The Center for Public Integrity’s landmark project, 40 Acres and a Lie has taken second place in the annual Philip Meyer Journalism Award from Investigative Reporters and Editors, which recognizes the best use of social science research methods in journalism. Black Americans have been demanding compensation and restitution for their suffering since the end of the Civil War. […]
Posted inAccountability
Inside the scramble to stop the displacement of thousands of California foster children
For years, the Nonprofits Insurance Alliance of California had been the primary insurer for the state’s foster family agencies, which house some of the most vulnerable children, including many LGBTQ+ youth, those with severe behavioral or medical needs or who have previously suffered abuse. But in August, NIAC announced it would no longer insure these […]
Posted inUnhoused and Undercounted
Pennsylvania bill could prevent schools from barring homeless students
The clock is ticking on a proposed Pennsylvania law mandating that school districts protect the federally guaranteed rights of homeless students. The bill gained traction last year after a Center for Public Integrity investigation revealed that districts in the state locked students out of school for weeks or months while investigating their families’ claims of […]
Posted inHealth parity
Despite efforts to close gap, parity in mental health care remains elusive
In recent years, mental health care has become a mainstream issue. President Biden proposed an expansion of services nationwide. Lawmakers and celebrities speak openly about their struggles. States are providing incentives to expand the behavioral health workforce. Companies are recognizing the need for mental health leave. Telehealth care is rapidly expanding. But countless surveys have […]
Posted inWho Counts?
‘The restrictions are unbelievable’: States target voter registration drives
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center and co-reported with NPR. This story also appeared in NPR ORLANDO, Fla. — Carolina Wassmer piloted a gray SUV around the city, dropping off canvassers from the civic engagement group Poder Latinx one by one. It was a muggy day, but the canvassers hopped out with their […]
Posted inAddressing Anti-Asian Hate
Asian students face racism, harassment at school. What would make it stop?
Editor’s note: This story has graphic language and descriptions of racial slurs, harmful rhetoric and violence against Asians and other students of color attending public schools. If you need support or have experienced violence, discrimination, harassment or racism, find an organization that can help in this database. Hai Au Huynh was fed up. The 45-year-old […]
Posted inAcademic Freedom
In Idaho, don’t say ‘abortion’?
University of Idaho student Bergen Kludt-Painter started school in August 2022, a few months after a U.S. Supreme Court decision struck down Roe v. Wade. Soon after, abortion was banned in Idaho in almost all instances. This story also appeared in USA TODAY The political science major was eager to discuss the precedent-shattering case in […]
Posted inAddressing Anti-Asian Hate
Cut off from our past, Chinese American adoptees seek belonging
China’s one-child policy was implemented in 1980, restricting families to one child per couple in an effort to curb the country’s population growth rate. Until it officially ended on Jan. 1, 2016, this policy was enforced at the provincial level through a variety of measures, including contraception, fines, sanctions, intimidation and coercion, and abortion and […]
Posted inAddressing Anti-Asian Hate
Why are hate crimes so hard to convict in court?
One May evening in 2022, two Filipino women — mother and daughter — went to pick up snacks at a McDonald’s drive-thru in North Hollywood when a white man allegedly rear-ended their car, drove alongside them and began to shout racial slurs, threatening to kill them. Nerissa Roque, the mother, called the police and husband […]
Posted inUnequal Risk
After a years-long fight, EPA broadens ban on deadly chemical
It can kill on the spot or years after prolonged exposure. When methylene chloride’s fumes build up, the chemical switches off the brain’s respiratory center, asphyxiating its victims if it doesn’t trigger a heart attack first. At lower levels, the federal government says, it increases the risk of multiple types of cancer. And despite a […]
Posted inInequality
Law helps vulnerable heirs’ property owners — but only if they can afford it
The Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act was supposed to be a strong dose of medicine for the ills of heirs’ property — jointly owned land with multiple heirs not documented in wills or deedbooks, which have hindered multi-generational land ownership and family wealth for Black families since Reconstruction. Twenty-two states and Washington, D.C., have […]
Posted inAcademic Freedom
Amid Israel-Hamas war, colleges draw lines on faculty free speech
Leila Hudson treads carefully when discussing the Israel-Hamas war. This story also appeared in EdSource As a Palestinian-American and the elected faculty chair at the University of Arizona, she says she has no choice. University policy forbids staff from using the college’s resources, including websites, computers and letterhead, to take a position on any ongoing […]
Posted inGhosts of Polluters Past
How to protect your community from the toxic lead lurking in soil
Lead poisoning is often treated as if it’s a problem of the past. But its harmful legacy lingers today, particularly in the soil of urban centers across the United States. This story also appeared in Grist One in every two American children under the age of 6 tested between late 2018 and early 2020 had […]
Posted inToxic Labor
They clean up after natural disasters. Now they’re getting sick.
