use discrimination cases over a decade.

 

 

Alabama Governor and “Non-Believers’”

Hmmmmmmmm…..

Alabama governor touches off controversy with Christian comments

Alabama Republican Gov. Robert Bentley is kicking off his first term in office with a bit of controversy, telling a church audience Monday that he only considers Christians to be his “brothers and sisters.”

“Now I will have to say that, if we don’t have the same daddy, we’re not brothers and sisters,” he told parishioners at a Baptist church in Montgomery Monday shortly after being sworn in. “So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother.”

“There may be some people here today who do not have living within them the Holy Spirit,” Bentley also said, according to the Birmingham News. “But if you have been adopted in God’s family like I have, and like you have if you’re a Christian and if you’re saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister.”

Rebekah Caldwell Mason, Bentley’s communications director, was not immediately available for comment but told the Birmingham News that Bentley “is the governor of all the people, Christians, non-Christians alike.”

Bentley also celebrated the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. in his speech and said he will govern in accordance with King’s teachings.

‘I was elected as a Republican candidate. But once I became governor … I became the governor of all the people. I intend to live up to that. I am color blind,” Bentley also said.

 

Scalia – 14th Amendment Doesn’t Apply to Women

Lot of conservative angst against the 14th Amendment. This most recent conversation with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the infamous co-authors of Gore vs. Bush which shattered the Constitution. Scalia’s newest?

The 14th Amendment doesn’t apply to women.

Women in Chains - Just Fine by Scalia

The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not protect against discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, according to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

In a newly published interview in the legal magazine California Lawyer, Scalia said that while the Constitution does not disallow the passage of legislation outlawing such discrimination, it doesn’t itself outlaw that behavior:

In 1868, when the 39th Congress was debating and ultimately proposing the 14th Amendment, I don’t think anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or certainly not to sexual orientation. So does that mean that we’ve gone off in error by applying the 14th Amendment to both?

Yes, yes. Sorry, to tell you that. … But, you know, if indeed the current society has come to different views, that’s fine. You do not need the Constitution to reflect the wishes of the current society. Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn’t. Nobody ever thought that that’s what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws. You don’t need a constitution to keep things up-to-date. All you need is a legislature and a ballot box. You don’t like the death penalty anymore, that’s fine. You want a right to abortion? There’s nothing in the Constitution about that. But that doesn’t mean you cannot prohibit it. Persuade your fellow citizens it’s a good idea and pass a law. That’s what democracy is all about. It’s not about nine superannuated judges who have been there too long, imposing these demands on society.

Marcia Greenberger, founder and co-president of the National Women’s Law Center, called the justice’s comments “shocking” and said he was essentially saying that if the government sanctions discrimination against women, the judiciary offers no recourse.

“In these comments, Justice Scalia says if Congress wants to protect laws that prohibit sex discrimination, that’s up to them,” she said. “But what if they want to pass laws that discriminate? Then he says that there’s nothing the court will do to protect women from government-sanctioned discrimination against them. And that’s a pretty shocking position to take in 2011. It’s especially shocking in light of the decades of precedents and the numbers of justices who have agreed that there is protection in the 14th Amendment against sex discrimination, and struck down many, many laws in many, many areas on the basis of that protection.”

White Hobbits Only!

No Frodo…There are NO black Hobbits allowed!

The previous movies in this series were pretty anemic looking…

The Hobbit’: Casting agent dismissed after seeking extras with ‘light skin tones’

A casting agent working on director Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’sThe Hobbit was fired from the production after placing ads in a regional New Zealand newspaper seeking extras with “light skin tones,” according to Agence France-Presse. The casting agent was also reported to have told a prospective background extra, a woman of Pakistani heritage named Naz Humphreys, that she wasn’t suitable to play a Hobbit because of her skin color. According to The Waikato Times, video footage shows the casting agent telling people at an audition, “We are looking for light-skinned people. I’m not trying to be … whatever. It’s just the brief. You’ve got to look like a Hobbit.” A spokesman for Jackson’s production company told Agence France-Presse that the casting director, who was contracted by the film, was never directed to make any restrictions based on skin color. “No such instructions were given,” the spokesman said. “The crew member in question took it upon themselves to do that and it’s not something we instructed or condoned,” adding, “It’s something we take very seriously.”

Anti-Discrimination Laws in NY In the 40′s

Interesting article on the history of anti-discrimination laws in NY, which preceded much of the rest of the country by 20 years. So much for Mr. Paul’s “pricerples” -

Before the US Civil Rights Laws: Anti-Discrimination Action in New York State

Rand Paul’s criticism of the federal civil rights legislation of the 1960s can be better evaluated by looking at the workings of similar legislation that appeared on the state level two decades before.

In 1945, New York became the first state since Reconstruction to pass anti-discrimination legislation. At the time, there was plenty of biased behavior in the state based on race, religion, and nationality. Naturally, members of New York’s diverse ethnic population—plus many liberals of all backgrounds—found these discriminatory practices deeply offensive. As a result, the new legislation banned discrimination in employment on the basis of race, creed, color, or national origin and established a New York State Commission Against Discrimination to enforce this ban. In subsequent years, the law was expanded to cover discrimination in public accommodations, with gender discrimination added to the list of violations.

