Free Republic

A group of Hispanic illegal immigrants sued seven state colleges and universities yesterday in federal court, claiming the schools denied them admission because of their immigration status. The lawsuit . . . says the schools' presidents and rectors are following ill-conceived legal advice from state Attorney General Jerry W. Gilgore, who last fall issued an opinion recommending that all Virginia colleges deny admission to illegal immigrants and suggeting that admissions officers report potentially illegal applicants to federal authorities. . . Andres Tobar, co-chairman of the Immigrant Legal Rights Coalition, said Mr. Kilgore's policy punishes hundreds of high school students whose...

D.C police officers making routine stops are prohibited from asking people about their immigration status, Metropolitan Police officials said yesterday in a restatement of department policy. "We will leave that to the federal officials," Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said at a briefing to announce new training procedures and a public information campaign about the policy. Chief Ramsey also said that illegal immigrants need to know that reporting a crime does not mean a trip back to their native coutnry and that officers will deliver fair and equal police services to every person within the District. D.C. police officers cannot...

Paul Tagliabue is the spineless commissioner who has issued a $200,000 fine in honor of Johnnie Cochran and the Rev. Shakedown Artist, the bean-counting poets who have been threatening to rhyme th NFL out of existence if it does not go along with their racial blackmail. Matt Millen has been ordered to pay the $200,000 gesture, which is the penalty of love at first sight. Millen was unable to adhere to the NFL's new hiring procedures, as implemented last December, after becoming infatuated with Steve Mariucci following another dismal season. This was an open secret at the time. As the...

LAKE BUENA VISTS, Fla. - Walt Disney World is scaling back its Roman Catholic and Protestant services. After Christmas Day worship this yaer, the theme park said it will no longer hold weekly services, although Christmas and Easter worship will continue. Disney officials said space problems were partly to blame. But the resort's executive also said it no longer seemed fair to hold services for only two faiths when religious diversity in the United States is increasing. Houses of worship surrouding the resort can meet visitors' religious needs, a Disney spokeswoman said. Two Catholic Masses and one nondenominational Protestant service...

What words best describe the families of September 11 victims who are waiting in line for the payday of a lifetime at the expense of American taxpayers and everyone who will have to pay higher insurance premiums ("Terror victims' kin wait for best compensation," The Washington Times, Sept. 18, '02)? Greedy and undeserving. I don't mean to sound unsympathetic to their loss and sorrow, but so far as I am concerned these people just need to get on with rebuilding their lives without crying to the rest of American for unjust support. Let their employers cover the damage with group-...

A police officer filed an $11 million lawsuit claiming Philadelphia running back Brain Mitchell assaulted her and team executives covered it up. Karen Haley claims she was romantically involved with Mitchell for four months and during a date at the player's penthouse apartment in September 2001, she told him she contacted his wife. Mitchell became angry and "put her in a half-nelson, a head lock and shoved her onto the bed and twisted her right arm behind her back," Haley's attorney, Steven S. Melitzky, said. She since underwent surgery on her arm, has been placed on light duty and is...

Naval Academy alumni are critizing the school's acceptance of an 18-year-old from Massachusetts who recently had a run-in with police there. Asa Jearld faced felony charges [including assault with intent to murder] last month after police said he led them on a car chase, fled on foot from an officer and later attempted to file a false report claiming that his car had been stolen. Mr. Jearld, a highly regarded high school student who was senior class vice president and salutatorian in Falmouth, Mass., started school last week at the Naval Academy Preparatory School in Rhode Island, where he will ...

The Rev. Jesse Jackson met with NCAA officials yesterday to develop ways to increse the hiring of minorities as Division I-A footabll coaches. Jackson and members of the sports division of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition met with NCAA president Cedric Dempsey and other officials for about an hour in Indianapolis. "These school that did not consider blacks and Hispanics in searching for a new coach, they violate EEOC rules," Jackson said. "Certainly there's no shortage of qualified AFrican-American football coaches. There's a deficit of opportunity." "Since 1992, there have been 156 football openings at the Division I-A level, and 12 went ...

Click on the upper right hand corner of www.courttv.com to vote on "Should the children in the Idaho standoff be returned to their mother?" and "Has the press treated Jenna Bush fairly?"

New York Giants player Jeremiah Parker and his girlfriend killed her 4-year-old son by subjecting him to "extreme and unusual discipline," a prosecutor said yesterday. Parker, 23, who played at defensive end for the Giants last season, remained in the Passaic County Jail in Haledon, N.J., on $500,000 bail. Tauleah Kelly, the 19-year-old mother of Elijah Kelly, also was being held there on $1 million bail. In an earlier report Acting Passaic County Prosecutor Boris Moczula said the boy had severe bleeding under the skull and diffused brain swelling. He also had bite marks and belt lashes on his body, ...

Since 1995, more than 24 million Americans have participated in the annual TV-Turnoff Week, sponsored by the TV-Turnoff Network. I would like to encourge everybody to get involved this year. Through Sunday, click your remote control to "off." Join a national movement to reclaim the valuable elements that TV displaces, including creativity, productivity, healthy physical activity, civic engagement, reading, thinking and doing. The TV-Turnoff Network, formerly TV-Free America, is a nonprofit organization founded in 1994. The organization's premise is simple: Rather than waiting for others to make better, more responsible television, let's just turn it off and get involved in ...

"Profiling" remains a sticky subject in relations between the police and the public, especially among blacks and Hispanics, who are inclined to view it as discrimination. Profiling means paying special attention to people who fit a certain description associated with the commission of particular crimes. For example, consider young black males driving rental cars between Miami and New York without visible vacation equipment. Various police departments have noticed that drug couriers tend to fit this desription. Consequently they have stopped such people to check them out. Good, bad or indifferent? If you are a young black, legitimately driving a rental, ...

Since the looting and burning in Cincinnati, the mainstream media have mentioned over and over the 15 black men killed by police in that city in recent years. The implication, never so far as I know buttressed with data, has been that the police shootings were unjustified, that they kill blacks for reasons of racism. The media don't say this explicitly. Explicit assertions can be checked. The results would be embarrassing. But you don't have to be explicit, just selective in what you let people know. Merely by mentioning with mournful solemnity the 15 black men who died at the ...

Court TV is running a poll: Do you believe Cincinnati police bear responsibility for recent riots? To vote, click on "vote" in the upper right hand corner, then click on "in the news." There are usually three different polls being conducted.

Court TV is running a poll "Should Congress pass finance reform?" To vote click on the upper right hand corner on "vote," the click on "in the news."

Click on upper right hand corner on Vote.

Click on upper right hand corner on "Vote." Two of the three polls deal with guns. "In the news" asks: "Do you believe stricter gun laws could prevent future school shootings?" Another poll asks about parental responsibility regarding guns.

Orlando, Fla. (AP)-- The Orlando Sentinel's request for the autopsy photos of Dale Earnhardt has brought a torrent of angry calls and e-mail from race fans and prompted an efford by lawmakers to prevent the release of such pictures in future cases. In the past two days, Sentinel Editor Tim Franklin has taken about 3,000 of the almost 7,000 e-mails and calls. Franklin has said repeatedly the newspaper has no intention of publishing the photos but wants to view them so that a head trauma expert can make an independent determination of the cause of death. The Sentinel ran a ...

Click on "Vote" (upper right hand corner), then click on "In the news."

Click on the upper right hand side on "Vote," then click on "In the News." Court TV has three polls going at the same time. The other two questions deal with the Chmura trial.