U.S. History for Wednesday & Thursday, April 6 & 7

1. Notes:  End of the Vietnam War; Civil Rights Gains.  Copy from a classmate.
2. Civil Rights Court Cases.  Print out and review.  These are some of the most important court cases that are specifically mentioned in the state standards.
3. Reviewed benchmark #2 as a review for the STAR test.

U.S. History for Tuesday, March 29

We completed and read the dialogues on MLK & Malcolm X. Videos of dialogues will be posted soon! See me if you were absent. 

U.S. History for Monday, March 28

Completed the MLK/Malcolm X dialogue.  We will be reading these in class on Tuesday.

U.S. History for Friday, March 25

Today we continued work on the Martin Luther King/Malcolm X dialogue.  See the directions below.

U.S. History for Wednesday/Thursday, March 23 & 24

• Completed notes on Civil Rights.  Be sure to copy from a classmate.
• Began investigating the differences and similarities between Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.  See me if you were absent and I will make sure you get into the right group.

U.S. History for Tuesday, March 22

• Notes on triumphs of the Civil Rights movement.
• Notes on Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education.
• Checked homework on the Freedom Rides and the integration of the University of Mississippi for ten points.
• Completed and turned in the video questions for Poisoned Dreams.  Click here to print out the questions and view the video.

U.S. History for Monday, March 21

• Period 2 ONLY: Civil Rights Pre-Test.  Be sure to copy notes from a classmate if you were absent.
• Period 3 ONLY:  
• Notes on Civil Rights. Copy from a classmate if you were absent.
• Homework: Using pages 710-711, read about the Freedom Rides and the integration of Ole Miss.  Then answer:
• 1. What happened in this event?
• 2. What did African Americans gain as a result of this event?
• Finished Happy Daze video and answered questions 6 and 7 and turned them in.  Be sure to watch that video and answer the questions.  Here is the excerpt below.

U.S. History for Friday, March 18

• Period 2 ONLY: Telephone charades game for the Cold War and Civil Rights vocabulary.
• Period 3 ONLY:  Civil Rights pre-test that demonstrated segregation.  There were also some notes and a chart that you will need to copy from a classmate if you were absent.

U.S. History for Monday & Tuesday, May 3 & 4

1. Finished the film The Long Walk Home.
2. Answered questions:
1. What do you think was the most difficult part of the Montgomery Bus Boycott for African Americans?
2. The "n-word" was used in such a hate-filled, angry, and derogatory way for so long in the United States (and sometimes still is).  Do you think it's okay for the word to be used in rap music and between members of the African American community as it sometimes is?  Why or why not?
3. Be sure to complete this and turn it in even if you didn't watch the film.  It is worth 10 points.

Civil Rights & UCLA

We've been discussing the Civil Rights Movement in U.S. History and I came across this article about Martin Luther King's visit to my alma mater, UCLA back in 1965.  His speech on campus came just a month after his march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

U.S. History for Thursday & Friday, April 15 & 16

1. Review college admissions activity
2. Discuss applications and reasons why you admitted, wait-listed, and rejected who you did.
3. Read Affirmative Action sheet and debate topic.
4. Notes:  Roots of Involvement in Vietnam.  Copy notes from a classmate.
5. Homework, worksheet:  A Nation Divided

U.S. History for Tuesday & Wednesday, April 13 & 14

1. Notes:  Civil Rights Gains.  Copy from a classmate
2. Analyzing the impact of the Civil Rights Movement:  has there been progress?
3. Snobfarm College:  Who should be admitted?  See me to make up this activity.

U.S. History for Monday & Tuesday, March 22 & 23

1. Finished the Cold War/Civil Rights Vocabulary list.  Copy from a classmate--there were six words total.
2. Read article from UpFront Magazine:  1959--The Cuban Revolution.
3. Notes:  Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis.  Click here to see a brief timeline of key events in Cuba's history.
4. Investigate the Birmingham Campaign on page 712 in textbook. Then,
1. write a short summary of the event.
2. explain what gains African Americans earned through the event.

U.S. History for Thursday & Friday, March 18 & 19

1. Read Martin Luther King/Malcolm X dialogues.
2. Notes on Civil Rights Sit-Ins. Copy from a classmate.
3. Cold War/Civil Rights Vocabulary Telephone Charades game.

