On Saturday, August 28, faith leaders and civil and human rights advocates will gather at Shiloh Baptist Church to commemorate the 47th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech and commit themselves to renewed activism for social justice.

A state judge in California has ruled against two researchers' request to obtain data from the California Bar Association on the long-term success of law school graduates. Judge Curtis E.A. Karnow of California Superior Court for San Francisco County held that the state bar is not legally obligated to produce the information under state public record laws.

Civil rights advocates in Missouri have successfully kept a proposed ballot initiative that would have amended the state's constitution to eliminate equal opportunity programs in higher education, employment, and contracting off the 2010 ballot.

Recent data analyzed by New America Media show that Small Business Administration loans made to struggling businesses as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act are not going to minority-owned businesses.

The America's Recovery Capital (ARC) Loan Program provides loans of up to $35,000 to help small businesses make it through the recession. Of the nearly 4,500 loans handed out this year, 3 percent went to Hispanic-owned businesses, 3 percent went to Asian- or Pacific Islander-owned businesses, and only 1.5 percent went to Black-owned businesses.

More than 91 percent of these loans went to White-owned businesses.

In a major victory for equal opportunity, a federal district court ruled in favor of the University of Texas at Austin's current admissions policy, in which race is only part of the consideration process for students' admission to the university. 

The court's decision, issued by Judge Sam Sparks, lauds University of Texas' plan to "break down racial stereotypes, enable students to better understand persons of different races, better prepare students to function in a multi-cultural workforce, cultivate the next set of national leaders, and prevent minority students from serving as 'spokespersons' for their race."

The case, Fisher v. Texas, is the first to challenge the Supreme Court's 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, which upheld the use of race as one of many factors colleges and universities can use in admissions.

In recent years, Texas has been a hotbed for both advocates and opponents of equal opportunity admissions.  From 1996-2003, consideration of race in the admissions process was deemed unconstitutional in Texas by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which resulted in a sharp decline of minority enrollment at Texas colleges and universities.  University of Texas at Austin's current admissions policy was adopted following Grutter, and works in tandem with a state law guaranteeing admission to the state university school system for high school students ranking in the top 10 percent of their graduating class.