Race and Redistricting: What the Print Media Conveys to the Public about the Role of Race

In a series of voting rights cases, the U.S. Supreme Court held that race-based redistricting, particularly the intentional formation of majority–minority districts (districts in which voters of color constitute a majority of eligible voters) may be unconstitutional if race was the predominant factor in the formation of the district. The Court stated that "redistricting legislation that is so bizarre on its face that it is unexplainable on grounds other than race" may violate the Constitution because of the messages such districts send to the public ( Shaw v. Reno , 1993 ). Yet neither the Court nor social scientists have examined whether the existence of race-conscious majority–minority districts sends messages to voters and what the nature of these messages may be. This research begins to address this scientific issue. In a quantitative content analysis, we examined messages about racial redistricting conveyed to citizens via the print media. Our sample consisted of 355 newspaper articles about redistricting included in the Lexis–Nexis database between 1990 and 2005. We found that newspaper coverage of racial districting contains messages to citizens about the motives involved in redistricting, the individuals and groups who are responsible for it, and its actual and expected effects. This finding is consistent with the Supreme Court's assumption that districts, particularly bizarrely shaped ones, convey distinct messages to voters. The specific messages communicated varied in important ways across the articles. Newspapers in states subject to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act because of their history of discrimination against voters of color covered racial redistricting differently than states not subject to Section 5. We discuss the legal and theoretical implications of these findings for understanding the role of race in legislative redistricting efforts.     

Mind Matters

The conceit that either mind is reducible to matter or that mind is utterly ethereal is rooted in a mind‐versus‐matter dichotomy that can be characterized as the modern error, a fatally flawed fallacy rooted in the philosophy and culture of nominalism. A Peircean semiotic outlook, applied to an understanding of social life, provides a new and full‐bodied understanding of semiosis as the bridge between mind and matter, and human biology and culture. I begin by first delineating the false divide and showing Charles Sanders Peirce's alternative to it, then explore the implications of a semiotic approach to mind as transaction, then consider the self‐transcending nature of the human body‐mind. Finally I outline my ecological, biosemiotic account of mind, which reveals that, indeed, mind matters, and in ways that unexpectedly resemble the forms of animism that characterized the hunting‐gathering foragers through whom we anatomically modern humans emerged.     

Bridging 1990 and 2000 census race data: Fractional assignment of multiracial populations

In contrast to previous censuses, Census 2000 permitted individuals to mark more than one race. Because the new race tables include both single-race and mixed-race categories, measuring change during the 1990s requires some method of bridging between the two data sets.To accomplish this bridging, we first identified biracial populations as of 1990 through the race and ancestry responses of individuals in the PUMS file. With race responses assumed to represent a person's primary race identity, we then determined the percentage of each biracial group that preferred each race as the primary identity. The same percentages can be used to assign biracial persons from Census 2000 into single-race categories. We also provide fractional assignment percentages for selected states and for the larger specific nationality groups of mixed-race Asians.Comparison of our 1990 estimates of the numbers in leading biracial groups with those reported in Census 2000 suggests that our fractional assignment values are reasonable for biracial groups other than those involving American Indians and Alaska Natives. For the latter biracial groups and for all groups representing three or more races, we recommend equal fractional assignment into the appropriate single-race categories.     

Incorporating support constraints into nonparametric estimators of densities

Let f_n ^? (x) be the usual Parzen-Rosenblatt kernel estimator of the pdf f of a random variable X based on a sample X₁,…,X_n from X.In many practical applications,it is knownt hat X>c and/or X<d for given constants c and d.Additionally, one might know the values of(c)and/or f(d).“mirrorimage”and“tieddown”modifications of f_n ^?incorporate this additional information into an estimator f_n which has support [c,d].This estimatoris interpreted in a manner which allows one to use most of the known convergence properties of kernel estimates in studying the behavior of f_n.     

A bartlett correction factor for a likelihood ratio statistic in multivariate bioassay

A more accurate Bartlett correction factor is proposed for a likelihood ratio statistic in multivariate bioassay.     

Personality analysis of a swingers' club

Thirty swingers (16 females, 14 males) from a private metropolitan swinging club volunteered to take the MMPI. One half of the 30 had significant elevations on the clinical and/or validity scales, most frequently on the 9 scale (Hypomania). One third of the sample with normal MMPI scale elevations had significant elevations on validity scales that indicate defensiveness in responding. Analysis of a selected group of special scales of the MMPI indicated that a significant minority of the subjects 1) may be seriously emotionally disturbed, 2) may be substance abusers, or 3) may have serious sexual problems. The MMPI records suggest further that the absence of significantly elevated clinical scales among the normal subgroup may have been a function of defensiveness. On the other hand, most of the subgroup evidencing psychopathology possess ego resources sufficient to enable them to cope with emotional problems.A paper based primarily on the clinical scale analysis was read by the senior author at the meeting of the Society for Sex Therapy and Research, Charleston, SC, 1982. A paper based primarily on the special scale and critical item analyses was read by the junior author at the Eastern Regional meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, Philadelphia, PA, 1982. The authors are grateful for the cooperation of Dr. Robert L. McGinley in the collection of the data of this report. Address requests for reprints to: Eugene E. Levitt, Ph.D., Department of Psychiatry, Indiana University School of Medicine, 791 Union Drive, Indianapolis IN 46223.