Education
Students, Prisoners and a Nun: A unique book club meets in one of the largest prisons in the country

CHICAGO (AP) For college student Nana Ampofo, an unconventional book club at one of the nation’s largest prisons modified her profession ambitions.
Every week, the 22-year-old drives a van of her DePaul University peers to the Cook County Jail to speak about books with inmates, most recently with renowned activist Sister Helen Prejean. Ampofo is ready with thought-provoking inquiries to spark conversations in the Chicago jail about the latest books they’ve read together.
One rule of the club is obvious: talking about personal lives is inspired, but questions on why other members are in prison usually are not allowed.
“It’s part of dehumanizing people. You want people to tell you their own story and have their own autonomy,” Ampofo said. “When you go in with an open mind, you see how similar people are to you.”
The student-led volunteer program began a few years ago as an offshoot of a DePaul program that offered students and inmates for credit at a prison on the city’s southwest side. The book club, which a latest group joins each academic quarter, tackles books that personally appeal to the group’s members, who’re almost entirely black or Latino.

Associated Press journalists were allowed into the prison Monday to watch the current club’s final meeting to debate Prejean’s book “Dead Man Walking,” at which a Louisiana anti-death penalty activist made a special appearance. The book, which was also adapted into a film and an opera, tells the story of her experiences as a spiritual advisor to a pair of men on death row in the Eighties.
Seated in a circle in the prison’s window-filled chapel, 10 inmates in brown prison uniforms sat amongst 4 students and Prejean, who visits the Catholic University of Chicago yearly.
Ampofo, who advocated for Prejean’s visit, cried as she talked about how vital the group members and the discussions they’d were to her. Laughter erupted when Prejean told a vulgar joke involving folk characters from the Louisiana swamps. When inmate Steven Hayer discussed why many inmates return to prison, there was no shortage of vehement nods.
“Our society is not investing in solutions,” he said. “And when they come out, they will go back to what they knew.”
Book club members took the opportunity to ask Prejean questions, similar to the differences between the book and the movie and what it’s like to observe people die.
The 85-year-old nun was present at seven executions. Her archival papers are at DePaul, including notes for the script of the 1995 film starring Susan Sarandon.
After seeing her first execution, Prejean said she vomited, but stated that it was a privilege to be with people in their final moments.
“When you witness something, a fire starts burning in your heart, demanding justice, that we need to change this,” she said.

As a white woman who grew up in the South, Prejean said working in a prison opened her eyes to racism.
Most of the book club’s incarcerated members are black, reflecting the demographics of the prison that houses nearly 5,000 inmates. According to Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, about 70% of inmates participate in some type of educational program, similar to a book club.
However, college student participation sets the book club other than other activities.
“When you suddenly have outside students sitting next to you, you start to think about yourself differently,” Dart said. “It changes the mentality.”
Detainees are invited to participate in classes resulting from their interests, he added. He added that their internal behavior determines their ability to affix, not what they’re serving time for. Health issues are also taken into consideration.
There are as many as 40 people on the waiting list to affix the club in prison.
Jarvis Wright, who has been detained in Cook County for 2 years, said he’s a reader but has never been to a book club before. The 30-year-old reads at night when the prison is quiet. Other book club selections included “The Color of Law,” which delves into the issue of residential segregation.
“Even though we’re in jail waiting for our cases to go to trial, it gives us something positive to look forward to,” Wright said. “We’re not just here to waste time.”

Since 2012, DePaul has offered college classes through a nationwide program called Inside-Out Prison Exchange. Classes are held at each the Cook County Jail and the Stateville Correctional Center, a maximum-security men’s prison positioned about 40 miles from Chicago.
There are security guards present during the book club, but no one is in handcuffs.
Helen Damon-Moore, who oversees prison teaching programs at DePaul, says there has never been a security problem.
“Everyone is equal when they’re on the inside,” Damon-Moore said.
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Stanley Allen, a 36-year-old inmate, said he was interested in the club because of its connection to the university. He hopes to take part-time classes in the future. For him, the most surprising part of the club was meeting the students and Prejean.
“There are some really good people there,” he said.
Other book club members say the experience has brought them closer together.
“I feel like I’m talking to a bunch of my brothers,” Clark, a DePaul sophomore from Chicago, told the Group Seven. – The way you talk is so familiar. I feel like at home.”
Ampofo will return to prison at the end of the week, when a latest club specializing in black women’s writing begins. It’s a topic that particularly interests her as the American-born daughter of a Ghanaian immigrant mother.
Ampofo, the first in her family to graduate from highschool, plans to attend graduate school to pursue museum studies. He dreams of improving access to museums for inmates and their families.
“I want to take care of people,” she said. “And I found people I want to take care of.”
Education
The Department of Justice has completed a ten -year school desegregation order. Others are expected to fall

