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George Floyd scholarship accused of discriminating against non-Black students in federal complaint
The George Floyd Memorial Scholarship offered at North Central University in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is being accused of violating the Civil Rights Act, according to a federal complaint.
The Legal Insurrection Foundation filed the legal complaint Monday with the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights. The conservative nonprofit says its mission is devoted to advancing free expression and academic freedom on campuses.
The foundation claims the George Floyd Memorial Scholarship is violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which “prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.”
To be eligible for the scholarship in question, the applicant must “be a student who is Black or African American, that is, a person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa,” according to the university.
Students who do not meet the prerequisite racial category are automatically ineligible for the scholarship.
“Discrimination against white applicants is just as unlawful as discrimination against black or other non-white applicants,” complaint writers, civil rights attorney Ameer Benno and Cornell University law professor William Jacobson, said.
“Regardless of NCU’s reasons for sponsoring and promoting the GFMS [scholarship], it is violating Title VI by doing so.”
North Central University did not immediately respond to an NBC News request for comment.
The George Floyd Memorial Scholarship was created in 2020 “to contribute toward the educational promise of aspiring young black American leaders,” according to a university news release.
The scholarship is still accepting applications for the 2024-25 academic school year, and the recipient will be selected by June.
More than $1 billion in federal tax refunds unclaimed as deadline to file approaches
If you didn’t file a tax return amid the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic and believe you’re eligible for a refund, the Internal Revenue Service wants to hear from you.
The agency said this week that more than $1 billion in unclaimed refunds for tax filing year 2020 are sitting in its coffers, and that it’s still possible for eligible filers to claim.
Due to the pandemic, filers got an unusual extension on the regular three-year return-filing window. They now have until May 17, 2024 to claim their refund for tax year 2020.
“There’s money remaining on the table for hundreds of thousands of people who haven’t filed 2020 tax returns,” said IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel in a statement. “We want taxpayers to claim these refunds, but time is running out for people who may have overlooked or forgotten about these refunds. There’s a May 17 deadline to file these returns so taxpayers should start soon to make sure they don’t miss out.”
The IRS estimates the median refund amounts for 2020 to be $932 — that is, half of the refunds are more than $932 and half are less.
“People faced extremely unusual situations during the pandemic, which may have led some people to forget about a potential refund on their 2020 tax returns,” Werfel said. “People may have just overlooked these, including students, part-time workers and others. Some people may not realize they may be owed a refund. We encourage people to review their files and start gathering records now, so they don’t run the risk of missing the May deadline.”
Many low- and moderate-income workers may also be eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), worth as much as $6,660 for taxpayers with qualifying children for the 2020 tax year.
The IRS notes 2020 tax refunds may be held if an individual has not filed tax returns for 2021 and 2022.
German federal properties remain empty in midst of housing shortage
More than 360,000 square metres of housing owned by the German federal government are vacant amidst a severe lack of housing in many German cities, information obtained by dpa showed.
The properties amount to around several thousand flats which are supposed to house federal employees, according to the information. The government’s property agency BIMA owns more than 18,000 square metres of vacant housing in Berlin alone. BIMA is one of the largest property owners in Germany.
The figures were revealed in an answer to a parliamentary question from Caren Lay, a member of the Left Party in the Bundestag, that was made available to dpa.
The Finance Ministry says the vacant properties include flats that have not yet been rented out following a move-out but could be rented out again in the near future, as well as flats in need of refurbishment. In a few cases the flats cannot be used in the long term, for example because they do not have planning authorization.
Lay blamed the government for being partly responsible for Germany’s housing shortage due to the vacancies in federally owned properties. “Federal employees are competing in the overheated housing market, especially in Berlin,” she said.
The German Council of Property Professionals estimates there is currently a shortage of 600,000 flats in Germany.
Of a total of almost 6 million square metres of federal “commercial and other real estate,” which also includes office, storage and production space, around 2.8 million square metres are currently vacant, the ministry’s response continued. Around 638,000 of the properties could not be used, and the sale of around 453,000 square metres was planned.
Supreme Court delay prompts federal judges to act over South Carolina redistricting dispute
WASHINGTON —The Supreme Court has delayed resolving a South Carolina redistricting case for so long that a lower court has has been forced to step in, saying on Thursday that a congressional district it previously ruled was racially gerrymandered can be used in this year’s election.
Last year, a federal court ruled that the Charleston-area district held by Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., was unlawfully drawn by removing thousands of Black voters.
