Essay 1620

School Daze in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• The New York Times reported on the efforts of colleges and universities to recruit minority students in light of Michigan’s new ban on affirmative action. “You’d think public universities are charged with special responsibility for ensuring access, but it could come to be exactly the opposite, if there are a lot of these state initiatives,” said the dean of the University of Michigan Law School. “In terms of public values, it’s a big step backward.” Ward Connerly, the black California businessman backing anti-affirmative action initiatives in California and Michigan, argued, “Every individual should have the same opportunity to compete. … I don’t worry about the outcomes.” Click on the essay title above to read the full story.

• Wisconsin state lawmakers proposed mandating schools to teach students about the Hmong people, hoping the effort would ease racial tensions fueled by homicides involving Hmong hunters. “All of the difficulties that the Hmong face and experience in the U.S. are due to the fact that there is no formal teaching about the Hmong to the general public,” said the president of the Hmong Community of Wisconsin. Wonder how initiatives like this might play in Michigan.

• A report by the 2007 California Childhood Obesity Conference in Anaheim shows about half of the highly-marketed kids’ food with images or names of fruit on packaging actually contain no fruit. A dietitian for Prevention Institute, an Oakland-based nonprofit promoting community-based health and safety programs, said, “I really don’t think a lay person knows that fruit drink doesn’t mean fruit juice, especially if it has these beautiful pictures of fruit on it.” Maybe “food” manufacturers should create critters based on chemicals.