By Freddie Allen
NNPA Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – There wasn’t much good news for any of the worker groups in the March jobs report, released last Friday. Even though, the unemployment rate fell to 7.6 percent, most economists agree that the drop is attributable to nearly half a million workers exiting the labor force.

“The unemployment numbers look good on the surface, but the real reason is that people left the labor force,” said Steven Pitts, labor economist at the University of California at Berkeley.

The Black unemployment rate decreased from 13.8 percent in February to 13.3 percent in March. The White unemployment rate also declined from 6.8 percent to 6.7 percent over the same period.

The unemployment rate for Black men declined from 12.9 percent in February to 12.7 percent in March. The jobless rate for White men dipped from 6.3 percent to 6.1 percent over the same period.

The jobless rate for Black women over 20 years old slid from 12.5 percent in February to 12.3 percent in March. The unemployment rate for White women over 20 years old climbed slightly from 6 percent in February to 6.1 percent in March.

The employment participation rate, a measure of those either employed or looking for work, fell for all worker groups over 20 years old except for White women, which was the same in February.

In a post for the Economic Policy Institute website, Heidi Shierholz, an economist for the think tank, wrote that the decline in the employment participation rate, also called the labor force participation rate, has nothing to do with retiring baby boomers.

“The labor force participation rate of the ‘prime-age’ population, people age 25–54, is also at its lowest point of the downturn, 81.1 percent. It’s the lack of job opportunities—the lack of demand for workers—that is keeping these workers from working or seeking work, not other factors,” wrote Shierholz.

According to the Labor Department, 496,000 workers left the labor force joining more than 800,000 discouraged workers who have already given up hope of finding work.

Federal government shed 14,000 jobs in March, continuing to drag down anemic job gains, raising early concerns about the effects of the sequester, the automatic budget cuts that went into affect last month.

“This could be the tip of the iceberg in terms of the larger impact of the sequester,” said Pitts.

In her post on EPI’s website Shierholz wrote that, since the recovery began in June 2009, the public sector has lost 720,000 jobs with nearly half of that (352,000) in local, public education.

In a statement released last Friday Congressional Black Caucus Chair Marcia L. Fudge said:

“While the private sector has steadily added jobs for 37 months, the public sector, where many African Americans are employed, continued to lose them. Last month 385,000 more requests for unemployment benefits were made and by year’s end, sequestration threatens to put an additional 750,000 people with full time jobs out of work. If Congress cannot come to an agreement on the best way to address this country’s fiscal health, these statistics show our economic future remains in jeopardy.”

By Freddie Allen
NNPA Washington Correspondent

FIRST OF TWO STORIES
[Editor’s Note: This is the first of two stories by NNPA Washington Correspondents Freddie Allen and Maya Rodan examining how federal loan problems are failing Black students in college.]

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Like thousands of Black college students, Bethanie Fisher, a psychology major at Howard University depended heavily on the Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students program that allows parents to borrow the full amount of college tuition and fees. During, the 2007-2008 school year, an estimated 33 percent of undergraduate students that earned degrees at Historically Black Colleges and Universities received Parent PLUS loans, double the rate of all undergraduate students nationwide.

In August of 2008, Fisher’s freshman year at Howard University, her uncle agreed to help her pay tuition. When he died suddenly of lung cancer at the end of her sophomore year, everything fell apart.

No one else in Fisher’s family met the standards for the Parent PLUS loans and now with stricter rules, her dreams of earning a degree from Howard University or any university are quickly evaporating. After scraping together enough money for a third year at the Washington, D.C. school Fisher, a Detroit, native ran out of time and money.

Now she must come up with almost $15,000 to pay the balance that she owes, before she can take another class at Howard University. Money that neither her mom nor her barely there father could afford. Fisher estimates that tuition plus room and board and living expenses, she spent more than $20,000 a year to attend Howard University.

“On paper is says that my mom makes a lot of money,” Fisher said. “But who has that much money to spare every single year in a single parent home?”

Fisher is not alone. Thousands of Black college students cobble together scholarships, loans and grants to earn college degrees. As President Obama champions education as the key to America’s future on the world stage, critical changes to federal financial aid programs threaten to close the curtain on the academic careers of thousands of Black college students.