But on Thursday, the same court said in an order that the map could be used for this year’s congressional election.
The three-judge panel wrote that “with the primary election procedures rapidly approaching, the appeal before the Supreme Court still pending, and no remedial plan in place, the ideal must bend to the practical.”
The decision constitutes a setback for Democrats, who might have gained a more favorable map if it was redrawn.
The Supreme Court has spent months considering the merits of whether map-drawers unlawfully considered race when drafting the map but has yet to issue a ruling despite both sides saying it needed to be resolved well before the election.
The justices have also failed to act on an emergency application brought by Republican state officials asking for the existing map to remain in place, at least for now.
In a nine-month term running from October to June dominated by cases involving former President Donald Trump, the justices have issued only 11 rulings in argued cases.
Oral arguments in the South Carolina case were held on Oct. 11, giving the justices ample time to rule.
State officials had argued their sole goal was to increase the Republican tilt in the district in drawing the map. But in January 2023, the lower court ruled race was of predominant concern when one of the state’s seven districts was drawn. Republicans led by South Carolina Senate President Thomas Alexander appealed the decision.
The three-judge panel had said the state did not have to take any action to draw a new map until after the Supreme Court resolved the appeal — on the understanding that the justices would act more quickly.
Republicans redrew the boundaries after the 2020 census to strengthen GOP control of what had become a competitive district. Democrat Joe Cunningham won the seat in 2018 and narrowly lost to Mace in 2020. Two years later, with a new map in place, Mace won by a wider margin.
The roughly 30,000 Black voters who were moved out of the district were placed into the district held by Democratic Rep. James Clyburn, who is Black. It is the only one of the seven congressional districts held by Democrats.
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and other civil rights groups alleged not only that Republicans unlawfully considered race when they drew the maps, but also that they also diluted the power of Black voters in doing so.
The claims were brought under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which requires that the law applies equally to everyone. The case arose under a different legal theory than was at issue in the major ruling this year in which civil rights advocates successfully challenged Republican-drawn maps in Alabama under the Voting Rights Act.
Federal court reinstates lines for South Carolina congressional district despite racial gerrymander ruling
Washington — A panel of federal district court judges in South Carolina said Thursday that the 2024 elections for a congressional district in the state can be conducted using a map it determined was racially gerrymandered.
The three judges overseeing the redistricting dispute granted a request from South Carolina Republican legislative leaders, who asked the court to reinstate the lines for Congressional District 1 that GOP state lawmakers drew following the 2020 Census.
The Republicans had asked the court to pause its own January 2023 decision invalidating the lines of the district, represented by GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, while it awaits a ruling from the Supreme Court on whether to uphold the map. They argued that the 2024 election cycle in South Carolina is now underway — the candidate-filing period opened March 16 and closes April 1 — and last-minute changes to congressional district lines and the state’s election calendar would confuse voters and lead to disorder.
At least five candidates have filed to run in the primaries and have begun campaigning in Mace’s coastal district, as well as the neighboring district represented by Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn.
The judges said in a short five-page decision that the “present circumstances make it plainly impractical for the court to adopt a remedial plan for” Congressional District 1 before an April 27 deadline for military and overseas ballots to be mailed. South Carolina’s statewide primary elections are set for June 11.
The district court panel noted that it had concluded that the district is unlawful under the 14th Amendment, but “with the primary election procedures rapidly approaching, the appeal before the Supreme Court still pending, and no remedial plan in place, the ideal must bend to the practical.”
Republican leaders had made their request to the district court on March 7, but then sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court on March 18 because the panel hadn’t yet ruled. The Supreme Court has yet to act on the GOP lawmakers’ bid for it to intervene.
The South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP and a voter challenged the GOP-crafted congressional voting map in federal district court in the 2021 redistricting cycle. South Carolina Republicans had said they constructed the district to produce a stronger Republican tilt. Mace narrowly won the seat in 2020, but cruised to reelection in the 2022 midterm elections, after the new lines were enacted.
In January 2023, the three-judge panel concluded that state lawmakers racially gerrymandered Congressional District 1 and designed it with racially discriminatory intent.
The district court blocked the state from holding elections for Mace’s district until lawmakers approved a constitutionally valid plan, and later gave the GOP-led legislature until 30 days after the Supreme Court rules to submit new boundaries. It amended that earlier order to bar elections from being conducted under the GOP-drawn lines for Congressional District 1 after the 2024 election cycle.
