Courtesy of Aesha Rasheed

New Orleans education activist Aesha Rasheed.

You'll find below the second half of my interview with education activist Aesha Rasheed, whose parents' guide has become an invaluable tool for New Orleans families caught in the maelstrom of the ever-growing crop of charter schools. I asked our Foot Soldier about the guide midway through our conversation last week.

LR: All right, so -- the Parents' Guide. Did you come up with this?

AR: After Katrina a lot of people that I knew in my social network knew that I knew a lot about schools, and so as people were trying to figure this out, the question of like what schools are open, and how do we tell people about it, people would ask me. I got to be a de facto expert on those subjects. Because they’re like – no one knows, what do you know? I was like ‘I don’t know, I heard this school is open, let me call this person..’ and then I was like, I’m just going to sit down and try to make a list. I tried to search for one. I was like ‘surely there is a list of every school that’s open, with their phone number’ but there wasn’t. There wasn’t like a single source of information. There were pieces over here and pieces over there but it was never in one place, and it was never comprehensive. And so, I [asked], "what if I tried to make a chart?" And so I made the chart.

At the time was working with other people who were trying to support organizing for this project called New Orleans Network. Our strategy was to pull together leaders and advocates around an issue, talk about an issue, and try to figure out what are the gaps that need to be filled. And so we had that convening around education.

One of the things that seemed like it was possible for me and us to do was to provide information. So that everyone agreed what we couldn’t figure out was how to get a handle on what schools were open and where. And [aren’t really needed that, so beyond advocates needed that, but also people were like no one can return as long as the information is only limited, you have to have certain information and access to get information about schools. So what would it look like if the access [were] more equalized?

So, that started me thinking about a parents' guide. We talked about what it could look like, that group of leaders, but we couldn’t -– we being New Orleans network – didn’t have the money to make it. So we could make a resource guide, and then tell people how to print it and do it very [do-it-yourself].

Meanwhile, New School for New Orleans, which had been a huge engine for promoting lots of charter schools, creating and establishing and supporting charter schools was thinking more from a school choice place, that people needed information. So this led to interesting collaboration. New Schools for New Orleans figured out how to get the money for it, and I made it. Pulled together the districts and the schools, and went through the process of actually creating guide, and tried to find allies that could hold the accountability to the parents.

LR: What is New Schools for New Orleans?

AR: New Schools for New Orleans is a nonprofit born out of Katrina basically to catalyze and support the huge expansion of charter schools in New Orleans. Philosophically… The group of people that ended up working together to make the Parent’s guide happen had a lot of philosophical tension. We could agree that parents needed information, right, but I wanted it for a different reason that they wanted it but we agreed that it needed to happen. So they were kind of like we can figure out how to get money to make it happen. "If you can figure out how to make the content what it need be, and convince all for the schools to participate. Because in that first year, no one knew what it was, and I had to go literally met with every single school leader in the city to get the information.

LR: Did it continue to be funded by them, or when did you move on?

Courtesy of Aesha Rasheed

A table full of Aesha Rasheed's Parent's Guides, published by her New Orleans Parent Organizing Network.

AR: It’s not so much that they directly gave the money; they raised money from like Capital One Bank and the Casey Foundation. I didn’t have those connections, but they did. That was the way that partnership worked. And as I was kind of working on the first guide I realized that there was no organized body of parents. I wanted the guide to be owned by parents.

But there wasn’t an organized body of parents in the city and there really hadn’t been any before Katrina in a formal way...As people came back, no one was really building parent voices. So I [asked], "what if we tried to do that?"

And so I started thinking about New Orleans Parent Organizing Network, which as an idea was meant to catalyze parent organizing. My thought was what if parents came together and had conversation about what they wanted to see in schools, what they thought was working and not working, and then build power to influence the decisions. It felt like everyone at least gave lip service to the idea of parents being engaged. If you say it to anybody, "so we need parent involvement?" They were like, "yes we do."

It also occurred to me that a lot of times you could get like 20 parents together to say something, because there are almost never any parents in the room. I was intrigued with this idea. We started trying to create neighborhood-based parent groups, focusing on the most marginalized communities, the folks that were the least resourced, and attend having meetings, holding leadership development sessions, trying to meets people’s needs in various ways. The hard thing about that, people were in such crisis, and still are, but that that time people were in such crisis that it was almost all people could do…it was very support group. It was like this is how people were struggling to support their kids, and we kind of struggled to move to power building. Even if we came up with solutions, it was about figuring out, what the next step was, how to get the district to adopt it. When people are so under pressure all the time and things are happening so they are getting screwed by the medical establishment, so they can come to a meeting, but then they can’t because they’re being hospitalized or evicted.

All of that, so we never got those groups to take off. People would come for the information and support but we weren’t able to get past that. I think it was partly the condition, but also I don’t come out of an organizing history. I wasn’t a labor organization or something, so I struggled to figure out how to move people to through their struggle. We tried for a really long time; we did some cool things. The parents came together and created a review system for schools –- the parent school review -- that we started to roll out to 10 schools to try to get the parents from particular schools to look at their schools and thought this could be connected to the parents’ guide. This way we could get reviews of schools from the parents, we could put that alongside what the state says about the school. Which maybe reflective of actual… in New Orleans they give grades now to each school but virtually every school receives a D or an F.

LR: Right, so how do you tell them apart?

AR: Yeah, like what does that mean? A friend of mine who is a parent was saying that there are some F schools like in total chaos, and there are some F schools that are getting it done, but their kids are so far behind that they’re not going to pull out of an f for a number of years. So, how do you tell the difference between those two just by giving a letter grade, you know? Most of those schools are an F, so it becomes irrelevant. What are you supposed to do as a parent but choose an F school? So we did that, and we also got there to be a centralized enrollment system. Our parent leaders talked a lot for there to be a centralized enrollment system. We were at the table a lot early on to try to come up with some kind of system.

At first it was kind of hodgepodge, and all on paper. Now, it has gotten fancy and sophisticated, but [at first], all the schools needed to be on the same timeline. We were just asking everyone to use the same time. Because, as a parent, keeping track of which applications are due when was really mind boggling, especially when you’re coming back into a city where you still figured the schools were based on where you lived.

So we were like at least you should have one system. One rule and also a lot of people feared that the schools were not fairly selecting students.….I don’t know how true this is. But parents would say I brought my application in but I don’t know think they kept it and then we didn’t get in. There is all type of assumptions they make, they think to themselves “Did they not like me?”

LR- Yeah and they didn’t have belief that the system was functioning...

AR- Yeah so by centralizing it they had an advocacy place and they can tell people “here are the rules”. Sow when your rights are being violated, you know it. When there are a million rules it hard to say, that’s true, that’s what my kid has done and that is a part of their policy but in another school they will still be cheating. But if we set rules for everyone then it would be easier for a parent to say “I was definitely cheated here.” And then others say, “No that’s just how it works.” When you don’t get the school you want

LR: So when you started with the parents’ guide, what was the distribution process? Was it always online, or was it on paper first? Did the schools participate?

AR: Schools played a part in getting it distributed, But basically, it was me and my car. We printed 10,000 copies. Public libraries were the biggest source of distribution. We gave 2,000 to 4,000 to the public library branches and they put them in all of their libraries. Bring them to places where parents who don’t have access to the info and would be likely to go. We put them at schools so we can tell parents that they are available at schools but I don’t really count on schools to be the primary distributor just because the parents they have contact with heavily are the parents of the kids who are already in the school. Sometimes those parents also need that information.

But we were very concerned about what about families who are trying to get into the schools and parents whose kids aren’t in school at all. So it’s always been a mix of we deliver some to school of a small number unless they ask us for more. We give about 30 to every school and ask them to keep at least one copy so that someone can go to the nearest school even if they just need to look at it. And it’s available for download online. That was never the primary thinking.

I never thought that online would be the equal because a lot of people aren’t able to get to that. The access to get to it is hard. It is one thing to get online to find it but then to download that complicated document; those are more advanced that regular computer skills that not everybody has. We put it online as a pdf with the resources. It’s not a dynamic website because we don’t have a lot of money. So that is when we prioritized and thought we should just print as many as we can. That was in the first year when we did that and then we continued that philosophy so we it is primarily about the printed editions. This summer we made a smart phone app. Paid by the wireless foundation but we haven’t promoted it yet but that will come this year. We give the information we collect from schools to the online tool finder database so you can find it in a searchable manner online. But we haven’t made that a part of our mission to make that kind of website.

The parents’ guide is an organizing tool for people in education or even if you aren’t you can use it as a base and outreach tool. When we went to knock on doors, we took the parents’ guide with us. And then we were able to give it to them and give them a book for more information. Then people think, “oh, this is great,” and then they want to talk to you. I didn’t think about it before but there is a lot of utility in it for different purposes. Then we can get it to more people who will use it in these ways.

LR: Is it widely used in New Orleans?

AR: Yes I was at the board offices yesterday at the assistant superintendent office talking to them about getting information and possibly helping provide some funding for it. And the map on the wall was the blown up map from inside the parent’s guide but she blew it up like a huge poster and put it on the wall. So definitely teachers and the school system use it all the time. People always tell me I can’t keep a copy; I have to write my name on it. So it is definitely widely used on that level.