In 2011, the Education Department made changes to a number of loan federal student loan programs in an effort to curb the number of loan defaults that were piling up when parents couldn’t pay. When the federal government largely cut out the banks in the student loan process, they also changed the rules for students and parents.

And it is those sudden rules changes that are creating havoc.

Now parents seeking the loans can be disqualified for past defaults, bankruptcies, or tax liens within five years of applying for the loan. Parents need a near spotless credit history now, a dream in itself in today’s tough economy.

“If you make it harder to get a student loan if you have families that are less able to pay for a college education less able to survive what you’re doing is cutting off the future and you’re also putting a particular burden on historically Black colleges and universities.,” said Mary Frances Berry, professor of American Social Thought and history at the University of Pennsylvania and former Assistant Secretary of Education. “Whoever decided to make these policy changes they need to sit down and think about how the goals that they have for higher education are absolutely irreconcilable with what they’re doing with the budget.”

And these changes could not have come at a worse time for HBCUs.

Black colleges also struggle to reconcile dwindling enrollments with their efforts to enrich the lives of their students. Some have been forced to reduced programs and cut staff sizes.

“What we have here is a situation where we’re getting sliced at the federal level and we’re getting diced at the state level,” said Lezli Baskerville, president of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO), a member organization representing HBCUs. “Given the federal cuts and the disproportionate loss of wealth, the bursting of the housing bubble which disproportionately impacted African Americans, it signals a calamitous situation.”

In September 2012 a group led by William R. Harvey, president of Hampton University and chairman of the president’s Board of Advisors on HBCUs, sent a letter to Education Secretary Arne Duncan detailing the disparate impacts the loan changes have had on HBCUs.

“At Benedict College last year, 926 students (30 percent of those who applied) were deemed eligible and received Parent PLUS or FEFL loans totaling $13,567,321. This year, only 237 students (only 9 percent of those who applied) were deemed eligible and received such loans, totaling $3,754,938,” Harvey wrote.

The group also challenged the Department of Education’s use of extenuating circumstances in determining a student’s eligibility for a PLUS loan.

“There are no more extenuating circumstances than the grossly disproportionately high unemployment rate in the communities from which our students come and DoED’s failure to phase in or give notice of the new interpretation and implementation of the regulation regarding evaluating credit history. These actions are actively working against President Obama’s goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020, and the Administration’s commitment and our nation’s dire need to increase the number of African American college graduates,” stated the letter.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported last October that “Morehouse College says it will furlough faculty and staff and make other budget cuts because of a drop in enrollment.”

Because of the Department of Education’s new loan policies, loan rejections jumped from 25 percent to 65 percent at Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta. CAU President Carlton Brown issued a statement saying a 13 percent drop in enrollment forced the school to cut travel and slow the hiring process for new faculty and staff.

Recent changes in the Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students left many students in bad straits like Fisher. The new rules shut out kids that had previously been admitted during the spring semester.

According to Cynthia Warrick interim president of South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, more than 1,000 students were denied Parent PLUS loans this academic year, leading to the lowest enrollment numbers in five years at the small school. On a campus of less than 5,000 students, losing that amount affected all aspects of campus life.

“This semester we cut cost cut spending and had to layoff employees. We had to tighten our belts,” said Warrick.

In October 2012, the school clipped $8 million from their budget.

“We’re still struggling with the numbers,” said Warrick.

South Carolina State quickly depleted their need-based grants and were forced to turn students away, some with “B” averages, but not good enough to earn scholarships.

“The loan programs are the only way these kids can get to college,” said Warrick. “It’s almost as if they’re telling the kids, ‘We don’t want you to go to college.’”

Johnny Taylor, president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund said that the Department of Education should consider a grandfather-clause for students who have relied on PLUS loans in the past and were just recently denied due to the changes.

“It makes no sense to let these students leave school without a degree or without a way to pay back the loan,” said Taylor. “If you already invested two years into a student it’s silly to cut him off now. If the kid goes home without a degree, he’s going to default.”

Taylor said that his group is working with the Department of Education to seek a resolution that will save the academic careers of nearly 14,000 students that were affected by the PLUS loan changes this year alone. They’re also working with Congressional Black Caucus and some Republicans on Capitol Hill, just in case their efforts at the executive branch-level stall.

