The Nth Degree: Examining Intra-racial Use of the N-Word in Employment Discriminal Cases

In his book, Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word, Harvard Law Professor Randall Kennedy observes that the N-word “is and has long been the most socially consequential racial insult. . . . [but today] when African Americans are speaking to each other, “ni**er,” and especially its more genial cousin, ‘ni**a’ can be an affectionate greeting, a compliment, or a term of respect.” For example, Jay-Z and Kanye West won a Grammy for their hit song, “Ni**as in Paris.” Yet soon after, federal courts in New York and Alabama concluded that intra-racial use of the N-word is sufficient, under certain circumstances, to create a racially hostile work environment. Likewise, some black entertainers like Oprah Winfrey publicly decry the N-word as a tool of racial oppression. As Oprah explained, the N-word “carries such a sense of hatred and degradation” that to her, its use evokes images of “black men who were lynched and that’s the last word they heard.” But if members of the black community cannot reach a consensus on proper use of the N-word, how can courts and juries be expected to determine whether its intra-racial use is sufficient to create a racially hostile work environment, and how should that determination be made? Should the race of the speaker and target of the speech be taken into account in determining the existence of a racially hostile work environment? If our legal system presumes that the N-word is per se racially offensive, regardless of the race and intent of the user, does that restore “power” to a hurtful word that an empowered new generation of black Americans has stripped of its old meaning and refashioned into a term of endearment and solidarity? These questions highlight the continuing confusion and controversy arising from the black community’s attempts to bring new and positive meaning to an old and infamous word. Our Article explores the N-word debate and the questions to which it gives rise in the employment context. We conclude that the federal courts in New York and Alabama correctly determined that intra-racial use of the N-word can create a racially hostile work environment because that holding comports with longstanding legal recognition of intra-racial, same-sex, and third-party associative employment discrimination. Second, it is proper to apply a reasonable person standard, not a reasonable black person standard, to measure the objective severity of the harassment in cases involving intra-racial use of the N-Word in part because the shameful history of the N-Word underscores the extent to which a reasonable person of any race would likely object to the word’s use at the workplace, even where the speaker is black. Third, social science research indicates that black individuals’ implicit anti-black biases may lead to ill-intended use of the N-word against other blacks. Finally, applying the same standard to intra-racial and interracial use of the N-word, regardless of the speaker’s intent, promotes fairness, consistency, and judicial efficiency

T1 Magnetic Resonance Imaging Head Segmentation for Diffuse Optical Tomography and Electroencephalography

Accurate segmentation of structural magnetic resonance images is critical for creating subject-specific forward models for functional neuroimaging source localization. In this work, we present an innovative segmentation algorithm that generates accurate head tissue layer thicknesses that are needed for diffuse optical tomography (DOT) data analysis. The presented algorithm is compared against other publicly available head segmentation methods. The proposed algorithm has a root mean square scalp thickness error of 1.60 mm, skull thickness error of 1.96 mm, and summed scalp and skull error of 1.49 mm. We also introduce a segmentation evaluation metric that evaluates the accuracy of tissue layer thicknesses in regions of the head where optodes are typically placed. The presented segmentation algorithm and evaluation metric are tools for improving the localization accuracy of neuroimaging with DOT, and also multimodal neuroimaging such as combined electroencephalography and DOT

Live Imaging of Shoot Meristems on an Inverted Confocal Microscope Using an Objective Lens Inverter Attachment

Live imaging of above ground meristems can lead to new insights in plant development not possible from static imaging of fixed tissue. The use of an upright confocal microscope offers several technical and biological advantages for live imaging floral or shoot meristems. However, many departments and core facilities possess only inverted confocal microscopes and lack the funding for an additional upright confocal microscope. Here we show that imaging of living apical meristems can be performed on existing inverted confocal microscopes with the use of an affordable and detachable InverterScope accessory

Engineering evaluation of a sodium hydroxide thermal energy storage module

An engineering evaluation of thermal energy storage prototypes was performed in order to assess the development status of latent heat storage media. The testing and the evaluation of a prototype sodium hydroxide module is described. This module stored off-peak electrical energy as heat for later conversion to domestic hot water needs

Advanced timeline systems

The Mission Planning Division of the Mission Operations Laboratory at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center is responsible for scheduling experiment activities for space missions controlled at MSFC. In order to draw statistically relevant conclusions, all experiments must be scheduled at least once and may have repeated performances during the mission. An experiment consists of a series of steps which, when performed, provide results pertinent to the experiment's functional objective. Since these experiments require a set of resources such as crew and power, the task of creating a timeline of experiment activities for the mission is one of resource constrained scheduling. For each experiment, a computer model with detailed information of the steps involved in running the experiment, including crew requirements, processing times, and resource requirements is created. These models are then loaded into the Experiment Scheduling Program (ESP) which attempts to create a schedule which satisfies all resource constraints. ESP uses a depth-first search technique to place each experiment into a time interval, and a scoring function to evaluate the schedule. The mission planners generate several schedules and choose one with a high value of the scoring function to send through the approval process. The process of approving a mission timeline can take several months. Each timeline must meet the requirements of the scientists, the crew, and various engineering departments as well as enforce all resource restrictions. No single objective is considered in creating a timeline. The experiment scheduling problem is: given a set of experiments, place each experiment along the mission timeline so that all resource requirements and temporal constraints are met and the timeline is acceptable to all who must approve it. Much work has been done on multicriteria decision making (MCDM). When there are two criteria, schedules which perform well with respect to one criterion will often perform poorly with respect to the other. One schedule dominates another if it performs strictly better on one criterion, and no worse on the other. Clearly, dominated schedules are undesireable. A nondominated schedule can be generated by some sort of optimization problem. Generally there are two approaches: the first is a hierarchical approach while the second requires optimizing a weighting or scoring function

Performance in Private Clubs: Criteria Utilized by Managers

As the first step toward developing performance benchmarks for non profit private clubs, the authors identify the criteria that club managers use to evaluate club performance. Responses from 254 club managers across the US. indicate that all 16 performance criteria included in the survey were utilized to some extent, but the top three were membership satisfaction, quality of services offered, and quality of staff