Educators, a former West Point deputy commandant, students and Jewish War Veterans stood together against prejudice and bigotry at a Black History Month observation earlier this week at The Museum of American Armor in Old Bethpage.
In attendance were such leaders as Lorna Lewis, the first woman of color to preside over the New York State Council of School Superintendents; Col. Jason Halloren, retired, former deputy commandant of West Point; and Bill Tinglin, an educator who works to build bridges between African Americans and Jews. Also in attendance were students and educators from The Charter Academy School in Hempstead.
“We are living in a moment when some would prefer that our students learn a version of America that is easy, uncomplicated and unchallenged,” Lorna told an audience of about 125 attendees.
“But history – real history – is not meant to comfort us,” she said. “It is meant to teach us. It is meant to sharpen our moral judgment. It is meant to remind us of who we have been so we can decide what we must become.”
The event highlighted African American contributions to military service as well as such legal milestones as President Harry Truman’s 1948 executive order integrating the U.S. military.
“We gather to honor African American History Month – a time not only to reflect on struggle, but more to recognize service, courage and enduring contributions to our nation,” Halloren said. “Few chapters reflect that spirit more clearly than the story of African American soldiers during World War II and the transformation of our Armed Forces that followed.”
The program illustrated how mission-driven organizations can work together to strengthen communities.
“Black History Month reminds us that African American achievement is woven into the very fabric of American democracy,” Tinglin said. “But I submit to you…Every day must be a recognition of our shared humanity. Every day must be a commitment to dignity. Every day must be a decision to stand on the side of justice.”
At the event, students had the opportunity to sign an enlargement of Truman’s executive order that integrated the American military.
A painting of Gen. Robert E. Lee dressed in his Confederate uniform is back on display in West Point’s library, several years after the storied academy removed honors to the Civil War military leader.Related video above from 2021: Robert E. Lee statue removed in CharlottesvilleThere are also plans to restore a bust of Lee that had been removed from a plaza at the U.S. Military Academy, and a quote from Lee about honor that was removed from a separate plaza is now on display beneath the portrait, an Army spokesperson said Tuesday.The items were removed to comply with a Department of Defense directive in 2022 that ordered the academy to address racial injustice and do away with installations that “commemorate or memorialize the Confederacy.The Pentagon’s decision to re-hang the portrait, which shows a Black man leading Lee’s horse in the background, was first reported by The New York Times. It had been hanging in the library since the 1950s before it was placed it in storage.The actions at West Point come as the Trump administration restores Confederate names and monuments that had been removed in recent years.”At West Point, the United States Military Academy is prepared to restore historical names, artifacts, and assets to their original form and place,” Rebecca Hodson, the Army’s communications director, said in a prepared statement. “Under this administration, we honor our history and learn from it — we don’t erase it.”President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” that decried efforts to reinterpret American history. The Army then restored the names of bases that originally honored Confederate leaders, finding service members with the same surnames to honor.A commission created by Congress recommended in 2022 that the name and images of Confederate officers be removed from military academies. Lee graduated second in his West Point class in 1829 and later served as superintendent, and his name and image had prominent places at the academy on the Hudson River.Congress took this action after repeated complaints by current and former enlistees and officers in nearly every branch of the armed services, who described a deep-rooted culture of racism and discrimination that stubbornly festers, despite repeated efforts to eradicate it.Ty Seidule, a retired brigadier general who served as vice chair of the commission, said Lee’s image should not be on display because he “chose treason” and does not represent the values taught to cadets at West Point.”It is against the motto of ‘Duty, Honor, Country,’” Seidule said. “Robert E. Lee is the antithesis of that, because his duty and honor was for a rebellious slave republic.”Seidule, now a history professor at Hamilton College, also questioned whether the restoration of these symbols at West Point are legal under the federal law that led to their removal.An Army statement asserts that the law does not bar the restoration of Confederacy-related names, symbols, displays, monuments or paraphernalia on military property.
A painting of Gen. Robert E. Lee dressed in his Confederate uniform is back on display in West Point’s library, several years after the storied academy removed honors to the Civil War military leader.