Taylor said that if it takes a lawsuit to resolve this issue, his group is fully prepared to take that next step.

“I remember Thurgood Marshall challenging ‘separate, but equal,’” said Taylor referring to the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education that reshaped the future of education in the United States. “If he hadn’t been willing to challenge ‘separate, but equal” we would still have it.”

After sitting out for a semester and a last-ditch effort to get back into school for the spring 2013 semester, Fisher decided to move back home in February, ending her academic career at Howard University prematurely.

“To hear your friends complain about going to class when you’re just dying to sit in someone’s class, I just can’t do that anymore,” said Fisher.

The Detroit-native said that she needs to pay the $15,000 balance before Howard University will release her academic transcripts so that she can attempt to transfer credits to a school closer to home.

“It hurts more than anyone will ever know,” said Fisher. “If they weren’t going to let me finish, they shouldn’t have let me start.”

By Maya Rhodan
Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Ron Daniels, president of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century, declared a war on the War on Drugs last week, saying it is fine to end the failed public policy.

“The War on Drugs is a racially biased policy and strategy. It is the new Jim Crow,”

Daniels said. “We come today to claim that we’ve suffered enough…it’s time to bring an end to an ill-conceived and destructive policy and strategy.”

Daniels made his declaration of war on Thursday – the 45th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King – at the National Press Club.

Daniels and members of the IBW are calling on members of the African American community who were largely responsible for his reelection to rally together for a “The War on Drugs is a War on Us Day of Direct Action” on June 17 to urge Obama to directly address issues that have an overwhelming negative impact on the Black community.

The federal government declared “war” on drugs in 1971, when then-President Richard Nixon cited drug use as America’s Public Enemy No.1 and an overall threat to national security. In the years following, policies and statutes came into play that penalized users and distributors of illicit substances, particularly African Americans.

IBW believes the War on Drugs has led to the mass incarceration of Black and Brown people and has aided in the creation of a new slavery in which prisoners are used as free labor at the benefit of large corporations.

According to the NAACP criminal justice fact-sheet, 14 million Whites and 2.6 million Blacks report using illicit drugs, yet Blacks are incarcerated for drug offenses at a rate 10 times that of Whites.

African Americans represent 12 percent of the total population of drug users, according to the fact sheet, yet 38 percent of those arrested for drug offenses and 59 percent of those currently in state prison for a drug offense.

Daniels says, “Now it is time for the president to directly respond to the state of emergency in America’s dark ghettos by having the audacity to end the War on Drugs and vigorously promote investment in jobs, economic and social programs to heal Black families and communities,” Daniels said.

The Day of Direct Action, set on the anniversary of the executive order that started the War on Drugs in 1971, calls on President Obama to completely eliminate the disparity between powdered and crack cocaine, issue an executive order to end the War on Drugs, end prison labor, support publically the decriminalization of marijuana, and allocate more federal funds for drug education, counseling and treatment.

IBW also calls on the president to begin to develop public sector jobs and economic development programs that have priority inclusion for ex-prisoners.

Courtney Stewart, a formerly incarcerated person and current chairman of the Reentry Network for Returning Citizen, a D.C.-based advocacy group, joined Daniels in calling on President Obama to end to the War on Drugs, spoke at the press conference on behalf of the ex-prisoner community.

“I’m here to remind folks that we have to remember this system and what this system has done,” Stewart said. When he was released from prison in 1985, he recalls having to sleep on the floor in his mother’s house until he was able to find work and get back on his feet.

“You come back to the community feeling like you’re being punished all over again,” Stewart added “Many of us go away for non-violent convictions, but when we come home we’re all thrown into the same basket of ‘felon.’”

Stewart wants the returning citizen population to receive better treatment after their released, but also during incarceration so that they have something to bring to future employers.

“The prison pipeline starts with a young person, but it ends with a person in their 40s or their 50s who no one wants to be bothered with,” Stewart said.

Tyrone Parker, founder of Alliance of Concerned Men, wants people to consider the pipeline to prison that is created within the Black community and the effect that has on youth.

Black youth are currently 40 percent of the incarcerated juvenile population.

“We’ve got to become more conscious and we’ve got to begin to draw the line to be able to transform our communities,” Parker said. “We can no longer continue to accept this business as usual.”

