The hot, dry Santa Ana winds that whip through Orange County’s Logan barrio are fierce and temperamental. In the mid-20th century, they’d deliver gusts forceful enough to wreak havoc throughout the Southern California region, destroying orange crops, uprooting trees, downing power lines and upending lives. But in the Logan neighborhood, one of the city of Santa Ana’s […]
Posted inInside Public Integrity
Public Integrity reporters’ work honored among best data journalism in world
Investigative reporting by Center for Public Integrity journalists about student homelessness and the legacy of pollution in communities of color was recognized among the best data journalism in the world on Friday at the 2023 Sigma Awards. Senior reporter Yvette Cabrera’s work on the toxic legacy of lead contamination in American cities while a journalist […]
Posted inDemocracy
Chicago’s FOIA Fest celebrates open government
Dozens of public records enthusiasts gathered Saturday to kick-off an annual Chicago tradition: FOIA Fest, a public records conference created to celebrate Sunshine Week, which ends today. FOIA — short for Freedom of Information Act — is a federal law that requires the full or partial disclosure of unreleased documents and information controlled by the […]
Posted inHealth parity
Families take drastic steps to help children in mental health crises
An insufficient mental health care system pushes some families to give up custody of their children for care. States look for better solutions.
Posted inEducation
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the crosshairs in GOP-controlled states
In his State of the State address last month, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt moved through several common GOP talking points: support for school choice, a ban on all gender transition surgeries and hormone therapies for minors and continuing a tradition of business-friendly policies. And he singled out the state’s two largest public universities: “Because when […]
Posted inInside Public Integrity
Public Integrity and partners win multiple business reporting awards
The Center for Public Integrity won four business journalism awards Thursday for investigations reported in collaboration with other newsrooms. Judges in the Best in Business Awards from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing, or SABEW, selected winners from a “record” 1,182 entries submitted by 193 news organizations. Public Integrity’s winning projects: Attacked Behind […]
Posted inLive Events
The Heist 2 Live: What happened a year later?
Join the Center for Public Integrity for a live conversation about the sharp wealth gap between Black and white Americans on Wednesday, March 29 from 7 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. Eastern. The conversation features ReShonda Young, the subject of “The Wealth Vortex,” Public Integrity’s award-winning second season of The Heist podcast. Jamie Smith Hopkins, the […]
Posted inWorkers’ Rights
Religious activists are trying to weaken new protections for LGBTQ workers
Three federal judges in Louisiana could soon decide if some businesses can refuse to hire gay or transgender employees following recent oral arguments in a case that seeks to challenge the landmark Supreme Court ruling — Bostock v. Clayton County. The 2020 ruling determined that LGBTQ employees are protected from workplace discrimination under the Civil […]
Posted inInside Public Integrity
Public Integrity acquires tool to make data more accessible to journalists
The Center for Public Integrity will steward and grow a powerful tool that puts public records at the fingertips of journalists across the country, thanks to support from the Reva and David Logan Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Accountability Project, launched by the Investigative Reporting Workshop in 2019, is […]
Posted inInside Public Integrity
Public Integrity staff share expertise in using data to cover inequality
Journalists from the Center for Public Integrity will facilitate discussions and training sessions addressing how data journalism can confront inequality at the Investigative Reporters & Editors’ 2023 NICAR conference March 2-5 in Nashville. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize-winning nonprofit news organization’s own journalism confronting inequality, Public Integrity works to build investigative reporting capacity and […]
Posted inUnhoused and Undercounted
Funding decisions often shortchange homeless students
Federal funding to support homeless students often comes up short. Before the pandemic, it amounted to about $60 annually per identified homeless student nationwide, according to a Center for Public Integrity investigation in partnership with The Seattle Times, Street Sense Media and WAMU/DCist. That often represents a sliver of what schools spend to support them. […]
Posted inWho Counts?
How one city ended prison gerrymandering
This story is a collaboration between the Center for Public Integrity and Bolts. The Howard R. Young Correctional Institution sits between a creek and Interstate 495 in Wilmington, Delaware. For the last ten years, the prison’s 1,281 residents were counted as constituents of Wilmington’s third city council district. But when local officials sat down to […]
Posted inInequality
True reparations aren’t limited to money
As discussions about reparations for Black Americans gain some ground, the first state with a task force on the issue is hearing that it needs to think bigger. African Americans in California have been telling the state’s reparations task force that a one-time payout would mean little if they don’t have equal access to education, […]
Posted inTaxes
‘Pay your fair share’: Biden’s talk on taxes echoes our findings
President Joe Biden had choice words in yesterday’s State of the Union speech about the U.S. tax system: “It is not fair.” The Center for Public Integrity’s investigations on taxes shine a light on exactly that. We’ve shown that changes to the federal system in the past four decades have supercharged inequality. Wealthy people and […]
Posted inThe Heist
Recap of season 2 of The Heist
How do you tackle a problem as tenacious as the country’s racial wealth gap? Our podcast last season with Transmitter Media follows a woman with her own answer to that question. In this recap, you’ll find the episodes and everything that goes along with them: drone footage, the spread of racial restrictions in one city’s […]
Posted inInside Public Integrity
The Heist: The Wealth Vortex nominated for Ambie Award
We follow Iowa entrepreneur ReShonda Young as she seeks to confront the enormous wealth gap between Black and white Americans by doing something that no one in the country has managed in decades: open a new Black-owned bank.
