WASHINGTON /PRNewswire/ — Today the Violence Policy Center (VPC) released When Men Murder Women: A Review of 25 Years of Female Homicide Victimization in the United States. The study analyzes 25 years of data, from 1996 to 2020, from the VPC’s annual report, When Men Murder Women. This year, the VPC was forced to temporarily suspend the state rankings usually contained in the report due to the unreliability of 2021 federal crime data as the result of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s ongoing transition from its Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) Summary Reporting System (SRS) to the new National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). [For an overview of how the problems associated with this switchover have negatively affected data collection and its impact on gun violence research and policy development, please see the new VPC study The Negative Impact of the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) Transition on Gun Violence Research.] As a result, the VPC is only able to offer this 25-year overview of females killed by males, although it is our hope that at some point in the near future we will be able to resume publication of the original report, including its state rankings.

STATE FINDINGS

During When Men Murder Women‘s 25-year publication history, 33 states had rates of females killed by males in single victim/single offender incidents that placed them among the jurisdictions with the 10 highest rates for that given year. During this period, eight states ranked in the top 10 in more than half of the past 25 years: Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Notably, virtually all of these states are southern or southwestern states and the majority have higher rates of household firearm ownership. During this period: 

• Alaska was in the top 10 states for 18 out of the last 25 years and has consistently ranked number one or two among states with the highest rates in the last decade.
  
• Arkansas was in the top 10 states for 14 out of the last 25 years.
  
• Louisiana was in the top 10 states every year with the exception of 2008.
  
• Nevada was in the top 10 states for 23 out of the past 25 years.
  
• New Mexico was in the top 10 states for 13 out of the past 25 years.
  
• Oklahoma was in the top 10 states for 15 out of the past 25 years.
  
• South Carolina was in the top 10 states for 23 out of the past 25 years.
  
• Tennessee was in the top 10 states for 20 out of the past 25 years.

NATIONAL FINDINGS

• A total of 45,817 females were murdered by males in single victim/single offender incidents between 1996 and 2020 as reported to the FBI UCR’s Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR). Of these, 29,503 victims were white (64 percent), 14,038 were Black (31 percent), 1,216 were Asian or Pacific Islander (three percent), and 522 were American Indian/Alaska Native (one percent). Information about race was missing for 538 victims (one percent).
  
• National homicide rates of females killed by males decreased slightly between 1996 and 2014, and then began increasing in 2015.
  
• Rates increased more substantially among Black and American Indian/Alaska Native females compared to other races during this 25-year period. The percentage of Black female victims killed with a gun has increased dramatically in the past decade, from 51 percent in 2011 to 72 percent in 2020.
  
• Most women killed by men knew their killers. Over the past 25 years, 92 percent of female victims knew their male killers.
  
• Among female victims who knew their male killers, 61 percent were murdered by an intimate partner.
  
• Fifty-three percent of female victims killed by males were killed with a firearm, the majority of which were handguns.

Kristen Rand, VPC Director of Government Affairs, states, “While the rate of females killed by males has increased, especially among Black females, we’re now flying blind with respect to how state rates differ. This information gap is broad and deep and impacts researchers, advocates, policymakers, and whole communities as they work to protect women and children from lethal domestic violence.” 

For a PDF version of the study, please visit https://www.vpc.org/studies/wmmw2023.pdf. 

To see previously released editions of When Men Murder Women, please click here.

The Violence Policy Center is a national educational organization working to stop gun death and injury. Follow the VPC on X/Twitter and Facebook.

SOURCE Violence Policy Center

ATLANTA, GA /24-7PressRelease/ — In his role as founding Senior Director of the Constellations Center for Equity in Computing at Georgia Tech and Director of STEM Education Strategy at Google, Dr. Kamau Bobb has become a leading advocate for greater equity in U.S. education. He is speaking out against the recent SCOTUS ruling rejecting race-conscious admissions in higher education, claiming the court’s arguments miss the true reason for affirmative action: justice for the country’s long history of racial discrimination and ongoing segregation in education.

“Diversity is important, but the most compelling reason for race-conscious admissions is justice.”

The Supreme Court based many of its recent affirmative action case arguments on the 1978 Regents of the University of California v. Bakke ruling. But Dr. Bobb argued that the Bakke case’s emphasis on diversity as the end goal of affirmative action misses the mark. “The conservative side is willing, if not seeking, to disavow the reality of, and the national responsibility for, the lingering chains of two and half centuries of slavery and another hundred years of Jim Crow. They want a magic meritocratic America that has only ever been an idea, not a real place. While diversity is the ideological basis of affirmative action dating back to the 1978 Bakke case, and is dominating the public discussion now, it is a secondary goal. Justice is first.”

