Short Reads
While it was only the final, fatal traffic stops of black drivers Sandra Bland and Philando Castille that made headlines, both drivers had long suffered in America’s racist system of traffic policing. Both had been frequently stopped and harassed by police for minor violations, issued tickets, and then overwhelmed by traffic fine debt and license suspensions.
The Mayor of New York City and union representatives gather periodically to define a new contract for the NYPD. New York City taxpayers are noticeably absent when police contracts are negotiated despite the fact that the police budget is funded entirely through taxpayer dollars. What occurs during contract negotiations is undisclosed to the public, and only the final, ratified contract is available for New Yorkers to examine. Therefore, the public is left blind as to what or how their representatives are negotiating at these closed-door meetings as government representatives make and reject offers without public criticism.
The NCAA is the omnipotent organization that runs college athletics in the United States. The NCAA and its member college and university athletic departments raked in a whopping $18.9 billion dollars in 2019. The college athletes are the revenue generators and the labor. Without the college athletes, the NCAA would not exist. Yet, college athletes receive no compensation. While college basketball and football players are predominately black, NCAA executives, athletic directors, coaches, media personalities, and television producers are overwhelmingly white. Thus, the unpaid black athletes make extraordinary sums of money for wealthy white men who reap the spoils of a grossly exploitative system
On March 23, 2020, in Comcast Corp. v. National Association of African-American Owned Media, the Supreme Court unanimously held that racial minorities have to allege facts suggesting “but for” causation in order to bring a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 for race discrimination in contracting. This is a devastating blow to would-be civil rights litigants, particularly African Americans. Long marginalized by society due to systemic racism, many African Americans have slim to no protections under federal law and no way to enter essential sectors of public and private life, such as housing, education, healthcare, and even certain job opportunities.
