The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "legal discrimination" ...
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Shades of Mercy: Presidential Pardons
Reporters obtained exclusive access to thousands of internal documents and conducted scores of interviews with pardon applicants, Justice Department, and top legal advisers to every president since Ronald Reagan. What the documents showed were repeated instances in which white applicants with serious criminal records received pardons, while minority applicants who committed lesser crimes were rejected.
Tags: presidential pardons; justice department; pardon; race; discrimination
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The black avenger: Milton Crawford exposes the DWP's big whitewash ... racism, intimidation and harassment
This investigation exposed a decades-long cover-up of racism and harassment by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The story revealed how the nation's largest public utility and the city attorney's office used illegal confidential settlements to conceal nearly $10 million in outside legal costs and settlements stemming from workplace discrimination, harassment, and intimidation at the Department of Water and Power.
Tags: Los Angeles; Department of Water and Power; racism; workplace discrimination; sexual harassment
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How public is losing legal rights
San Francisco Chronicle investigates the loss of civil rights, resulting from mandatory arbitration imposed on employees. Many workers sign their employment contracts without reading the text in fine print, which binds them to accept the arbitration clause, the story reveals. Under the court rulings, arbitrators can be "wholly unqualified" to decide civil right cases, and "are rarely required to follow the law." Other flaws of the system include prohibitive filing fees, limited size of awards, and reluctance by most arbitration firms to enforce ethics codes.
Tags: Federal Arbitration Act; conflicts of interest; judges; courts; business; fairness standards; labor; Supreme Court; civil rights; discrimination; wrongful firing
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The Long Goodbye: Many Japanese Can't Let Go of Their Jobs-Even if the Job Goes
The Wall Street Journal reports on Japan's economic slump, where politicians have "stuck to a failed old formula for growth-pumping money into roads and other projects for fading rural areas." Bankers have had to foreclose on longtime clients in an effort to clear loans. "The result: a swelling national debt an a financial system unable to provide adequate credit." This has led to 59% of the population being affected by bankruptcies and a record-high 4.9% unemployment rate. Employees now are in denial of their company's bankruptcy, trying to hold on to jobs that no longer exist. And because Japanese companies can enforce age limits on hires, older workers are faced with the dilemma of starting over in a country where age discrimination is legal. Yumiko Ono reports on the efforts of Japanese employees to survive.
Tags: workers; bankruptcy; Japan Institute of Labor; unemployment; money; companies; banks; credit
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A City in Black and White
"The legal battle over housing discrimination in Parma was meant to spark the integration of all Greater Cleveland's suburbs. Twenty years after federal remedies were handed down, the region is still divided by a color line, and one community's struggles with the stigma of racism are far from over."
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The Car Dealer's Secret
"In a joint investigation - ABC News 20/20 and The New York Times looked at two class-action lawsuits out of Nashville, TN that accuse two of the nation's most prominent automobile finance companies of credit discrimination. The lawsuits, filed under seal two years ago and unsealed in August 2000 on legal motions by 20/20 and The New York Times, accuse the General Motors Acceptance Corporation and the Nissan Motors Acceptance Corporation of participating in lending arrangements with car dealers that result in African-Americans paying higher finance charges on dealership-arranged loans."
Tags: TAPE; TRANSCRIPT; racial discrimination; car dealerships; loans; automobile manufacturers; General Motors; Nissan
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Deciding Desegregation
This is a series of series examining the potential ramifications of a legal challenge to end legislated desegregation in Charlotte, where busing was first practiced as a means of integrating schools. The Observer "focused on two key questions: Has desegregation in Charlotte given all children the same shot at success? And if desegregation ends, what are the consequences for the district's 100,000 children?"
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One Nation, One Language?
U.S. News & World Report asks, "Would making English the nation's official language unite the country or divide it?...As immigration, both legal and illegal, brings a new flood of foreign speech into the United States, a campaign to make English the nation's official language is gathering strength. According to a new U.S. News poll, 73 percent of Americans think English should be the official language of government... Like flag burning and the Pledge of Allegiance, the issue is largely symbolic.... But many Americans are feeling threatened by a triple whammy of growing economic uncertainty, some of it caused by foreign competition...."
Tags: language; American English; discrimination; minorities; bilingual; education; nationalism; protectionism
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1991 IRE TV Award Winners and Finalists Tape.
The 1991 IRE TV Award Winners and Finalists Tape is a compilation of 5 investigative stories. 1.) "Televangelists," Prime Time Live, ABC News investigates the business practices of three highly successful and prominent televangelists who capitalize on the beliefs of their followers and collect millions of dollars in tax-free donations each year; reveals phony faith healings and high-pressure money-making schemes. See #8402. 2.) "The Great American Bailout," PBS Frontline and The Center for Investigative Reporting San Francisco reports on the Resolution Trust Corporation and how it is ignoring the needs of low-income families in its bailout of the savings and loans program. See # 8259, 8260, 8261 and 8262. 3.) "Signed Sealed and Suckered," WDHD Boston uncovers rampant redlining of minority neighborhoods and a pattern of discrimination by home improvement contractors and second mortgage lenders, charging inflated prices for shoddy work and loan interest rates of 24 %. See # 8334. 4.) "Down the Drain," WKRN, Nashville looks at the city's water and sewer department and finds hundreds of thousands of dollars in rate payers' money wasted and "Good Ole' Boy" connections. See # 8231. 5.) "Trash Fraud in Onodaga County," WSTM, Syracuse N.Y. finds fraud within the trash hauling industry in Onondaga County, N.Y. The hauling company places weights in its trucks in order to cheat the system. See # 8171.
Tags: TAPE; ire; car; religion; telemarketing; legal discrimination; construction; garbage.
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Race and the Law
ABA Journal and the National Bar Association Magazine collaborated on a special report on race and the legal system. Articles describe how views of the legal system are influenced by lawyers' race, discriminatory race-based profiling by the U. S. Customs Service, environmental justice, racially skewed juries, and the struggles of minorities in the legal profession. ABA Journal's series of articles focuses primarily on the experiences of African Americans.
Tags: Civil Rights; Courts; Criminal Justice System; Environment; Discrimination; Minorities