Posted inImmigration
White House initiative leaves deported veterans in limbo
SAN ANTONIO — Marcelino Ramos said he joined the U.S. Marines Corps at 17 because he felt a duty to serve and because a recruiter in a pressed-blue uniform promised him citizenship. Ramos, now 54, had no idea that the country he swore to protect would deport him. Ramos went on to serve in the […]
Posted inInside Public Integrity
Ashley Clarke recognized among ‘25 Under 35’ journalism leaders
Center for Public Integrity Audience Engagement Editor Ashley Clarke has been named to Editor and Publisher magazine’s “25 Under 35” list celebrating leaders in the journalism industry. Clarke, 25, was honored among reporters, editors, audience development, fundraising and finance professionals working in local and national news organizations and journalism industry nonprofits across the country. The […]
Posted inUnequal Burden
How will a divided government affect taxes?
The 118th Congress that convened this month marked the end of one-party control of the federal government. The Democrat-controlled Senate and Republican-majority House will determine the landscape of tax policy for the next two years, with any action or inaction rippling for generations to come. In one of its first votes of the session, the […]
Posted inImmigration
New DHS policy protects undocumented whistleblowers
Undocumented immigrants enduring abuses from employers such as wage theft, safety infractions and gender discrimination can now obtain deportation relief when they report workplace violations to a government agency, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently announced. The new policy grants temporary legal status to workers who cooperate with investigators. Workers’ rights groups have been […]
Posted inNatural Resources
Study finds disparities in states’ distribution of federal funds for water systems
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, signed by President Biden last November, is pouring billions of dollars into an upgrade of the country’s aging water infrastructure. But a new study has found that white communities have been favored in distribution of the funds, something that’s controlled by individual states. The majority of the $55 billion allocated to […]
Posted inWatchdog newsletter
A reproductive justice pioneer on what the abortion debate misses
Loretta J. Ross is a human rights advocate and founding member of the organization SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective. Since its founding in 1997, the group has become a leading voice for the concept of reproductive justice as an alternative framework to pro-choice and anti-abortion arguments. The three tenets of the concept are: […]
Posted inUnhoused and Undercounted
Homeless, then kicked out of school
Shambrika Crawford caught her daughter trying to board a Seattle city bus to avoid the school bus outside the homeless shelter they moved into over the summer. Kids pick on her, her daughter said, and call her a “little dirty shelter kid.” Crawford has advised her three school-age children to keep to themselves and try to […]
Posted inUnhoused and Undercounted
How a funding paradox hurts the schools doing right by homeless students
Washington state has one of the largest homeless student populations in the country — 40,000 just prior to the pandemic. Yet, Washington school districts in the 2018-19 school year received an average of $29 per homeless student from one of the main federal funds for homeless students to pay for transportation, books, extracurriculars or any […]
Posted inLabor
Sheriff opens rape investigation after CPI-Scripps News reporting
Female truck drivers reacted with a mix of outrage, sadness and frustration after Public Integrity and Scripps News published an investigation showing an alarming pattern of sexual violence in the trucking industry and the failure of companies to address it. One former truck driver said she was raped by her trainer more than 10 years […]
Posted inUnequal Burden
Tribes need tax revenue. States keep taking it.
OSAGE NATION — On a crisp November morning, Teresa Bates Rutherford gazed at the construction site of her future home — her mind on her tax struggle with the state of Oklahoma. The trust land she is building on has passed down through generations of her family on the Osage Reservation, located in northeastern Oklahoma. […]
Posted inInstitution of One
Million-dollar question: How to find safe homes for those with complex needs
This story also appeared in KJZZ and Slate Zainab Edwards is an ice skater. It runs in the family. Edwards’ mother, Cynthia Elliott, grew up on the ice in Minnesota and her older daughter skated competitively for years. So when Elliott and her husband Dave agreed to foster Edwards five days after her fourth birthday, […]
Posted inInstitution of One
Why we translated this story into plain language
To make this story more accessible to a wide range of readers, we are including a plain language version, translated by Rebecca Monteleone. Plain language is a writing style that makes difficult concepts easier for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities to read. It uses shorter sentences and simpler words, but it doesn’t leave out […]
Posted inInstitution of One
Why it’s hard to find safe homes for some people with disabilities
Zainab Edwards is an ice skater. Ice skating runs in Zainab’s family. Zainab’s mom is an ice skater too. Her name is Cynthia Elliot. Cynthia’s other daughter used to ice skate too. Cynthia and Dave are Zainab’s foster parents. They have been fostering Zainab since she was 4 years old. Zainab is 23 years old. […]
Posted inInstitution of One
Finding joy in the moment
Living in the community can be challenging for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities that have complex needs. Families often need to be persistent and creative to get their loved ones the services they need.