Please join KLRU for an important discussion on race and college admissions.
Date: Tuesday, June 25th Time: 7 pm (Doors open at 6:45 pm) Location: KLRU’s Studio 6A RSVP: Event is free but RSVP is required. Please RSVP here
The documentary Admissions On Trial: Seven Decades of Race and Higher Education provides background and context to help understand the case of Fisher v University of Texas– what’s being debated, why the case was brought and how universities currently use race in the admissions process.
On Tuesday, June 25th, Evan Smith will lead experts in a discussion revolving around the repercussions of Fisher v. Texas at the University of Texas and across the United States. Featured on the panel will be Justice Steven Wayne Smith. Smith represented Cheryl Hopwood in her successful suit against The University of Texas. Her case led to the Top 10% law and eliminated the use of race in admissions in the Fifth Circuit for nearly a decade. Other panelists include an admissions officer and law professor Gerald Torres, a leading figure in critical race theory.
The panel discussion will take place in KLRU studio 6A at 7pm. RSVP now
Sometime before June 30th, the US Supreme Court will issue a decision in a case called Fisher v. University of Texas – one of the most-watched cases of the term. Interest is high because the case addresses the role of race in university admissions, and has the potential to end affirmative action programs at universities nationwide.
Admissions On Trial: Seven Decades of Race and Higher Education provides background and context to help understand the Fisher case – what’s being debated, why the case was brought and how universities currently use race in the admissions process. Viewers learn about the Fisher case through interviews with key players at the heart of this debate. And they discover the deep roots of this story, beginning in 1946 – eight years before Brown v. Board of Education – when an early civil rights pioneer named Heman Sweatt began his fight to integrate graduate programs at The University of Texas and at other segregated schools across the South. Viewers will also trace the story from the 1940s through Fisher, learning about how the university slowly integrated, why the race-neutral Top 10% rule emerged here, why UT began considering race again and what the experience of university officials here might mean for other schools nationwide.
We interviewed activists, lawyers, students, university officials, admissions experts and people who remember segregation in Texas. We visit a tiny rural school, a Dallas school that began as an African-American school during Jim Crow, and a big suburban school where competition for grades is tough. We also get an inside look at the holistic review process, as an admissions official from Georgetown University walked us through some applications and discusses how he makes decisions about who to admit.
If you’re still interested in learning more, you can hear the oral arguments in Fisher at here, you can read the Fisher briefs and commentary at here, you can learn about admissions at The University of Texas at here, you can hear from Abigail Fisher on the Project on Fair Representation’s website here, you can learn about some other efforts to end government use of race here, you can see President Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 speech at Howard University here, you can see more film from the 1963 demonstrations in Austin here and you can learn more about Heman Sweatt’s case here and here.
Admissions on Trial: Seven Decades of Race and Higher Education, airing Thursday, May 30th at 9 pm and Sunday, June 2, at 1:30 pm, takes an in-depth look at the debate over how universities choose their students.
For many schools, race is a factor in that process – a “plus” that can help determine who is admitted, and who is rejected. A Supreme Court case called Fisher v Texas could soon end the use of race in admissions nationwide. Understanding that issue means understanding the admissions process, and the history behind it. The story begins in 1946, when The University of Texas was closed to African-Americans. It continues in the 1990s, when the use of race was banned, and into the past decade, when it returned. The documentary also looks to the future, where lessons learned at The University of Texas could serve as a model for race-blind admissions nationwide.
Hear from activists, lawyers, university leaders, students, admissions officials and people who fought segregation. They discuss what diversity means, whether it matters, and how we should – and shouldn’t – be able to seek it.
Civic Summit: Why Bother? Austin After 10-1
Date: Tuesday, April 23
Time: taping begins promptly at 7:00pm (Doors at 6:30pm)
Location: KLRU’s Studio 6A (2504-B Whitis Austin, TX 78712 map)
RSVP: Attendance is free, but RSVP is required. RSVP Now
Why Bother? an ongoing dialogue on civic engagement, takes an in-depth look at how the change to Austin City Council’s governing structure will impact voters. Experts and community members from across the city meet to discuss issues that are most important to them, to try to figure out how 10 separate districts will reconcile their differences once the new council is elected.