Brothers Santos and Mariano have been chasing jobs after hurricanes for nearly two decades. And the grueling work of cleaning and rebuilding after natural disasters has taken a toll on their bodies. The brothers have been hospitalized following work accidents. One accident left Santos temporarily blind and another put Mariano in a coma for days […]
Posted inToxic Labor
Transcript: Toxic labor
MARÍA HINOJOSA: WHEN POWERFUL HURRICANES, WILDFIRES OR FLOODS DESTROY COMMUNITIES ACROSS THE UNITED STATES; SCORES OF WORKERS EMERGE FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY READY TO CLEAN AND REBUILD. AND, DEAR LISTENER, YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW THIS, BUT IT IS IN FACT LATINO IMMIGRANTS WHO ARE THE ONES MORE THAN LIKELY TO PERFORM THE HARDEST CLEANING TASKS […]
Posted inAcademic Freedom
Covering clashes on campus as academic freedom challenges mount
Academic freedom in higher education is facing increased scrutiny at colleges and universities nationwide. It’s a story about campuses big and small, public and private, liberal and conservative, with few, if any, geographic boundaries. “When it comes to higher education, I don’t know if there are any safe places,” Karma Chavez, the chair of the […]
Posted inImmigration
Reporting on missing migrant children
I started reporting on missing migrant children four years ago, almost by accident. I was trekking up a steep muddy road in the northern highlands of Guatemala, looking for the mother of a 16-year-old who drowned in the Rio Grande, when a man outside a small chapel greeted my fixer and me. The man waved […]
Posted inInside Public Integrity
What publishers of color taught me about building equitable collaborations
I’ve spent the past few years stewarding collaborative projects between the Center for Public Integrity and local newsrooms. These partnerships have expanded the depth of our reporting and strengthened our ability to reach audiences — and, we hope, offered equal value to our partners. But that’s not a simple matter, or a safe assumption if […]
Posted inWho Counts?
How a data wrinkle led me to a story about disinformation and our democracy
I just wanted to get the latest version of Missouri’s voter registration database cleaned up to load into The Accountability Project, a database of 1.9 billion public records. Working on TAP is a part of my job here at the Center for Public Integrity as a data reporter for local initiatives. While I was preparing […]
Posted inInside Public Integrity
Former Public Integrity newsroom leader lifted up ‘forgotten voices’
Lisa Yanick Litwiller, a former Center for Public Integrity director of audience whose humor, compassion, leadership and talent contributed to award-winning projects that focused on inequality, died of cancer Monday surrounded by her family at home in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. She was 46. Yanick Litwiller came to Public Integrity in 2021, building an audience team […]
Posted inLabor
Worker death in Louisiana confined space showcases dangerous trend
Early this year, Elmer Perez began his Monday shift at 9 a.m., welding inside a ship at Thoma-Sea Marine Constructors in Houma, Louisiana. Hours after Perez skipped lunch, his coworkers went looking for the undocumented immigrant from Guatemala. They found him unconscious inside the small space he was working in. The workers removed his body […]
Posted inHigh Courts, High Stakes
Public Integrity state court investigation is a Toner Prize finalist
A Center for Public Integrity investigation that revealed an under-the-radar effort pushing state high courts rightward — with far-reaching consequences — is a finalist for a Toner Prize honoring excellence in political reporting. “High Courts, High Stakes” is one of six projects recognized in the journalism contest’s national category. Other finalists include ProPublica’s investigative reporting […]
Posted inUnhoused and Undercounted
Amid rise in student homelessness, federal funding set to expire
For decades, schools have struggled to identify and support homeless students. Investigations by the Center for Public Integrity and our reporting partners in 2022 and 2023 showed that schools often undercount such students and flout the federal law that promises them equal access to education. Advocates cite meager federal funding as one reason schools don’t […]
Posted inWho Counts?
States ditched an election partnership. Voters will feel the consequences.
ST. LOUIS, Mo. — Eric Fey is bracing for Election Day snarls because of a decision his state made last year. This story also appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Missouri pulled out of a collaboration known as the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, which helps states keep voter rolls accurate — such as […]
Posted inImmigration
When migrant children disappear, many cases remain unsolved
CULPEPER, Virginia — Jessica Mariela Domingo-Méndez skipped breakfast the morning of Jan. 20, 2023, and ran out the front door of her sister’s house to catch the school bus. The 17-year-old never returned home. This story also appeared in Scripps News Sixteen-year-old Horlandina Lopez-Perez left her aunt’s home in the middle of the night on […]
Posted inImmigration
Why are kids from Guatemala coming to Culpeper?
CULPEPER, Virginia — For years, Angie’s parents resisted her pleas to bring her to the United States. There was no legal path to bring her here from Guatemala, and she was too young to travel by herself. But the pandemic changed everything. Two years ago, the family — parents, grandfather and uncle — put their […]
Posted inImmigration
New data shows why the U.S. needs more immigrants
As the fight over immigration reached peak chaos in the U.S. Senate earlier this month, the Congressional Budget Office held a press conference nearby. The director’s briefing about the latest economic forecast seemed disconnected from the political drama playing out a few blocks away. But its analysis was closely linked to immigration policy. The nonpartisan […]
Posted inUnequal Burden
How states can make taxes more equitable
Oregon taxpayers will become some of the first in the nation to have the option to self-identify their race and ethnicity when they file their tax returns next year. The reason is both simple and complex: Especially at the state level, taxes worsen America’s yawning wealth gaps rather than easing them. A growing number of […]
Posted inWatchdog newsletter
What will generative AI mean for the racial wealth gap?
Kelcey Gibbons, a doctoral student who studies African Americans in technology and the Black middle class, is not quite sure what she makes of generative artificial intelligence and how it might impact the racial wealth gap. Gibbons anticipates that generative AI will force organizations to rethink which skills matter in the workplace, aggravating existing inequalities without […]
Posted inUnequal Burden
More tax cuts put states’ revenue at risk
At least a dozen proposals for income tax cuts that would primarily benefit wealthy residents and big companies are already on the table for state legislatures to consider in 2024 — and more are likely to come. This follows on the heels of 26 states cutting their personal income tax rates, corporate income tax rates […]