Parents found one or got one. I’ve recently had a focus group with parents but they didn’t know who I was, I didn’t introduce myself as having anything to do with the parents’ guide and it came up in almost every focus group as a way that people get information. Some people didn’t know about it so I know that we still have work to do so everyone will know that it is available to them. It is pretty widespread, a lot of people do.

LR: So, the 6^th edition came out earlier this year. What is on your plate now?

AR: yes. I am working on the seventh edition now. It is me and the assistant editor. We are starting to gather information, work on fundraising, and figure out how to make the guide stronger every year. This year we are getting funding from the RSD and OPSB. This is good to have the school districts helping so it can be independent project with shared resources so it can be accountable to parents. Both districts have charter schools in them so the ROC is the state run called Recovery district. OPSB –- Orleans Parish School Board -- is getting up to 18 new schools. They used to control most of the schools before Katrina but they were taken away. Now we are at a moment when schools are probably going to start trickling back to the local school district.

We are at a tipping point where that will start happening. That is my prediction.

LR: So you are getting ready for the seventh one. Do you think the app will be useful?

AR: Yeah. Research show that communities that don’t have access to a lot of resources are more likely to have access to smart phones than desktops or laptops,. And people are more familiar with using them. This year we will promote it. I think it will be a value adds. We’ll see if in the future we print less. It allows for more updates. In order to get this Parents’ Guide out in a timely fashion that talks about the way decisions are made in schools in a point in time when things might change again we are always walking the line between perfect information and timeliness.

You can find video for Saturday's Foot Soldier segment spotlighting Ms. Rasheed here.

New York Times

People who are known as "game changers" rarely seek out the notoriety or fame that we bestow upon them. Instead, they're individuals who through extraordinary actions and self-sacrifice help to make the world a better place.

Some you may recognize include:

• Mahatma Gandhi who fought for India's independence through passive resistance and non-violence;
• Nelson Mandela who peacefully fought against apartheid in South Africa, spent 27 years in prison and was eventually elected as that country's first black president;
• and Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent a total of 15 years under house arrest and continues to fight for a more democratic Myanmar (Burma), as a member of its parliament.

Now, there's Malala Yousafzai. If you don't know her name, you should. She's the 14-year-old student-activist who the Taliban hunted down and shot.

Malala is still critical but her condition has stabilized. The bullet that entered her head and lodged in her back near her neck has been removed. The Taliban has declared that if Malala survives they will try again to kill her. Her father has also been threatened.

In their minds Malala poses a serious threat. But why? How could a 14-year-old girl pose a threat to a faceless, and cowardly group that felt the need to shoot at innocent children in order to extinguish her voice? According to a Taliban spokesman after they shot Malala it's because,

“She has become a symbol of Western culture in the area; she was openly propagating it.”

The “western culture” that Malala has been fighting for is for girls to have the right to receive an education in Pakistan.

The New York Times documented her struggles in a 2009 documentary as the Taliban sought to end female education in the Swat region of Pakistan and close schools like the one ran by her father. Yet Malala remained determined to get an education:

"They cannot stop me. I will get my education if it is in home, school or any place. This is our request to all the world that save our schools, save our world, save our Pakistan. Save our Swat."

Malala also chronicled the experience of her school closing in a blog for the BBC Urdu, and made television appearances in support of girls receiving an education without the threat of violence. Her work did not go unnoticed. Last year, she was awarded Pakistan's National Peace Award.

As we now know, Malala's profile may have grown too much for the Taliban. Her cause was seen as radical for a woman, let alone a child. And as Maine democratic Senate candidate Cynthia Dill notes in her article, “it gives credence to the mounting international concerns about the Taliban's resurgence in the wake of a planned U.S. military exit in 2014.”

Our presidential election will determine the course of action the next administration takes  regarding the Taliban's resurgence based on who's elected to office. But the more immediate concern is the loss of advances that have been made in the region in women's rights, especially in the area of education.

In neighboring Afghanistan, when the Taliban was in power girls were not allowed to go to school. Now, the estimates are that more than three million girls are receiving some form of education. That said, the struggles for women and girls are far from over in a country that is heavily male-dominated.

Violence in Pakistan against those who fight for women's rights is nothing new. Normally, sectarian divides and fear of the Taliban have caused Pakistanis to cast an ambivalent eye on attacks against those seeking rights for women and girls, but this time may be different. On Friday, fellow school children and adults around Pakistan prayed for Malala's recovery. And there has been worldwide condemnation of the Taliban's actions. Additionally, arrests have been made.

In this instance, it appears that the Taliban has failed. Malala is fighting for her life, as the world waits with anticipation for the latest reports on her health. She has shown the world what one little girl can do. How one person was willing to put herself in harm's way; willing to fight for her and every other young woman's right to an education.

No, the Taliban did not succeed. They have made Malala an icon, and shown the world how one little girl was willing to peacefully fight to change the game.

Ed. note: Melissa's essay from today's show has been added, along with her interview with Newsweek foreign policy analyst Rula Jebreal below the jump.

Update, Monday 10/15, 9:45am ET: Malala arrived in England this morning for further treatment. More information from NBC News here.

Have you ever actually read one of those spammy, scammy, Nigerian-prince-inheritance, I-have-such-a-great-deal-for-you junk emails? Here's what's funny about them: they're now preying upon your mistrust of said spammy, scammy emails in order to get you to trust them. I received one this morning, and I had to laugh at the attempt. It's not so funny when guys running for President of the United States try to pull the same gambit.

It is hardly a stretch to consider that the greatest danger to Barack Obama's re-election prospects has never been the quality of his opposition. Sure, one could take away from the first presidential debate that if Mitt Romney yells a lot at the moderator, the lies escaping his lips don't matter, given how the polls went a bit nuts over the past week. So what to make of it?

The President's greatest enemy is mistrust, and Republicans know it. If there is one thing we can believe about our politics, it's that Americans don't trust a damned thing. The politicians themselves, the policies they propose, the banks they rescue, the laws they pass -- it's all either up for debate, or simply dismissed. They know that given the records of George W. Bush and the recently departed Congressional session which they sat on, they don't have much to run on. The plans Romney and his running mate have for the economy are apparently not worthy of our eyes until we send them to the White House.

So Republicans aren't so much asking America to trust them as they are attempting to have us embrace the mistrust. Romney's best hope is to sow in each voter a lack of faith in what President Obama has done, and even who he is.

In her opening discussion, Melissa will ask today whether anyone actually cares about the truth anymore. Given what's happening in Florida before the election, it's worth asking; we'll get into that, too. Melissa will also spotlight a young hero targeted by the Taliban for having the audacity to help her classmates get an education --  given that this Mental Illness Awareness Week, we'll take a look at living with mental illness, and take a look at the most recent (and unfortunate) developments with one of the most visible sufferers in our politics, Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. of Illinois. And be sure to stay tuned for a Footnote that will preview Tuesday's presidential debate in a way no one else will.

Our guests include:

• Danielle Belton, editor-at-large at Clutch Magazine, writer for BET's "Don't Sleep!", and creator of the blog The Black Snob. 
• Diana Furchtgott-Roth, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and author of "Regulating to Disaster."
• Rula Jebreal, foreign policy analyst for Newsweek, and an MSNBC contributor.
• Jason Johnson, political science professor at Hiram College, chief political correspondent for Politic365.com, and politics editor for The Source magazine.
• Jonathan Metzl, author of "Protest Psychosis;" director, Program in Medicine, Health, and Society, and professor of psychiatry at Vanderbilt University.
• Gihan Perera, executive director of Florida New Majority.
• Joy Reid, managing editor of theGrio.com, and an MSNBC contributor.
• Bill Schneider, distinguished senior fellow and resident scholar at Third Way.

As always, folks -- be sure to interact with us during the show here in the comments of this post, on Facebook, and on Twitter, using the hashtag #nerdland. We look forward to having you join us at 10am ET on msnbc!

Fighting through laryngitis, Melissa finished last Sunday's show if not with a strong voice, then a strong message -- about strength. Specifically, what we we perceive our President to be able to do, what we aspire for him to do, and how that often contrasts with his actual powers:

It takes strength to deal honestly with your opponents, even when they deal dishonestly with you.
It takes strength to make the tough calls even when you are not sure how they will turn out.
It takes strength to have the patience to watch policy become progress.
It takes strength to admit mistakes and change direction when needed...
So yes, the presidency itself is weak, which is why Americans want presidents themselves to be strong. I just encourage us not to confuse aggressiveness with strength.

Take a look at Melissa toughing it out through her Footnote from last Sunday -- our Good Look for this week. Be sure to join us today for another edition of "Melissa Harris-Perry," and another Footnote! See you on msnbc at 10am ET.

Courtesy of Aesha Rasheed

New Orleans education activist Aesha Rasheed.

Prior to today's Foot Soldier segment, Melissa shone light on the issue of school choice in her discussion of busing and desegregation in the Boston Public Schools. Closer to home for her, an activist named Aesha Rasheed is determined to ensure that New Orleans parents have the information they need to make the proper choice for their children.

