The League of Iowa Human & Civil Rights Agencies

Harvesting Dignity in Midwestern Fields and Factories: Understanding and Defending Immigrant Workers’ Rights on the Job

Saturday November 13th, 9am-4pm

1117 University Capitol Center

University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa

The conference is designed to bring together Midwestern immigrant rights advocates, union members, community service providers, educators, and individuals interes...

Prevent crimes by the mentally ill with a federal Ed Thomas Act, Bruce Braley says

Federal lawmakers should pass a version of Iowa’s “Ed Thomas Act,” which gives law enforcement officials new ways to ensure they’ll be informed when mental hea...

Duncan will pressure schools to enforce civil rights laws

By Nick Anderson, Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, March 8, 2010

Education Secretary Arne Duncan plans to announce Monday that his agency is ramping up enforcement of civil rights laws in schools and colleges, a move that seeks to draw a ...

School Is Linked To Visa Fraud

By Carmen Gentile

Published: March 4, 2010 (New York Times)

MIAMI — More than 80 people have been arrested in connection with a language school here that the government says was a front for the sale of fraudulent applications for student visas, immigration authorities said Thursday. Two of th...

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill with substantial bipartisan support yesterday to establish a national commission that will undertake a comprehensive review and recommend key reforms to all areas of the criminal justice system. The commission's mandate under the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2010 is to recommend ways to reduce incarceration rates, reform our nation's drug laws, identify meaningful prisoner re-entry programs, contain costs, improve treatment for the...

While law schools added about 3,000 seats for first-year students from 1993 to 2008, both the percentage and the number of black and Mexican-American law students declined in that period, according to a study by a Columbia Law School professor. What makes the declines particularly troubling, said the professor, Conrad Johnson, is that in that same period, both groups improved their college grade-point averages and their scores on the Law School Admission Test, or L.S.A.T.

They were 11 black and Hispanic high school students on a college trip to Howard University, and they could not have asked for more — cool 16-person minibus with DVD player, great campus visit, magical tour of Washington at night. Organized by a youth social service organization, Safe Space NYC, the trip was envisioned as a lesson in the grand possibilities beyond Jamaica, Queens. But as he stepped haltingly backward off the bus, hands clasped behind his head as police rifles bristled, ...

IOWA CITY - A juvenile curfew -- touted by many as a way to fight crime on the southeast side but decried by others as a city-wide punishment for the actions of a few -- received its final stamp of approval Monday. After a months-long debate that divided neighbors and council members alike, the Iowa City Council passed the curfew into law with a 4-3 vote and little further discussion.  Mike Wright said the council had debated the idea "substantially" and that there was nothing to add to ...

Let's hope that there is outrage from readers of the Nov. 28 Register article ("Penalties Urged for Dismissing Whistle-Blowers") by Clark Kauffman describing the firing of a nursing home worker. And let's hope that the outrage comes from the governor and the state legislators who have the power to do something about it. The worker was fired, according to Kauffman's report, for doing her job. By law, the fired worker was a mandatory reporter of dependent adult abuse. She saw abuse, she reporte...

Gay marriage supporters challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8 lost their bid Friday to see the internal communications of those who supported the initiative when an appeals court ruled that disclosure would violate the 1st Amendment. Lawyers for two couples denied licenses to marry because they are of the same sex had sought access to e-mails and letters among Proposition 8 backers, hoping to show that the campaign aimed to stir "discriminatory animus" toward gays and lesbians. U...