When the Department of Justice raised the order for school desegregation in Louisian this week, officials called his further existence “bad historical” and suggested that others with the Civil Rights Movement must be considered again.
The end of the legal agreement of 1966 with Plaquemines Parish Schools announced on Tuesday shows that Trump’s administration, “re -focusing of America in our bright future,” said the assistant of the Prosecutor General Harmeet Dhillon.
In the Department of Justice, officials appointed by President Donald Trump expressed their desire to withdraw from other desegregation orders, which they perceive as an unnecessary burden on schools, according to a person conversant in the issue that received anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak public.
Dozens of school districts within the south remain as part of contracts enforced by the court, dictating steps in the sector of integration, many years after the Supreme Court limited racial segregation in education. Some perceive the strength of court orders as a sign that the federal government has never eliminated segregation, while officials in Louisiana and in some schools perceive orders as past relics that must be removed.
The Department of Justice opened a wave of matters within the Sixties, after the Congress released the department to follow schools that were based on desegregation. Known as consent decrees, orders may be raised when districts prove that they’ve eliminated segregation and its heritage.

The small district of Louisiana has a long -lasting case of integration
The Trump administration called Plaquemines an example of administrative neglect. It was found that the Delta Delta of the Mississippi River within the south -eastern Louisiana integrated in 1975, however the case was to remain under the view of the court for the subsequent yr. The judge died in the identical yr, and the judicial register “seems to be lost in time,” in accordance with the court application.
“Considering that this case remained for half a century with zero proceedings by the court, parties or any third parties, the parties are satisfied that the United States’s claims were fully resolved,” in accordance with the joint submission of the Department of Justice and the Office of the Prosecutor General Liz Murill.
SUPERINTENDENT Plaquemines Shelley Ritz said that the officials of the Department of Justice still visited yearly in 2023 and asked for data on topics, including employment and discipline. She said that the documentation was a burden for her district lower than 4,000 students.
“These were data compilation hours,” she said.
Louisiana “gained his act ten years ago,” said Leo Terrell, senior adviser to the Civil Rights Department on the Department of Justice, in a statement. He said that the discharge is corrected by historical evil, adding that “the time had been going to recognize how far we have come.”
Murrill asked the Department of Justice to close other school orders in her condition. In a statement she promised cooperation with schools in Louisiana to help them “put the past in the past.”
Activists for civil rights claim that that is the improper move. Many orders have been loosely enforced only in recent many years, but this doesn’t mean that problems have been resolved, said Johnathan Smith, who worked within the Department of Civil Rights of the Department of Justice in the course of the administration of President Joe Biden.
“It probably means the opposite – that the school district remains sorted. In fact, most of these districts are now more sorted than in 1954.” – said Smith, who’s currently the chief of staff and general adviser to the National Center for Youth Law.

Desegregation orders include a number of instructions
According to the files of submitting this yr, over 130 school systems are based on the desegregation orders of the Department of Justice. The overwhelming majority are in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi, with smaller numbers in states equivalent to Florida, Louisiana and South Karolina. Some other districts remain on the premise of separate desegregation agreements with the education department.
Orders may include a number of remedies, from bus requirements to district policy, enabling students in black schools to transfer to the fundamental white. Agreements are between the school district and the US government, but other parties may ask the court to intervene after they resumed signs of segregation.
In 2020, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund referred to the Decree of consent within the Leeds school district in Alabama, when he stopped offering school meals in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Civil Rights Group said that it’s disproportionately harmful to black students, in violation of the desegregation order. The district agreed to resume meals.
Last yr, the school board in Louisiana closed mainly the Black Primary School near the petrochemical institution after NACP Legal Defense and Education Fund said that he disproportionately exposes black students to health threats. The Council made a decision after the group submitted a request to a ten -year desegregation order within the parish of St. John the Baptist.
Closing cases can lead to legal challenges
The release caused alarms amongst some who are afraid that this may occasionally withdraw his many years of progress. Research on districts exempt from orders showed that many have recorded a greater increase in racial segregation compared to those that are subject to court orders.
“In many cases, schools react quite quickly and there are new fears regarding civil rights for students,” said Halley Potter, an older worker of the Century Foundation who studies educational inequality.
The end of orders would cause that desegregation isn’t any longer a priority, said Robert Westley, a professor of anti -discrimination law on the Tulane University Law School in New Orleans.
“It is really a signaling that the deviation that began some time ago is completed,” said Westley. “The United States government no longer cares about dealing with problems of racial discrimination in schools. This is the end.”
Raymond Pierce, president and general director of Southern Education Foundation.
“This is a disregard for education for a large part of America. It is a disregard for America’s need for an educated labor force,” he said. “And it is a disregard for the rule of law.”