Rasheed, a former education reporter with the New Orleans Times-Picayune, left the paper in 2005 to pursue advocacy -- and continues pursuing that today through the organization she later founded, the New Orleans Parent Organizing Network, which publishes a parents' guide for the city's increasing crop of charter schools.

Rasheed had a lot to say about this issue when we spoke. Below is the first half of our conversation, and Melissa's segment from today's show.

LR: Tell me a little bit about what was going on before Katrina and how you got involved in this.

AR: Before Katrina I was an education reporter and I covered the Orleans Parish School system and the state board of education, and this is at a time when the state was sort of beginning to implement the accountability system including the high stakes test for kids. Part of the back story is that public schools in New Orleans were definitely in a decline. There were lots of stories – anecdotal stories – [in which] kids were graduating and they don’t know how to read and write, and they aren’t prepared for the workforce. There was pushback from the business community saying that we need to have kids that are better prepared.

This is a bit of my opinion, but for a long time the city was so reliant –and still is to some degree - on a lower wage employee force so it was acceptable to be supportive of the school system not being that strong. So you could get low wage workers. But it came to this point where [I thought], "well, actually we could use people who are better prepared to attract Fortune 500 companies etc., oil bust, in all of that. So we started to see this new pressure to get kids better prepared, to better prepare our students, and crime is going up, etc… Which created this condition where we then created and implemented this pretty intense accountability system which took the anecdotal stories and put some statistics to it -- so mass failure, kids not passing high stakes tests, lots of evidence that schools were not meeting the needs of kids? And then, a part of the battle was really intense financial disarray, the district had 10 superintendents come through in 10 years. Some of who stayed for a couple of years, some who were interim, and were there for months.

What I observed as a reporter is that it didn’t get any traction even on a good idea. Because we had somebody new coming in and wanting to redo everything. You know, a new superintendent would come in and say, "I want to change everything." They put in some new educational approach, or changed the structure of a school, or moved all the leaders around, but nothing really had time to stick and evolve. Which built these layers of… maybe it was a good idea but it never went anywhere. Which left kids in the mix of that, and also layers of corruption. So there was corruption, incompetence, corruption, and like big things that happened -- like the district’s accounting system and payroll system didn’t work properly, so there were times where teachers didn’t get paid or got a two-cent check instead of their payroll check. Or dead people were getting paid, or somebody’s cousin who never worked for the system was getting a check, and all these scandals. Meanwhile the FBI was investigating the corruption, and so they had setup investigations inside the school board offices to investigate. They were so probing into what everyone thought was deep corruption. My perspective was that it was probably was a mixture of that layering, where structures didn’t work and systems didn’t work, and people that were all like "look, the system is broken so I better get something." There certainly was corruption but there was also chaos.

LR: Your interest in this at the time was as a reporter focusing on education.

AR: Right, so I [was] sitting at school board meetings and observing. I had covered schools in a suburban parish before, and had watched from the outskirts this chaos in New Orleans and thought – well why don’t they do this, or that, why don’t they implement these systems that seem to work in this other parish? I came in New Orleans and was sort of like, visit all the schools and get a good sense of what is going on there. What I saw is this huge disconnect. School board meetings were spent talking who was getting what dollars. A lot of schools were just heartbreaking, like no one was at the front office. There was one school that looked just like a prison. It was very depressing to see the conditions that teachers and kids were actually working within, and that was not the conversation happening at the school board level. No one was actually talking about those conditions and that cause me a lot of angst, and is part of why I fed. I found myself only writing about this is how bad things are, and as a journalist you think writing about how bad things are would move people to do something, but what is saw is a lot of apathy. Apathy is not the right word, because apathy implies people don’t care, but "hardened-ness." People who were like, “it’s been f***** up for a long time; it’s going to stay f***** up, so why bother.”

And so I just got to a point where I saw this wasn’t changing anything, it’s not improving anything. The framework of coverage was really flawed, because it was a very “let’s follow the money” framework. And my thought was what does this mean for kids? I almost don’t just want to follow money around, and ignore what’s happening in classrooms. The Times-Picayune, there were lots of great people there who were about doing good journalism, but generally they were not interested in setting an agenda about quality public schools. It was not like, “well, we could cover this in a more comprehensive way” or we could do certain things that - I believe that newspapers should and do set an agenda when they fail to set an agenda they set another agenda. I think the agenda that got set was, let’s just abandon public schools because they’re f***** up. You know, like unintentionally.

This isn’t helping, I’m spinning my wheels, I’m really exhausted, and I cried a lot during those years. I would leave meetings, and I couldn’t… It was so bad and hard to see, that I would just find myself emotionally tanked. And I realized I wanted to do something else. I wanted to not just write about the political shenanigans, I wanted to actually get involved in trying to help do something better, and so I thought at the time that that was policy, and I was like, well, maybe if I went to try to work on understanding this idea that id people just knew what to do then they would do it. And so I’m going to go try to figure out how to get into policy work. And also at the same time I had always ahead a calling to be a healer, so I also was like, I really want to go to massage school. So I left and became a massage therapist and started doing some little bits of work around policy questions as a contractor. I left the paper in 2005.

And so, Katrina happened, and like most people, it shifted everything for me. I was suddenly seeing the Matrix all of a sudden. This isn’t just good people that don’t know what to do; this is structural inequity and injustice and racism. This is way bigger got connected with people who thought about organizing and were organizers or people who supported organizing. So I started learning about organizing, and started to shift my work to thinking about community change from a grassroots up place. And that’s really how the Parent’s Guide started.

LR: What got you interested in the education beat? Do you have kids in the system?

AR: No. I arrived in New Orleans as a 23 year old college graduate who the Times-Picayune hired to cover something, and they [asked], "why don’t you cover schools for a minute?" I think they were all like, "you’re a girl, you probably like children!"

So -- other than my own experience going to school -- I had no other wise credentials to be an education reporter... You know, I think everyone put the lowest priority on education. It’s the youngest reporters, it’s the least covered. I was like, if you say this is really important, you don’t put the youngest reporter on it, which is cutting their teeth, by themselves. There was very little support. My editor didn’t really know about the school system, I felt like I could really be writing anything. I fell off into it. I loved it. I feel like I did a really good job, and I worked really hard -- but it wasn’t a choice necessarily. It wasn’t like, "would you like to cover education?" It was like, "we’ll put you on the education beat and see how that goes for you."

And the other thing that I didn’t tell you which you might have found in reading. There was a story about a class valedictorian from a high school who didn’t graduate because she couldn’t pass the graduation exit exam.

LR: Didn’t she try about seven times or something?

AR: Yeah. I wrote that story, and that was towards the end. I think that two big altering moments for me were writing that story and working with her, and feeling torn about knowing that it was an important story, but also feeling like -- I had a conversation with her where I was like, you should think about whether you want to have your name in the appear about this. Because i don’t know if it will help you. She wanted her story told, but if you’re 18, I think that you’re awesome, but people are going to say, "there’s that girl who failed." For your whole life. I [said], people’s names only appear in media for a moment if you’re a private person, it’s like birth and death. And then when something bad happens in your life.

LR: Just to clarify: she was first in her class and she failed that test several times. Do you believe it was because of how the test was structured or was it that…

AR: She was not prepared.

LR: ...even being the best in her... Did anyone else pass?

AR: A lot of kids at that school failed, I think she probably had.. A: her grades were probably more of a reflection of her behavior and disposition than her actually solidly knowing what she was being taught. So I think that’s part of it. So she wasn’t prepared in math. She didn’t even know some basics. And sure, she probably has some test anxiety, and I’m sure those things played in, but completely failing the test… I think the test is a huge problem; I’m not an advocate of it. I don’t think kids bomb it if they actually know they content. They might not do as well as they would have done, but if they are actually really well prepared they might pass it, even if they should have gotten Mastery or higher if it hadn’t been so stressful. But I don’t think they’d completely fail multiple times. She was not prepared in math. One of the things I did is ask to see all of her records as part of the agreement to do the story, and her highest score in the ACT was an 11. And the ACT people were like… an 11? You show up and you get an 11.

She was every lovely and smart, she was just not prepared. I asked her teachers – did you feel like you had what you needed, and they were like ‘yeah.’ Also I think it highlighted another issue. How do you tell a child that they are going to be the valedictorian when they have this record of failing a test that you know is high stakes? And get all of the way until the week before graduation before telling them actually, no. I fell like that was from the thinking about the wellness of children kind of place – a huge oversight. I’m not saying that the people in the school were evil, but it highlighted so much that was wrong. The approach [seemed to be an] "if they’re going to learn they’re going to learn, if they don’t it’s not our fault" kind of attitude.

The other story that was kind of deep for me was this...shooting at John McDunna School when I was a reporter. I think that’s part of what surprised me on the business of journalism is that there was a lot of pressure to go back and keep talking to students about how they felt about their school and whether they felt it was safe, and I kind of just… No one was thinking about the fact that these are not adults. We should not be asking…I think it’s pretty thoughtless to keep going into a community and asking if they feel safe, but at least its adults, who maybe can make the decision how to talk and when to talk. But I just think that presenting the question to young people who have to go to that school was wrong. It just felt really wrong. And that whole way of covering it was so sensationalized. I don’t think the Times-Picayune was particularly evil; this is how this stuff gets covered. But I just felt like it lacked in sensitivity to this kids. And I will say that it was different when I was covering St. Tammany public schools.

