Washington, D.C

On the Streets of D.C., Praise and Protest of a Landmark Ruling on Race in Admissions

Published

1 year ago

June 29, 2023

On the Streets of D.C., Praise and Protest of a Landmark Ruling on Race in Admissions

Smoke from Canadian wildfires hung over the Supreme Court, in Washington, D.C., on Thursday morning as a crowd of journalists, tourists, and protesters began whispering to one another.

“Affirmative action is down!” someone yelled.

Around the nation’s capital, scenes of defeat and victory, disappointment and division, were visible in the hours after the justices struck down race-conscious admissions.

The legal cases, against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Harvard College, cited claims of discrimination against Asian American students. Asian Americans were present both to protest and to praise the ruling.

Representatives of the Asian American Coalition for Education, which supported the court’s decision, held a large banner that read, “Equal Rights for All.”

“It’s a historic win for Asian Americans because our children will no longer be treated as second-class citizens in college admissions,” said Yukong Mike Zhao, the coalition’s founding president. “It’s also a win for all Americans because universities preserve meritocracy, which is the bedrock of the American dream.”

It wasn’t long before counterprotesters showed up. A handful of students from various colleges across the country, carrying light-blue handkerchiefs, told reporters about their opposition to the ruling as Asian American students, saying that the cases had wrongly pitted Asian Americans against members of other racial-minority groups.

“It’s unfair that our community is being used as a wedge to take down multiracial democracy, not only at the university level but at levels above,” said Jack Trowbridge, a third-year student at Wesleyan University, in Connecticut. “Because it all starts in higher education.”

Nearby, a sign propped against a police partition read, “We Are Not a Wedge.”

But others, like Christopher Banks, a guest lecturer at Washington Adventist University, condemned the ruling, calling it “highly regrettable.”

We call upon higher education to revisit its own standards and look inwardly.

A few blocks northeast of the court’s building, on Second Street, a group of Black, Latino, and Asian civil-rights lawyers — including a former New York City mayoral candidate, Maya Wiley — held a news conference in a small studio to voice their opposition to the ruling and express support for continued efforts to diversify America’s selective colleges.

“We call upon higher education to revisit its own standards and look inwardly because race-conscious admissions does some of the work but not all of the work,” said Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. He said such colleges should further reduce their reliance on standardized testing and legacy status in admissions.

A few minutes earlier, the lawyers had watched President Biden appeal to those institutions to re-examine their admissions practices, an assertion that “heartened” them, they said.

An hour later, in a navy-carpeted room at the National Press Club, less than two miles away, the plaintiffs’ lead lawyers in both the Harvard and UNC cases, along with their clients, declared victory.

Today’s victory belongs to thousands of sleepless high schoolers applying to colleges.

Edward J. Blum, the founder of Students for Fair Admissions, the organizational plaintiff in both cases, heralded the ruling as a re-establishment of principles outlined in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which, he said, “clearly forbids the treating of Americans differently by race.” He founded Students for Fair Admissions in 2014 to represent students who had felt discriminated against in college admissions because of their race.

“Today’s victory belongs to thousands of sleepless high schoolers applying to colleges,” said Calvin Yang, a student at the University of California at Berkeley whose rejection by Harvard in 2021 spurred his activism to take down race-conscious admissions. “It belongs to those with the last names of Smith or Lee, Chen or Gonzalez. Most importantly, it belongs to all of us who believe that if we work hard enough, we all can have a chance and get our own slice of this grand American dream.”

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Washington, D.C

American Airlines and Flight Attendant Union Summoned to Washington DC On Saturday As Strike Ruling Looms

Published

5 hours ago

June 28, 2024

Press Room

American Airlines and Flight Attendant Union Summoned to Washington DC On Saturday As Strike Ruling Looms

American Airlines and the union which represents tens of thousands of flight attendants at the carrier have been summoned to a rare Saturday meeting of the National Mediation Board (NMB) in Washington DC as a decision looms over whether flight attendants will be allowed to go on strike.

The NMB is an independent federal agency which oversees labor relations in the railway and aviation sectors. The NMB’s three-person board of members selected by the President gets the ultimate say over whether transport workers are allowed to go on strike.

