Skip to content
Project 2025
Search

Latest Stories

Follow Us:
Top Stories
Is The War on Iran Unlawful And Unfair To U.S. Troops?

Is The War on Iran Unlawful And Unfair To U.S. Troops?

Protestors holding signs, many that say "Stop Bombing Iran."

Trump’s ‘Just for Fun’ War Talk Shows a Dangerous Trivialization

Disinformation Wins: Justifying ICE Murders through Transphobia

Disinformation Wins: Justifying ICE Murders through Transphobia

Republican scheming backfires in Texas election

Republican scheming backfires in Texas election

Trump: The King of Fake

Trump: The King of Fake

Black, Latino residents sue Mass. city for discriminatory election system

Worcester, Massachusetts
SeanPavonePhoto/Getty Images
Sara Swann
By Sara SwannFeb 08, 2021
Sara Swann

As a staff writer, Sara covers a variety of democracy reform issues, including voting rights, money in politics, gerrymandering and civic education. Prior to joining The Fulcrum in May 2019, Sara reported on local government on Maryland's Eastern Shore for the USA Today network. She is a native West Virginian and a graduate of Syracuse University.

See More Writings by author

Black and Latino residents of Worcester, Mass., are suing the city, alleging its at-large system for electing School Committee members discriminates against communities of color.

People of color make up nearly half (44 percent) of Worcester's overall population, and the student population is even more diverse with three-fifths identifying as Latino or Black. However, all six current School Committee members are white, and only a few non-white members have ever been elected.

A group of residents, along with community organizations Worcester Interfaith and the city's chapter of the NAACP, filed the federal voting rights lawsuit Monday. The suit seeks to convert the six at-large School Committee seats into separate district seats to better reflect the city's diverse population.

Worcester is the second largest city in Massachusetts and one of the only jurisdictions in the Commonwealth to still use an at-large system for its School Committee. Most other cities and towns have switched to a system that includes at least some district-based seats.

Having only at-large seats makes it hard for minority candidates to garner enough support city-wide to win their elections, the complaint says. It also claims Worcester has a history of "polarized voting," in which the predominantly white electorate votes mainly for white candidates.

The most recent example of this, per the lawsuit, was the 2019 School Committee election in which the six winning candidates, all of whom were white, received the most support from the 10 whitest precincts in Worcester. But the candidates of color who received strong support from the 10 most diverse precincts were unable to secure enough votes citywide to win.

"The right of representation is fundamental to our democracy. Worcester's communities of color deserve to have their voices heard, especially as crucial decisions are made by the School Committee directly impacting the children and families of those communities," said Rebecca MacDowell Lecaroz, a partner at Brown Rudnick LLP and the lead attorney for the plaintiffs in this case.


Latest news

Non Content

Republish Our Work

With the focus on the voting posters, the people in the background of the photo sign up to vote.
Electoral Reforms

Stop Fighting Voter ID. Start Defining It.

A person praying.
Community

Sacred Restraint in a Restless World

Read More

Is the U.S. at "War" with Iran?

A woman sifts through the rubble in her house in the Beryanak District after it was damaged by missile attacks two days before, on March 15, 2026, in Tehran, Iran.

(Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)

Is the U.S. at "War" with Iran?

This question is not an exercise in double-talk. It is critical to understand the power that our Constitution grants exclusively to Congress, and the power that resides in the President as Commander-in-Chief of the military.

The Constitution clearly states that Congress has the power to declare war. The President does not have that power. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 recognizes that distribution of power by saying that a President can only introduce military force into an existing or imminent hostility if Congress has declared war or specifically authorized the President to use military force, or there is a national emergency created by an attack on the U.S.

Keep ReadingShow less
Healthcare Jobs Surge Mask a Productivity Crisis—and Rising Costs
person sitting while using laptop computer and green stethoscope near
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

Healthcare Jobs Surge Mask a Productivity Crisis—and Rising Costs

Healthcare and social assistance professions added 693,000 jobs in 2025. Without those gains, the U.S. economy would have lost roughly 570,000 jobs.

At first glance, these numbers suggest that healthcare is a growth engine in an otherwise slowing labor market. But a closer look reveals something more troubling for patients and healthcare professionals.

Keep ReadingShow less
A large group of people is depicted while invisible systems actively scan and analyze individuals within the crowd

Anthropic’s lawsuit against the Trump administration over a Pentagon “supply-chain risk” label raises major constitutional questions about AI policy, corporate speech, and political retaliation.

Getty Images, Flavio Coelho

Anthropic Sues Trump Over ‘Unlawful’ AI Retaliation

Anthropic’s dispute with the Trump administration is no longer just about AI policy; it has escalated into a constitutional test of whether American companies can uphold their values against political retaliation. After the administration labeled Anthropic a “supply‑chain risk”, a designation historically reserved for foreign adversaries, and ordered federal agencies to cease using its technology, the company did not yield. Instead, Anthropic filed two lawsuits: one in the Northern District of California and another in the D.C. Circuit, each challenging different aspects of the government’s actions and calling them “unprecedented and unlawful.”

The Pentagon has now formally issued the supply‑chain risk designation, triggering immediate cancellations of federal contracts and jeopardizing “hundreds of millions of dollars” in near‑term revenue. Anthropic’s filings describe the losses as “unrecoverable,” with reputational damage compounding the financial harm. Yet even as the government blacklists the company, the Pentagon continues using Claude in classified systems because the model is deeply embedded in wartime workflows. This contradiction underscores the political nature of the designation: a tool deemed too “dangerous” to be used by federal agencies is simultaneously indispensable in active military operations.

Keep ReadingShow less
© Copyright 2026