A recent decision handed down by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals raises this important question: Can victims of contemporary forms of discrimination and disparity find justice in our courts?

The court ruling came in the case of Sylvia Darensburg, an African-American mother of three who lives in East Oakland. Every day, along with tens of thousands of low-income African-American, Asian and Latino bus riders in the Bay Area, Sylvia experiences the reality of transit inequality.

According to the case, Darensburg v. Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Sylvia relies on the AC Transit bus system as her primary means of transportation to her job during the day and to college classes at night. She endures long waits for the two buses she needs to take, with each trip taking an hour or more each way. On her way home at night, she has to walk 12 blocks from the nearest bus stop in her neighborhood.

Sylvia is not alone in making such an arduous journey—almost 80 percent of AC Transit riders are people of color, and over 70 percent have incomes below $30,000. Nearly 60 percent are entirely dependent on public transit. Click here to read the article.

The Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area (AABA) this morning issued a statement applauding President Barack Obama’s historic nomination and expressed its appreciation to U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, who forwarded the nomination to the White House.

Chen would be the first Asian American district judge on the bench in the 150-year history of that district. He was also the first Asian American magistrate judge when he was appointed to that position on April 23, 2001.

Under Article III of the U.S. Constitution, federal judges require confirmation by the U.S. Senate and serve with lifetime tenure. Magistrate Judges have limited terms and serve as judicial officers of the district courts and exercise the jurisdiction delegated to them by law and assigned by federal district judges.

“I’ve known and worked with Judge Chen for more than 37 years and seen him become a great attorney and an outstanding jurist,” said attorney Dale Minami of Minami Tamaki LLP, who worked with Chen on the successful case to overturn the wartime conviction of Fred Korematsu for defying President Roosevelt’s internment order.

Garner Weng, President of the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area (AABA) noted that while there were a number of excellent Asian American candidates, “Judge Chen earned this nomination for his record of public service and his experience as a federal magistrate. We are extremely proud of his nomination and of his participation in AABA over the years.”

“Judge Chen will be a tremendous addition to the bench and has a wide range of support from diverse groups, including the public interest, law enforcement, legal, and minority communities,” said Edwin Prather, President of the Asian Pacific Bar of California and a former clerk for Chen. Prather also said that Chen received the 2007 Barristers Choice Award, an honor voted on by the membership of BASF’s Barristers Club and awarded to a jurist who has made extraordinary efforts to educate and encourage lawyers new to the courtroom.

Russell Roeca, President of the Bar Association of San Francisco, echoed Prather’s comments and praised Senator Feinstein for the nomination. “The Bar Association of San Francisco has long valued and advocated for a diverse judiciary and noted the complete lack of Latino and Asian American judges on the district court. In recommending Judge Chen to the President, Senator Feinstein has initiated a historical appointment.” Roeca also said that Chen received an “Exceptionally Well Qualified” rating from BASF’s Judiciary Committee.

“Judge Chen enjoys a solid reputation as an intelligent, reasonable, even-handed and diligent judge,” said San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera. Chen “is a balanced and impartial judge whose temperament is well suited to the bench.”

“Judge Chen combines compassion and fairness with toughness and intellect in tacking difficult issues,” said attorney Ismail J. Ramsey, who has appeared numerous times before Chen. “He has always brought a practical approach to the issues, while ensuring that the rights of all those appearing before him were honored and making certain that the community was protected.”

“Judge Chen has earned a reputation as an evenhanded jurist who is constantly mindful of the role that judges fulfill in society as keepers of the rule of law and the public trust in our system of justice,” said David Wong, president of the San Francisco Deputy Sheriffs’ Association.

Chen graduated from the UC Berkeley School of Law where he earned membership in the Order of the Coif, the highest honor society at the school, and served on the California Law Review. He clerked for U.S. District Judge Charles B. Renfrew and U.S. Court of Appeals Chief Judge James R. Browning.

After his clerkships, Chen practiced as a litigation associate with the law firm of Coblentz, Cahen, McCabe & Breyer (now Coblentz, Patch, Duffy & Bass). While with the Coblentz firm and then as a staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California, Chen joined the legal team representing Fred Korematsu.

Ronald Takaki, a professor emeritus of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and prolific scholar of U.S. race relations who taught UC’s first black history course, died at his home in Berkeley on Tuesday (May 26). He was 70.

Ronald Takaki During his more than four decades at UC Berkeley, Takaki joined the Free Speech Movement, established the nation’s first ethnic studies Ph.D. program as well as Berkeley’s American Cultures requirement for graduation, and advised President Clinton in 1997 on his major speech on race.