Related video above from 2021: Robert E. Lee statue removed in Charlottesville
There are also plans to restore a bust of Lee that had been removed from a plaza at the U.S. Military Academy, and a quote from Lee about honor that was removed from a separate plaza is now on display beneath the portrait, an Army spokesperson said Tuesday.
The items were removed to comply with a Department of Defense directive in 2022 that ordered the academy to address racial injustice and do away with installations that “commemorate or memorialize the Confederacy.
The Pentagon’s decision to re-hang the portrait, which shows a Black man leading Lee’s horse in the background, was first reported by The New York Times. It had been hanging in the library since the 1950s before it was placed it in storage.
The actions at West Point come as the Trump administration restores Confederate names and monuments that had been removed in recent years.
“At West Point, the United States Military Academy is prepared to restore historical names, artifacts, and assets to their original form and place,” Rebecca Hodson, the Army’s communications director, said in a prepared statement. “Under this administration, we honor our history and learn from it — we don’t erase it.”
President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” that decried efforts to reinterpret American history. The Army then restored the names of bases that originally honored Confederate leaders, finding service members with the same surnames to honor.
A commission created by Congress recommended in 2022 that the name and images of Confederate officers be removed from military academies. Lee graduated second in his West Point class in 1829 and later served as superintendent, and his name and image had prominent places at the academy on the Hudson River.
Congress took this action after repeated complaints by current and former enlistees and officers in nearly every branch of the armed services, who described a deep-rooted culture of racism and discrimination that stubbornly festers, despite repeated efforts to eradicate it.
Ty Seidule, a retired brigadier general who served as vice chair of the commission, said Lee’s image should not be on display because he “chose treason” and does not represent the values taught to cadets at West Point.
“It is against the motto of ‘Duty, Honor, Country,’” Seidule said. “Robert E. Lee is the antithesis of that, because his duty and honor was for a rebellious slave republic.”
Seidule, now a history professor at Hamilton College, also questioned whether the restoration of these symbols at West Point are legal under the federal law that led to their removal.
An Army statement asserts that the law does not bar the restoration of Confederacy-related names, symbols, displays, monuments or paraphernalia on military property.
A West Point cadet pulled a driver from a crash just moments before the car burst into flames over the weekend in Orange County, New York.
Larry Pickett Jr. and his family came upon the crash while driving to campus early Sunday morning.
He and his father could be seen avoiding downed power lines as they raced over to lift the man from the driver’s seat and carry him to safety across the street.
“Seeing that there was somebody who needed help, there’s not much thinking or any talking. Just knowing that we had to go help someone, just reacted off of that,” Pickett Jr. told CBS News New York.
The Fort Montgomery Fire Department said the driver hit a utility pole on Route 9W, about six miles away from West Point. The man was said to be alert and appeared to have only minor injuries.
Pickett family praised for “heroic actions”
Pickett Jr., who hails from Raleigh, North Carolina, is a sophomore at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and plays free safety for the football team. His family was in town for the first game of the season and they had been coming back from dinner in New York City.
“I’m just extremely thankful that we were in the right place at the right time to help the gentleman,” Pickett Jr. said. “It just goes back to selfless service, the willingness to serve others. It feels good, but in the end, I’m just glad that everyone’s okay.”
His father, Larry Pickett Sr., posted the video on social media, saying his son’s display of courage is a testament to the character the school is instilling in him.
“To see my son spring into action, like to run towards a car that has a power line on it and under it, was amazing,” Pickett Sr. said.
The U.S. Military Academy echoed that sentiment, writing it was “proud of the heroic actions” taken by Pickett Jr. and his father.
“Cadet Larry Pickett Jr. and his father exemplify the values we hold dear, stepping up in a moment of crisis to save a life,” Athletic Director Tom Theodorakis wrote. “Proud to see these traits in action, on and off the fields of friendly strife. Count the brave.”
Renee Anderson is a digital producer at CBS New York, where she covers breaking news and other local stories. Before joining the team in 2016, Renee worked at WMUR-TV.
It started as a class project for University of Florida senior engineering students, and it became a viable solution for soldiers who needed an easier, faster, and safer way to camouflage their vehicles on the battlefield.
