History

UCLA Settles Lawsuit With Graduate Students Alleging Title IX Violations

UCLA settled a lawsuit Thursday that was filed by two graduate students who claimed they were sexually harassed by professor Gabriel Piterberg. According to a UCLA statement, the UC Board of Regents agreed to pay one student $350,000 and the other student $110,000. They will also provide one of the students with a dissertation year fellowship in her final year of graduate school.




Loretta Lynch Announces Lawsuit Against NC Bathroom Bill

On Monday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced that the DOJ has filed suit against the state of North Carolina over HB 2, which seeks to protect citizens from being intruded upon by transgenders in the restrooms by dictating they can only use the bathroom of their biological sex. In her press announcement, Lynch denounced the law as “state-sponsored discrimination” that denies transgenders …


DNA Testing Is Shedding Light on Centuries of African American Historical Trauma

In a 2002 class-action lawsuit against companies that built wealth off slaves, the court demanded that the plaintiffs prove they were descendant from former slaves. The plaintiffs used genetic testing to prove their relationship to different nation groups in Africa. Alondra Nelson, dean of social science at Columbia University, explored the cultural and political meaning of DNA testing in her latest book The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation after the Genome, published earlier this year.