A descendent of Japanese plantation workers in Hawaii, Takaki left the islands in the late 1950s to study at Ohio’s College of Wooster, where he earned a bachelor’s degree. He went on to earn a Ph.D. in American history from UC Berkeley in 1967 and was hired at UCLA, where he taught the campus’s first black history course. He joined Berkeley’s Ethnic Studies department in 1971 and served as chair from 1975-77.

Among his numerous accolades for scholarship and activism, Takaki received a Pulitzer nomination for his book, “A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America” (Little Brown and Company, 1993); a Distinguished Teaching Award from UC Berkeley and the 2003 Fred Cody Award for lifetime achievement from the Bay Area Book Reviewers Association.

“When I think of Ron, the words that come to mind are: solidarity, justice, easy-going, self-effacing, generous, creative,” said Beatriz Manz, chair of UC Berkeley’s Department of Ethnic Studies. “He poked fun at himself and had a contagious laughter. He embodied kindness. He was agreeable, conciliatory and non-confrontational.”

He is survived by his wife, Carol, his three children and his grandchildren. Plans for a campus memorial service are pending. A complete obituary will be posted on Thursday.

A Black man born in Hawai’i with an Asian sister was sworn into office Tuesday as our President. He took the oath of office on the same bible used by Abraham Lincoln for the exact same oath 148 years ago, realizing the dreams of countless African Americans and others who previously never imagined this moment.

President Barack Obama now leads our country into uncertain and troubled times. But he begins work on our nation’s ills with unprecedented numbers of Asian Americans in substantive roles in this Administration.

Japanese American Peter Rouse is White House Senior Adviser. Chinese American Chris Lu is Cabinet Secretary. Former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki is Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Nobel prize winner Steven Chu is Secretary of Energy.

We now have a First Family that includes Asian Americans. The President’s sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, is half Indonesian. Her husband Konrad is Chinese American. Their daughter Suhaila is hapa.

This roster of Asian names is significant because the halls and backrooms of power in our nation’s capitol have for too long been dominated by monochromatic men. It does not mean we have arrived. It means we’ve only just begun.

For many of us, the most urgent unresolved Asian American and Pacific Islander issues are not always those that touch our everyday lives, but our desire to resolve those issues reflects our belief that an injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere. We must reach outside of our individual realities to understand the plight and tragedy that prevents millions of Americans, Asian Pacific or not, from realizing their true potential.

Our government’s brutal treatment of undocumented immigrants is not just a Latino issue. When Sin Yen Ling and the Asian Law Caucus work to recruit more attorneys to represent victims of raids against immigrants in homes and workplaces and when Sophya Chum and Khmer Girls in Action fight against the unfair deportation of Cambodian youth, we see that immigrant rights is as much our battle.

Attempts to legalize discrimination against gays and lesbians through constitutional amendments to ban marriage are not just LGBT issues. When Amos Lim, Tawal Panyacosit, Jr. and Chinese for Affirmative Action work tirelessly in Asian American communities to replace biogtry with understanding and tolerance, we see that marriage equality must also be our goal.

An article titled “Why I Hate Blacks” – filled with blatant racism and ugly stereotypes published in a prominent Asian American newspaper was not just an African American issue. When David Chiu, now president of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, attorney Dale Minami and other Asian American leaders worked immediately to have AsianWeek apologize for the column and fire the writer and the editor responsible, we saw that the elimination of racism against Blacks and all people of color must be our dream.

All of these issues and more must be part of contemplating our renewed America with Barack Obama as our President. He cannot fight injustice alone. Let’s stand with him.

The study, commissioned by the Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund in San Francisco, found that the level of support for Prop. 8 among African Americans was “nowhere near” the National Election Pool (NEP) figures indicating that 70 percent of California’s African Americans supported the proposition.

The study looked at pre- and post-election polls and conducted a sophisticated analysis of precinct-level voting data from five California counties with the highest African American populations (Alameda (Oakland), Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco).

Based on this, the study concluded that the level of African American support for Proposition 8 was in the range of 57-59 percent. Its precinct-level analysis also found that many precincts with few black voters supported Proposition 8 at levels just as high or higher than those with many black voters.

The 57-59 percent figure — while higher than white and Asian American voters — is largely explained by the higher rates of African American religious service attendance: 57 percent of African Americans attend religious services at least once a week, compared to 42 percent of whites and 40 percent of Asian Americans.

Read the entire press release here. You can also download a PDF of the study on the site.