By Adam Harris/ProPublica

There have been several events throughout American history that have, for some, signaled the beginning of a post-racial society. The election of Barack Obama to the office of President of the United States is the latest milestone. But the reality is, many believe that racism is still a big problem in the U.S.
To sort through America’s troubled history of inequality, here’s a guide to some of the best recent reporting we’ve seen that shines a light on the issue of racial injustice and celebrates the resilience of black Americans. See any we missed? Share in the comments.

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Posted on February 25, 2016

By Nirej Sekhon/The Conversation

The Department of Justice is currently investigating the Chicago Police Department.
The high-profile police shooting of teen Laquan McDonald – combined with the city’s efforts to prevent the public from learning about it – prompted the investigation.
Given that the Justice Department is playing hardball with Ferguson, Missouri – suing the city following its refusal to voluntarily enter into an agreement to reform its police department and courts – advocates in Chicago may also expect something important to change as a result of DOJ involvement.

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Posted on February 18, 2016

By Bill McDonald*

Recently Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass suggested suburban taxpayers would be the ones to foot the bill for a CPS bailout. His idea rests on the notion that if the State of Illinois bails out CPS, it will be on the backs of more affluent suburban homeowners. Kass wrote his soliloquy to suburban taxpayers: “You don’t need me to tell you how much they’ve sacrificed. You know what you’ve given up, or delayed – from that car you didn’t buy to the vacation you never took – to put that down payment together. You know how hard you looked to find the right schools, the research you did on test scores.”
I have friends and family living in the suburbs, and certainly they don’t want to bail out another school district, but the fact is, the suburbs have been getting bailed out for decades.

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Posted on February 17, 2016

By The Illinois Public Interest Research Group

Candidates in the 2016 Cook County State’s Attorney Democratic primary race would see a dramatic shift in fundraising focus under a proposed small donor matching program, according to a study released Tuesday by the Illinois PIRG Education Fund.
Using year-end fundraising data, the report examines the impact of a program that matches small contributions from constituents with limited public funds for candidates who agree not to accept large donations.

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Posted on February 17, 2016

By Julia Edwards/Reuters

U.S. immigration authorities violated their own rules by telling some of the 121 Central American women and children they arrested in raids last month that they had no legal recourse to dispute their deportations, according to several of the women and their lawyers.
The accusation centers on the Jan. 2 – 4 raids that were the U.S. administration’s first large-scale operation since mid-2014 to deport hundreds of families who crossed the southern border illegally.
Four of the women – three of them in statements to Reuters through their lawyers and one in an interview with Reuters – said that ICE agents had misled them on their right to legal counsel while they were detained at a detention facility in Dilley, Texas.

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Posted on February 16, 2016

By Steve Rhodes

The throughline from Dean. Plus: I Don’t Care About Beyoncé; Rahm’s Big Bad Bond Deal; Seven Innocent People, Picked To Share A Jail . . . ; and Meet The Chicago Police: Rigged Lineups, ‘Lost’ Files, Upside-Down Batteries.

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Posted on February 15, 2016

By Allan Sloan/ProPublica

This story was co-published with the Washington Post.
Wealth, jobs and pay inequality are big political issues this presidential primary season, and they’re bound to become bigger once the parties pick their nominees. In the plethora of plans candidates tout for tackling these problems, one favored tool stands out: the federal tax code.
But trying to legislate corporate behavior and economic fairness – however you define fairness – through the tax system is a lot trickier than it sounds.
Consider the supposed solution to an equality and social-justice issue debated six elections ago – a law designed to limit how much companies could deduct from their taxable income for lush pay packages to high-paid executives.

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Posted on February 12, 2016

By Shari R. Berkowitz, Steven J. Frenda, Elizabeth F. Loftus and Kimberly M. Fenn/The Conversation

If you are one of the millions of people who have listened to the podcast Serial or watched Netflix’s series Making a Murderer, you may believe there are innocent people in prison.
But long before the cases of Adnan Syed, Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey were brought to the public’s attention, we and other researchers have been hard at work studying how it is that innocent people sometimes go to prison for crimes they did not commit.
In fact, a recent report documented that in 2015, there were a record number of exonerations in the United States.

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Posted on February 11, 2016

By Ed Hammer

The Beachwood Reporter has received from a reader a letter from the GFWC Woman’s Club of Kankakee requesting donations for a project to erect three statues in a Kankakee park dedicated to three Illinois governors from that area. You might remember that I wrote about this Kankakee-based fundraising effort a couple weeks ago suggesting that the Woman’s Club might find a more worthy cause to raise money for. After all, two of those governors are a disgrace and embarrassment to Illinois.

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Posted on February 10, 2016

By Tim McLaughlin and Peter Eisler/Reuters

Barack Obama might seem an unlikely investor in the firearms industry. But the U.S. president, a fierce advocate for gun regulation, has money in a pension fund that holds stock in gun and ammunition companies.
Although Obama’s stake is minuscule, worth no more than $30, it reflects a much larger surge of investment.
The president is among millions of Americans buying into gun companies – often unwittingly – as mutual funds have increased such holdings to record levels, according to a Reuters analysis of institutional investment in firearms companies.

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Posted on February 9, 2016