Human Rights

July 5, 2005 - As you probably heard, Richard Scrushy was last week found not guilty of criminal charges in the billion-dollar HealthSouth accounting fraud scandal. Scrushy, feeling vindicated, has said he would like to work again at the company he founded.

July 5, 2005 - A big congrats to Al McSurely, local civil rights lawyer and long-time friend of the Institute for Southern Studies, for recently winning the national NAACP's William Robert Ming Advocacy Awar

June 27, 2005 - The Hillsborough County (Fla.) commission recently voted "not to acknowledge, promote or participate in gay pride events." Right after the July 15 vote, two gay literature displays in the Tampa public library were taken down (a similar display at another library was taken down before the vote).

June 20, 2005 - Just when the 13 Republican Senators who declined to co-sponsor the Senate's lynching apology resolution last week thought it was safe to poke their heads above the political parapet -- maybe a lazy June weekend would cause folks to forget?

June 14, 2005 - I didn't intend to follow this story so closely, but you reach a point of no return.... Anyhow, the day in lynching news ends in confusion, as senators scramble to make excuses or claim they supported the resolution even if they're not listed anywhere.

June 14, 2005 - See The Carpetbagger Report on the anti-lynching resolution's chief Republican sponsor, George Allen (R-VA), who "started his career by keeping a Confederate flag and a noose in his law office." He has also called the NAACP an "extremist group" and, as governor of Virginia, issued a Confederate History

June 13, 2005 - Today the excellent Center for Responsible Lending -- based here in Durham, N.C. -- announced a major court victory out of Georgia in the ongoing battle to rein in predatory bankers, especially pay-day lending operations.

June 9, 2005 - The SEC lawsuit against HealthSouth for accounting fraud has been settled, the company agreeing to pay the government $100 million, less than a sixth of its annual cash flow.

June 7, 2005 - We're a little late in posting it, but the Raleigh News & Observer ran a good story on Sunday about how Durham is grappling with the cross burnings in the city two weeks ago.

June 6, 2005 - Yesterday, media flocked to a story that, as the Associated Press reports, "Federal agents raided a migrant farm labor camp where homeless men and women were kept in what labor officials called a version of modern-day slavery."