Students from Matthew J. Traum’s mechanical engineering capstone course received real-world training last year when they partnered with peers at Georgia Institute of Technology and the Civil-Military Innovation Institute, or CMI2, to design and produce a vehicle camouflage deployer for the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Georgia.
“This was a successful collaboration that tackled a problem faced by soldiers in the field — and much more rapidly than the Army’s conventional process,” said Traum, Ph.D., an instructional associate professor in the UF Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.
Traum said a prototype of the UF-designed vehicle camouflage deployment device was delivered to Fort Stewart at the end of the fall 2023 semester and replicated in-house by the Army. The device is currently being field tested.
“Our students designed and built the device in one calendar year, which is remarkable speed compared to conventional Army innovation timelines, which can take years,” Traum said. “The system surpassed the Army’s stated targets for mounting, deploying, and retracting the camouflage while keeping the soldiers safer.”
Traum learned through a colleague, Randy Emert at CMI2, about the potential for collaboration with the nonprofit organization through the Army’s Pathfinder program, managed by the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) Army Research Laboratory and supported by CMI2 to bridge the gaps in defense innovation by fostering relationships between service members and researchers. Traum was invited to the Army base to listen as soldiers presented their wish lists of projects.
“The Army’s tactical innovation labs play a key role in addressing in-field challenges faced by frontline soldiers and securing the necessary resources and technologies to resolve them,” said Emert, the CMI2 lab manager for the Marne Innovation Center at Fort Stewart. “We source problems directly from service members and engage engineering students in a short cycle of product development.”>
Based on what Traum heard that day, the need to camouflage combat vehicles faster was a good fit for his capstone students.
“Every time we park a combat vehicle on a battlefield, we need to cover it with camouflage material to hide it from the enemy,” said Capt. Chris Aliperti, co-founder of the Marne Innovation Center. “The process is not easy, and the soldiers were asking for something that would save them time and keep them safe.”
The camouflage deployment problem was broad enough for senior engineering students to work on, and one that could potentially be designed and built within a year, said Aliperti, who recently was promoted and is now a mechanical engineering instructor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
“This was something soldiers on the frontline were asking for, and our team didn’t have the bandwidth to address it,” Aliperti said. “The collaboration with the University of Florida provided invaluable hands-on experience to their students, and the end result contributes directly to enhancing the capabilities of our service members.”
The capstone course is a UF mechanical engineering student’s last class before they graduate and is viewed as a culmination of what students have learned throughout the curriculum, Traum said. The Army project spanned three semesters with about 80 students enrolled each semester.
Their approach evolved over the course of the year, and soldiers offered the students ideas and input weekly.
“It was interesting to see how the design started out as something most people would come up with, but after students met with the soldiers, took their feedback and ran analyses, they ended up with something that looked very different,” Aliperti said. “And it solves the problem much better than the original design.”
The students’ innovation addresses a longstanding pain point for soldiers. Traditionally, the poles used to hold up the camouflage material are staked into the ground, posing difficulties in muddy terrain or on urban concrete where securing them is impractical. Recognizing this limitation, the students devised a solution that uses mounting plates that are secured into place by the weight of the vehicle.
“That novel feature excited the Army,” Traum said. “By eliminating dependence on ground conditions, the mounting plates offer a versatile solution.”
The new device also masks the type of vehicle hidden beneath the camouflage netting. By strategically deploying poles to disrupt the shape of the netting, the device ensures that the vehicle’s silhouette varies each time it is deployed, thwarting the enemy’s ability to identify the concealed asset.
“The students were smart enough to realize in order to make a new device feasible, they should build around the equipment already in use,” Aliperti said. “Their device allows us to use the same poles and the same net but much more efficiently.”
Success of projects like the vehicle camouflage deployment device that was borne out of the Army’s tactical innovation lab set a precedent for future endeavors between academia and the military.
“Bringing ideas of this scope and scale to students to chew on allows young engineers to apply the fundamental lessons they learn in a book to real-life problems,” Aliperti said. “And if we strike gold on a great design like this one from the University of Florida, we’ve made a monumental impact across the entire Army.”
