Mobility and Equity for New York's Transit-Starved Neighborhoods: The Case for Full-Featured Bus Rapid Transit

New York City's public transportation system moves millions of people every day. But an increasing number who live in outer borough neighborhoods are stuck with unreliable transit options and long travel times tracked in hours, not minutes.It does not have to be this way.Developed by the Pratt Center for Community Development and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, this report highlights the limitations of New York City's current public transit system, the adverse effects those limitations have on our economy and quality of life, and the role Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) can play in remedying these transit inequities.BRT has transformed cities across the world from Mexico City to Barcelona to Cleveland. At a fraction of the cost to build just a mile of subway rail, BRT gives riders a reliable way to get where they need to go.BRT is effective. It is innovative. And it could be the solution for New York's transit-starved neighborhoods

June Mathis

Once called the most powerful woman in Hollywood, June Mathis is known to have written or cowritten the screenplays of one hundred and fourteen produced features. Yet she is a shadowy figure today. Though one can find summaries of her biography in studio publicity releases of the day and puff pieces in the fan press, apart from these notoriously unreliable sources, little is known about her life. Her greatest moment of fame came when she died suddenly while attending a play with her mother at a New York theatre. The New York Times reported her dramatic demise in a front page headline: “June Mathis Heart Victim.

A Perspective from the Judiciary on Access to Justice

I decided early in 2009, upon becoming Chief Judge and the steward of the justice system in New York, to focus my energy on ensuring that everyone gets their day in court. Regardless of how a person looks or where he or she was born, and regardless of whether or not a person has resources or power, justice cannot be about the color of your skin or the amount of money in your pocket. Justice must mean that when people are fighting for the necessities of life, for the roof over their heads, they must get the legal assistance that they need, and the scales of lady justice will be exquisitely balanced. Learned Hand’s famous quote—“thou shall not ration justice”—is the one cardinal rule of our democracy. The constitutional and moral mission of the judiciary is equal justice. This is what we do as judges going back to biblical times: “Justice, and only Justice shall you pursue;” “both low and high, Rich and poor together.” If, as judges, we do not fulfill this commitment, we might as well close the courthouse doors. That focus generated so many things that I am proud of in New York, and that as leaders in the access to justice movement, we can all be proud of

Thomas S. Monson and the Politics of Obituaries

Thomas S. Monson, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, died on January 2 of this year. Monson led the LDS Church for almost a decade. On January 3, The New York Times published an obituary for Monson that was not well received by many members of the church. They felt that it was politically biased and did not paint the life and work of their much-loved leader in a positive light

Law Day Handout

Oct. 27th Law Day schedule of events BALSA History, Purpose and Activities What\u27s Going Down by T. Q. Thompson Report from BALSA National Office Chart: Statistics on number of Black lawyers and judges, state by state Are You Going to Sit on the Sidelines All Your Life Excerpt from Can a Black Man Get a Fair Trial in This Country by Haywood Burns, New York Times Magazine 7-12-1970https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/blsa/1010/thumbnail.jp

Citizen Jane Filmmakers Series : a conversation with Sharon Shattuck

PodcastThis week The Missouri Review Soundbooth Podcast, inaugurates a series of podcasts about the Citizen Jane Film festival. The Citizen Jane Film Festival celebrates independent film by independent women and takes place in Columbia, Missouri, every fall. Sharon Shattuck is a filmmaker whose first feature, "From This Day Forward," is currently touring film festivals all over the world. "From This Day Forward" is a documentary that tells the story of Shattuck's transgender father, Tricia, and her mother, Marcia, who have been married for over thirty years. In addition, Shattuck is the co-creator of the New York Times Op-Docs series "Animated Life," which animates historical moments of scientific discovery, and is a contributing blogger for the Huffington Post and the Advocate

