It is hard to read the news on any given day without being reminded why affirmative action policies in government hiring and college admissions continue to be necessary and how they benefit society.

A federal jury Friday awarded a Cook County corrections officer $200,000 for harassment he suffered from co-workers.

A Cook County Jail correctional officer of Palestinian ancestry was awarded $200,000 in damages Friday by a federal jury.

CHICAGO - A federal court jury has awarded $200,000 in damages to a Cook County Jail correctional officer of Palestinian ancestry who accused the Cook County Sheriff's office of racial harassment.

A Cook County correctional officer who claimed he was harassed by colleagues because of his Arab ancestry was awarded $200,000 in damages by a federal jury Friday.

A Cook County correctional officer who claimed he was harassed by colleagues because of his Arab ancestry was awarded $200,000 in damages by a federal jury this past Friday.

A jury awarded $200,000 to a Cook County correctional officer who said he was the victim of racial harassment on the job.

There are two conflicting accounts regarding the details of the arrest of celebrated Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in his own home by the Cambridge police department -- that of the professor and that of the police.

A Cook County sheriff's deputy of Palestinian ancestry who is suing superiors for failing to look into his complaints of racial harassment testified at the start of his trial that he endured dozens of incidents between December 2004 and March 2006.

A Cook County sheriff's deputy of Palestinian ancestry who is suing superiors for failing to look into his complaints of racial harassment testified at the start of his trial that he endured dozens of incidents between December 2004 and March 2006.

Reacting to a controversial Islamic group's meeting in their back yard, protesters clad in red, white and blue decried Sunday's meeting by the group Hizb-ut Tahrir at Oak Lawn's Hilton hotel.

After waiting months to ensure that he would not face Attorney General Lisa Madigan in a general election battle, GOP Rep. Mark Kirk is officially entering the 2010 Senate race this morning.

M. Zuhdi Jasser is a man on a mission. He identifies himself as a devout and practicing Muslim...but his passion for the past six years has been to spread the word that the politicalization of Islam and those who believe in that politicalization, is a grave danger to the United States and the rest of the world.

It is no secret that Islam and Muslims remain largely misunderstood in the West, including the United States. This is baffling considering that one study after another reveals that American Muslims are largely integrated on a number of levels in American life.

A controversy erupted last week in Chicago after it was publicly revealed that a noted anti-Islam blogger, Robert Spencer, had been invited to an American Library Association panel advertised as "dispelling stereotypes about Islam.