LR: What public schools?

AR: In St. Tammany, where it’s mostly white. I think it would have been different because no one in the newsroom was like ‘my kid goes to John Mac. These are “other” kids, and so we don’t even think of them as kids. That really bothered me, and quite frankly I didn’t go. I just like drove to a coffee shop. I couldn’t ask kids to keep talking about something really traumatic that happened in their school. And also there were lots of other things like loopholes, like the fact that the school was organized in a way that kids could walk in with AK-47s. It was one of those moments where I was like, "oh my God, it’s bad."

Check our blog tomorrow after the show to read the second half of my interview with Ms. Rasheed. See Melissa's Foot Soldier segment below.

If you’ve been watching the show over the last few weeks, and in particular, if you've been following our This Week In Voter Suppression segments, you might be feeling a little shook. I know I am.

You might be having nightmares about state Republican legislators passing laws that could disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of students, people of color, poor people, and seniors.

You may be feeling a little anxiety about attempts to purge thousands of people from voter rolls in states like Florida and Ohio.

You can even be forgiven if the plans of organizations like True the Vote to send one million volunteers out to intimidate voters at the polls on election day make you feel a bit of hyperventilation coming on.

It’s okay. The idea of an organized effort to block the vote, steal and election, and most importantly, undermine our democracy, is scary stuff. But here’s the thing, when you turn on the light, they boogeyman goes away. And in this case, the light for the American electorate is knowledge and information.

As of today, we can all rest a little easier because resistance against restrictive voting laws has blocked or weakened those laws in more than a dozen states. But that still leaves several states with new voter laws that will be in effect on election day.

If you live in one of those states, don't get scared. Get ready. Do your homework. Find out what the law is, so you can make sure you've got everything you need to exercise your right to vote on November 6.

You can start with the Map of Shame you see above, courtesy of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. It breaks down what you need to know about voter-ID laws -- whether you need an ID in your state, what kind is valid, and whether or not you're required to show an ID if one is requested of you.

If you're a new voter, or have to change your registration for any reason, you might be affected too. Most registration deadlines have already passed, but to find out if there's still time for you to get registered, check out the list of deadlines here. 

Today, Melissa chatted with Barbara Arnwine, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Ms. Arnwine is going to be dropping all kinds of knowledge about how you can volunteer to be a part of efforts to stop voter suppression.

She'll tell you what to do if you get challenged by a monitor on election day. And she's even got a hotline for you to call if you witness some voter intimidation shadiness going down at your local polling place -- 1-866-OUR-VOTE.

So shake off that shook feeling. Remember: voting is your right. You have the power.

Ed. note: You can find the first segment of Saturday's edition of This Week in Voter Suppression!™ below the jump.

Let's give a break to what many think is a mythical being: the undecided voter. There are 24 days before Election Day, and the Undecided Voter is catching hell -- from Saturday Night Live, most recently. This isn't new; The Daily Show gave them the business in 2008. Really, you haven't made your mind up by now?, they imply. No, some haven't. Some folks have actual questions they still want answered.

If that isn't clear by the polls being swung by a 90-minute debate in which the one guy who lied loudly came out the "winner" over the President, I don't know what to tell you. Clearly, "Undecided Voter" doesn't just apply to people who haven't made any kind of decision whatsoever.

Surely such an important decision -- who will be the Leader of the Free World -- is an important one to ponder. And it should be encouraging that there are citizens among us weighing all the important policy positions, personal attributes, and records of the men running for President of the United States. Right?

Instead, these utterly responsible citizens are being pillories as if they were aliens walking amongst us, and encounters with them are on the level of what Carl Sagan described in "Contact." Meeting one is like encountering an Oklahoma City Thunder fan; seriously, have you met one? But there's the problem with anecdotal evidence right there: there are tons of people (though likely not in Seattle) who root for that team, as there are actual, real, living undecided voters.

So rather than asking those people in a fury, "WHY HAVEN'T YOU MADE UP YOUR MIND, DUDE/LADY?!?!", today we'll explore some of the things that could help sway their vote in these final days. Naturally, there are people who are their direct opposites -- folks who have voted early, in states like Ohio. Well, in today's edition of This Week in Voter Suppression!™, we'll bring you some fresh news on what extremes Republican lawmakers and state officials are going to in order to block people from voting early.

We'll also assess the cultural and social impact of an Obama second term on African Americans, and take a look at school desegregation through busing. And we'll have a Foot Soldier which you will not want to miss!

Our guests include:

• Barbara Arnwine, president and executive director of the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
• Anthea Butler, professor of religious studies and graduate chair of religion at the University of Pennsylvania.
• Prudence Carter, associate professor of education and sociology, Stanford University, and author of "Stubborn Roots: Race, Culture, and Inequality in U.S. and South African Schools."
• Jelani Cobb, associate professor of Africana Studies at the University of Connecticut.
• Kim Janey, senior project director at the Massachusetts Advocates for Children, and a part of the Boston School Reform Project.
• Glen Johnson, politics editor of Boston.com.
• Nina Turner, Ohio State Senator.
• Matt Welch, editor-in-chief of Reason Magazine, and author of "McCain: Myth of a Maverick."

As always, folks -- be sure to interact with us during the show here in the comments of this post, on Facebook, and on Twitter, using the hashtag #nerdland. We look forward to having you join us at 10am ET on msnbc!

Shakil Adil / AP

Pakistani children pray for the recovery of 14-year-old schoolgirl Malala Yousufzai during a candlelight vigil in Karachi, Pakistan, Friday.

While 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai remained in the hospital recovering from a gun shot to the head, fellow school children in Pakistan gathered Friday to offer prayers for her recovery.

Yousafzai was targeted and shot by gunmen Tuesday on a school bus in Pakistan under order of the Taliban because of her outspokenness on education for girls and against the Taliban. She had previously blogged for the BBC on these issues under a pseudonym. Three suspects were arrested.

Radio Free Europe reports:

The prayers in schools and other places across Pakistan on October 12 are in response to a call by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government for people around the nation to express solidarity with Yousafzai.

Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf is due to visit Yousafzai on October 12 as the gravely wounded schoolgirl recovers in a military hospital in Rawalpindi.

Prayers were held throughout the country Friday as leaders condemned the attack. A spokesman called Yousafzai's condition "satisfactory," but said the next two days are critical.

Asif Hassan / AFP - Getty Images

Pakistani Muslims pray for the early recovery of child activist Malala Yousafzai during Friday prayers in Karachi on October 12. Pakistanis at mosques across the country prayed Friday for the recovery of the schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban as doctors said the next two days were critical.

Producer Jamil Smith contributed to this post.

Despite debates, deceptions, and divisions, Mitt Romney is still having a hard time catching up in Ohio. While this morning's new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll shows the Republican presidential nominee keeping it airtight in Florida and surging to a slim lead in Virginia, Ohio remains a stronghold of Obama support. The President leads by six points there, a bit of a slimmer lead than before, but still very strong -- especially since my fellow Buckeyes have been able to vote since October 2.

Another thing we're seeing in Ohio? The Republican Secretary of State taking a series of L's on his efforts to restrict early voting. He's to the point now where he's appealing to the Supreme Court to reverse a court ruling keeping the polls open all the way through Election Day, whereas he wants to bar people from voting on the last three days beforehand.

As Trymaine Lee noted in the Huffington Post, that action alone is confusing matters:

Local election officials said they don't know how to inform their poll workers or voters. Ministers have stalled their Souls to the Polls campaigns. And Husted has raised the ante in the latest round between the state's Democrats and Republicans over expanding or limiting voter access. "The problem is we have no clue what's going on," said Tim Burke, a Democrat and chairman of the Hamilton County Board of Elections in Cincinnati. "I am absolutely convinced that this is part of an overall strategy."

We don't know if a crop of alarmist billboards warning against committing voter fraud have erected in black and Latino neighborhoods around Cleveland, Ohio are a formal part of that strategy, but local politicians and civil-rights groups believe that's the goal of whoever is paying for them. According to a map created by Eric Fischer (see below the jump), there are currently 10 billboards standing, a majority of which are prominently featured at the corner major intersections. Clear Channel, who was paid to display the ads, has declined to disclose who paid for them.

The only indication of authorship exists in a corner in fine print: "Paid for by a private family foundation." 

What is the incentive behind placing billboards in poor, heavily democratic neighborhoods of color? Their strategic placement and aggressive content certainly suggests so. A Cleveland city councilwoman, Phyllis Cleveland, voiced her protest in a video on the Cleveland Plain Dealer site (see above):

"When you have the words 'felony,' 'voter,' and 'fine' all the the same message, and by placing it where it is, the only message that you are intending to send is that this is a threat to you if you vote... It's just a blatant attempt to keep people in this community, particularly black people and poor people, from voting."