Washington — The anti-affirmative action group behind the pair of cases that led the Supreme Court to strike down race-conscious admissions programs at higher-education institutions has filed a lawsuit against West Point, arguing the service academy unlawfully discriminates against applicants on the basis of race through its admissions policy.
Filed in federal district court in White Plains, New York, the lawsuit from organization Students for Fair Admissions claims that West Point focuses on race when admitting future cadets and engages in racial balancing to meet benchmarks for the portion of African American, Hispanic and Asian students that make up each incoming class. The academy’s use of racial classifications is unconstitutional, the group said, and should be declared unlawful.
Students for Fair Admissions is asking the court to prohibit West Point from “considering or knowing applicants’ race” when making decisions about admissions.
“West Point has no justification for using race-based admissions,” the group said in its complaint. “Those admissions are unconstitutional for all other public institutions of higher education. The Academy is not exempt from the Constitution.”
The U.S. Military Academy’s public affairs office said it “does not comment on pending litigation.”
The West Point lawsuit
The group said its membership includes two White students who are “ready and able” to apply to West Point, one this fall and the other in 2025. The first student is a high school senior in the upper Midwest who is identified as “Member A,” and the second, identified as “Member B,” is a high school student in the Southeast.
The two students wish to remain anonymous because they fear reprisal from West Point and others if their participation in the lawsuit becomes public, according to the filing.
Students for Fair Admissions argued that unless West Point is ordered to stop using race as a factor in admissions, the race of members A and B will prevent them “from competing for admission on an equal footing.”
“If West Point is allowed to continue making admissions decisions based on applicants’ race, SFFA’s members — including Members A and B and other similarly-situated applicants — will suffer harm because they will be denied the opportunity to compete for a West Point appointment on equal grounds, solely because of their race,” the group claimed.
The lawsuit states that West Point’s purported racial preferences come into play during the second stage of its admissions process, after applicants have passed medical and physical-fitness tests and secured a nomination from a member of Congress, the vice president or president. While West Point has said racial diversity provides educational and military benefits, Students for Fair Admissions argues the academy can achieve a diverse student body through race-neutral means.
“West Point’s status as a military academy does not mean that courts must defer to its conclusory assertions that it needs to employ racial preferences, let alone diminish” constitutional violations, the group claimed.
The Supreme Court affirmative action decision
Students for Fair Admissions’ challenge to West Point’s admissions policies is not unexpected — the organization indicated it was turning its attention to the service academy in August, when it launched a website called “West Point Not Fair” that sought information from prospective or unsuccessful applicants to the service academies.
The call for potential plaintiffs came on the heels of the Supreme Court’s June decision that said colleges and universities could not consider race as a factor in admissions, bringing an end to affirmative action in higher education. The landmark ruling stemmed from two challenges to the race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard College and the University of North Carolina brought by Students for Fair Admissions
In the majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court’s conservative majority said race-conscious admissions policies could not be reconciled with the Constitution. The programs from Harvard and the University of North Carolina used race in a negative manner and lacked meaningful endpoints, the court found.
In a footnote, Roberts singled out the military academies and effectively exempted them from the Supreme Court’s ruling, noting that the “propriety of race-based admissions systems” was not addressed in the context of the military academies.
Loretta Williams lives in Alabama but drove to Georgia to buy a lottery ticket for a chance at winning the $1.5 billion Powerball jackpot.
She was one of many Alabama ticket-buyers flooding across state lines Thursday. The third-largest lottery prize in U.S. history has people around the country clamoring for a chance to win. But in some of the five states without a lottery, envious bystanders are crossing state lines or sending ticket money across them to friends and family, hoping to get in on the action.
“I think it’s ridiculous that we have to drive to get a lottery ticket,” Williams, 67, said.
Five states — Utah, Nevada, Hawaii, Alaska and Alabama — do not have a lottery. A mix of reasons have kept them away, including objections from conservatives, concerns about the impact on low-income families or a desire not to compete with existing gaming operations.
