Legislators around the country have overhauled laws governing access to voting in the wake of the 2020 election, with states increasingly diverging on how difficult it should be to cast a ballot. About a quarter of Americans live in states trying to expand voter access and roughly an equal number live in states making it […]
Posted inVeterans Charities
Donors file class action lawsuit against Las Vegas telemarketer alleging scam PAC scheme
Political donors filed a class action lawsuit this week against Richard Zeitlin, a Las Vegas-based telemarketer they accuse of facilitating a “massive money-making scheme.” Zeitlin was the focus of an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity in 2019. The lawsuit alleges Zeitlin and his companies violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by “siphoning … […]
Posted inInside Public Integrity
Police presence in schools causes long-term harm, advocates say
The presence of police patrolling school hallways has fundamental consequences and causes long-term harm to Black, brown and disabled students, in particular, a panel of experts said in a forum hosted by the Center for Public Integrity and San Diego investigative journalism organization inewsource Wednesday night. “Criminalizing Kids,” a Public Integrity investigation by Corey Mitchell, […]
Posted inWatchdog newsletter
Proposed iPhone protections could put LGBTQ youth at risk
Virtual communities have long provided a space for LGBTQ youth to explore their identities, allowing queer children to safely come out of the closet without fear of abuse from unsupportive parents. But as technology companies ratchet up surveillance in the name of content moderation, the digital privacy of LGBTQ youth and other vulnerable people may […]
Posted inInside Public Integrity
Join us for a live discussion: when schools call police on kids
Join the Center for Public Integrity and inewsource for a live discussion on the criminalization of students of color and students with disabilities in schools across the country. In 46 states, Black students were referred to law enforcement at higher rates than the total referral rate for all students, according to our analysis of federal […]
Posted inInside Public Integrity
Public Integrity sues for National Guard border deployment records
The Center for Public Integrity filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense and South Dakota National Guard on Wednesday seeking public release of records related to a decision by South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to deploy the Guard to the Texas-Mexico border earlier this year that raised issues about private funding of military […]
Posted inWatchdog newsletter
Biden’s racial equity efforts for farmers of color hit legal roadblocks
On his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order putting racial equity at the center of policy, programs and funding, a response to the racial justice push that helped propel him to victory. One notable effort is a $4 billion debt relief program, included in the American Rescue Plan Act passed […]
Posted inCriminalizing kids
ACLU renews push for school policing law after our investigation
The numbers are troubling, the images and stories indelible. Despite years of pressure on schools to stop policing students, we found that students continue to suffer from encounters with law enforcement in communities big and small. In Maryland’s largest school district, police body camera footage captured an officer handcuffing a Black kindergarten student, telling the […]
Posted inCriminalizing kids
Criminalizing kids: What’s happening in communities
Students of color and those with disabilities face encounters with law enforcement at school at a higher rate than their peers. That’s according to an analysis of the latest student referral to police data from the Department of Education. The Center for Public Integrity in collaboration with USA TODAY and Univision examined these disparities on […]
Posted inDemocracy
Texas abortion law reflects GOP turn towards citizen enforcement
The new Texas law effectively banning nearly all abortions in the state relies on private citizens to enforce it, the highest-profile example of a growing push by Republicans to give supporters broad power to sue over issues important to their base. A Tennessee law allows any student, teacher or employee to sue if they are […]
Posted inWatchdog newsletter
What happened when I reported that USPS keeps cheating mail carriers
The first email came from a mail carrier in California. It landed in my inbox at 11:04 a.m. on Aug. 31 — less than two hours after the Center for Public Integrity published its investigation into wage theft at the U.S. Postal Service. The mail carrier wanted me to know that our findings are accurate, […]
Posted inCriminalizing kids
Lo que pasa cuando la policía es llamada para resolver problemas en las escuelas
Esta historia se produjo como parte de una colaboración con Univision, el Center for Public Integrity y USA TODAY. Un agente de seguridad escolar sacó a un alumno de tercer grado de una clase, lo llevó a un baño para empleados, cerró la puerta y lo regañó, diciéndole al aterrado estudiante que “dejara de llorar como una niña”. ¿Cuál […]
Posted inCriminalizing kids
What you need to know about school policing
What is a referral to law enforcement? Does it mean a student was arrested? A referral occurs when a school employee reports a student to any law enforcement agency or officer, including a school police officer or security staff member for an incident that happens at school, during a school-related event or while taking school […]
Posted inCriminalizing kids
La historia de la vigilancia policial en las escuelas
En un principio su objetivo fue proteger a las escuelas que recientemente habían pasado por un proceso de desegregación, pero la presencia de los policías escolares ha crecido en décadas recientes. Los datos muestran que, a lo largo del país, los estudiantes de color y aquellos con discapacidades son remitidos de forma desproporcionada a las […]
Posted inCriminalizing kids
Lo que necesitas saber sobre la vigilancia policial en las escuelas
Esta historia se produjo como parte de una colaboración con Univision, el Center for Public Integrity y USA TODAY. ¿Qué es una remisión a las fuerzas del orden? ¿Significa que el estudiante fue arrestado? Una remisión se produce cuando un empleado escolar reporta a un estudiante ante cualquier agencia o agente de la ley, incluyendo un agente de policía […]
Posted inCriminalizing kids
The history of school policing
First designed to protect recently desegregated schools, school police officer presence has grown in recent decades. Across the country, data shows that students of color and those with disabilities are disproportionately referred to law enforcement in schools and advocates are calling for reform. Click through this timeline to learn more about the origins and expansion of […]
Posted inCriminalizing kids
When schools call police on kids
This story also appeared in USA TODAY A school safety officer removed a third-grader from class, took him to a staff bathroom, closed the door and berated him, telling the frightened child to “stop crying like a little girl.” His crime? Refusing to leave art class after an argument with another student at their Northeast […]
Posted inWatchdog newsletter
Broken refugee program complicated Afghanistan evacuation crisis
The last United States military planes flew out of Afghanistan at almost the stroke of midnight Monday, capping the bloody and turbulent end of America’s longest war in history. In the war’s final weeks, President Joe Biden faced a torrent of criticism for failing to anticipate the sudden collapse of Afghan security forces in the […]
Posted inInequality
The future of Black home ownership in D.C.
