racial

Ohio lawmakers hire lawyers who defended ‘largest racial gerrymanders ever encountered’

BY: - December 6, 2021

Defending themselves against accusations of gerrymandering, the Ohio House speaker and Senate president hired a team of lawyers with a history defending North Carolina against what a federal court called one of the “largest racial gerrymanders ever encountered.” A spate of special interest and voter advocacy groups have filed four lawsuits alleging that Ohio officials produced […]

Black Ohioans are 13% of state population, but 5.6% of the vaccine recipients

BY: - March 5, 2021

Of more than 1.8 million Ohioans who have received at least one COVID-19 vaccination dose, only 5.6% went to Black Ohioans, who comprise about 13% of the population. The inequity is the latest example of disparate health outcomes in the state and nation along racial lines. The math is slightly worse among the nearly 1 […]

‘Stand Your Ground’ laws tied to racial inequities, increase in violent crime, researchers say

BY: - February 26, 2021

Laws that expand the right to shoot to kill in perceived self-defense yield unequal consequences in the justice system depending on whether the person shot was white, according to research published Monday. So-called “stand your ground” laws, one of which was passed in Ohio last year, are also associated with a modest to robust increase […]

COVID-19 hospitalizations are hitting record highs. Black Ohioans are carrying the heavy load

BY: - October 22, 2020

Though Black Ohioans comprise 14% of the state’s population, they make up 27% of the COVID-19 hospitalization load, state data shows. The community is similarly, though less drastically, overrepresented in Ohio’s coronavirus case load (18%) and death count (17%). Shawnita Sealy-Jefferson, a social epidemiologist at Ohio State University, is hardly surprised. “The root cause of […]