Denver, CO
CU Boulder, CU Denver face federal complaints for ‘race-based’ scholarships
DENVER — An anti-affirmative action group has filed federal complaints against the University of Colorado Boulder and University of Colorado Denver alleging its distribution of federal scholarships are race-based and discriminatory.
Both schools participate in the federal federal Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program, also known as the McNair Scholars Program. The Equal Protection Project claims white and Asian students face additional hurdles when being considered for the scholarships.
“We have filed close to 20 similar complaints for other universities,” said attorney William Jacobson, president and founder of the Equal Protection Project. “Our goal is to stop these bad practices.”
Jacobson, who helped write the civil rights complaints against both schools, alleges the McNair Scholars Program has the goal to “increase the attainment of Ph.D. degrees by students from underrepresented segments of society.” McNair scholars receive a $2,800 internship stipend, mentorship and other academic opportunities.
According to the complaint, eligible students must be low-income, first-generation students or a member of a group that is underrepresented in graduate education. It lists underrepresented groups as Black, Hispanic, Alaskan Native, or Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander.
The complaints claim the schools execute the program in a discriminatory manner because “students who identify as white or Asian – must demonstrate that they are economically disadvantaged in order to be eligible.” Meanwhile, the complaints allege “‘underrepresented’ groups are not required to prove any economic need.”
“What they’ve done is they have created a hurdle that some students have to jump over, but others don’t based upon their race or ethnicity,” said Jacobson. “And that’s the problem with those scholarships.”
The Equal Protect Project claims the schools are violating the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as well as a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that effectively gutted affirmative action.
The group is asking the Office of Civil Rights to open a formal investigation, force the colleges to stop their practices and provide a remedy for students who may have been excluded from the program based on race.
Jacobson said multiple organizations that have faced similar complaints from the Equal Protection Project have altered or dropped their programs in response.
Colorado-based civil rights attorney Terrance Carroll said fighting a complaint could escalate to a lawsuit and become costly and time-consuming for universities.
“We’ll have administrators who will become risk averse,” he said. “They don’t want to come to court, and so they look really long and hard at whether we should have programs like this at all. And sadly, unfortunately, I think many colleges and universities will likely back away from these types of programs.”
A spokesperson for CU Denver said the university has not received a complaint regarding its program, and the “complaint centers on a U.S. Department of Education program, not a CU Denver program.”
A spokesperson for CU Boulder said the university does not award scholarships based on race. In a statement, the spokesperson said the university is evaluating the complaint.
“The University of Colorado Boulder just became aware of the complaint filed by the Equal Protection Project against the university to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR). Our campus strives to comply with all federal requirements related to the awarding of financial aid, is evaluating this complaint and will respond to any inquiry we might receive from OCR.”
CU Boulder, CU Denver face federal complaints for ‘race-based’ scholarships
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Denver, CO
Over 400 flights delayed Tuesday amid high winds at Denver International Airport
More than 400 flights were delayed Tuesday afternoon at Denver International Airport as high winds blew across the area, according to flight tracking data from FlightAware.
There were 406 flights delayed and five canceled as of 5:20 p.m. as wind gusts at the airport hit 43 mph, according to the National Weather Service. Between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m., 70 flights were delayed and one was canceled, according to live flight tracking by FlightAware’s Misery Map.
United, Alaska Airlines, Southwest, Delta, Frontier, JetBlue, Key Lime Air, SkyWest, WestJet, American Airlines and Air Canada all had delayed or canceled flights.
Southwest had nearly half of the delayed flights, with 168 delays and one cancellation. United delayed 128 flights, according to FlightAware.
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Denver, CO
Did you know: Almost $1 million in coins pass through the Denver Mint every day
DENVER (KDVR) – From the outside, the Denver Mint may be just another two-story government office across from Civic Center Park. But inside the Cherokee Street building, staff and machinery are busy pressing metal coils into millions of coins per day.
According to the Mint, it’s one of two facilities responsible for making circulating coins in the United States – making it a huge part of the nation’s coin flow.
According to Tom Fesing with the Denver Mint, the facility produces roughly 4.5 million coins every 24 hours. Fesing estimates that about $750,000 to $1 million has gone through the facility each day this year.
That said, the Mint can’t exactly predict how much is going to be produced throughout the year as the number of coins depends on the orders the Mint receives monthly from the central bank, the Federal Reserve System, Fesing said.
Despite the millions of dollars in coins passing through, Fesing said the coin with the lowest value, the penny, has historically had the most production.
Those numbers depend on how many coins are needed for cash transactions in the economy, according to Fesing.
“When someone gets back a cent in change, what happens to them? They usually end up in piggy banks, or in a jar, and they’re not introduced into circulation as fast as, let’s say, a quarter or a dime,” Fesing said.
While the Mint can’t predict the numbers for the end of this year, it has produced almost 1.3 billion coins this year, with almost 800 million being pennies. In 2023, the Mint produced around 5.65 billion coins for the entire year.
Denver, CO
US ambassador visits conflict-ridden Mexican state to expedite avocado inspections
MORELIA, Mexico (AP) — United States Ambassador Ken Salazar praised Mexico’s effort protect American agricultural inspectors in the conflict-ridden state of Michoacan on Monday, a week after the U.S. suspended avocado and mango inspections following an attack on inspectors.
Salazar traveled to the state, plagued by violence linked to organized crime, to meet with state and federal officials.
Earlier this month, two employees of the U.S. Agriculture Department were assaulted and temporarily held by assailants in Mexico’s biggest avocado-producing state, prompting the U.S. government to suspend inspections.
The diplomat told the press that last Friday that Michoacan authorities had agreed to a security plan to restart avocado exports. “We are going to continue working on this,” he added.
The U.S. said that inspections in Michoacan would resume gradually.
Mexico played down the attacks, but President Andrés Manuel López Obrador agreed to work with the United States to guarantee the safety of inspectors.
Many avocado growers in Michoacan say drug gangs threaten them or their family members with kidnapping or death unless they pay protection money, sometimes amounting to thousands of dollars per acre.
There have also been reports of criminal groups trying to sneak avocados grown in other states that are not approved for export through U.S. inspections.
In February 2022, the U.S. government suspended inspections of Mexican avocados for about a week after a U.S. plant safety inspector in Michoacan received a threatening message.
Later that year, Jalisco became the second Mexican state authorized to export avocados to the U.S.
The latest pause won’t stop Michoacan avocados that are already in transit from reaching the U.S.
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