Interpreting “American Life” in Scenic Design

Theater has always reflected the life of the people that surrounds it. Therefore, being able to understand, absorb and expand the “American experience” as a first-generation immigrant was one of the main challenges during my time at UCSD. I start these projects assuming I'm distanced from the theme. Turn out there are multiple access points in each production. Those design processes are valuable to me as an emerging set designer in the US because they immersed me in the culture that is around me now and will always be part of American theater. The three productions I designed that deal with “Americanness” the most are 53% Of, A Beautiful Day in November on the banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes and Balm in Gilead. Each of them presents different aspects of American Life. 53% Of is about 53% of women voted for Trump, a microscope on the grand US political scene. A Beautiful Day is a Thanksgiving dinner narrates by sports commentators, portraying the marrow of family in stylized acting. Balm in Gilead is about the low-life in the decaying 1960s New York City center, harsh realism poses the question of how to be compassionate in the bad times. The world has become closer and relationships between people has always been universal. When designing A Beautiful Day, I relate Thanksgiving dinner to Chinese New Year: awkward conversations between generations and that Aunt who is always late. Globalization has also affected out collective memory. Growing up reading tons of US home decoration magazines, I was able to produce the stereotypical living space in 53% Of. One lesson I've also learned is that personal experiences are valuable research. The nuanced design of Balm in Gilead comes from early discussions with the director about her experience being an young artist in New York City and the fine-tuning during technical rehearsal when the whole team absorbs the space and developed the details as collectives