Dr. Bobb said that in spite of the 1954 Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education case making it illegal to separate kids in public schools on the basis of race, racial segregation continues in education, demanding greater justice. “In Atlanta, there are 10 traditional public high schools in the Atlanta Public School System. In seven of those schools there isn’t a single white student. As of October 2022, all of the nearly 2,000 white students attend only three of the schools, without exception. The other seven serve students of color only. Almost 70 years after Brown, these schools remain “for colored students only”. If we hold to the tenets of the Brown decision, these segregated schools are inherently unequal. Black students who succeed at the highest levels often do so despite public education, not because of it. Race is a factor in their education every step of the way.”

Dr. Bobb said that these inequities are evident at the highest levels of education. “The College of Computing at Georgia Tech, where I am on the faculty, is one of the premier public institutions in the country. Over the last seven years, of all the students earning degrees in computer science at all levels – B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. – only 3 percent have been Black. That, in a city and state that are 50% and 33% Black respectively.”

Dr. Bobb said that while diversity is a noble goal, it is not the primary reason affirmative action is worth pursuing. “Excellent educational institutions like Georgia Tech and those named in the recent Supreme Court case, Harvard and UNC, will continue to do well regardless of their diversity. Diversity is important, but the most compelling reason for race-conscious admissions is justice. The country has not come to terms with its past. The magic meritocracy is untethered from reality and historical truth. Confrontation with the fullness of the American past is the only path to justice. Diversity is merely a derivative of that.”

Dr. Bobb said that in spite of the Supreme Court’s recent blow to the movement for greater racial justice in U.S. education, he will continue his life’s work of advocating for greater equity in education.

Dr. Bobb holds a Ph.D. in Science and Technology Policy from Georgia Tech and an M.S. and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Bobb served as a Program Officer at the National Science Foundation, overseeing $30 million of annual investments earmarked to improve computing and STEM education. In that role, he helped structure the national research agenda for effectively delivering equitable and quality computational education to all students.

Working with members of the Office and Science and Technology Policy in the Obama Administration, Dr. Bobb helped shape the national strategy for STEM education for both post-secondary and secondary schools. He was selected as a member of President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper STEM + Entrepreneurship Taskforce, which helped engage young men and boys of color in STEM opportunities.

To learn more about Dr. Bobb or his work to achieve greater justice and equity in the U.S. education system, visit www.kamaubobb.com.

Kamau Bobb is the Director of STEM Education Strategy at Google and the founding Senior Director of the Constellations Center for Equity in Computing at Georgia Tech.

Source: Georgia Tech

ORANGE, Calif. /PRNewswire/ — Leading civil rights law firm May Jung Law, along with nationally renowned civil rights and personal injury attorney Ben Crump, has filed a putative class action lawsuit against the Orange Unified School District (“OUSD”). This action outlines the numerous alleged constitutional and statutory violations that the OUSD and its employees have perpetrated against minors.

The lawsuit alleges that OUSD disciplines Black and Brown children at 2-3 times the rate of white students. The probability of this deviation occurring by chance is no less than 1-in-70 million. 

The lawsuit also addresses OUSD’s alleged significant violations of fundamental due process, whereby a 14-year-old-boy’s normal interpersonal interactions with his 14-year-old female peers were disciplined as a sexual harassment. Not only was he disciplined for this behavior, he was further punished under the OUSD’s secretive and unpublicized disciplinary processes by being expelled from his high school.

“On a daily basis, we entrust our children’s physical and emotional well-being and safety to our student educators. It is an egregious abuse of power for the OUSD to take that trust and deny our children the most basic and fundamental protections at school because they are children of color and minors who may not know their rights,” said Jessica Meeder, senior counsel at May Jung Law.

The OUSD’s actions and omissions addressed in this lawsuit demonstrate a warped and perverted application of the legitimate efforts and progress that the #MeToo movement has made.

“In the OUSD’s overzealous hunt to impose a ‘Harvey Weinstein narrative’ on a 14-year-old minor, it disregarded the rights of the children it is privileged to protect and its obligations to nurture and develop them,” said Je Yon Jung, partner at May Jung Law.

The attorneys are seeking other Black and Latinx/Hispanic children in the OUSD who may want to be a part of the class action and who were subjected to discipline (i.e., suspension, expulsion, and/or “involuntary placement”), including those subjected to the “Student Success Panel” or “SSP” process.

If you think you or your child may qualify, please call 1-833-MAY-JUNG (629-5864) or visit www.mayjung.com.

ABOUT MAY JUNG LAW

May Jung is dedicated to using the law to make positive changes in the lives of their clients and to address the systemic barriers that stifle our communities’ progress and growth. May Jung lawyers have dedicated their lives to social justice, advocating in the streets and our communities in federal and state courts throughout the United States. For more information, visit www.mayjung.com.

ABOUT BEN CRUMP LAW

Through his work, nationally renowned civil rights and personal injury attorney Ben Crump has spearheaded a legal movement to better protect the rights of marginalized citizens. He has led landscape-changing civil rights cases and represented clients in a wide range of areas including civil rights, personal injury, labor and employment, class actions, and more. Ben Crump Law is dedicated to holding the powerful accountable. For more information, visit www.bencrump.com.

SOURCE May Jung Law Firm