The high court considered in October whether Republican lawmakers impermissibly used race as the predominant factor when drawing the lines for Congressional District 1, and had been asked by GOP legislative leaders and the NAACP to issue its ruling by Jan. 1. But that deadline has long passed without any decision from the justices.
It’s unclear when the Supreme Court will rule in the case, but during arguments in the fall, a majority of the court appeared skeptical of the lower court’s decision.
White House orders federal agencies to name chief AI officers
The White House is ordering all federal agencies to name chief artificial intelligence officers to oversee the federal government’s various approaches to AI and manage the risks that the rapidly evolving technologies might pose.
That directive is part of a government-wide policy from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, or OMB, that Vice President Kamala Harris announced Thursday, following a sweeping AI executive order President Biden signed in October. The White House is trying to push the federal government — known more for its slow-moving bureaucracy than its ability to adopt cutting-edge technology — to keep up with the changes in the field of artificial intelligence.
“We have directed all federal agencies to designate a chief AI officer with the experience, expertise, and authority to oversee all — I’m going to emphasize that — all AI technologies used by that agency,” Harris said Wednesday in embargoed remarks on the new policy. “And this is to make sure that AI is used responsibly, understanding that we must have senior leaders across our government who are specifically tasked with overseeing AI adoption and use.”
The new OMB policy also requires federal agencies to establish AI governance boards to coordinate and establish rules for the use of AI technologies across each agency. The White House says the departments of Defense, Housing and Urban Development, State and Veterans Affairs have already set up governance boards. The Biden administration plans to hire 100 AI professionals across agencies by this summer.
By December, federal agencies must also put in place what the White House calls “concrete safeguards” when they use AI “in a way that could impact Americans’ rights or safety.”
For example, Harris said Wednesday, if the VA wants to use AI in VA hospitals to help diagnose patients, the department would first need to demonstrate the AI doesn’t produce “racially biased diagnoses.”
The White House will also be requiring federal agencies to post a list of their AI systems online, along with an assessment of the risks those systems might pose and how they plan to manage them, Harris said. That list will need to be published and updated each year.
“President Biden and I intend that these domestic policies will serve as a model for global action,” Harris said.
Overseeing the federal government’s adoption of AI technologies is one of the many hats Harris has been given as vice president. She delivered a major policy speech in London in November on the U.S. government’s vision for the future of AI.
AI has at times become a problem for Mr. Biden personally. AI was used to impersonate the president in fake robocalls that went out to New Hampshire voters, and fake and manipulated videos of the president have emerged online.
Kathryn Watson
Why a federal court is keeping Texas’ immigration law on hold
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Federal watchdog to examine DOJ law enforcement task forces after NBC News report
Congress’ investigative arm is launching a probe of the policies and practices of Justice Department law enforcement task forces in response to a request from Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., a spokesperson for the Government Accountability Office told NBC News.
Ossoff, chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on human rights and law, sent a letter asking the GAO on March 14 to open a review of how the Justice Department oversees its task forces, which often include local police officers. The request comes after NBC News published a series on the lack of accountability for federal law enforcement agencies and the local officers granted federal powers who serve on task forces.
Ossoff asked the GAO to focus on the Justice Department’s main law enforcement agencies — the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Drug Enforcement Administration; and the U.S. Marshals Service — “to promote clarity regarding federal policies and practices surrounding these task forces” and answer how the Justice Department provides oversight of its task forces, particularly local officers deputized with federal powers who work on the teams.
GAO spokesperson Chuck Young confirmed Tuesday that the agency accepted Ossoff’s request and will begin its “in-depth examination” into federal task forces within the next few months.
In December, NBC News published a series of stories examining how federal law enforcement officers harm people with little to no accountability and the contrasts between the standards local officers face when they work for their departments compared with those they are held to serving on federal task forces. One of the stories examined the steep challenges for local prosecutors trying to convict an officer from Georgia, Ossoff’s state, in the 2019 killing of Jimmy Atchison, who was fatally shot by an Atlanta police officer serving on an FBI task force.
On Friday, Ossoff met with Jimmy Hill, Atchison’s father, and Gerald Griggs, president of Georgia’s NAACP. “It’s a first step in the right direction,” Hill told NBC News. “This needs to be brought to the forefront.”
