Democratization and the Disfranchisement of African Americans in the US South during the Late 19th Century

The disfranchisement of African Americans in the South during the late 19th century highlights the role that mass actors, in this case African Americans, can play as part of the enforcement mechanism to prevent elites from backtracking on democracy. This episode in US history further suggests that for democratic progress to be consolidated, vulnerable groups require sufficient economic and social power to defend their formal rights. Newly emancipated African Americans gained the franchise in 1870. They voted in large numbers for two decades. But at the turn of the century each Southern state introduced disfranchising measures. The article discusses the efforts of Southern political elites to restore the antebellum social and political order, and the reasons the national state failed to intervene to protect the rights of former slaves. Above all, the article explores the nature of African American resistance and its effect on the timing and course of disfranchisement. It also draws attention to the importance of African American resistance by comparing Southern disfranchisement with the little-known cases of attempted disfranchisement of African Americans in the antebellum North and early 20th century Maryland. The article concludes that the relative strength of African Americans in contemporary America makes another rollback of democratic rights unlikely.     

Understanding the ABC of University Governance

University governance is complex and contested. In view of the seemingly unceasing rise of commercial values within public universities, this contribution argues the case for a holistic, mission‐related integrated governance approach for the Australian public university sector. The ‘ABC of University Governance’, as proposed for broad‐scope governance within the sector, involves an integrated emphasis on the three key components of governance: academic governance, business governance and corporate governance. Respectively, these components of public university governance are concerned with scholarship, performance and conformance. Placing academic governance first in the ABC of university governance reminds us all of the vital role and importance of scholarship, which should never be downplayed or underestimated in public universities.     

Criteria for developing performance measurement systems in the public sector

The United States Government is placing increased emphasis on the development of financial measures, and measures of program effectiveness. The authors discuss government efforts in these areas. Various approaches and criteria are presented for the development of performance measurement systems, as well as generic criteria for selecting performance indicators, and obstacles to the process. Experience indicates that development of a performance measurement system is best served by a strategic planning approach with top management support, active management participation in goal setting, a small manageable number of goals, a strong link with the budget process, and an independent evaluation process.     

Do century-specific equations provide better estimates of stature? A test of the 19-20th century boundary for the stature estimation feature in Fordisc 3.0

A sample (n=28) from the Terry Collection was selected to include only White males who were born and had their entire growth and development period before 1900 to assess the effects year of birth have on accuracy and precision when estimating stature. Using the computer application Fordisc 3.0, stature was estimated using the humerus, radius, femur, and tibia equations developed from White males born in the 19th Century and the 20th Century. The 19th Century White male equations did not consistently provide the most precise and accurate estimates of stature. The 20th Century equations provide results that were as good as or slightly better than the 19th Century equations for the humerus, radius and femur. The 20th Century equations provided notably better results for the tibia. There is a great deal of evidence that there are clear positive secular changes in most of North America in the last 100-125 years, but the division commonly advocated in a forensic context at the year 1900 has no positive effect on accuracy or precision when estimating stature.     

A metric method for sex determination using the proximal femur and fragmentary hipbone

The pubic bone is considered one of the best sources of information for determining sex using skeletal remains, but can be easily damaged postmortem. This problem has led to the development of nonpelvic methods for cases when the pubic bone is too damaged for analysis. We approached this problem from a different perspective. In this article, we present an approach using new measurements and angles of the proximal femur to recreate the variation in the pubic bone. With a sample from the Terry Collection (n > 300), we use these new variables along with other traditional measurements of the femur and hipbone to develop two logistic regression equations (femur and fragmentary hipbone, and femur only) that are not population specific. Tests on an independent sample (Grant Collection; n = 37-40) with a different pattern of sexual dimorphism resulted in an allocation accuracy of 95-97% with minimal difference by sex.