By Mark O’Brien
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

WASHINGTON, United States — For the first time since 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday considered the role affirmative action and racial diversity should play in the admissions policies of colleges and universities.

The case revolves around the University of Texas and its efforts to reach a “critical mass” of underrepresented, minority students.  Abigail Fisher, a white applicant, contended the university admitted less qualified minority students over her.

According to Bloomberg News, the practice at the University of Texas is to admit three-quarters of its entering class based on high school rank, ensuring admission to top performers at predominantly black and Hispanic schools.  For the rest of the freshman class, race is a factor in admission.  Fisher’s lawyers argued race should not be considered for this last quarter of enrollees because the class-rank method is already successful.

The central issue in the case, according to questioning by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, is “[W]hen do we stop deferring to the university’s judgment that race is still necessary?” she asked.  “That’s the bottom line of this case.”

According to New York Times reporter Adam Liptak, the questioning was particularly focused.  He reported that Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose vote likely would determine the outcome, asked questions indicative of “discomfort with at least some race-conscious admissions programs.”

“What you’re saying is what counts is race above all,” Kennedy said with regard to the University of Texas’s efforts to enroll privileged minorities.

Liptak reported that Kennedy then asked whether the university’s racial preferences violated the constitution, before proposing to answer his own question.

“Are you saying that you shouldn’t impose this hurt, this injury, for so little benefit?” he asked.

Among those in the gallery watching the oral arguments was retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.  She wrote the majority opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger, the 2003 case that upheld the use of race in the University of Michigan’s law school admissions practices because colleges had an interest in promoting diversity and avoiding isolation by reaching a “critical mass” of minority students.

Todd Gillman of the Dallas Morning News reported that “Justice Stephen Breyer expressed concern that if the court overturns the Grutter precedent, then it would be left to craft new guidelines for countless college admissions officers to interpret, with thousands of lower court judges looking over their shoulders.”

Affirmative action has been widely used at colleges and universities since the civil rights era in the 1960s in order to integrate predominately white campuses.  Most schools now consider race in admissions, but some predict that might change soon.

“It’s just a matter of time before the use of race is restricted [or] prohibited,” former University of California Board of Regents member Ward Connerly told Bloomberg News.  He led a successful effort to stop the use of race at public institutions in California.

Justice Elena Kagan is not taking part in the case because of her role as the Obama Administration’s brief filed in this case at the appeals court level.

For further information, please see:

Bloomberg News — Racial Balance at Risk as Supreme Court Hears Texas Plan — 10 October 2012

Dallas Morning News — Supreme Court Hears Arguments over Use of Race in Deciding UT Admissions — 10 October 2012

The Huffington Post — Fisher v. University of Texas: Supreme Court Takes Up Affirmative Action — 10 October 2012

The New York Times — A Changed Court Revisits Affirmative Action in College Admissions — 10 October 2012

The Christian Science Monitor — Supreme Court: If Affirmative Action Is Banned, What Happens at Colleges? — 10 October 2012

By Mark O’Brien
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Unknown gunmen killed a second human rights lawyer in as many days last week, according to a progressive blog on human rights abuses.

World War 4 Report reported that gunmen shot and killed Eduardo Manuel Diaz Mazariegos, who was a Honduran Public Ministry prosecutor in the country’s southern department of Choluteca.  The blog reported Mazariegos’s background included criminal and human rights cases.

Mazariegos’s killing on Sept. 24 came two days after another lawyer was killed at a wedding near the capital of Tegucigalpa.  Antonio Trejo Cabrera, whom the BBC described as “a prominent lawyer who represented peasants in disputes with large land owners,” was shot and killed after he stepped outside the church to answer a phone call.

“We asked the police and the prosecutor’s office for protection, and they never responded,” said Enrique Flores Lanza of the Honduran Bar Association.

Cabrera’s family said he had asked for government protection because of safety concerns, including various threats.

“Nobody cared,” his brother, Rigoberto, told the Associated Press.

Cabrera had said before his death that if he were killed, billionaire Miguel Facusse—one of Honduras’s richest men—would be responsible, according to the AP.  Facusse owns Dinant Corporation, one of the landowners in disputes with peasant cooperatives represented by Cabrera.

“Even though we had differences with [Cabrera], we mourn his death,” said Dinant Executive Director Roger Pineda, who denied that Facusse was behind Cabrera’s death.

The AP also reported that the U.S. Embassy was helping Honduran investigators piece together what happened.  According to an anonymous source, the help included “a U.S. law enforcement advisor already embedded with a specially vetted unit of Honduran police.”

The two murders brought the total number of prosecutors killed since 1994 to seven, according to World War 4 Report.  But statistics from the Honduran Bar Association showed 74 lawyers have been killed in a little more than the past three years, with little response from authorities.

United Nations special rapporteurs called the attacks on human rights defenders “totally unacceptable.”

“It is imperative that the government establishes a national protection program for human rights defenders as soon as possible,” said UN Special Rapporteur Margaret Sekaggya, who met with Cabrera during a visit to Honduras in February.  Sekaggya said Cabrera, who was active in the media denouncing abuses by landowners and politicians, repeatedly received death threats because of his work.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has called on Honduras to combat impunity for crimes against lawyers and journalists, which she said is thriving in a “menacing climate of insecurity and violence in Honduras.”

“It is essential that the people who commit these crimes are brought to justice,” she said.  “Failure to do so will only exacerbate what is already a dire situation.”

