Besides pissing New York officials off, guess what else the latest Census figures are doing? They are showing that non-Hispanic whites are now a minority in the NYC-area, which the NY Times reports, is the "first major metropolitan area" to show such a shift beyond the South or the West. However, it's unclear if these findings will change when NYC demands a recount! more ›

"White, black and Hispanic undergraduates each comprise more than a quarter of the student body, and Asians account for more than 15%," said CUNY Vice Chancellor Gloriana Waters recently. The school loves to boast about its Crayola box student body, but faculty members come mostly in white. At a recent hearing on staff diversity, or the lack thereof, council members complained that of the university's 7,214 faculty members, only 12.3 percent are black, 8.3 percent are Hispanic and 10.5 percent are Asian, reports the Daily News. more ›

An Upper East Side building houses two seemingly segregated elementary schools: one for mostly black and Latino kids, one for mostly white and Asian kids. Since 1959 it's been home to P.S. 198 (aka Straus), a school that serves local children—24 percent are black and 47 percent are Latino. But go in the front door and you'll find yourself in the reportedly "serene" hallways of the Lower Laboratory School (P.S. 77), a gifted and talented program where 69 percent of the student body is white or Asian. The old sign for Straus hangs out front, but kids from that school enter through the back door. more ›

Police stopped and questioned more New Yorkers last year than ever before, and 87 percent of those stopped were black or Latino. The NYPD used the controversial policing technique to question 575,304 people in 2009—an uptick of 8 percent from the short-lived 2008 record of 531,159, according to the Daily News. more ›

After hundreds protested last week as a Department of Education board moved to close 19 under-performing schools, the teachers union and NAACP are filing a lawsuit to reverse the decision. The union will argue that shuttering the schools violates state law because the decision fails to consider impact on the community. The NY NAACP signed on because the closures will hurt minority students, reported AP. But Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein are fighting back—they say the closings are warranted because the schools just aren't performing. more ›

For the first time ever, black, Hispanic and Asian residents of New York City outnumbered their white counterparts at the polls. In what the Times describes as "a seismic political shift," voters who identified themselves as minorities constituted 51 percent of the vote in November's citywide elections, compared to white voters who made up 46 percent of the total. more ›

For the first time ever, black, Latino, and Asian politicians will outnumber white politicians in the City Council. In last night's election, minority candidates secured 28 seats while white candidates won 23, according to the Daily News. Currently in the Council, white politicians outnumber minorities 26 to 25. more ›

Researchers are serving up more explanations as to why two recent reports on the effectiveness of the city’s ground-breaking calorie labeling law appear to contradict one another. The researchers told the Times that differences in focus and size might clarify the discrepancies. more ›

A federal judge ruled that the FDNY's written exams "unfairly excluded hundreds of qualified people of color." Judge Nicholas Garaufis wrote, "These unlawful practices barred over a thousand additional black and Hispanic applicants from consideration for appointment as FDNY firefighters, and unfairly delayed the appointment of hundreds of black and Hispanic firefighters." Back in 2007, the Justice Department joined the Vulcan Society to sue the fire department because many more black and Hispanic candidates failed the exam; at the time, only 7.5% of the FDNY was black and/or Hispanic (while in LA and Philadelphia, fire departments were around 40% black and/or Hispanic). The AP reports, "Garaufis said he must consider remedies to end the discrimination which occurred in written exams given to thousands of firefighter candidates from 1999 to 2007." The city has not decided whether it will appeal the decision. more ›