A pending Supreme Court case regarding racial discrimination may affect hiring and admissions policies at colleges and universities, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on Monday. The original lawsuit, filed by Hispanic and white firefighters against the city of New Haven, Conn., focuses on the city government's 2003 decision to discard the results of a civil-service test after the scores of all black and most Hispanic firefighters were too low to make these firefighters eligible for promotions. The plaintiffs, who passed the test, argue this decision violated their 14th-amendment rights and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals previously upheld a lower court's decision to allow the city to disregard the test results because all applicants' scores, no matter their race, were discarded. Several groups that oppose affirmative action filed a friend of the court brief in the case, arguing that universities could develop "irrelevant" admissions criteria that assist minority applicants if the Second Circuit's decision is allowed to stand.
Several Dartmouth alumni will be honored next Friday during the eighth annual Martin Luther King, Jr., Social Justice Awards at the College, the Vox of Dartmouth reported on Monday. Honorees include Kul Chandra Gautam '72, former assistant secretary general of the United Nations and deputy executive director of UNICEF; filmmaker Ricki Stern '87; Milton Ochieng' 04 and Frederick Ochieng' '05, co-founders of the Lwala Community Alliance; and Dartmouth's chapter of DREAM, a youth mentoring program based in Vermont. The ceremony recognizes members of the Dartmouth community for their contributions to social justice. The ceremony will be held Jan. 30 at 5 p.m. in Collis Common Ground, and includes a panel discussion and reception.
College officials at Montclair State University in New Jersey and St. John's University in New York have voluntarily committed to agreements with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regarding their campuses' sustainability efforts, Inside Higher Ed reported on Friday. The Montclair State agreement was the EPA's first "memorandum of understanding" regarding sustainability on a college-wide basis, Inside Higher Ed said. Montclair State entered into the agreement last June, while St. John's entered into its agreement in December. The institutions have promised to report to the agency about their progress twice each year, although they are not legally bound by the agreements.
