The League of Iowa Human & Civil Rights Agencies

(Des Moines, IA) --- The 5th Annual Iowa Youth Congress will be held Friday, November 12, 2010, 9a-4p, in the House Chamber at the Iowa State Capitol. The Iowa Youth Congress (IYC) is a civic leadership development opportunity for Iowa high school students, administered by the Iowa Department of Human Rights (DHR), with a special emphasis on the recruitment of students of color and students with disabilities. The event was created and is presented by DHR’s Office of Latino Affairs.

Eleven-year-old Katanya Yingyoth was born deaf. But five years ago, thanks to an expensive cochlear implant surgery, she gained the ability to hear in one ear. That is, until she lost an important part of the device. A used one was donated, but it frequently needs pricey replacement parts. Trina Ives, whose son is also deaf and attends Capitol View Elementary School with Katanya, heard the little girl's story and decided to help. She organized a benefit concert with the goal of collecting the...

The pregnancy rate among teenage girls in the United States has jumped for the first time in more than a decade, raising alarm that the long campaign to reduce motherhood among adolescents is faltering, according to a report released Tuesday. The pregnancy rate among 15-to-19-year-olds increased 3 percent between 2005 and 2006 -- the first jump since 1990, according to an analysis of the most recent data collected by the federal government and the nation's leading reproductive-health think ta...

Two-year-old Alex Walters of Des Moines waved the U.S. flag with gusto before confirming his citizenship at the Statehouse on Saturday. He was the youngest of 22 children from 11 countries who came to take an oath and receive a citizenship certificate with printing that closely resembled U.S. currency. Steve and Shelly Walters of Des Moines became Alex's guardians in May 2008 and formally adopted the South Korea native last June.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Children raised by same-sex parents are as well-adjusted and safe from abuse as kids who grow up with a mother and father, a Cambridge University psychologist testified Friday in a federal lawsuit challenging California's same-sex marriage ban. ''For a significant number of these children, their adjustment would be promoted were their parents able to get married,'' developmental psychologist Michael Lamb said while undercutting arguments made by sponsors of Proposition 8...

Earlier this week, DiversityInc received complaints from some American Indian readers because of our video interview with Margot Copeland, executive vice president and director, Corporate Diversity and Philanthropy at KeyBank, No. 50 on The 2009 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity® list. In the video, discussing the bank’s efforts at financial literacy for traditionally underrepresented communities, she stated: "We have initiatives around the Native American community. Many...

Vidari DeGuzman was a New York City teenager searching for acceptance when he first came to the Hetrick-Martin Institute, a service organization for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youths. Now 24 and with reassignment surgery behind him, he is a youth worker at the institute, located in the East Village. Making the connection: The Hetrick-Martin Institute really changed my life, honestly. As a youth, I went there when I had nowhere else to go to. It was a place where they accepted me f...

The anxiety and anger have been building all year. In March, a national coalition of Islamic organizations warned that it would cease cooperating with the F.B.I. unless the agency stopped infiltrating mosques and using “agents provocateurs to trap unsuspecting Muslim youth.”  In September, a cleric in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, sued the government, claiming that the F.B.I. had threatened to scuttle his application for a green card unless he agreed to spy on relatives overseas ̵...

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 ...