Ivan Cloyd, 23, knows first hand the effects of the War on Drugs and the impact being incarcerated can have on your life.

As a former drug dealer and ex-felon, he is faced with stigma that he says makes it hard for him to obtain employment.

“It’s like I’m still serving time without being in prison,” Cloyd said. He is ineligible for federal financial aid because of his drug distribution conviction. “I look at the president and say if you want to get serious about economic development and about helping people these are some of the things that affect us.”

“When you launch a war that means there’s an enemy and when there is an enemy there is a primary objective to either destroy the enemy or capture and incapacitate the enemy,” said Divine Pryor, executive director of the Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions, a think tank led by ex-prisoners.

“Let’s remove the smoke screen, the War on Drugs is a war against war Black and Brown folks,” Pryor added. “The War on Drugs has left a trail of destruction in our community. Putting a stop to it will reinvigorate the economic engine that the President says he has a priority to do."

By Philip Stelly
Special to the NNPA from the Louisiana Weekly

Pay no attention to that shocking video of drinking, drugging, gambling and gun play at the House of Detention you’ve all seen in the past week. Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman investigated the matter and determined there was not enough hard evidence to sustain a legal case against the inmates seen in the jailhouse video, much less charge his own deputies with anything.

Sheriff Gusman’s response to the 2009 video —released last week as part of a federal consent decree hearing on jail reform—came days after Mayor Mitch Landrieu took aim at Gusman’s leadership, suggesting that the parish prison be managed under federal receivership.

Mayor Landrieu has been sounding the alarm that consent decrees involving both the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office and the New Orleans Police Department would be too costly and could result in deep cuts in city services or tax increases.

For his part, Sheriff Gusman said he too has been sounding the alarm about the financial strain the Sheriff’s Office has been under for years. Sheriff Gusman produced a July 2010 letter addressed to Mayor Landrieu. In the letter, Sheriff Gusman told the mayor that the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office was facing “an unprecedented financial shortfall” due to a low per diem rate of $22.39 per inmate paid by the city, among other factors.

Sheriff Gusman said he was forced to borrow money to keep the jails afloat while Mayor Landrieu and the New Orleans City Council ignored his pleas.

Sheriff Gusman broke his silence about the financial pressure his department has been under and about the scathing jailhouse videos in a street-side press conference just outside the construction site for the new jail.

There, Sheriff Gusman chided the city for trying to shirk its financial responsibility to the Sheriff’s Office by “throwing mud in every direction.” He then fired away at Mayor Landrieu. “The mayor chooses to waste time with Washington-style politics and Archie Bunker rhetoric.”

Late Thursday, Mayor Landrieu’s office issued a statement again calling for the jail to be managed under federal receivership: “It gets clearer every day that the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office is not keeping the prison secure and our city safe. This week, expert after expert talked about mismanagement and said this was one of the worst-run jails in the country. That is why I am asking for receivership so corrections experts can run the jail in a safe, secure and fiscally responsible way. I cannot in good conscience cut vital services or raise taxes to put even more money into an office where waste, fraud, and abuse run rampant.”

In his prepared remarks, Sheriff Gusman said what he saw on the video was “despicable and unacceptable.” He later told reporters he did not refer the videos to the District Attorney’s Office because an investigation by the Sheriff’s Office determined that a prosecution could not be sustained against the inmates appearing in the video. “We are law enforcement and we didn’t find any contraband,” Sheriff Gusman said, adding “We didn’t think we could sustain a case based on the video.”

Besides, says Sheriff Gusman, the video is from 2009. “What we saw on the video occurred four years ago in a building that I closed over a year ago,” the sheriff said.

Sheriff Gusman had an explanation for the other shocking video released last week: the 2009 video of jail escapee Arthur Johnson on Bourbon Street. Johnson was captured and sentenced to an additional five years in jail. Another escapee got an additional three years behind bars, the sheriff reported.

As to his political future, Sheriff Gusman indicated he is not going anywhere. He said he has activated his plan to decrease the jail population and modernize jail facilities. “Despite the interruption caused by Hurricane Katrina, I am going to get this right and see this plan through to its completion,” he said.

U.S. District Court Judge Lance Africk has yet to issue a ruling on the consent decree aimed at reforming the jail.