A Close Look at ADEA Mixed-Motives Claims and Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc.

In Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court held that a plaintiff bringing a claim for disparate treatment under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) could not shift the burden of persuasion to the defendant, even after the plaintiff had established that age was a motivating factor in the defendant’s adverse employment decision. Prior to Gross, ADEA plaintiffs had two available frameworks to prove claims for intentional age discrimination: the three-prong McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green framework that creates an inference of discrimination using a prima facie case, and the burden-shifting, “mixed-motives” analysis laid out in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, which the Gross Court rejected for ADEA plaintiffs. This Note urges Congress to intervene and amend the ADEA to be consistent with the burden-shifting framework codified in § 107 of the Civil Rights Act of 1991. This Note explores the purposes behind the ADEA, including its relationship with Title VII, and looks at Supreme Court cases that shaped the analysis of disparate treatment discrimination claims prior to Gross. This Note explores the majority and dissenting opinions in Gross and how subsequent courts have treated ADEA cases in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision. Ultimately, this Note concludes that Gross does not necessarily alter the McDonnell Douglas framework for ADEA plaintiffs, but that Congress should step in and amend the ADEA so that plaintiffs may bring mixed-motives claims. If Congress were to amend the ADEA in this way, the causation standards under Title VII and the ADEA would be identical and the ADEA’s goals of deterring discrimination and compensating victims would be fulfilled

Sexual and Reproductive Health of Young Men of Color: Analyzing and Interpreting the Data,The

In the late 1980's, due in part to the spread of HIV and chlamydia, data collection on adolescent sexual and reproductive health began to shift away from its focus on young females to include males. Despite certain complexities and limitations this type of data presents, research from the early 2000's is analyzed here to assess sexual behaviors and health outcomes of young men of color in comparison to other subgroups

Asset Building in Low-income Communities of Color, Part 2

Examines practices and policies in states not ranked highly for promoting asset building in large communities of color. Compares factors viewed as supportive of asset accumulation as well as promising practices with those in states ranked highly

Patterns of Failure in Texas Urban Improvement Required Schools: An Equity Audit Expansion

The achievement gap is a concept that has long been explored in education; students of color, low socioeconomic status, those who speak languages other than English, and students labeled as special education perform lower on student achievement tests and often receive less in terms of funding and resources (Harris & Hopson, 2008). Brown (2010) stated, As a result, these students, without realizing it, often fall into a predetermined mold designed for school failure and social inequity (p. 2)

The Distribution of Top Incomes in Five Anglo-Saxon Countries over the Twentieth Century

Taxation data have been used to create long-run series for the distribution of top incomes in quite a number of countries. Most of these studies have focused on the national experience of individual countries, but we can also learn from cross-country comparisons. Comparative analysis is therefore the next stage in the research program. At the same time, we know from other fields that there are dangers in simply pooling all available time series, without regard to the specific nature of data and reality. In this paper, we therefore adopt an intermediate approach, taking five Anglo- Saxon countries that have relatively similar backgrounds and tax systems: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the US. The first part of the paper tackles the challenge of comparability of income-tax based estimates across countries and across time. The second part summarizes the evidence about top income shares. Across these five countries, the shares of the very richest exhibit a strikingly similar pattern, falling in the three decades after World War II, before rising sharply from the mid-1970s onwards. The share of the top 1 percent is highly correlated across Anglo-Saxon countries, more so than the share of the next 4 percent. The third part of the paper looks at the relationship between taxes and top income shares. Controlling for country and year fixed effects, we find that a reduction in the marginal tax rate on wage income is associated with an increase in the share of the top percentile group. Likewise, a fall in the marginal tax rate on investment income (based on a lagged moving average) is associated with a rise in the share of the top percentile group.inequality, taxation, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States

Developing Preservice Teachers’ Mathematical and Pedagogical Knowledge Using an Integrated Approach

This paper describes how an integrated mathematics content and early field-experience course provides opportunities for preservice elementary teachers to develop understanding of mathematics and mathematics teaching. Engaging preservice teachers in solving and discussing mathematical tasks and providing opportunities to implement these tasks with elementary students creates an authentic context for the future teachers to reflect on their own understanding of mathematics, mathematics teaching, and students’ mathematical thinking. Essential elements of the cycle of events in the integrated model of instruction are discussed: preservice students’ acquisition of mathematical concepts in the context of selected tasks in the content course; subsequent posing of mathematical tasks in early field experiences; reflection on work with students; and response to instructors’ feedback

Exploring the Development of Core Teaching Practices in the Context of Inquiry-based Science Instruction: An Interpretive Case Study

This paper describes our reflection on a clinical-based teacher preparation program. We examined a context in which novice pre-service teachers and a mentor teacher implemented inquiry-based science instruction to help students make sense of genetic engineering. We utilized developmental models of professional practice that outline the complexity inherent in professional knowledge as a conceptual framework to analyze teacher practice. Drawing on our analysis, we developed a typography of understandings of inquiry-based science instruction that teachers in our cohort held and generated a two dimensional model characterizing pathways through which teachers develop core teaching practices supporting inquiry-based science instruction