Philly paying millions to resolve allegations of police misconduct
Source: Getty
The City of Philadelphia has began to settle more than 300 lawsuits that were against a Philadelphia police narcotics team. In addition, the city will settle police misconduct lawsuits.
According to a city bond document, just three well known instances could cost the city almost $24 million. The city has also settled 75 cases paying more than $2 million against the police narcotics squad.
Conyers steps down as ranking member of Judiciary Committee amid sexual harassment investigation
Source: Bill Clark / Getty
Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, has stepped down as ranking member of House Judiciary Committee after a congressional investigation into sexual harassment and workplace misconduct by his former campaign staffers.
In a statement Conyers exclaimed, “I deny these allegations, many of which were raised by documents reportedly paid for by a partisan alt-right blogger.”
According to documents obtained by BuzzFeed News, it was revealed that earlier this month that one unidentified staffer received a $27,000 settlement from Congress for wrongful dismissal in 2015.
“I very much look forward to vindicating myself and my family before the House Committee on Ethics,” said Conyers.
It’s not the mayor’s responsibility to provide a good education for children of color. It’s parents’ responsibility
Source: Gilbert Carrasquillo / Getty
By: Solomon Jones
In June 2018, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney will take over our city’s schools by appointing a nine-member school board to replace the state-controlled School Reform Commission.
In doing so, the mayor will become directly accountable for a $2.9 billion school system that has underserved Philadelphia’s children for decades. And while I laud the mayor for his willingness to take this on, I have a message for Philadelphia’s parents.
The ongoing battle over education in Philadelphia is not the mayor’s to fight. It’s ours.
That’s why School District parents like me must go into this new era with a clear understanding of this indisputable fact: When a politician gains control of a $2.9 billion budget, his friends and campaign contributors will line up for their share of the bounty. As parents, as Philadelphians, as the taxpayers whose dollars fund the system, we must make sure that our interests come before theirs.
That means parents, and not the mayor, are accountable for making sure that the lion’s share of the $2.9 billion goes toward funding our children’s educations, and not toward enriching suburban contractors who don’t employ Philadelphians of color.
Why does race matter? It matters because 86 percent of the district’s students are children of color. It matters because the majority of Philadelphia’s inhabitants are people of color. It matters because systemic and ongoing discrimination has pushed black and brown children into inferior Philadelphia schools for decades.
Black students knew that in 1967, when 3,000 of them left city classrooms and marched to the Board of Education to demonstrate for equal education. The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission knew it in the early 1970s, when it sued the district in an effort to force desegregation. Judge Doris Smith-Ribner knew it in 1992, when she found that the District was “failing or refusing to provide … a quality education to children attending racially isolated minority schools.”