Sponsored by the Strauss Institute for Civic Life, KLRU, and KUT, this event is part of Why Bother? Engaging Texans in Democracy Today, a news and public dialogue series intended to provoke a conversation among regular people about why Texas has one of the lowest rates of civic engagement in the world, and what we can do about it.
A new documentary produced by KLRU and journalist Lynn Boswell will explore questions of fairness, equality and what those words mean in university admissions nationwide.
To help fund production of this film, we are asking you to support our Indiegogo campaign. The goal of $25,000 will help with costs associated with travel, fact checking, research and use of archival materials. Funds raised through this campaign will directly support the production of this documentary.
There are great perks to thank you for your donation including an advance screening, panel & reception, as well as a private dinner. Supporting this effort shows you support quality journalism and public media.
Share, like and tweet about this project! More information can be found on our Indiegogo page.
Please join KLRU’s Overheard with Evan Smith for an interview with Christopher Hayes
Date: March 11 Time: 12:15pm (Doors open at 11:45am) Location: KLRU’s Studio 6A (map) RSVP: The event is free but an RSVP is required. RSVP now
Christopher Hayes is contributor and Editor at Large for The Nation and host of the MSNBC show Up w/ Chris Hayes, Saturday and Sundays at 7. Hayes is a former Fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Time, The New Republic, The Guardian and The Chicago Reader, among other publications. His book, Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy, was published in June of 2012. Hayes is in Austin to sign copies at the SX Bookstore.
We hope you’ll be there as Overheard with Evan Smith continues its third season of great conversation with fascinating people, always on the news and always with a sense of humor. The show features in-depth interviews with a mix of guests from politics, the arts, literature, journalism, business, sports and more, and reaches PBS viewers from California to Florida. We’d love to see you in the studio for the interview, and for a chance to join the audience Q&A after the interview.
As part of PBS’s After Newtown initiative, we asked our viewers how KLRU should respond to the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. An overwhelming number of you wanted us to focus on access to mental health care. KLRU will also feature this video during Need To Know on Feb. 22.
NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, is dedicated to education, early detection and advocacy for people who suffer from mental illness. According to the group’s numbers, “one in 10 children struggles with mental illness severe enough to cause significant impairment to their day-to-day lives,” and only half of those children receive treatment. NAMI aims to diagnose these cases early, by working with teachers and parents to teach them how to identify and deal with symptoms.
NAMI Austin President Adrienne Kennedy joined us in studio for a conversation about what her organization does, and what sorts of resources are available to people living in Central Texas.
NAMI is hosting a Capitol Day on February 28 at the Texas State Capitol. Lawmakers will speak, lunch will be served, and an afternoon rally will take place on the South Steps. You can find more information about Capitol Day on their website namiaustin.org.
Please join KLRU’s Overheard with Evan Smith for an interview with Mayor Kasim Reed
Date: February 26 Time: 10:15am (Doors open at 9:45am) Location: in KLRU’s Studio 6A (map) RSVP: The event is free but an RSVP is required. RSVP now
Kasim Reed is Mayor of Atlanta and a rising star in the Democratic Party. He was elected in 2009 to his first term, and was a key surrogate for the Obama Administration during the 2012 presidential election. Prior to becoming mayor, Reed served in the Georgia General Assembly for 11 years. He is in town for the Texas Legislative Black Caucus Summit.
We hope you’ll be there as Overheard with Evan Smith continues its third season of great conversation with fascinating people, always on the news and always with a sense of humor. The show features in-depth interviews with a mix of guests from politics, the arts, literature, journalism, business, sports and more, and reaches PBS viewers from California to Florida. We’d love to see you in the studio for the interview, and for a chance to join the audience Q&A after the interview.