Despite the overwhelming majority of flight attendants at American Airlines voting to back strike action back in August 2023, the NMB has so far blocked the union’s request to take ‘self-help’ action and has been pushing the two sides to reach a compromise deal in protracted contract talks.

Those negotiations entered a new make-or-break phase several weeks ago, but despite intensive bargaining sessions, which even involved Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su meeting flight attendants, the talks ended in failure.

Since then, the NMB has been mulling whether to finally allow American Airlines flight attendants to go on strike.

That decision may be announced after the agency summoned representatives from American Airlines and the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA) to the NMB’s headquarters in Washington DC, on June 29.

“After weeks of intensive mediation broke off last week, your APFA Negotiating Team has continued to aggressively press our case that American Airlines Flight Attendants need a contract that addresses our concerns,” the union said in a statement.

“The time is long overdue for American Airlines management to resolve these negotiations and agree to the contract we deserve.”

If the NMB does approve the union’s request to take self-help action, the agency will declare an impasse in negotiations and release the two sides into a 30-day cooling-off period, after which flight attendants would be allowed to go on strike.

The flight attendant union has already indicated that it wouldn’t call an all out strike but instead adopt the so-called CHAOS system which was pioneered by sister union, the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA).

CHAOS, which stands for ‘Create Havoc Around Our System’, involves calling out flight attendants from seemingly random flights at the last minute. The tactic means that the airline wouldn’t have enough time to restaff affected flights while passengers would have no idea if their flight were about to be hit by a walkout.

Of course, the tone of the union’s Friday afternoon memo also suggests that the two sides may be nearing a compromise deal and strike action could be averted.

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Mateusz Maszczynski

Mateusz Maszczynski honed his skills as an international flight attendant at the most prominent airline in the Middle East and has been flying throughout the COVID-19 pandemic for a well-known European airline. Matt is passionate about the aviation industry and has become an expert in passenger experience and human-centric stories. Always keeping an ear close to the ground, Matt’s industry insights, analysis and news coverage is frequently relied upon by some of the biggest names in journalism.

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Washington, D.C

Best spots to see fireworks in the D.C. area for July Fourth

Published

12 hours ago

June 28, 2024

Press Room

Best spots to see fireworks in the D.C. area for July Fourth

Looking for a show in the sky to celebrate America’s birthday? Here are some of the best D.C.-area spots to see fireworks in the next week.

The West Lawn of the Capitol opens at 3 p.m. for the audience of the free A Capitol Fourth concert, hosted by Alfonso Ribeiro, which begins at 8. Performers include Smokey Robinson, Fantasia, Darren Criss, Fitz and Noelle of Fitz and the Tantrums, Sheila E., the National Symphony Orchestra and various military bands. The fireworks display begins at 9:09 p.m., and the concert is timed so the NSO performs Tchaikovsky’s “1812” Overture while the fireworks are booming over the Washington Monument. Visitors will be required to go through security screenings to enter the Capitol grounds or public viewing areas on the Mall west of 14th Street. (There’s a map of closures, first aid stations, restrooms and other important landmarks on the National Mall website, nps.gov/nama.) If the crowds or the lines are too much, there’s usually more room to spread your picnic blanket closer to the Smithsonian Castle.

Mount Vernon’s An American Celebration gets underway at 9:30 a.m. with a reading of the Declaration of Independence and features an 18th-century magic show, Revolutionary War music and Army encampments, talks with reenactors, and, to the delight of all ages, daytime fireworks that create billowing puffs of colorful smoke over the Potomac River at 1 p.m. Admission is $26 for adults, $13 for kids, and free for children age 5 and younger.

Fireworks beyond the Fourth

Love shimmering pyrotechnic displays but can’t swing it on July Fourth? Fear not: The fun isn’t limited to Thursday night. Here are more events taking place throughout the week leading up to the holiday.

Saturday: Fireworks, Food and Family Fun at Lake Fairfax

Fairfax County’s annual celebration kicks off at noon June 29 with live music and food trucks, while fireworks begin at 9:15 p.m. Tickets are $15 per car in advance, which does not include admission to the Water Mine Family Swimmin’ Hole; those tickets are sold separately.