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Education
The youngest graduate of FAMU 2025 will cross the scene this spring


Curtis Lawrence III was on the headlines in 2021 as the youngest student who enrolled at HBC Florida A & m University, at the age of 16. Now he will finish this spring at the age of 20. He will receive a bachelor’s degree in biology, announced that he had accomplished Summa Cum Laude.
Lawrence’s academic journey in the range included a rigorous course of the course. He participated in classes at Florida State University and was involved in various campus activities. He plans a master’s degree in biology at the University of Villanova as a presidential member. He strives for a profession in the academic environment, specializing in ecology and evolutionary biology.
Lawrence, from Washington, began his journey to College even earlier. He signed up for George Washington University at the age of 14, after he skipped his younger and senior years in schools without Walls High School. Later He selected the famous HBCU Offers of institutions corresponding to Yale and Harvard, accumulating over $ 1.65 million in Merit scholarships.
Thinking about his time in Fam, Lawrence said: “Four years in which I was here, I did a lot and changed a lot as a person and I am ready to go to the next chapter.”
His parents, Curtis Lawrence Jr. And Malene Lawrence, they expressed great pride of their son’s achievements.
“We are incredibly proud of his perseverance and consistent dedication of perfection,” said Curtis Lawrence Jr. “His journey reminds that it is possible with faith, hard work and support.”
Lawrence’s brother, Corey, also attends FAM and is predicted to graduate in two years, continuing his family’s educational heritage.
FAMU starting ceremony They are scheduled for May 2-3 in the multifunction center Alfred Lawson Jr.
Lawrence’s amazing journey is an inspiration for a lot of. His journey is an example of the impact of dedication, support and commitment to perfection.
(Tagstranslate) Education
Education
Harvard University cancels funds for black studies and other affinity group celebrations

This 12 months, the graduation season may look different at Harvard University. This week, the institution of the Ivy League announced that the university will now not be visible or financed by the affiliate group celebrations in the course of the weekend weekend in the sunshine of the US Education Department at Dei.
In E -Mail sent to student affinity groups on Monday afternoon, the university stated that these groups would now not receive “financing, staff or space for affinity celebration.”
“Harvard remains involved in building a community in which people who bring a wide range of origin, experiences and perspectives to learn, develop and develop, and equally involved in compliance with the law,” said spokesman for the University of Jason A. Newton, on Harvard Crimson.
E -Mail continued: “We are ready to answer questions or fears during this passage.”

Harvard was one among the many colleges that received federal financing from the US Education Department, if he didn’t meet the tickets of the Trump administration to dismantle the range, equality and inclusion initiatives. After the President of Harvard University, Alan M. Garber, revealed the refusal of the University of Trump’s demands, Ivy League was still fighting the threats related to freezing funds for many billion dollars from the US Education Department.
During the start of 2024, Harvard hosted 10 affinity ceremonies for Arabs, black, native, Latinówka, the primary generation, low -income graduates, Asian, Pacific Islander and Desi. In response to this message, Harvard’s Black Alumni Society began a campaign to lift funds in the quantity of USD 50,000 to finance the Black Graduation ceremony in 2025.
“This is an unfortunate message, but HBA will continue to focus their energy and resources on the protection of the experience of black students,” said the We -Mail organization for graduates. “Your contribution, regardless of the size, will directly strengthen their current students and ensure these important aspects of their Harvard travel will remain intact.”
When universities attempt to take a break from these mandates to dismantling Dei, NAACP filed a lawsuit against the Education Department of anti-dei orders. Derrick Johnson, president and general director of NAAC, described the department’s orders as “a gross distortion of reality that tries to remove the live experiences of millions of black and brown children in this country.”
“The Education Department, for the task of responsibility for the protection of civil rights of all children, instead claims that system racism does not exist – effectively sanctioning discrimination itself, that our regulations regarding civil rights have been designed to prevent”, Johnson added “meanwhile, children in color consistently take part in segregated, chronically uncomposed schools, by which they receive less educational opportunities by which they receive less educational and greater opportunities by which they receive less Discipline doesn’t deny them the reality – that is replaced by our request.

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