Keeping Kids In School and Out of Court

As the education of our children -- our nation's future -- and the school-justice connection has increasingly captured public attention, the sunshine of increased graduation rates has brought into sharp focus the shadow of the so-called school-to-prison pipeline -- the thousands of students who are suspended, arrested, put at greater risk for dropping out, court involvement and incarceration. They are the subject of this Report.In school year 2011-2012 (SY2012), the number of suspensions in New York City public schools was 40 percent greater than during SY2006 (69,643 vs. 49,588, respectively), despite a five percent decrease in suspensions since SY2011. In addition, there were 882 school-related arrests (more than four per school day on average) and another 1,666 summonses issued during the SY2012 (more than seven per school day on average), also demonstrating an over-representation of students of color. These numbers might suggest New York City has a growing problem with violence and disruption in school but the opposite is true. Over the last several years, as reported by the Department of Education in November 2012, violence in schools has dropped dramatically, down 37 percent between 2001 and 2012. Indeed, violence Citywide has dropped dramatically.Emerging facts suggest that the surge in suspensions is not a function of serious misbehavior. New York City has the advantage of newly available public data that makes it possible for the first time to see patterns and trends with respect to suspensions by school and to see aggregate data on school-related summonses and arrests. The data shows that the overwhelming majority of school-related suspensions, summonses and arrests are for minor misbehavior, behavior that occurs on a daily basis in most schools. An important finding is that most schools in New York City handle that misbehavior without resorting to suspensions, summonses or arrests much if at all. Instead, it is a small percentage of schools that are struggling, generating the largest number of suspensions, summonses and arrests, impacting the lives of thousands of students. This newly available data echoes findings from other jurisdictions indicating that suspension and school arrest patterns are less a function of student misbehavior than a function of the adult response. Given the same behavior, some choose to utilize guidance and positive discipline options such as peer mediation; others utilize more punitive alternatives.The choice is not inconsequential. Recent research, including groundbreaking studies in Texas, Cincinnati and Chicago, underscore the important connections between academic outcomes and suspensions. Students who are suspended are more likely to be retained a grade, more likely to drop out, less likely to graduate and more likely to face involvement in the juvenile or criminal justice systems, thereby placing them at higher risk for poor life outcomes. Suspensions and school-related court involvement also generate significant and lifetime costs -- for extra years of schooling, for justice system involvement, and for families and all society. Notably, high rates of suspension do not yield correspondingly significant benefits, as research shows that high rates of suspensions in a school make students and teachers feel less, not more, safe.Most worrisome are patterns of suspensions for students with disabilities and students of color in New York City and across the nation. In New York City alone during SY2012, students receiving special education services were almost four times more likely to be suspended compared to their peers not receiving special education services; Black students were four times more likely and Hispanic students were almost twice as likely to be suspended compared to White students. New York City Black students were also 14 times more likely, and Hispanic students were five times more likely, to be arrested for school-based incidents compared to White students.Studies have shown that it is not the violent and egregious misbehavior that drives the disparities. For example, the Texas study showed that Black students had a lower rate of mandatory suspensions (suspensions for violence, weapons and other equally serious offenses) than White students. Black students exceeded White students only in the rates of suspensions for discretionary offenses.Innovative school districts throughout the country, encouraged by the federal government, are increasingly moving away from suspensions, summonses and arrests in favor of positive approaches to discipline that work. In New York City, a range of schools similarly have adopted constructive discipline with good results. In short, we have examples of what to do. The challenge is to take that learning system-wide and transform the small group of schools that over-rely on suspensions, summonses and arrests. Change in these schools could have a significant impact on student outcomes, re-engaging thousands of students so that they stay in school and out of courts. But research and experience tell us these schools cannot make this change by themselves. They need help and support. Change will require strong leadership and committed partnerships.New York City has a proud tradition of turning conventional wisdom on its head and achieving remarkable results. A recent example underscores this point. In the United States, conventional wisdom is and has been that mass incarceration is the cost of keeping communities safe. But New York City has proved otherwise. Even as the incarceration rate in New York City declined significantly, with a drop in the prison population of 17 percent between 2001 and 2009 and in the jail population by 40 percent from 1991 to 2009, the number of felonies reported by New York City to the Federal Bureau of Investigation also declined, down 72 percent. New York City proved conventional wisdom wrong with the result that thousands fewer people have been incarcerated -- saving the City and State taxpayers two billion dollars a year.Similarly, New York City can refute the conventional wisdom of critics who think that sacrificing a few students -- although the thousands of students who were suspended, arrested or issued summonses each year is not a "few" -- can be justified on the theory it protects the many by improving safety and academic outcomes. There is no research that supports this belief and a growing body of research that suggests the opposite. Students in schools with lower suspension rates have better academic outcomes than students in schools with high suspension rates, irrespective of student characteristics. Students and teachers in schools with lower rates of suspension and arrest also feel safer than students and teachers at schools with high rates. Students who feel safe can learn, and teachers who feel safe can teach.The students interviewed by Task Force members during their school visits echoed what the research also says: the best approach to keeping schools safe and improving academic outcomes is to support a positive school climate where students and teachers feel respected and valued. Evidence-based interventions like restorative justice, positive behavioral supports, and social-emotional learning are giving teachers and school leadership the tools they need to deal with school misbehavior and help build that positive school climate while keeping students safe and learning.In 2011, Judge Judith Kaye, with the support of The Atlantic Philanthropies, convened the New York City School-Justice Partnership Task Force to bring together City leaders to address the question of how best to keep more students in school and out of courts. She invited a group of stakeholders who do not often come together -- judges and educators, researchers and advocates, prosecutors and defense counsel -- to learn more about how the systems they serve impact each other and how they might partner together to achieve better outcomes. The Task Force heard from experts from around the City and country on promising practices. It examined data to improve understanding of the challenges and look for bright spots, schools that were succeeding even in the face of a wide array of challenges. Task Force members visited local schools and heard from principals and students about what they need. Members learned from each other and debated what avenues would be best.The work of the Task Force leads us to conclude that New York City can safely reduce the number of school-related incidents that can ultimately lead to court involvement. Indeed, the City already has models of promising practice -- schools that have high needs populations with low rates of suspensions and arrests. Learning from these schools and other reform-minded districts across the nation can guide leadership across systems to further safely reduce court involvement, arrests and suspensions while improving academic outcomes.We recognize that progress toward this objective will require a laser-like focus on shared outcomes and an unprecedented level of partnership among city agencies, and collaboration with the courts, and it must include parents, students, teachers, principals, researchers and advocates. Leadership and partnership at the top is the key. It will make possible the adoption of shared goals to improve outcomes for New York City's children across agencies so that schools do not have to go it alone. It will make possible the ability to divert summonses and arrests unnecessarily referred to the courts. It will make possible the ability to direct services where those services are needed and stop the flow of students with disabilities and youth of color into the suspension system and the courts. It will make possible the ability to raise up our support, expectations and standards for educational achievement and outcomes for students who do become court involved.In 2014, a new Mayor will assume office. It is already clear that school reform will be a high priority, as it has been for the Bloomberg administration. Over the past decade and more, we have learned a great deal about what works and what does not work, even as we recognize there is more to be learned. Now we have an opportunity to build on what has worked well.Reducing unnecessary suspensions, summonses and arrests is a challenge we can tackle and we must if our students are to succeed. In the end, many more young people can grow into successful and productive adults -- and it is our duty as adults to find the supports necessary to make that happen. Frederick Douglass was right on target in his observation that it is better to build strong children than repair broken men and women. This Report summarizes almost two years of learning, and it advances recommendations to make that happen.As the next New York City Mayor sets the course for education reform, these recommendations offer a roadmap of next steps for a Citywide effort to take advantage of emerging approaches to school and justice system leadership that are effective and fair as a means to improve outcomes for all of our children -- to keep our students in school and out of court