Tuesday: Vienna’s Independence Day Celebration

The town of Vienna’s annual party fills George C. Yeonas Park with a mix of live music — Latin American from Cantaré, pop and funk from Thunderball — as well as family activities, food trucks and picnicking on baseball fields. The event runs from 6 to 10 p.m., with fireworks beginning around 9:30. Free parking is available off-site.

Wednesday: Baseball and fireworks

Fireworks illuminate baseball diamonds across the region on Independence Day Eve. The Nationals, who won’t have fireworks after their July 4 day game, will launch “Freedom Fireworks” after the last out of their 6:45 p.m. game against the Mets on July 3. The Bowie Baysox, who regularly host fireworks after weekend games at Prince George’s Stadium, promise their biggest show of the year after the Orioles’ AA affiliate’s 6:35 p.m. game against the Richmond Flying Squirrels. The single-A Fredericksburg Nationals, home of the regular “Fireworks Friday” promotions, host a “patriotic edition” of the popular event following a 6:05 p.m. game against the Delmarva Shorebirds.

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Washington, D.C

Look inside the home of some high-powered D.C. dinner parties

Published

19 hours ago

June 28, 2024

Press Room

Look inside the home of some high-powered D.C. dinner parties

This French Colonial-style house at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac in D.C.’s Massachusetts Avenue Heights neighborhood is somewhat deceiving. Its out-of-the-way location, two miles from downtown Washington, helps camouflage the role it has played as a gathering spot for high-powered business, political and sports leaders.

Seclusion is part what attracted owners Michelle Fields and Jamie Weinstein to this white, painted-brick house, built in 1966, as the venue for their much-discussed (in some circles) off-the-record dinner parties.

Weinstein, a journalist and political commentator, runs the flagship podcast for conservative digital media company the Dispatch. He began hosting soirees at his Ritz-Carlton Georgetown corner unit in 2012, pairing young reporters with their sources — and subjects — for evenings of privileged discussion. Since 2020, the parties have been held at 3115 Normanstone Terr. NW, now on the market for $3.29 million.

The get-togethers, Weinstein said, sometimes last four or five hours. There are no planned topics of conversation for the reporters and notable guests, who recently have included New York Mayor Eric Adams, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, businessman and TV personality Mark Cuban and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Weinstein declared the dinner with Sanders “particularly fiery” in an Instagram post.

Such parties were “top of mind,” Fields said, when she and husband Weinstein bought the house. They wanted one that had plenty of entertainment space and that was removed from the bustle of downtown.

“It helps [guests] open up a little bit more because you’re not in the center of the work world in a certain way,” Weinstein said. “When you’re in D.C., you see the buildings all around and feel work, work, work, work, work. And when you’re here, you feel like you’re in the country.”

Another consideration favoring a larger house was their growing family. The couple had a year-old child, and Fields was pregnant with a second. They made some child-friendly renovations, including closing off a spiral staircase.

Before Weinstein and Fields lived here, the house was owned for decades by Stanley Rabinowitz, a long-serving rabbi at the Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, where he led services attended by members of Congress, White House officials and visiting Israeli prime ministers.

The house was built in 1966 and has two floors above a finished lower level and more than 5,000 square feet of living area. The front door opens to a foyer with marble floors. On one side is a dining room with hardwood floors and crown molding. The other side has a living room with a fireplace and French doors that open to a rear terrace. The kitchen — with an island, wine storage and a breakfast area — connects to a family room with oversize paned windows and a vaulted ceiling. This level also has a powder room and a gym.

The second floor has a primary bedroom suite with a fireplace, a balcony, a walk-in closet and a bathroom with a two-sink vanity. There are three more bedrooms on this floor, one with an en suite bathroom and two that share a bathroom, one of which has a balcony.

On the lower level, a recreation room with a fireplace connects to an office. This level also has a bedroom with an en suite bathroom, and it has a laundry room and access to a covered terrace.

The property includes a detached two-car garage across the street.

3115 Normanstone Terr. NW, Washington, D.C.

Bedrooms/bathrooms: 5/6
Approximate square-footage: 5,000
Lot size: nearly half an acre
Features: This 1966 house has several fireplaces, crown moldings, French doors, paned windows and several outdoor spaces. The property includes a detached two-car garage.
Listing agent: Michael Rankin, TTR Sotheby’s International Realty