The Plain Dealer also reports that Washington-based voting advocacy group, The Lawyers' Committee For Civil Rights, sent a letter this week to Clear Channel Outdoor's office in suburban Parma requesting they take down the signs.

The glut of voter-ID laws which could have disenfranchised as many as 21 million citizens have largely been struck down. But Ohio is a perhaps the swing state of swing states, the one upon which Romney's electoral hopes lie. With the Republican trailing in the state, and the Secretary of State doing everything but pulling a George Wallace in front of the polls, the rights of early voters in the state aren't served well by scary messages about a problem that never really existed.

See the aforementioned racial map of Cleveland, and the sites where the billboards are located. Below, you'll see a "PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton" report from Tuesday about these billboards -- and not just in Ohio.

Mother Jones and Eric Fischer

red = Caucasians
blue = African Americans
orange = Latinos
green = Asians

Washington State Representative Maureen Walsh recently filmed a PSA in favor of marriage equality in the Evergreen State. Walsh, a third-term Republican Representative, is advocating for the passage of Referendum 74, which would allow same-sex couples to marry in Washington.

In the 30-second PSA, Walsh said the issue of marriage equality was a "question of fundamental fairness" and that it was not her, or anyone else's, place to stop a couple from benefiting in the "incredible bond of marriage."

"As a Republican, I don't believe the government should tell anyone who they can or cannot marry," Walsh added.

Walsh made headlines back in February after stunning her party with her bipartisan support for marriage equality. In her heartfelt speech in the Legislature, she spoke about her own daughter, who is a lesbian, and her desire to one day throw her a wedding. 

"I hope she will not feel like a second-class citizen involved in something called a 'domestic partnership,'" Walsh said in her speech.

Meanwhile, former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum made a stop in Spokane, Wash. on Tuesday to campaign against the referendum. 

But support for marriage equality is strong heading into November, as indicated by a recent poll out of Washington that shows a 15-point lead between those in favor of passing the referendum and those who oppose it. 

Washington is one of four states in the country that will vote on marriage equality this November.

In a powerful three-point punch to her opponent Todd Akin's damning remarks on "legitimate rape," Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill released a blitz of TV spots featuring testimonials from rape survivors.

One ad features Diana—a self-described Republican, pro-life mother, and rape survivor. Another stars Rachel who shares how she was "brutally raped in a home invasion." A third highlights Joanie, another pro-life mother and survivor of an "extremely violent sexual assault."

All three women are uniting with McCaskill to take down Akin in the Missouri Senate race. 

"What Todd Akin said was offensive, but what he believes is worse," Diana says in the ad. "I have never voted for Claire McCaskill. But because of Todd Akin, I will now."

With just four weeks left in the general election, McCaskill is directly hitting Akin on his now infamous remarks that rape victims are able to "shut that whole thing down," in a bid to exemplify not only his character, but the types of policy he would be inclined to initiate. Akin has already voiced opposition to emergency contraceptives—with no exceptions for cases of rape or incest—and McCaskill leaves the door open on the implications for victims of sexual assault.

"Todd Akin apologized for implying there is such a thing as legitimate rape," Joanie says in one TV spot. "He may have misspoken, but I believe he showed his true colors and his true intent of what he intends to do if elected."

"As a woman of faith, I must forgive Todd Akin," Joanie adds. "But as a voter, it's not something I can forget."

Watch Diana's ad above, or Joanie's here, and Rachel's here:

MSNBC

Debo Adegbile of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, on our show last Sunday.

This is a guest column by one of our Sunday guests, Debo Adegbile, who is the Acting President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Inc. (LDF). LDF argued the Fisher v. Texas case in the federal appellate court, and filed a friend of the court brief in the Supreme Court. You can follow him on Twitter at @DeboLDF.

For many students, college is the first time that they have meaningful interactions with people of other races. Because many of our nation’s neighborhoods and schools remain segregated, not by law but in fact, the opportunities to learn from, work with, and live alongside people who are different are often limited in American life. For decades, the United States Supreme Court has helped to break down these barriers through landmark rulings that paved he way for the nation’s universities to pursue the twin goals of academic excellence and broad diversity. But a major case now before the Court could determine whether universities will be able to consciously continue their role of bringing people from different racial backgrounds together.

As the acting President of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (“LDF”), I have a particular legal vantage point on the issue of diversity in higher education. LDF filed a brief on behalf of African-American students and alumni in the Supreme Court attesting to the critical role that college plays in expanding opportunity for all students.

But I also have a personal perspective. 

I played soccer when I was in college. My teammates and I came from across the nation and world, played hard, and learned lasting lessons about our strengths, limits and character. After practices, we often recounted the day’s highs and lows as we walked up the hill to dinner -- ribbing each other along the way. But one evening, things were different. As I reached out to hug a teammate who was walking apart from the group he turned and snapped at me “get off me, you fuzzy foreigner.”

This incident was well over twenty years ago, but I remember it clearly. We were both people of modest means who loved the game, but in the blink of an eye, our similarities seemed to be meaningless. While my life in The Bronx, New York may have been “foreign” to the experience of my teammate who was from a different part of the country, it was undoubtedly my race, and perhaps my name that caused him, reflexively, to refer to me as something other than a teammate. But if our early measure of each other was affected by our prior experiences and preconceptions, at college it was not be singularly defined by them.

Had ours been a chance encounter that might have been the end of the story -- but because we attended the same college and were able to live together and learn from each other, we both had the opportunity to move past it. Through our experiences on campus, on the soccer field, in the dorm and through the classes and interests that we shared we came to appreciate both the similarities and differences associated with our distinctive racial backgrounds and built a friendship. We would later travel to his hometown during a school vacation. Years later, at his request, I vouched for his character when he sought admission to his state’s bar.

My experience and countless others like it across the nation illustrate the possibilities that living and learning with students of different races, cultures and backgrounds affords. This story is a window into a larger American challenge and the difficulties we encounter when we fail to develop tools for productive cross-racial interactions. In the absence of opportunities to understand people based upon experiences, we run the risk of reducing them to stereotypical assumptions about their most obvious feature, which is often their race.

Today the Court will hear oral arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas, a case that revisits the constitutionality of college and university admissions policies that seek to ensure that their student body is broadly diverse as well as academically qualified. LDF is not alone in endorsing the benefits of diversity in this case. An avalanche of over 70 briefs were filed from major corporations like Merck, DuPont, Halliburton and American Express, retired military leaders like General Colin Powell, over 100 college and universities, small businesses, religious denominations, and leading civil rights organizations. There also have been numerous opinion pieces, such as a piece in the Washington Post by Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow and Yale Law School Dean Robert Post, and another by Steve Farmer, Vice Provost for enrollment and undergraduate admissions at the University of North Carolina, which forcefully make the case for diversity.

This journey began over 60 years ago in a case, also out of the University of Texas, Sweatt v. Painter, when the Court first recognized the diversity principle and that law, education, and life do not exist in isolation.  Some years later, in another case, Bakke v. University of California at Davis, a pivotal opinion by one of the Justices affirmed this core value – that all students and the country as a whole benefit from diversity in higher education. Justice Powell, who cast the deciding vote in Bakke, observed that “nation’s future depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure to the ideas and mores of students as diverse as this Nation of many peoples.” This notion applies with even greater force to the challenges our nation faces today. And in 2003, in the Michigan case, the Court roundly embraced diversity in higher education, emphasizing the many educational advantages of having people of different racial backgrounds on campus and in the classroom.

America is better and stronger when the pathways to educational opportunity are visibly open to everyone. We cannot and should not waiver from this important path to educational opportunity -- as the Supreme Court has previously explained, nothing less than the future of the nation depends upon it.

Find the entirety of our Sunday conversation on affirmative action below the jump. We'll have more on today's events later today on the blog.

AP Photo/ Evan Vucci

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney delivers an address centered upon foreign policy yesterday at the Virginia Military Institute.

Next Tuesday will mark six years since the normally mild-mannered Dennis Green famously lost his temper at a press conference following a crushing loss his Arizona Cardinals suffered at the hands of the Chicago Bears. Green, then Arizona's head coach, saw his team blow what seemed to be an insurmountable lead late in the game, and lose at home on Monday Night Football. I'll spare all the specifics that NFL Films covers well in this video -- one which you should watch in order to see Green spit hot fire:

The Bears are what we thought they were. They're what we thought they were. We played them in preseason — who the hell takes a third game of the preseason like it's bullsh*t? Bullsh*t! We played them in the third game — everybody played three quarters — the Bears are who we thought they were! That's why we took the damn field. Now if you want to crown them, then crown their *ss! But they are who we thought they were! And we let 'em off the hook!

Over those nearly six years, I've been reminded of the punchiest line in Green's rant -- "they are who we thought they were!" -- often as I've watched Mitt Romney run for President. Considering the address he gave yesterday at the Virginia Military Institute, it seems that this actually be the moment at which it is most poignant. How so?

Despite Romney's newly launched, media-driven campaign "reset," it is important to remember that he has always been the same person. I'll explain what I mean.