U.S. History for Tuesday & Wednesday, March 16 & 17

1. Completed Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting MLK and Malcolm X.
2. Students debated their philosophies with a partner.
3. Each pair created a dialogue between the two men.  See the Powerpoint instructions for the assignment below.  For the "current issue" it asks about, students were to choose one from the following options:  affirmative action, welfare, or "gangsta" rap.  Here are summaries of those three topics so that you have some background information on each.
4. If you were absent, create the dialogue on your own based on notes you have on the two men and/or information you find about them in the textbook (hint: use the index).

U.S. History for Friday and Monday, March 12 & 15

1. Turn in homework on either the Freedom Rides or Integrating Ole Miss (depending on which one you were assigned).
2. Notes re-capping both events.  Copy from a classmate.
3. Read and discuss background information on Martin Luther King or Malcolm X.
4. Partner with someone who read about the other man and create a Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting the two.

U.S. History: Current Events--Voting Rights Act Still Needed?

We recently finished our Civil Rights unit in U.S. History and discussed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 along the way. This article discusses some of the continuing controversy over this decades-old court case. (from Reuters)

Left: Joseph Armstead, from the Baltimore city branch, holds a sign at the rally for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington Wednesday, April 29, 2009, as the court was hearing arguments in a Voting Rights Act case. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Supreme Court conservatives criticize voting rights law

By James Vicini James Vicini Wed Apr 29, 3:56 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Supreme Court conservatives on Wednesday sharply criticized a central part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that is aimed at more than a dozen states with a history of racial discrimination.

It is the second major race case heard by the justices after Barack Obama became the nation's first black president.

The justices seemed split along conservative and liberal lines in considering a provision applying to all or parts of 16 states, mostly in the South. It requires them to get federal government approval before changing their voting procedures.

Congress adopted the Voting Rights Act, an historic piece of U.S. civil rights legislation, to make it easier for millions of blacks and other minorities to exercise their right to vote.

Congress extended it in 2006 for 25 years, with then-President George W. Bush signing it into law.

Last week the justices considered whether race still can be used as a factor for job promotions and hirings, an issue that could affect millions of employers nationwide.

Opponents of the voting rights law argue that the protections for minority voters are no longer needed after more than 40 years of progress, and they cite Obama's election as evidence of how America has changed since 1965.

Defenders of the measure say minority voters still face discrimination in some local elections.

The legal challenge was brought by a Texas municipal utility district. It says it should be exempt from the law and that it should be struck down.

'GREAT DISPARITY IN TREATMENT'

The Supreme Court in four separate previous rulings has upheld the part of the law at issue in the case. But the court in recent years has become more conservative with the addition of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito.

Roberts questioned whether the law would continue for too long. "I mean, at some point, it begins to look like the idea is that this is going to go on forever," he said.

Alito asked why Congress did not extend the law to the entire country. He called it odd the law covered the Bronx section of New York City, but not other boroughs like Brooklyn and Queens.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who often holds the decisive vote on the closely divided court, appeared troubled by the law.

Kennedy said defenders of the law have a "very substantial burden" in showing the continuing need for the "great disparity in treatment" between states that are covered and those that are not covered by the law.

Obama administration lawyer Neal Katyal argued the law should be upheld.

"After 16,000 pages of testimony, 21 different hearings over 10 months, Congress looked at the evidence and determined their work was not done," he said.

The court's liberals expressed support for the law.

"I don't understand ... how you can maintain as a basis for this suit that things have radically changed," Justice David Souter told an attorney who argued against the law.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Congress, in extending the law, referred to how discrimination in voting rights cases initially was blatant and overt, but now is more subtle and difficult to detect.

A ruling is expected by the end of June.

U.S. History: Current Events--Bakke in Action?

In U.S. History we've been reviewing landmark civil rights court cases in preparation for the state test. One of the cases we've discussed is the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke case where a Caucasian student, Allan Bakke, sued the UC system because he was denied admission to the medical school at UC Davis and claimed that it was because he was Caucasian.

The University of California recently revised their admissions policy with changes that will take effect in three years. Some in the Asian American community claim that the revisions will reduce the number of Asian Americans accepted to the UC system and that the intent of the changes is to increase the number of Caucasian entrants to UCs, which are comprised of 40%-50% Asian Americans in the cases of UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, and UC Irvine.

New UC admissions policy angers Asian-Americans

By TERENCE CHEA, Associated Press Writer

Friday, April 24, 2009

(04-24) 16:32 PDT San Francisco (AP) --

A new admissions policy set to take effect at the University of California system in three years is raising fears among Asian-Americans that it will reduce their numbers on campus, where they account for 40 percent of all undergraduates.