PBS and KLRU will air a week-long series of programming on school violence, mental illness and security issues on Feb. 18-22. PBS NewsHour, Washington Week, Frontline, Nova and other PBS shows will include special coverage on these topics. KLRU will feature an interview with members of Austin’s National Alliance on Mental Illness during Need To Know on Feb. 22. Need To Know airs at 7:30 pm Fridays and the complete local interview will be featured online.
Other special After Newtown coverage includes:
After Newtown: Guns In Americaat 8 pm Feb. 19
AFTER NEWTOWN: GUNS IN AMERICA is an unprecedented exploration of America’s enduring relationship with firearms. From the first European settlements in the New World to frontier justice; from 19th-century immigrant riots to gangland violence in the Roaring Twenties; from the Civil War to civil rights, guns have been at center of our national narrative. Americans have relied on guns to sustain communities, challenge authority and keep the peace. Efforts to curtail their distribution and ownership have triggered epic political battles. This program traces the evolution of guns in America, their frequent link to violence and the clash of cultures that reflect competing visions of our national identity.
Frontline: Raising Adam Lanza at 9 pm Feb. 19
In the wake of the mass killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, FRONTLINE investigates a young man and the town he changed forever. Adam Lanza left behind a trail of death and destruction, but little else. He left no known friends, no diary. He destroyed his computer and any evidence it might have provided. His motives, and his life, remain largely a mystery. In collaboration with The Hartford Courant, FRONTLINE looks for answers to the central-and so far elusive-question: who was Adam Lanza? Also this hour: In the aftermath of the tragedy, President Obama called for a national conversation about guns in America. Nowhere is that conversation more intense than in Newtown, where FRONTLINE finds a town divided and explores how those closest to the tragedy are now wrestling with our nation’s gun culture and laws.
NOVA: Mind of a Rampage Killer at 8 pm Feb. 20th
What makes a person walk into a theater or a church or a classroom full of students and open fire? What combination of circumstances compels a human being to commit the most inhuman of crimes? Can science in any way help us understand these horrific events and provide clues as to how to prevent them in the future? As the nation tries to understand the tragic events at Newtown, NOVA correspondent Miles O’Brien separates fact from fiction, investigating new theories that the most destructive rampage killers are driven most of all, not by the urge to kill, but the wish to die. Could suicide and the desire to go out in a media-fueled blaze of glory be the main motivation? How much can science tell us about a brain at risk for violence? Most importantly, can we recognize dangerous minds in time — and stop the next Newtown?
Path To Violenceat 9 pm Feb. 20th
Ever since the wake-up call that was Columbine, schools and law enforcement have developed multiple strategies to prevent attacks. Indeed, the horror of Newtown needs to be seen in a context that’s not defined by defeat. Remarkably, more than 120 school assaults have been thwarted in the past ten years. But, while security hardware and physical barriers can play a deterrent role, it’s been psychologists working hand in hand with law enforcement officers who have come up with the most helpful tools to prevent violent attacks. The Path to Violence tells the story of a powerfully effective Secret Service program – the Safe School Initiative – that’s helped schools detect problem behavior in advance. Yet, despite the progress made, recent attacks reveal a gaping hole in our safety net. Shooters like Adam Lanza, Jared Loughner and James Holmes all executed their attacks after they’d left their respective schools. In such cases, parents may be the first and only line of defense parents who are terrified of their own children and who receive inadequate help from the mental health and legal systems. Can the hard-won gains made by social psychologists and law enforcement be extended to encompass the parents and families of some of the nation’s most violent individuals? Further, is the country ready to have a national conversation about the balance between school safety and civil liberties that any such interventions – including gun control – require?
On January 21st at 10am, tune into PBS NewsHour on KLRU-TV for live coverage of President Obama’s second inauguration and the entire day’s events. Both will be available to watch on air and on online at newshour.pbs.org.
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