There's no doubt that Romney's efforts at re-invention are the stuff of legend, even under their current moniker of "etch-a-sketching." Last week's debate was a sign that we're in a new phase of it, a (perceived) Romney shift back to the political center under the cover of vagaries and lies. Yesterday, he continued in that vein with a frightening foreign policy speech.

First, the biggest etch-a-sketch:

“I will recommit America to the goal of a democratic, prosperous Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with the Jewish state of Israel.”

This two-state solution, of course, is the exact opposite what he remarked to a private, high-priced fundraiser back in April. Yes, the same one at which Romney spoke derisively about the "47%" and said that he believed Palestinians aren't interested in peace and that as President, he planned to "kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it."

In a substantive, surgical breakdown, Fred Kaplan of Slate called the speech "the most dishonest" Romney has delivered yet. Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic wasn't happy, either, going even further by calling it a "terrible, horrible, no good, very bad"  speech:

The speech that Mitt Romney gave Monday ought to make every American nervous about what he and his ideological team would do if permitted to direct U.S. foreign policy. What a debacle...

Romney's foreign policy sure does seem as if it's the terrible consequence of the Republican Party's attempt to treat spending as if it was the only failure of the Bush Administration, rather than acknowledging the various ways in which the Bush foreign policy made the United States worse off.

Yeah, but was it loud? Given that near-universal praise greeted Romney for his bullying, loud debate performance full of lies last Wednesday and the wacky polls we've seen both ways since, it's clear that that this is a volcanic electorate in many senses -- molten, fiery, volatile. As long as Romney feeds the heat with his rhetoric, all while re-jiggering himself to the left of his extreme party positions for those voters who -- like casual sports fans at playoff time -- are just starting to pay attention, it's a recipe for success. Right?

In his analysis of Romney's speech yesterday, Adam Serwer of Mother Jones opted not to focus on the substance Kaplan and Friedersdorf analyzed, noting that this speech was less policy address than public service announcement (in the vein of Jay-Z, naturally). Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic ponders the timing of this "reset," wondering if Romney has been espousing the extreme for a little too long:

Historically, those commitments have told us something about the plans candidates pursue in office. Those commitments have also told us something about the resistance candidates will put up in the face of political pressure. With Romney, the latter may be more important, because if he’s elected he'd almost certainly be working with a Republican Congress. The plans he endorsed are very much like the ones House Republicans have already passed. If Romney is not willing to stand up his party’s base now, why should we expect he'd stand up to them as president? ...

Romney had more than a year of campaigning to position himself as a moderate. He chose not to do so. That tells us a lot—more, surely, than anything he says now.

That brings me back to "they are who we thought they were," and a must-read New York Times piece on Romney from last week. In a lengthy examination of Romney's past as Massachusetts governor, it was clear that through all of his varied policy machinations and switches, the guy really wanted one thing more than anything: to be President. I've wondered aloud why a man of his wealth and business influence would even bother with the revealing, arduous process of becoming President, but one thing that has been clear over the course of time is that Romney is a politician of almost limitless ambition, to the point where lying has become a campaign staple (and alternatively, punchline).

Yesterday's speech gave some substantive, frightening indication of what he'd do if elected. But Mitt Romney hasn't changed. If we'd been paying enough attention, it would be clear that we've always known. So enough about "etch-a-sketching," and the like. It's clear that Romney not only doesn't expect America to care -- he's counting on it.

Editor's note: Melissa toughed out Sunday's two-hour broadcast with laryngitis, but doing so meant the sacrifice of some of her longer segment introductions. Below is the essay which she intended to deliver prior to our discussion of affirmative action, and the very important reason it is back in the news this week.

All eyes will be on the Supreme Court this Wednesday as the justices hear arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas. That's the case which is putting the often challenged practice of Affirmative Action front and center. It's not the first time the court has presided over a case involving affirmative action. However, this is a conservative leaning court, led by Chief Justice John Roberts. And only eight justices will be deciding the outcome as Justice Elena Kagan recused herself. So, this could be the case that potentially eradicates the practice of affirmative action from the college admissions process.

And In an age, where we have a black president, some may ask, do we even need affirmative action anymore? To answer that question, we only have to go back a few short decades.

While the 1954 Supreme Court ruling Brown v. Board of Education changed the educational landscape for students of color, and Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy took small steps to address affirmative action during their terms, it was President Lyndon Johnson ushering forth the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission -- and then issuing an executive order in 1965 that enforced affirmative action for government contractors for the first time.

Universities and colleges followed suit and began to include affirmative action in their admissions procedures in order to diversify their student bodies. But with affirmative action's implementation in higher education a number of challenges against the policy have arisen.

In 1978, Allan Bakke, a white medical-school applicant, said he was denied admittance to the University of California because affirmative action made room for less qualified minority applicants. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled against the use of racial quotas in the admission process because it was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment. However, the Court did say that race could still be considered as one of many factors.

And In 2003, there was both Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger.

The first case focused on affirmative action in the undergraduate admissions process, while the second looked at law school admissions, both at the University of Michigan.

This time the Supreme Court ruled that the use of affirmative action in the undergraduate process was *un*constitutional, but upheld the school's policy for law school admissions.

Now, there's Abigail Fisher.

In 2008, she was denied admittance to the University of Texas at Austin. In Texas, the top 10% of high school graduating classes enjoy automatic admission to the state University system. Fisher didn't make that cut, so she was assessed based on a formula for which race is one part of the equation to consider admitting the applicant to the institution.

Fisher's suit charges that race shouldn't be part of the process at all because it violates the Equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. And that's what the Supreme Court will now rule on, whether race should be a factor in admitting students to school.

This ruling could change the face of higher education as we know it and possibly reverse the successes of affirmative action has achieved. Since the late 1980s, the total college enrollment of students of color has increased by 57.2%. And the number of degrees earned by Native Americans rose 151.9% between 1981 and 2001.

That's progress, folks. This is a policy that works.

Make no mistake. The end of affirmative action in higher education would have dramatic, immediate and negative consequences for the egalitarian progress we have made in the past thirty years. We certainly shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking we're past needing affirmative action when so much inequality still exists.

Video of the first third of our look at the Fisher case and affirmative action, featuring panelists Kenji Yoshino, Robert Traynham, Chloe Angyal, and Debo Adegbile, is below. The rest of the discussion can be found either in the carousel above or at our MSNBC video hub.

So, as you heard if you follow Melissa on Twitter, she's keeping her voice very low this morning. Mostly, because we here on the #nerdland staff are begging her to.

Shortly after yesterday's show, there were signs that Melissa's head cold began stealing her voice, reducing it to little more than a whisper. In the hopes of preventing one of our guests, "The Cycle" co-host Steve Kornacki, from becoming "MHP" impromptu guest host Steve Kornacki, we've asked her to save her voice for the show. Despite the whispers, the beat indeed goes on. (Ahem.)

Topics Melissa will broach today through her (perhaps) amplified mike today include one of the third rails of American politics: affirmative action. We'll have a bonus edition of This Week in Voter Suppression!™, Ohio edition -- and take a look at the first-generation Americans running this fall to serve America in Congress and elsewhere. Melissa also has a preview of this week's vice-presidential debate in store.

In addition to potential substitute host Kornacki, our guests include:

• Debo Adegbile, acting president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
• Chloe Angyal, an editor at Feministing -- and contributor to The Atlantic, Jezebel, The Guardian, among others.
• Sayu Bhojwani, founding director of the New American Leaders Project.
• Grace Meng, Democratic candidate for Congress from New York.
• Christopher Smitherman, Cincinnati councilman and head of the Cincinnati NAACP.
• Robert Traynham, MSNBC contributor and former communications director for Rick Santorum.
• Kenji Yoshino, NYU law professor.

As always, folks -- be sure to interact with us during the show here in the comments of this post, on Facebook, and on Twitter, using the hashtag #nerdland. We look forward to having you join us at 10am ET on msnbc!

One of those You'll Only See It On "MHP" segments aired last weekend, and in light of a recent event, it makes for a particularly salient Good Look this week. That event is the death this week in Canada of one of North America's most notorious academic racists, Jean Phillippe Rushton.

Aside from funding projects around the world for "scientists" like himself, Rushton was notable for his genetic similarity theory -- which posited, essentially, that you're likely to be kinder and more altruistic towards people who more similar genetically to you -- and another whopper about the correlation between genital size and intelligence (we can see where that's going).

More on that from the Southern Poverty Law Center, via Salon:

Rushton’s infamous theory about race and intelligence can be summed up in two words: size matters.

He postulated that brain and genital size are inversely related, implying that whites are more intelligent than blacks and that Asians are the smartest of all.

It was clear that Rushton, for science or his own motivations, believed race to be a genetic, physical construct. But perhaps we should thank bozos like Rushton for strengthening another theory: that race is a social construct.

That's the discussion Melissa opened up last week, spurred on by the Native American identification which Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren has claimed from family anecdotes, and which her opponent -- incumbent GOP Sen. Scott Brown -- has tried to make into a thing. Much like "fetch" in "Mean Girls," he's failing; and his staff isn't helping, whooping mock Native war chants and doing the asinine "tomahawk chop" gesture.