When staying at home can mean danger

Lockdown measures leave no life unaffected. The world is in unchartered territory, and many of us are struggling to adjust to a life that seemed unimaginable a few short months ago. While all of us are impacted, we know that when the whole world shifts, the burden is not distributed equally. Instead, those already marginalised and at risk are often placed in further danger. For women, children and young people experiencing domestic abuse, it is not an exaggeration to say that lockdown measures may truly be a living nightmare. As well as the numbers of new covid cases and deaths each day, countries are reporting other devastating figures – increases in domestic abuse. The first indication was from Hubei province in China, the heart of the initial outbreak, where one county reported a three-fold increase in calls to their domestic abuse helpline (The Guardian 28 March 2020). As the virus sweeps across the world, other countries are showing a similarly alarming story. (New York Times, 6 April 2020) Domestic homicides in the UK are believe to have more than doubled since the beginning of the outbreak. (The Guardian, 15 April 2020

Janice Holt Giles: A Writer\u27s Life

In 1946, at the age of 41, Janice Holt Giles wrote her first novel. Although it took her only three months to complete the first draft, working at night so as not to conflict with her secretarial job, it was another four years before The Enduring Hills was published. Three years later, when her sixth novel appeared, Janice Holt Giles\u27s works had accumulated sales of nearly two million copies. Between 1950 and 1975 she wrote twenty-four books, most of which were bestsellers, regularly reviewed in the New York Times, and selected for inclusion in popular book clubs. Her picture held pride of place in her literary agent\u27s New York office, alongside those of Willa Cather, H.G. Wells, and Edith Wharton, yet until now there has been no biography of this immensely popular American writer. Humbly professing to be just a good storyteller, Giles was a keen observer of life with great sensitivity, an ear for language, and a superb imagination. Her artistic achievements become even more remarkable when placed in the context of her often difficult personal struggles. Dianne Watkins Stuart, for years the acknowledged expert on Giles\u27s work, has traced the path of her unique life. Stuart walked around the small house where Giles\u27s brother was born and The Kinta Years (1973) had its origin, wandered through the yard where The Plum Thicket (1954) grew, and made countless trips to Adair County, Kentucky, to trace the trails of the Piney Ridge trilogy (The Enduring Hills, Miss Willie, Tara\u27s Healing) and seek out the day-to-day life of her later years. Stuart\u27s long-anticipated biography provides both a narrative of Giles\u27s life and an in-depth description of the art and commerce of American publishing in the middle years of the century. Dianne Watkins Stuart is former education curator of the Kentucky Museum and editor of Hello, Janice: The Wartime Letters of Henry Giles. Recounts the story of writer Janice Holt Giles who, at age forty-one while working a day job as a secretary, published her first novel about a couple living in Appalachia. —American Literature It is interesting and inspiring to learn of the hardship Giles endured to become a writer, and that writing was as important as breathing to her —Booklist Stuart\u27s Janice Holt Giles, thoroughly researched and beautifully written, is the definitive literary biography of one of Kentucky\u27s and America\u27s finest writers of historical fiction. To paraphrase the brilliant and multitalented subject of this book, Stuart\u27s biography is enduring as Kentucky\u27s hills and a great deal better than plumb. —Bowling Green Daily News When the last word of the biography is read, the reader feels very close to Janice Holt Giles. —Columbia Magazine An engrossing, engaging and illuminating biography. —Filson Club History Quarterly Stuart’s knowledge of Giles’s work, both the stories themselves and the effort and anguish Giles exerted in completing them, is impressive. —Journal of Appalachian Studies Stuart has written a biography about a truly remarkable woman who overcame numerous obstacles to become one of the state\u27s most beloved authors. —Kentucky Monthly Now, readers can gain new insight into one of the state\u27s best-selling authors, thanks to the sure-handed study, Janice Holt Giles. —Lexington Herald-Leader In this admiring biography, Stuart draws from Giles\u27s personal papers to trace her progression from observer to chronicler. —Library Journal Stuart has covered every aspect of Giles\u27 life — the good times and the bad times. —The Voice-Tribune The biography Giles justly deserves. —Tulsa World The fascinating and inspiring story of one of Kentucky\u27s most successful writers—one that was popular during her lifetime and continues to be one of our most read authors. Watkins has recreated her life, one filled with great drama, remarkable successes, and devastating failures. Above all, this is a book about a fully-lived life. —Wade Hallhttps://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_english_language_and_literature_north_america/1014/thumbnail.jp