T he C hronicle
April 11, 2019
FORUM
A7
Dollars for scholars has taken on a new meaning - and it isn’t good Dr. James B. Ewers Jr.
Guest Columnist I often wonder what half-baked schemes people are cooking up to hoodwink the public. A companion thought is, do they go to bed or wake up thinking about some way to trick people and to make some cash. I have an inquiring mind and I want to know. Have all the ideas to fleece people out of money been exhausted? The answer is an overwhelming ‘No.!’ Now some will think I am behind the times, but this college admissions scandal has me
floored. I am on the floor laughing and saddened at the same time. This fiasco really hits me in my ethical gut. You see, one of the positions I held in my professional life was that of an admissions director. Along with my team, we admitted students to college. We travelled to college fairs and high schools to engage students in their quest for a higher education. Transcript in-take, meeting with students, parents and guidance counselors were all a part of my position description. After the college letters were received, I, along with my associates, fielded telephone calls of both joy and pain. We also hosted parents and students who wanted to take tours and to see our facilities. Unfortu-
nately, rejection was a part of the process as well. In today’s millennial terms, some students wanted a re-do. William “Rick” Singer, an “education” consultant was the head of a heist to get students into college illegally. These students were getting into college under false pretenses, using athletic and academic scholarships as their pathway. Take for example the case of Gordon Caplan. He is a lawyer who lives in Greenwich, Connecticut. Mr. Caplan decided to pay Rick Singer $75,000 to a charity that he controls to have someone take the ACT for his daughter. By the way, a perfect score on the ACT is 36. Gordon Caplan last week pleaded guilty in a
Boston, Massachusetts Federal Court. He said, “I take full and sole responsibility for my conduct and I am deeply ashamed of my behavior and my actions.” He should be embarrassed for casting this negative light on his family. Will his daughter attend college? That question will be answered soon. Do you remember the nighttime soap opera, “Desperate Housewives?” One of the stars of the show was Felicity Huffman. Well, it appears that Ms. Huffman was desperate to get her daughter into college. So much so that she paid Singer $15,000 to have someone take the SAT for her daughter. A perfect score on the SAT is 1600. There are 33 parents who have been charged in
this admissions scandal. The common thread of those charged is that they are all wealthy. These are all rich people, so tossing out big money for a test is small potatoes. It seems to me they think because they are rich, they are entitled as well. We apply to get in and they buy their way in! Money, no matter how much you have, can’t buy you happiness and contentment. Some in this backhanded deed had their kids pose for athletic scholarship pictures. Mind you, these are scholarships they didn’t earn. I would say that the careers of Huffman and Lori Loughlin, another star, have taken a serious if not terminal hit. Now they will have to use some of their money to pay for lawyers
to keep them out of jail. Whenever you try to get success you didn’t earn or deserve, it never works out well. This admissions carnage should serve as a cautionary tale to higher education officials and coaches. It’s not if you get caught, it’s simply when you get caught. Go back to the old school and remember one of the famous quotes from the Andy Griffith Show. This admissions snafu was simply “ill-gotten gains.” James B. Ewers Jr., Ed.D., is a former tennis champion at Atkins High School and played college tennis at Johnson C. Smith University where he was all-conference for four years. He is a retired college administrator and can be reached at ewers.jr56@ yahoo.com.
After 51 years, fair housing still an unfinished journey CHARLENE CROWELL
Guest Columnist Fifty-one years this month, the Fair Housing Act (the Act) was enacted to ensure that housing discrimination was illegal. Yet just days before the annual observance of Fair Housing Month began, headline news articles reminded the nation that housing discrimination still exists. For example, on March 19, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) fined Citibank $25 million for violations related to mortgage lending. At issue was Citibank’s “relationship pricing” program that afforded mortgage applicants either a credit on closing costs or a reduced interest rate. These cost breaks were intended to be offered to customers on the basis of their deposits and investment balances. According to OCC examination at Citibank, these ‘relationships’ did not in-
clude all eligible customers – particularly people of color. The regulator’s conclusion was that the bank’s practices led to racial disparities. The settlement calls for all 24,000 consumers affected to receive $24 million in restitution. Days later on March 28, the federal department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) charged Facebook with violating the Act by enabling its advertisers to discriminate on its social media platform. According to the lawsuit, Facebook enabled advertisers to exclude people based on their neighborhood – a high tech version of the historical redlining of neighborhoods where people of color lived. With 210 million Facebook users in the United States and Canada alone, the social media mogul took in $8.246 billion in advertising in just the last financial quarter of 2018. As April’s annual observance of Fair Housing Month began, the chair of the House Financial Services Committee used that leadership post to bring attention to the nagging challenges that deny fair hous-
ing for all. In her opening statement at the hearing held April 2, Chairwoman Maxine Waters set the tone and focus of the public forum. “According to the National Fair Housing Alliance, individuals filed 28,843 housing discrimination complaints in 2017,” said Waters. “Under the Trump Administration, fair housing protections are under attack. … According to news reports, Secretary Carson proposed taking the words ‘free from discrimination’ out of HUD’s mission statement. “He also reportedly halted fair housing investigations,” continued Waters, “and sidelined top advisors in HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. These are unprecedented attacks on fair housing that must not go unanswered.” Several committee members posed similar concerns and offered comments that echoed those of Waters. Additional issues raised during the hearing spoke to a lack of enforcement, data collection, gentrification, racial redlining, restrictive zoning, and disparate impact.