See below the incredibly compelling conversation which resulted from all that foolishness. The second part of the three-segment discussion is an interview with National Museum of the American Indian director Kevin Gover, of the Pawnee tribe. You can find the first segment above the jump; the rest, below. Join us today at 10am ET for more news analysis you won't see anywhere else, only on msnbc.

Today's show had plenty of highlights. Perhaps tops among them was Melissa's open letter to Washington Post George Will, whose October 1 column posited that President Obama's good fortune in the polls to this point was due less to white guilt over giving up on America's first black president. I have another take on this of my own which I may offer later, but I doubt I'll do better than the response Melissa offered today.

She offered another explanation, other than melanin, for the President's poll advantage:

It could it be that Democrats have effectively linked Romney with candidates, elected officials, and policies that represent the extreme anti-reproductive rights initiatives in the Republican party. That big gender gap could be because of transvaginal [Virginia Governor Bob] McDonnell, "legitimate rape" [Missouri Congressman and Senate candidate Todd] Akin, and no-pills [former presidential candidate Rick] Santorum.

Could be, right? Check out the entire segment below; those who are unable to play the video can find a transcript after the jump.

Every now and then, I like to push back from the big panel and give some people individualized attention. And sometimes the best way to make your point is with a personalized touch, like a letter. So George Will, this one's for you.

Dear George. It's me ... Melissa.

On Monday, your column made a case for rejecting President Barack Obama's re-election bid. It was based on our tough economic realities and questioned whether Mitt Romney could turn this contest around.

Now, let's be clear, I disagree with your assessment of the Obama administration, but the first part of your argument in reasonable. It is based in empirical realities.  You convincingly demonstrate that Americans have had a tough time fiscally in the past four years. I might disagree with you about the causal relationships between the economic factors you cite and the Obama administration but I don't argue with your data.

Which means I hope you won't quibble with the new data released yesterday showing unemployment fell to 7 point 8 percent, and also offering upward revisions of job growth, and an additional 114 thousand jobs created last month. But after a reasonable start you went off the rails a bit by writing this,

"Obama's administration is in shambles, yet he is prospering politically. This may not, however, entirely be evidence of the irrationality of the electorate. Something more benign may be at work."

Interesting word choice, benign. Because what you really mean is something sinister. You suspect something is amiss when, even after the President's meager performance in Wednesday's debate ... he still enjoys a 46 percent to 44 percent lead over challenger Mitt Romney.

See, George, I don't think it's all that paradoxical. It could it be that Democrats have effectively linked Romney with candidates, elected officials, and policies that represent the extreme anti-reproductive rights initiatives in the Republican party. That big gender gap could be because of transvaginal McDonnell, "Legitimate Rape " [Todd] Akin, and no-pills [Rick] Santorum.

Or George, perhaps it's that Mr. Romney chose a running mate who advocated transforming Medicare into a voucher system. That just might have caused some reliably conservative seniors to reconsider their willingness to support the president.

And George -  it could be that until Wednesday night Mitt Romney had run a breathtakingly uninspiring campaign pockmarked with gaffes, inconsistencies, and evasion.

No, George, you took none of this into account. Instead you wrote the President's lead is solid because- and I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed this- it's because the president is *black.* You say:

"... the nation, which is generally reluctant to declare a president a failure - thereby admitting that it made a mistake in choosing him - seems reluctant to give up on the first African American president."

Right, George -- because we all know that black men hold an unfair advantage in the labor market. You can see evidence of it all around you!

After decades of racial good will shown to black workers as a result of the unfairly imposed guilt trip by radical race-card playing media types like me, black workers now have an unemployment rate of 13 point 4 percent.

Yeah, racial guilt. That's it.

Whew, well, I hereby give you permission to set down the white man's burden. If you don't want to vote for the president ... don't. Plenty of other voters seems to have found actual reasons to support him.

Sincerely,

Melissa

The entire political media, since Wednesday night's presidential debate, has been doing plenty of reading. Mostly of President Obama's twitches, pauses, umms, ahhs, looks down, looks up, all in an effort to understand every single one of his missed opportunities in his first encounter with his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney. But for all the Thursday morning quarterbacking, perhaps the best evaluation of the debate was written before it even took place.

Alec MacGillis, writing about Romney's biggest strength and weakness on Wednesday morning in The New Republic:

It is no secret that Romney does not do well mixing with the hoi polloi—the 47 percent, the 99 percent, however you want to define the great unwashed. He tells women they don't have their makeup on yet (3:00 mark), he startles moribund elderly people in cafes, he lets the dawgs out, he insults local bakeries’ products, he declaims about cheesy grits (0:55 mark), he makes fun of people’s rain ponchos (2:15 mark), he pretends to understand their economic anxiety. Most of all, he condescends. ...

In debates, Romney loses this affect. He snaps to attention and he’s firing on all cylinders, because he feels challenged: put simply, he is amongst his fellow 1 percenters, where he feels most comfortable, and he wants to show his wits and win the exchange.

it is arguable that Romney considers himself not simply equal to the President, but quite superior. It doesn't take a lot of reading to understand that. Obama is no mere hoi polloi, mind you; he did make a point of speaking directly to him. But what is key is that the President didn't exploit Romney's biggest flaw, according to MacGillis: the etch-a-sketchitude of his positions. And as a result, President Obama made his biggest mistake -- he made the alternative more palatable to America.

To start off today's show, Melissa will offer her read of the debate, and yesterday's positive jobs news. Other topics we'll get to today include Romney targeting Big Bird, the third grade (yes, literally), and what education researchers call the "Matthew Effect." Melissa will also kick off another edition of This Week in Voter Suppression!™, one which will carry particular import for out-of-state college students looking to vote nearby their campuses. Oh, and Melissa will offer her response to this nonsense George Will wrote, and delve into the "angry black man" stereotype which the Drudge/Carlson/Hannity triumverate tried to bait America into buying about the President the day before the debate.

Guests will include:

• Ari Berman, contributing writer for The Nation and author of "Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics."
• U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, Democrat from Maryland.
• Dan Dicker, CNBC contributor and principal partner at MercBlog.
• Annie Murphy Paul, Time magazine contributor and author of "Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives."
• Raul Reyes, attorney and NBC Latino contributor.
• Matthew Segal, president of OurTime.org, a non-partisan youth empowerment organization.
• Maya Wiley, founder and president of the Center of Social Inclusion.

As always, folks -- be sure to interact with us during the show here in the comments of this post, on Facebook, and on Twitter, using the hashtag #nerdland. We look forward to having you join us at 10am ET on msnbc!

Office of the Ohio Secretary of State

A federal judge has ruled that Ohio must restore full early voting hours for all voters—the latest high-profile win for voting-rights supporters.

Judge Joseph Hood of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled (pdf) in support of a lawsuit filed by the Obama campaign, arguing that Ohio was violating the constitution by allowing military service-members, but not civilians, to vote on the last three days before the election. 

After coming to power in 2010, state Republicans scrapped early voting for all but the military, raising an uproar among voting-rights supporters and Democrats. Many African-Americans traditionally vote on the Sunday before the election, after attending church—a ritual known as "souls to the polls." Around 93,000 people are estimated to have used those three days to vote in 2008, when  Obama won the state.

Lean Forward reported last month that the coalition of military groups supporting the law in court was organized by national Republican operatives.

Secretary of State Jon Husted (pictured) gave no indication of whether he planned to appeal, saying in a statement his office is reviewing the decision.

On Tuesday, in another win for voting rights, a Pennsylvania judge blocked a state law requiring voters to present photo ID.

by Robert Reich

The White House is breathing easier this morning. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the unemployment rate dropped to 7.8 percent, the first time it’s been under 8 percent in 43 months.

In political terms, headlines are everything— and most major media are leading with the drop in the unemployment rate.

Look more closely, though, and the picture is murkier. According to the separate payroll survey undertaken by the BLS, just 114,000 new jobs were in September. At least 125,000 are needed per month just to keep up with population growth. Yet August’s job number was revised upward to 142,000, and July’s to 181,000.

In other words, we’re still crawling out of the deep crater we fell into in 2008 and 2009. The percent of the working-age population now working or actively looking for work is higher than it was, but still near a thirty-year low.

But at least we’re crawling out.

Romney says we’re not doing well enough, and he’s right. But the prescriptions he’s offering – more tax cuts for the rich and for big companies— won’t do anything except enlarge the budget deficit. And the cuts he proposes in public investments like education and infrastructure, and safety nets like Medicare and Medicaid, will take money out of the pockets of people who not only desperately need it but whose spending is necessary to keep the tepid recovery going.

Romney promises if elected the economy will create 12 million new jobs in his first term. If we were back in a normal economy, that number wouldn’t be hard to reach. Bill Clinton presided over an economy that generated 22 million new jobs in eight years – and that was more than a decade ago when the economy and working-age population were smaller than now.