University officials say the new standards — the biggest change in UC admissions since 1960 — are intended to widen the pool of high school applicants and make the process more fair.

But Asian-American advocates, parents and lawmakers are angrily calling on the university to rescind the policy, which will apply at all nine of the system's undergraduate campuses.

They point to a UC projection that the new standards would sharply reduce Asian-American admissions while resulting in little change for blacks and Hispanics, and a big gain for white students.

"I like to call it affirmative action for whites," said Ling-chi Wang, a retired professor at UC Berkeley. "I think it's extremely unfair to Asian-Americans on the one hand and underrepresented minorities on the other."

Asian-Americans are the single largest ethnic group among UC's 173,000 undergraduates. In 2008, they accounted for 40 percent at UCLA and 43 percent at UC Berkeley — the two most selective campuses in the UC system — as well as 50 percent at UC San Diego and 54 percent at UC Irvine.

Asian-Americans are about 12 percent of California's population and 4 percent of the U.S. population overall.

The new policy, approved unanimously by the UC Board of Regents in February, will greatly expand the applicant pool, eliminate the requirement that applicants take two SAT subject tests and reduce the number of students guaranteed admission based on grades and test scores alone. It takes effect for the freshman class of fall 2012.

Some opponents have charged that the university is trying to reduce Asian-American enrollment. Others say that may not be the intent, but it will be the result.

UC officials adamantly deny the intent is to increase racial diversity, and reject allegations the policy is an attempt to circumvent a 1996 voter-approved ban on affirmative action.

"The primary goal is fairness and eliminating barriers that seem unnecessary," UC President Mark Yudof said. "It means that if you're a parent out there, more of your sons' and daughters' files will be reviewed."

Yudof and other officials disputed the internal study that projected a drop of about 20 percent in Asian-American admissions, saying it is impossible to accurately predict the effects. "This is not Armageddon for Asian-American students," Yudof said.

At San Francisco's Lowell High School, one of the top public schools in the country, about 70 percent of the students are of Asian descent and more than 40 percent attend UC after graduation.

"If there are Asian-Americans who are qualified and don't get into UC because they're trying to increase diversity, then I think that's unfair," said 16-year-old junior Jessica Peng. "I think that UC is lowering its standards by doing that."

Doug Chan, who has a teenage son at Lowell, said: "Parents are very skeptical and suspicious that this is yet another attempt to move the goal posts or change the rules of the game for Asian college applicants."

One of the biggest changes is scrapping the requirement that applicants take two SAT subject tests. UC officials say the tests do little to predict who will succeed at UC, no other public university requires them, and many high-achieving students are disqualified because they do not take them.

The policy also widens the pool of candidates by allowing applications from all students who complete the required high school courses, take the main SAT or ACT exams and maintain a 3.0 grade-point average. Under the current policy, students have to rank in the top 12.5 percent of California high school graduates to be eligible.

Students still have to apply to individual campuses, where admissions officers are allowed to consider each applicants' grades, test scores, personal background, extracurricular activities and other factors but not race.

The policy is expected to increase competition for UC admission. This year the university turned away the largest number of students in years after it received a record number of applications and cut freshman enrollment because of the state's budget crisis.

"I'm getting all sorts of e-mails from parents, alumni and donors who are quite upset by the action UC took," said state Assemblyman Ted Lieu, chairman of the Legislature's 11-member Asian-American caucus.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/04/24/national/a131734D64.DTL

U.S. History: Brown vs. Board of Education

Some plaintiffs in the Brown v. Board of Education case and their children were photographed in 1994 outside Monroe Elementary School. Zelma Henderson is in the purple on the far right.

The last surviving plaintiff in the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas died today. This is the landmark court case, discussed in U.S. History, that declared that the so-called separate but equal facilities for whites and non-whites were against the U.S. Constitution. Zelma Henderson was 88 years old and died of pancreatic cancer after a diagnosis of the disease only six weeks earlier. This is the same disease from which Randy Pausch suffers.

United States History: Moving On Up

Last week in U.S. History we discussed some gains of the Civil Rights Movement and listed one of them as More African Americans in the Media and Entertainment. The Jeffersons was one of the first shows on TV depicting African Americans in the upper-middle class. One thing I had also forgotten was that it was one of the first, if not THE first, show that had an interracial couple. Props to them. I'm Chinese American, my wife is Caucasian. If it wasn't for The Jeffersons maybe we wouldn't be married? Movin' on up! Read more about The Jeffersons here.