For further information, please see:

United Nations News Centre — UN Experts Voice Shock at Killing of Prominent Rights Defender in Honduras — 1 October 2012

World War 4 Report — Honduras: Second Human Rights Attorney Murdered — 1 October 2012

United Nations News Centre — Honduras: UN Official Urges Action to Tackle Chronic Insecurity for Lawyers, Journalists — 26 September 2012

The Washington Post — US Aiding Honduran Authorities in Assassination of Prominent Human Rights Lawyer — 24 September 2012

BBC News — Antonio Trejo, Honduras Rights Lawyer, Killed at Wedding — 23 September 2012

By Mark O’Brien
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

WASHINGTON, United States — New guidelines from the U.S. Homeland Security Department mean immigration agents can consider an undocumented immigrant’s same-sex relationship in deciding whether to pursue deportation.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a memo to Congressional members on Thursday that gay and lesbian partners in committed relationships are now considered family members when it comes to immigration policy.  Under the Obama Administration’s “prosecutorial discretion” initiative unveiled last summer, agents have leeway in taking certain factors—such as family members—into account when deciding who should be deported.

“In an effort to make clear the definition of the phrase ‘family relationships,’ I have directed [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] to disseminate written guidance to the field that the interpretation of the phrase ‘family relationships’ includes long-term, same-sex partners,” Napolitano wrote.

Supporters of the change called the new policy a turning point that shows the government intent is not to split families up through deportation.

“It will mark the very first time that lesbian and gay couples have been recognized within immigration policy for relief,” said Steve Ralls, a spokesperson Immigration Equality, which advocates for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender immigrants.

Relationships would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and the move only grants a potential reprieve from deportation.  It does not grant same-sex couples an automatic stay, nor does it let them file petitions for legal residency and citizenship, as it does for immigrants with opposite-sex couples.

“It’s not equal access to green cards, which is what we really need,” said Immigration Equality Executive Director Rachel Tiven.  “But it’s certainly another building block.”

The change was prompted by requests from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan).  They and other members of Congress said same-sex couples should not have their families needlessly torn apart.

There are an estimated 29,000 same-sex couples nationwide involving a U.S. citizen and an immigrant, according to The Williams Institute, a think-tank based at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Opponents say the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage in the United States as between one man and one woman, should prohibit same-sex couples from applying for immigration benefits.

The Obama administration has stopped defending DOMA, but that has not stopped the issue from being played out in court.  Newsday reported on Friday that a Long Island couple was among several who filed a lawsuit in April to have their immigration petitions recognized.

It was unclear Friday how DOMA might affect the new immigration policy.

For further information, please see:

The International Business Times — Same-Sex Relationships Can Help Undocumented Immigrants Avoid Deportation — 28 September 2012

Newsday — Deportation Cases to Consider Gay Couples — 28 September 2012

USA Today — Gay Couples Could Get Reprieve in Deportation Cases — 28 September 2012

The Washington Times — DHS Grants Gay Partners Discretion in Deportation Cases — 28 September 2012

By Mark O’Brien
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

MEXICO CITY, Mexico — Activists and politicians questioned the probe of a local politician’s assassination this week, calling the lead investigator too biased to do the job.

Members of the Citizen Movement for Water and politicians in the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) cast doubt on the ability of the top prosecutor in the northern border state of Sonora to be objective.

The prosecutor, Carlos Navarro Sugich, has blamed the killing of Eduardo Castro Luque, a state legislator-elect, entirely on Luque’s designated substitute.

“We don’t trust the investigation is taking in consideration all different motives,” said Alberto Vizcarra, a spokesperson for the water group, which has asked federal prosecutors to take over the case.

The group’s members called Luque a strong opponent of a controversial water project that would move billions of gallons of water from the farming city of Ciudad Obregon to the state capital of Hermosillo.  The aqueduct was a focus during Luque’s campaign, and he criticized the state governor for violating judicial orders in building the project.

“You should never rule out motives, especially in the case of a politician,” Vizcarra said.

Luque was shot six times by outside his home by a motorcyclist on Sept. 14, two days before he was expected to take office.  He was a PRI member, the same party of President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto, who takes office in December.

On Monday, state prosecutors announced the killing was staged by Manual Fernandez Felix, who ran with Luque as the person who would fill the legislative seat if Luque could not fulfill his duties.  They said Felix wanted to take over the seat.  Police had questioned Felix but released him, and he is now considered a fugitive.

But PRI members argued the alleged motive does not make sense.  Local PRI Chairman Adrian Manjarrez said Felix had to be persuaded to replace Luque.

“When this all happened, his parents told us they didn’t want him to take office because they were scared something would happen to him, too,” Manjarrez said.

Luque’s death marked the second killing of a PRI legislator in as many weeks.  On Sept. 16, Jaime Serrano Cedillo died from stab wounds that prosecutors said were inflicted by his wife.

Cedillo represented the Mexico City suburb of Nezahualcoytl.  His killing prompted the Mexican government to send more than 1,000 soldiers and police into Nezahualcoytl for the first time as part of an effort to combat a rise in drug violence.

For further information, please see:

Hispanically Speaking News — Mexican Politician Killed by Fellow PRI Member — 25 September 2012

The Washington Post — Water-rights Activists Question Prosecutor Theory on Slaying of Mexican State Legislator-Elect — 25 September 2012

The Huffington Post — Mexican Legislator Killed by Political Rival — 24 September 2012

Hispanically Speaking News — Mexican PRI Lawmaker Stabbed to Death by Wife — 22 September 2012

Reuters — Mexico Deploys Troops to Outskirts of Mexico City — 20 September 2012