Both Obama and Romney assume the recovery will continue, even at a slow pace, and that we’ll be back to normal at some point. But I’m not at all sure. “Normal” is what got us into this mess in the first place. The concentration of income and wealth at the top has robbed the vast middle class of the purchasing power it needs to generate a full recovery— something that was masked by borrowing against rising home values, but can no longer be denied. Unless or until this structural problem is dealt with, we won’t be back to normal.

Robert B. Reich, Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers “Aftershock" and “The Work of Nations." His latest is an e-book, “Beyond Outrage.” He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.

This post originally appeared on robertreich.org.

Marty Lederhandler / AP

Jobs numbers released on Friday showed unemployment dropped to 7.8%—the lowest it has been since January 2009. After an awful debate performance Wednesday night, the numbers were a boost for President Obama.

That prompted some conservatives to suggest there must be something fishy going on. Less than hour after the news broke Friday morning, Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE and a Romney backer, sparked an uproar over Twitter by suggesting the Labor Department was cooking the books to make Obama look good.

Fox News's Stuart Varney got into the act too. "There is widespread mistrust of this report and these numbers because there are clear contradictions," he said. "Oh how convenient the rate dropped below 8% for the first time in 43 months, five weeks before the election."

And conservative columnist Conn Caroll tweeted:

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis called Welch’s comments “ludicrous” on CNBC Friday morning. “I have the highest regard for our professionals who do the calculations,” she said.

After repeatedly defending his secretly taped description of 47 percent of Americans as “victims, dependent on government,” who don’t take responsibility for their lives, Mitt Romney appeared on Fox News Thursday evening and changed his tune, saying his comments were “completely wrong.”

Sean Hannity asked Romney what he would have said if Obama had brought up the damaging comments during the first presidential debate on Wednesday. 

“Clearly, in a campaign with hundreds, if not thousands, of speeches and question and answer sessions, now and then you’re going to say something that doesn’t come out right. In this case, I said something that’s just completely wrong," Romney replied. "And I absolutely believe that my life has shown that I care about the 100 percent. That’s been demonstrated throughout my life and this whole campaign is about the 100 percent.”

Romney had originally defended the 47% comments at a recent press conference as “not elegantly stated,” "off the cuff” and “a message which I’m going to carry and continue to carry.” MSNBC’s Alex Wagner stopped by Thursday's The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell and offered one explanation for the unexpected turnaround.

“You know, Lawrence, the word that has popped into my head in the course of the last 24 hours is ‘lobotomy,’" she told host Lawrence O'Donnell. "Either Mitt Romney wants the entire American public to have one, or is proposing they get one, because that’s the only way they’re going to believe what he’s saying. Or, he himself has had a lobotomy, which is the explanation for this pivot that is miraculous."

O’Donnell noted that a presidential candidate never wants to say the sentence,“I was completely wrong,” because it opens the door to questions about other things he could be completely wrong about.

In the same vein, back on the campaign trail in Wisconsin today, Obama capitalized on Romney’s habit of contradicting his own statements and hoping voters will forget.

“Whoever it was that was on stage last night doesn’t want to be held accountable for what the real Mitt Romney’s been saying for the last year," Obama said. "And that’s because he knows full well we don’t want what he’s been selling over the last year."

Connecticut Post

Richard Fourtin, Jr. will walk free after the State Supreme Court overturned his sexual assault conviction.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court has thrown out the sexual assault conviction of a man found guilty of attacking a severely handicapped woman because there was no evidence that the woman communicated her refusal.

The man, Richard Fourtin Jr., was accused of sexual assault in 2005, and was found guilty in 2008 of attempted second-degree and fourth-degree sexual assault. He was sentenced to six years in prison.

But now Fourtin will go free because, in a 4-3 decision, the Court ruled that there was no evidence that the alleged victim communicated to her attacker that she did not want to have sex:

"(W)e, like the Appellate Court, 'are not persuaded that the state produced any credible evidence that the [victim] was either unconscious or so uncommunicative that she was physically incapable of manifesting to the defendant her lack of consent to sexual intercourse at the time of the alleged sexual assault.'"

The alleged victim has severe cerebral palsy and, according to court documents, is not able to verbally communicate. During her initial court appearance, the woman testified by pointing at a board printed with the words "yes" and "no." 

But defense lawyers argued that the woman could have communicated nonverbally by kicking, biting or groaning.

"We are incredibly disappointed with the State Supreme Court's decision in the Fourtin case," Anna Doroghazi, director of public policy and communication at the Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services, said in a statement. "The court's interpretation of what it means to be 'physically helpless' jeopardizes the safety of people with disabilities."

According to RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network), states individually define who has the mental and legal capacity to consent. RAINN also adds, "Just because you didn't resist physically doesn't mean it wasn't rape," and lack of consent "can be implied from the circumstances"—such as a mental defect.

By overturning this conviction, it sends a message that those with disabilities must work extra hard to fight back in cases where simply saying "no" is not an option. Fourtin's freedom is a sign that more people buy into the "legitimate rape" theory than we'd like to hope, and it's a shame that he will be a free man while the woman continues to live in her own prison of silence.

COMMENTARY

By Yvette Miley, executive editor and VP, MSNBC

The end of the first debate night in the presidential election gives me the perfect opportunity to talk about one of my favorite sports: boxing.

The pre-debate buildup echoed many “fight cards” for the Duel in Denver. Many watching the debate, on the right and left, applauded former Governor Romney for being the aggressor, for taking the fight to the president. Meanwhile, the president seemed to be following the Muhammad Ali strategy from the 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” fight. He didn’t come out swinging, and it didn't appear he was interested in taking advantage of opportunities to jab or counter Romney’s verbal fist-a-cuffs.

Watching the debate and following Twitter was a fascinating exercise. Those on the left were demanding the president challenge Romney more and to raise the “47%.” However, the president—criticized often for not fighting—was on the ropes, apparently by design. This was a presidential version of rope-a-dope.

Ali used the rope-a-dope strategy to allow George Foreman to endlessly throw punches in the early rounds. Ali fans were appalled. It was not what they expected from the self-proclaimed man who could “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.”

Unbelievably, the president talked four minutes longer than Romney, although it seemed he didn’t land as many blows as possible.

Romney and his debate club are celebrating a victory today, but the danger for the challenger who is fresh off campaign debates is not “punching out.” The biggest threat to Romney is that President Obama has yet to come out of his rope-a-dope posture. He has yet to start really throwing punches.

Clearly the president wasn’t pursuing his base during what some might call his Dud in Denver. The president and his strategy team are behind on the score card and his loyal base seems ready to throw in the towel.

I anticipate pugilist Vice President Joe Biden will take a more aggressive approach during his debate with Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican nominee for vice president. Can the president afford to leave all the punching up to the Brawler from Scranton, VP Biden?

The president might have attempted to stay above the "fray" and remain "presidential" and maintain his 'likeable' poll numbers, but did he leave the stage looking more like former President Jimmy Carter and less like a man with the courage to fight for his convictions?

In 1974, Ali eventually came off the ropes to throw punches, and when he did, George Foreman went down—hard. Romney is still standing. Ali had the best in the game in his corner, Angelo Dundee. President Obama's corner-team made a calculated strategy decision last night. They might be waiting for upcoming debates to show off their fighter’s combinations, but the danger in politics is that the president might not have a chance to get off the ropes.

AP Photo/David Goldman

Stand-ins for the real Mitt Romney and Barack Obama take the stage earlier today.

There aren't too many events outside of the Super Bowl which get the level of pre-event publicity, analysis, and hype. This is not to dis that analysis; there's a lot of good stuff being written about an event that may not change a thing. In that specific respect, the correlation to sports falls apart, since no one is keeping a standardized score: President Obama will not score five points for an effective answer on Libya, nor will Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney rack up 10 for one of those witty "zingers" he's been practicing.

But still, score or no score, the focus will be on who "won." This needs to stop.

There has been plenty of sports metaphor employed in the course of previewing what's happening in less than two hours. The definitive one I read, by James Fallows in The Atlantic, is headlined "Slugfest" and features a convincing, if unflattering, mock-up of the two combatants in a boxing ring. Having come from the sports media world, I get the allure of a good catchphrase or allusion to one of the more definitive things in our culture (outside of the BCS): winners, and losers. We want to see something decided; we want a result. We want this to be over.

Maybe it will be tonight. Perhaps, as Obama deputy campaign director Stephanie Cutter joked, one of them will literally fall off the stage (respect, Bob Dole). Perhaps one of them will do so figuratively, as in "8 Mile," pulling B-Rabbit to the other man's Papa Doc (who, like Romney, went to Cranbrook).

It actually would be a real service to the nation if they did just what Eminem's character does here: spout out all of the canned criticisms that each candidate has about the other, and get to the real problems of the nation. True, some of those canned criticisms matter to Americans more than others.

But more than anything, I hope we don't see two children bickering tonight. I want to see grown-ups, talking to us like we're grown-ups, about grown-up problems. Forget "want" -- I need that. We all do.

Join MSNBC for the analysis worth watching, starting at 8pm ET tonight. Follow the live-blog, featuring MSNBC contributor Joy Reid and newly-named MSNBC.com executive editor Richard Wolffe, on the Lean Forward site. I'll be live-tweeting the debate at @JamilSmith.