Gentrification and the skyrocketing cost of housing is fueling wealth inequality in the nation’s capital. The Center for Public Integrity is partnering with the Washington Informer, a newspaper serving the D.C. area’s African American community for nearly 60 years, to investigate how gentrification is threatening Black home ownership in Washington, D.C. Understanding the struggles of […]
Posted inCheated at Work
El Servicio Postal ha engañado a los carteros durante años
A Nancy Campos le dolía la espalda mientras cargaba más de 100 paquetes de Amazon en su camión. Esta abuela de 59 años, cartera del Servicio Postal de Estados Unidos, había trabajado 13 días seguidos sin descansos para comer, y ahora estaba trabajando el día feriado de Martin Luther King Jr. para mantenerse a la […]
Posted inCheated at Work
USPS has cheated mail carriers for years
This story also appeared in Associated Press and Univision Nancy Campos’ back ached as she loaded more than 100 Amazon packages onto her truck. The 59-year-old grandmother, a mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service, had worked 13 days in a row without a lunch break, and now she was delivering on the Martin Luther […]
Posted inWatchdog newsletter
More money coming for housing as crises mount
Congress is on the verge of significantly increasing the country’s investment in its housing stock as millions of renters face the threat of eviction. Late Thursday night, a divided U.S. Supreme Court sided with landlords who claimed the federal government overstepped its bounds by placing a moratorium on evictions in 2020. The decision leaves millions […]
Posted inInequality
The secret bias hidden in mortgage-approval algorithms
This story was reported by The Markup, a nonprofit newsroom investigating the effects of technology on society. The new four-bedroom house in Charlotte, N.C., was Crystal Marie and Eskias McDaniels’s personal American dream, the reason they had moved to this Southern town from pricey Los Angeles a few years ago. A lush, long lawn, 2,700 square […]
Posted inWatchdog newsletter
CEOs got bonuses while workers struggled during the pandemic
Forty-one million people lost their jobs in 2020 as the pandemic ravaged the U.S. economy, the most layoffs in at least two decades. But CEOs had a pretty good year. A great one, in fact. CEOs at the largest publicly traded companies earned, on average, 351 times as much as the typical worker in their […]
Posted inWorker Health and Safety
Inside the decades-long fight over an Ohio Superfund site
This story is published in partnership with Belt Magazine and is part of a series supported in part by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. Thirty acres of desolate land stretch across the heart of Uniontown, Ohio, a vast expanse of grass, trees, and scruffy vegetation no one can use because a toxic stew of nearly one hundred […]
Posted inInside Public Integrity
Melissa Hellmann, Amy DiPierro and Sophie Austin join Public Integrity staff
Three journalists will join the staff of the Center for Public Integrity this fall and contribute to the nonprofit news organization’s investigative reporting on the causes and effects of inequality in the United States. Melissa Hellmann will start Aug. 24 as a reporter covering racial, gender and economic inequality. As a reporter for the Seattle […]
Posted inWatchdog newsletter
The life-or-death consequences of pandemic evictions
More people died from the COVID-19 virus in places where protection against eviction either didn’t exist or lapsed in 2020, according to new research. Seven experts from five universities cross-referenced coronavirus cases and deaths with data about where eviction moratoriums existed between March 13 and Sept. 3 of last year. During that time period, a […]
Posted inWatchdog newsletter
Homeland Security: Noncitizens’ barriers to health care thwart COVID-19 progress
The Department of Homeland Security published a post-Trump report recently recognizing that immigrants are up to three times more likely to work in “essential” jobs with high risk of COVID-19 exposure than U.S.-born Americans. Essential workers who are not U.S. citizens are “especially vulnerable” to the virus, the report warns, because they also face multiple […]
Posted inInside Public Integrity
Listen to Public Integrity’s stories
Now you can listen to our longform investigations whenever you want — while driving your kids to school, walking your dog or making lunch, among other activities. The Center for Public Integrity is making audio versions of our investigations available through a number of podcast services. We hope that this effort will make our stories […]
Posted inCoronavirus and Inequality
The eviction ban is over. Here’s why people are worried.
UPDATE: Under pressure to act, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced a new eviction pause Aug. 3 that will last two months and is aimed at renters in areas with substantial or high spread of COVID-19. A federal ban staved off eviction for millions of Americans battered by pandemic job loss or other […]