Atlanta Police Officer Sung Kim shot and killed Atchison, 21, who was unarmed and hiding in a neighbor’s closet, in January 2019. Atchison was wanted on a local warrant, accused of stealing an acquaintance’s purse at gunpoint. The FBI task force adopted the case. At the time, local officers on task forces were not allowed to wear body cameras. A year after the shooting, the Justice Department allowed local officers on federal task forces to start wearing the devices.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis charged Kim with murder in 2022. Because he was serving on a federal task force at the time, Kim successfully petitioned a federal judge to move his case to federal court, where Willis faces much longer odds of securing a conviction.
Donald Samuel, Kim’s attorney, did not respond to a request for comment. The Justice Department also did not respond.
NBC News found Atchison was one of at least 223 people shot by federal agents, task force officers or local police assisting in cases tied to Justice Department law enforcement agencies from 2018 to 2022. During that period, local prosecutors, grand juries or law enforcement agencies deemed the shootings justified 98% of the time. Only two shootings, including the Atchison case, resulted in criminal charges against on-duty officers, according to the NBC News analysis.
Over the last three decades, a handful of local prosecutors have tried to convict federal agents or federal task force members of murder or manslaughter after fatal shootings. To date, none has succeeded, NBC News found. Cases typically get moved to federal court, where they are more likely to be dismissed. Federal laws and a series of Supreme Court decisions allow Kim and other local officers on federal task forces to argue that they are immune from local prosecution.
Jake Best, Ossoff’s spokesperson, declined to comment. In his letter, Ossoff requested that the GAO examine which Justice Department task forces include local officers, the accountability mechanisms that apply to those officers and how the agency deals with differences between the rules those officers follow when they are serving as local or federal cops.
“The law and policies governing these task forces are complicated, and conflicts can arise in their governance,” Ossoff wrote, asking, “What is known about the extent to which state and local law enforcement practices are disallowed while these enforcement officers are participating in federal task forces?”
Since Atchison’s death, Georgia’s NAACP has been pushing for new federal legislation or Justice Department policy that would prevent local police officers on federal task forces who are charged with local crimes from moving their cases to federal court.
“That barrier allows them to escape accountability,” said Griggs, the organization’s president, who met with Ossoff last week. “We saw Jimmy’s case and other cases that were stonewalled for years.”
Guns found at Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ L.A. and Miami properties during federal searches, sources say
Federal agents found firearms during searches of properties belonging to Sean “Diddy” Combs in both Los Angeles and Miami, according to three sources familiar with the matter NBC News on Tuesday.
Homeland Security Investigations executed warrants out of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Monday and seized his phones in Miami before he was scheduled to depart for a trip to the Bahamas.
The music mogul is a subject of a federal criminal investigation amid several lawsuits filed against him in recent months, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News.
The source said three women and a man had been interviewed by federal officials in Manhattan in relation to allegations of sex trafficking, sexual assault, and the solicitation and distribution of illegal narcotics and firearms.
It was not immediately clear what kind of firearms were found or who they belonged to.
Aaron Dyer, an attorney for Combs, described Monday’s searches as “gross overuse of military-level force.” Neither Combs nor any of his family members have been arrested, Dyer noted in his statement.
“There is no excuse for the excessive show of force and hostility exhibited by authorities or the way his children and employees were treated,” Dyer said. “Mr. Combs was never detained but spoke to and cooperated with authorities.”
Combs is innocent and “will continue to fight every single day to clear his name,” Dyer said, adding that Combs had not been found liable of the allegations against him.
Since November, Combs has been the subject of numerous civil lawsuits following a civil suit from his former romantic partner, Cassie, who accused him of physically and sexually abusing her for years. Cassie, whose full name is Casandra Ventura, utilized the New York Adult Survivors Act, which offered a one-year window for adult victims of sexual assault to come forward with civil claims regardless of the statute of limitations.
She and Combs settled the suit a day after she filed in New York. Combs has rejected the accusations, calling them offensive and outrageous.
Since then, three other women have filed lawsuits in the Southern District of New York alleging that they were sexually assaulted by Combs. Two said they were teenagers at the time of the alleged assaults.
Combs has denied each of the sexual assault allegations, calling them “sickening.”
A former employee who worked for Combs between September 2022 and November 2023 also filed a lawsuit in February alleging that Combs sexually harassed, drugged and threatened him for more than a year. In his suit, Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones, a producer, also alleged that he had video and audio evidence of Combs, his staff and others “engaging in serious illegal activity.”
These cases are ongoing, and Combs has denied the allegations.