“I’m pretty sure the people of Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi and Georgia appreciate all of our contributions to their roads, bridges, education system and many other things they spend that money on,” said Democratic legislator Chris England, from Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Several times weekly, England hears from constituents asking when Alabama will approve a lottery: “Especially when people look on TV and see it’s $1.5 billion dollars.”
Opposition intertwined with opportunity
In 1999, Alabama voted down a lottery referendum under a mix of opposition from churches and out-of-state gambling interests. Lottery proposals have since stagnated in its legislature, the issue now intertwined with debate over electronic gambling.
In Georgia, a billboard along Interstate 85 beckons motorists to stop at a gas station billing itself as the “#1 LOTTERY STORE” — 2 miles (3 kilometers) from the Alabama-Georgia line. Alabama car tags outnumbered Georgia ones in the parking lot at times and a line for ticket purchases stretched across the store.
Bruce Gideos, floor manager at Pierre’s Place, in Chesterfield, N.H., prints out Powerball tickets on Thursday, Nov. 3, 2022. The Powerball jackpot climbed over $1.5 billion on Thursday after no one won Wednesday’s drawing.
Kristopher Radder/The Brattleboro Reformer via AP
Similarly, anybody in Utah wanting a lottery ticket must drive to Idaho or Wyoming, the two nearest states to the Salt Lake City metro area, where most of the population resides. Lotteries have long been banned in Utah amid stiff opposition to gambling by leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known widely as the Mormon church. The faith has its headquarters in Salt Lake City and the majority of lawmakers and more than half of the state’s residents belong to the religion.
In Malad, Idaho, 13 miles (21 kilometers) from the Utah line, KJ’s Kwik Stop is taking advantage of Powerball’s absence in Utah, advertising directly to Utah residents to cross over for tickets. “Just because Utah doesn’t participate in the lottery doesn’t mean you can’t!” their website read recently.
KJ’s sold hundreds of Powerball tickets to Utah residents on Thursday alone, said Cassie Rupp, a Kwik Stop cashier.
In Alaska, when oil prices slumped in recent years, legislative proposals to generate revenue through lottery games, including possibly Powerball, faltered. A 2015 report suggested annual proceeds from a statewide lottery could be around $8 million but cautioned such a lottery could negatively affect charitable gaming activities such as raffles.
Anchorage podcast host Keith Gibbons was in New York earlier this week but forgot to buy a Powerball ticket, even though he didn’t know the size of the jackpot. His response when told it could be $1.5 billion: “I need a ticket.”
He believes even though Alaska is extremely diverse — Anchorage School District students speak more than 100 languages besides English in their homes — offering Powerball would appeal to everyone.
“There’s a little bit of everybody here, and so when you bring things like that, it doesn’t just speak to our culture, it speaks to all cultures because everybody wants money, everybody wants to win, everybody wants to be part of the scene,” Gibbons said.
Not everyone agrees.
Harmful “waste of money”
Bob Endsley is no fan of Powerball. He says Alaskans shouldn’t have the opportunity to buy tickets. “It’s a waste of money,” said Endsley, also finding fault with the taxes that have to be paid on winnings and the increasing jackpots.
Taking a break from shoveling snow off his sidewalk, the Anchorage man said he once won $10,000 in a Canadian lottery. But it was so long ago, he said, that he doesn’t remember what he did with the windfall other than “paid taxes.”
Hawaii joins Utah as the two states prohibiting all forms of gambling. Measures to establish a Hawaii state lottery or allow casinos are periodically introduced in the Legislature but routinely fail in committee.
Opponents say legalized gambling would disproportionately harm Hawaii’s low-income communities and encourage gambling addictions. Some argue the absence of casinos allows Hawaii to maintain its status as a family-friendly destination. Gambling is popular among Hawaii residents, however, with Las Vegas one of their top vacation destinations.
Wearing a University of Alabama cap, John Jones of Montgomery, Alabama, bought a Powerball ticket on Thursday in Georgia. He voted for an Alabama lottery in 1999 and said he hopes lawmakers there try again. A retired painter, Jones said he usually doesn’t buy a lottery ticket, but decided to take a chance.
He said many Alabamians seem to be doing the same at the Georgia store. “I even met some friends over here,” said Jones, 67.