A panel of housing experts provided substantive testimony that responded to many of these issues, while also acknowledging how many fair housing goals have not yet been achieved. Cashauna Hill, the executive director of the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center, provided additional information on delays encountered with HUD’s Fair Housing investigations. Although HUD set a standard for these complaints to be investigated within 100 days, many complaints go well beyond the agency’s own guidelines. Cases older than 100 days are categorized as ‘aged’ in HUD parlance. “In 2017, HUD had 895 cases that became aged during that same year, and it had 941 cases that were already considered aged at the beginning of the fiscal year,” noted Hill. “During that same time period, Fair Housing Assistance Program agencies had 3,994 cases that became aged and 1,393 cases that were already considered aged at the beginning of the fiscal year. “Practically, what this
means for groups like the Fair Housing Action Center,” continued Hall, “is a delay in making victims of discrimination whole, and a delay in correction of housing providers’ discriminatory behavior.” Speaking on behalf of the Zillow Group, Dr. Skylar Olsen, its Director of Economic Research, cited additional data that underscored racial disparities and problems that continue with access to credit. “Homeownership is a key tool for building wealth, and more than half the overall wealth held by American households is represented by their primary residence,” said Olsen. “But access to homeownership is not shared equally.” Further according to Olsen, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) shows that “black borrowers are denied for conventional home loans 2.5 times more often than white borrowers.” Debby Goldberg, Vice President of Housing Policy and Special Project with the National Fair Housing Alliance, (NFHA) was also a panelist. Goldberg stated that
racial discrimination included consumers of color with varying incomes. “While many lowincome communities, no matter their racial composition, suffer from disinvestment and lack of resources, even wealthier, high-earning communities of color have fewer bank branches, grocery stores, healthy environments, and affordable credit than poorer white areas.” Ms. Goldberg also posed a core question that was as basic as it was direct: “How do we ensure that future generations of all backgrounds live in neighborhoods rich with opportunity?” said Goldberg. “Fair housing. Fair housing can ultimately dismantle the housing discrimination and segregation that caused these inequities in the first place.” Charlene Crowell is the Center for Responsible Lending’s Deputy Communications Director. She can be reached at Charlene. crowell@responsiblelending.org.
Medicaid expansion is overdue in North Carolina John Ralley Guest Columnist Many residents of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County who lack healthcare insurance might agree with Carrie McBane of Jackson County, who made her case for Medicaid expansion at a rally at the state capital in February. “Not being able to afford health care insurance has impacted every aspect of my life,” McBane, who works in a restaurant and has type 2 diabetes, said at a press conference. “In my worst, most trying moments, it really made me feel that the state I live in doesn’t have my best inter-
est at heart.” More than 500,000 North Carolina residents could benefit from Medicaid expansion. State legislators might finally be hearing them: North Carolina is closer than it’s ever been to expansion. Republican Rep. Donny Lambeth of Forsyth County plans to soon file a bill that would expand Medicaid. It’s a reworked version of a bill he filed in 2017, Carolina Cares. One big difference is that this time, with changes in the pollical climate and most other states having gone for expansion under the 2011 Affordable Care Act, the bill has a fighting chance. Expansion is the practical and right thing to do. The federal government would pay 90 percent of the costs. The hurting people that expansion
would help range from farmers to some veterans. Many of them work. Many of them end up in emergency rooms, driving up healthcare and insurance costs in general. Expansion would benefit state residents from 19- to 64 years old who earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid now, but don’t make enough money to buy private health insurance. Expansion is supported by a wide range of organizations, including the N.C. Association of Free and Charitable Clinics, which has its headquarters in Winston-Salem. “North Carolina’s free and charitable clinics exist in Forsyth County and communities across the state for the charitable purpose of providing healthcare to residents who are
without any form of health insurance,” Randy Jordan, the group’s executive director, told me. “The expansion of Medicaid and other ways of closing the health insurance coverage gap will benefit many of our patients who live at 200 percent or less of the federal poverty level. Securing coverage for an estimated 600,000 of these residents will open up appointment slots and related resources in our busy clinics for the remaining 500,000 uninsured who are living in North Carolina without a medical home.” Patrick Woodie, the president of the N.C. Rural Center, has written that “expanding health coverage is also a jobs issue. It helps people who have jobs. It helps people keep jobs. It helps people create jobs. … A strong health
sector is itself a rural economic catalyst, helping retain small businesses and attract the new industries and jobs that are so desperately needed.” Lambeth’s bill, in addition to encouraging preventative care, would also include a requirement that those receiving Medicaid pay modest premiums and be working, be in a jobtraining program or actively seeking employment. Democrats have filed bills devoid of such requirements. The important thing is that those bills and Lambeth’s planned one have sparked serious dialogue about expansion. Whether expansion comes through compromise over one of those bills or through dealmaking in the budget process, expansion must happen in a bipartisan manner. Our many neighbors who
lack health care must be helped. Carrie McBane, who spoke at the February press conference, underscored what the lack of health care has meant to her: “It’s demeaning, and it puts a price tag on my life when there shouldn’t be a price on a human life.” Our legislators are hearing her and others. Now they must take action. Railey is the executive director of The Partnership for Prosperity, a new initiative fighting poverty in Winston-Salem/Forsyth County. He can be reached at john.railey@uwforsyth. org
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