Stephen Menendian is the senior legal research associate at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at the Ohio State University. Stephen directs and supervises the Institute’s legal advocacy, analysis and research, and manages many of the Institute’s most important projects. His principal areas of advocacy and scholarship include education, civil rights and human rights, Constitutional law, the racialization of opportunity structures, talking about race, systems thinking and implicit bias.
The American jobs act: A review of the president’s proposal
President Obama recently unveiled his jobs proposal before Congress. Known as the American Jobs Act, the proposal would cut payroll taxes paid by both American businesses and American workers, invest in education and infrastructure to create jobs and prevent public sector layoffs, and offer tax credits to employers for hiring long-term unemployed workers, among [...]
On July 1, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a 2-1 decision striking down Ward Connerly’s ballot initiative amending the Michigan constitution to prohibit affirmative action as unconstitutional. The complex legal basis for the decision provided a perfect vehicle for misleading readers and obscuring the real issue. Case in point: Michael Barone, columnist [...]
Continue reading …One hundred and fifty years ago, a conflict began that would redefine American citizenship and reshape the nation. At 4:30 AM, April 12, 1861, Confederate forces began their bombardment of Fort Sumter, a federal coastal fortification in Charleston harbor, inaugurating four years of bloody civil war. The Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War is an [...]
Continue reading …In a story that shocked the conscience of many Americans, an Ohio mother of two was jailed and branded with a felony for enrolling her children in a higher performing suburban school district in which she did not reside. For trying to provide her children a better education, a jury convicted Kelley Williams-Bolar of falsifying [...]
Continue reading …Every Presidential election cycle, the pundits and talking heads proclaim the decisive importance of the youth vote. All too often, the much-heralded ‘youth vote’ fails to materialize as predicted. A surge in youth organizing and civic participation in the late 1960, and the patent unfairness of asking young men –who were ineligible to vote– to [...]
Continue reading …Two American Islamic organizations proposed to build a mosque and community center several blocks from ‘ground zero,’ where the World Trade Center’s twin towers were destroyed in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack.[1] This proposal has divided the city that suffered the attack, and now the nation. Have we all gone insane? How could such [...]
Continue reading …The Governor of Virginia recently proclaimed April “Confederate History Month.” A few political scientists quickly derided the gesture as symbolic politics, pandering to a conservative base. Why would celebrating (and that’s what it is – not simply recognizing) the confederate past score political points? Is there some part of the Virginian conservative base that subscribes [...]
Continue reading …Every couple of months the media is gripped by a remark, outburst or quote from some starlet, politician, or athlete. The question is always: Is so-and-so racist? The most recent iteration of this phenomenon was John Mayer’s Playboy interview, which I recently blogged about. Before that was Rep. Joe Wilson’s comments during President Obama’s health [...]
Continue reading …In the film “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” the progressive attitudes of an affluent white couple are put to the test when their daughter announces her engagement to Sidney Poitier’s dashing Dr. John Prentice. In the thematic sequel, “Guess Who,” Bernie Mac grapples with the notion that his daughter (Zoe Saldana) hopes to marry Ashton [...]
Continue reading …The United States Constitution is a document that William Lloyd Garrison, the great abolitionist, described as “covenant with death and an agreement with hell” for the original sin of slavery, which the Constitution not only protected but nourished.[i] Constitutional conservatives, and strict constructionists in particular, often cite the original constitution and its conception of federalism [...]
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