Integration

A study of Muslim Americans released Monday presents a portrait of an often misunderstood community -- one that is integrated socio-economically but culturally alienated; that succeeds in the workforce but struggles to find contentment. The numbers suggest economic and career success among Muslim Americans -- they have a higher employment rate than the national average and are among the nation's most educated religious groups. Yet only 41% described themselves as "thriving."

Eli Broad has suggested that once its big makeover is complete, Grand Avenue will be comparable to the Champs-Elysees. That's bunk. But it may look a little like Sesame Street, and that's terrific. The children's public television program -- which, in the words of a recent study by a University of New Hampshire scholar, has "strived to exemplify and create an egalitarian and more tolerant community" -- has had a tough time being replicated in the real world. This is especially true in L.A.

A judge in one of the nation's longest-running school desegregation cases released the Little Rock district from federal supervision Friday, nearly 50 years after President Eisenhower sent in troops to escort nine black students into all-white Central High. U.S. District Judge William R. Wilson Jr. said the district was substantially complying with a 1998 desegregation plan worked out in the 27,000-student district.

IT'S tough to look masculine in a hairnet and booties, even if you're carrying a very sharp knife toward a slab of meat swinging on a warehouse hook. But the kebab boys, pepper spice dusting their hands, don't seem to mind, preferring to think of themselves as culinary ambassadors. To understand the metaphor one must appreciate the sauce-drenched, onion-scented, shaved-meat beauty in a pita known as the \o7doner\f7, or spinning, kebab.

The historic case that desegregated Orange County public schools 60 years ago has been commemorated with a postage stamp unveiled Saturday in a ceremony honoring five Mexican American men who sued for the right to send their children to school with other American kids. The 41-cent stamp recognizing Mendez vs.

Segregationist Gov. Eugene Talmadge, still one of Georgia's most theatrical political figures 60 years after his death, is taking center stage again -- this time as the villain in an opera. "A Scholar Under Siege," composed by Georgia Southern University music professor Michael Braz, tells the true story of how Talmadge in 1941 fired the college's president amid suspicions that he supported integrating the school.

In the face of public pressure, organizers of Huntington Beach's Fourth of July parade have reversed themselves and will permit a vintage Volkswagen bus that honors the Orange County lawsuit that desegregated California schools to be in this year's procession. Filmmaker Sandra Robbie, whose Magical History Tour bus celebrates the 1947 Mendez vs. Westminster School District decision, said the parade coordinator called her Thursday to confirm her place in the parade.

Legal experts were split on what effect Thursday's Supreme Court ruling will ultimately have on integration efforts in the Los Angeles Unified School District -- including the district's popular magnet school program. District officials said Thursday that they believe they are insulated by a court order that places them beyond the reach of the high court decision, but opponents of L.A.'

In a decision that may herald a new era in the long struggle over racial integration in public education, the Supreme Court declared Thursday that officials may not use race to assign children to schools, even if the goal is greater diversity. Neither white nor black students may be turned away from a particular school simply because of their race, the court said in a 5-4 decision.

Excerpts from the Supreme Court's ruling Thursday that struck down voluntary integration plans in public schools in Louisville, Ky.