This law has a personal dimension for me. In 1946, my father, Jacob (“Jack”) Wittner, went to work as a field representative for the New York State Commission Against Discrimination. For nearly two decades, he took complaints of discrimination from aggrieved individuals, investigated these complaints, and wrote up determinations for the commissioners, who issued such determinations more or less as he wrote them. In the mid-1960s, he became director of investigations for the New York City Commission on Human Rights, and in later years worked for the federal government at enforcing its equal employment opportunity guidelines.

Rehabilitating Racism – The Right Wing Media and Politicians

One of the features of the rise of the Tea Bagged nation and other extremist right wing groups facilitated by Faux News commentary – is the permissive atmosphere generated for racism.

Segregated Schools, segregated proms, racial attacks, and racial intimidation still continue to be prominet fixtures in the most conservative regions of our country, the so called “Red Zone”.

Conservative and Republican politicians freely associate with extremist groups, including Hate Groups.

So it isn’t any real surprise that in America, 40 years after the passage of Civil Rights Legislation – the racism continues…

Especially not in Texas, where conservatives have gone so far as to virtually erase the Hispanic population from the states school text books.

more about “Racism In the Workplace Driven By Rig…“, posted with vodpod

Time for Recall in Virginia

Virginia’s new Attorney General is one of the whack jobs. So whacky in fact, some voters are beginning to have doubts about “Kookanelli’s” qualifications to hold office. In this interview, Attorney General Cuccinelli threatens to get to the bottom of the Obama Birth Certificate “issue”.  Looks like things are going to get very rough here in Virginia with our new Republican Governor and AG. I’m not sure the state’s laws would support a recall election – but with the Birth Certificate issue, impeachment may indeed be a legitimate recourse.

Kookaneiili also raised the ire of throusands of College kids around the state -

Students irate at Cuccinelli over gay-rights policies

Campus activists across Virginia put spring break on hold Monday to mobilize against Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II, who has riled student groups with a letter advising public universities to retreat from their policies against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

More than 3,000 people joined the Facebook page “We Don’t Want Discrimination In Our State Universities And Colleges!” Nearly 1,000 people joined another, started by activists at the College of William and Mary. The University of Virginia group Queer & Allied Activism urged students to protest on Cuccinelli’s Facebook page and on Twitter.

Students at Virginia Commonwealth University, one of the few in the state not on break, planned a rally for noon Wednesday, with several hundred students committed. At Christopher Newport University, student Republican and Democratic leaders will discuss their next steps at a bipartisan meeting Friday.

Jim Crow in Silicon Valley – Worth a Read!

Great article by blksista! Here is the intro -you will have to visit her site to read it all. Those of you who are “tekkies” might want to add this, along with Subrealism to your list of black engineer’s blogs to check in on.

Dr. Frank Greene, who died suddenly December 26, and Dr. Roy Clay were feted in early January 2009 as two of the 50 most influential black technologists in Silicon Valley (Courtesy: San Francisco BayView)

There’s Jim Crow in Silicon Valley

A couple of decades back, in the late Seventies and mid Eighties when I was living in Silicon Valley, there had been a couple of discrimination suits involving tech companies that I had been following. The black engineers involved also claimed they had the perception that blacks (or Latinos) entering or employed in this industry would be horning into what I would call the last bailiwick of white male endeavor in the United States. Therefore, the atmosphere or environment there could be stiffly hospitable to hostile. (During one economic downturn, one company had decided to let go of more white senior and intermediate, than minority, newly-trained junior engineers so as not to piss off the Feds; when this leaked out it caused even more division and animosity among hard-pressed employees.)

I do not recall off-hand the names involved and the dates or whether these suits had concluded in favor of the black engineers or the companies or a whether it resulted in a split decision; that is, a settlement for the engineers instead of rehire. I recall more the engineers’ contention of a hostile environment with white engineers who were jealously trying to hold on their jobs, seniority–and privilege.

I don’t think that this has changed in some twenty years.

Silicon Valley isn’t exactly becoming whiter – but it is becoming less black and Hispanic. Part of it has to do with Prop 209 limiting, and largely eliminating homegrown talent who might stay in the area to work. The second has to do with the environment, blacks are actively fleeing the San Francisco and Bay area as the established black communities are destroyed. Another is the penchant of some of the companies to hire cheap foreign labor under worker Visas, instead of developing the American native pool, or paying American Engineers of which there is no shortage. The VC community also hasn’t been overly friendly to black owned start ups, meaning there isn’t much of a base of black owned companies to coalesce and develop talent. Lastly for outside talent from other places -  with traffic, the astronomical cost of housing, and the less than warm educational environment for your children – a job in the Sun Belt looks a lot more attractive to black Engineers and scientists.