Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Racial disparities in America’s criminal justice system will be the focus of two events held in Cedar Falls and Waterloo on Monday.Ryan King, a policy analyst for the Washington, D.C.-based Sentencing Project, will discuss “Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System: How America has Failed to Ensure Equality under the Law,” on Monday at the University of Northern Iowa and during a community forum held in Waterloo.
The UNI lecture will be held at 3 p.m. April 14 at Seerley Hall 212 in Cedar Falls. The Waterloo meeting will be held at 6 p.m. at Payne AME Church, 1044 Mobile St.
King will provide an overview of race and sentencing and the role that “structural racism” plays in perpetuating racial inequities during the free events, which are open to the public.
Iowa tops the nation for imprisoning blacks at a rate that is 13.6 times that of whites, according to the Sentencing Project.
“Obviously, there are concerns about this issue throughout the community,” said Kent Sandstrom, UNI professor and head of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminology in a press release.
“We thought it would be timely to bring a speaker who could talk about why those rates are occurring. We also thought it would be helpful to bring a speaker who could help the university and community to work together to increase awareness about racial disparities in sentencing and to develop strategies to address this problem,” he said. “In the process, we hope to build a stronger partnership between the African-American community, UNI and the criminal justice system.”
The event is sponsored by the UNI Public Policy Program, UNI Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminology, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Social Action, Inc., Faith Temple Baptist Church and Payne AME Church.
The Sentencing Project is a national group working for criminal justice system reforms.
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