SPOKANE—Despite eight years of effort, minority enrollment is still down at Washington colleges and universities after voters passed an initiative outlawing racial preferences in admissions.
Black, Hispanic and American Indian students are less likely to go from high school to college, and more likely to drop out, than their White peers. And fewer than 5 percent of faculty members in the state are Black, Hispanic or Native American.
Yet minority groups are the fastest-growing parts of the population, expected to grow from 22 percent to 28 percent of Washington's total by 2020.
"I think there has been progress, it's just been slow progress," said Ricardo Sanchez, an associate director of education policy for the Washington Higher Education Coordinating Board. "People are feeling more and more the need to do better."
A draft report by the Higher Education Coordinating Board looked at Washington's diversity efforts since the passage of Initiative 200 in 1998 and recommended improvements.

Mike Corsini has relied on others to help him vote for more than two decades. Next month, he will roll his wheelchair into a voting booth and select his favored candidates through a touch-sensitive electronic screen — the first ballot he'll cast on his own since an injury rendered him a quadriplegic 28 years ago.
Corsini, 43, will be able to vote on an electronic voting machine configured specially for use by the blind and the disabled, allowing them access to voting in a completely private way — the first time such equipment has been available statewide.
Corsini, of Spanaway, has voted by mail in Pierce County for a decade. But even then he needed help because he can't grasp things in his hands. Now, all he'll need to do is press on the touch screen machine to register his vote.

A year after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial called upon leaders of the nation's major political parties to hold their 2008 conventions in New Orleans.
"This would not only provide a much-needed shot in the arm to the city's economy and put people to work, it would also send a powerful message to the nation and the world that you are squarely and solidly in support of rebuilding the storm-torn regions of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama," said Morial, who was mayor of New Orleans from 1996 to 2002.

The Seattle community is invited to a celebration and evening of appreciation honoring the Rev. Frank and Phyllis Brydwell's 40 years of service to the music ministry at Mount Zion Baptist Church, 1634 19th Ave.
At 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 8, there will be a community musical tribute featuring choirs from around the city.
Linda Martin of Linda Martin Ministries is a nationally renowned gospel artist and will be among the ministers, community choirs, the Mt. Calvary Praise Dancers and local soloists who will honor the Brydwells for their commitment and dedication to Mt. Zion's music ministry.

Angela Parker, a survivor of Hurricane Katrina, tells her story while  the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle's President James Kelly, right, looks on at an Aug. 29 community meeting for hurricane survivors. Parker, whose family was displaced from New Orleans by Katrina, described how they are being helped by the Urban League's Operation Helping Hands program, and how they are adjusting to living in Washington.

Daka Bentley, 8, recieves a backpack filled with school supplies from volunteer Roberta Higgins Aug. 26 at the 10th annual "Back to School" event, sponsored by the Catholic Community Services Randolph Carter Family Center.

A diverse group of politicians, businesspeople, community leaders and regular citizens turned out Aug. 28 at the Martin Luther King Jr. statue in front of the Oregon Convention Center to mark the 43rd anniversary of the Rev. King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech, first delivered in 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. The event, hosted by the Northeast Coalition of Neighbors, featured speeches by local dignitaries and a performance by gospel group The Light.

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