Albany State University defeated Morehouse College 24-14. The two Georgia-based HBCUs met on a neutral field at MetLife Stadium for the second annual Toyota HBCU New York Classic.

Albany State scored two touchdowns early in the first quarter including a 58-yard pass by quarterback Isaiah Knowles to Rashad Jordan. They would connect again on a 13-yard reception in the fourth quarter with Isaiah Knowles finishing the game 20 for 30 and 245 yards passing with three touchdowns.

“I really wanted to win. And we went out and got it,” said Jordan.

Both teams have trained under new head coaches this season who met for their first competition at the Toyota HBCU New York Classic.

“This is a game for our kids [and] they’ve been playing this game since they were four or five years old. The fact that we’re in MetLife Stadium…doesn’t change the fact that you’re in between those lines,” said the Golden Rams head coach Quinn Gray, Sr., a former NFL quarterback and FAMU legend. “We would have played in the parking lot if they put the ball down, it doesn’t matter where, we play football. We’ll play anywhere, anytime, anyplace.”

Regarding the opportunity to play in the Toyota HBCU New York Classic, he added, “Eleven of these kids had never been on an airplane before so the experiences this has created for these kids is second to none.”

Morehouse was led by coach and alumni Gerard Wilcher, who fulfilled his dream to become a head coach for the prestigious college last February when he was brought in to lead the Tigers. 

“These are Morehouse men. We are here to win and graduate. We are working on the winning part as well as the graduation part,” said Wilcher. “It’s about growing and learning from our mistakes. Somewhere along the years, we fell way behind, and now we are playing catch up.”

The Toyota HBCU New York Classic is a multi-day celebration of HBCU culture and community activities, including career fairs and education days, a Greek step show, tailgate, battle of the bands, and more. The game’s halftime show included a live performance by rap legend Big Daddy Kane, plus spectacular drumline performances and a battle of the bands between Morehouse College and Albany State University.

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ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Help-wanted advertisements in New York will have to disclose proposed pay rates after a statewide salary transparency law goes into effect on Sunday, part of growing state and city efforts to give women and people of color a tool to advocate for equal pay for equal work.

Employers with at least four workers will be required to disclose salary ranges for any job advertised externally to the public or internally to workers interested in a promotion or transfer.

Pay transparency, supporters say, will prevent employers from offering some job candidates less or more money based on age, gender, race or other factors not related to their skills.

Advocates believe the change also could help underpaid workers realize they make less than people doing the same job.

A similar pay transparency ordinance has been in effect in New York City since 2022. Now, the rest of the state joins a handful of others with similar laws, including California and Colorado.

“There is a trend, not just in legislatures but among workers, to know how much they can expect going into a job. There’s a demand from workers to know of the pay range,” said Da Hae Kim, a state policy senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center.

The law, signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2022, also will apply to remote employees who work outside of New York but report to a supervisor, office or worksite based in the state. The law would not apply to government agencies or temporary help firms.

Compliance will be a challenge, said Frank Kerbein, director of human resources at the New York Business Council, which has criticized the law for putting an additional administrative burden on employers.

“We have small employers who don’t even know about the law,” said Kerbein, who predicted there would be “a lot of unintentional noncompliance.”

To avoid trouble when setting a salary range, an employer should examine pay for current employees, said Allen Shoikhetbrod, who practices employment law at Tully Rinckley, a private law firm.

State Senator Jessica Ramos, a Democrat representing parts of Queens, said the law is a win for labor rights groups.

“This is something that, organically, workers are asking for,” she said. “Particularly with young people entering the workforce, they’ll have a greater understanding about how their work is valued.”

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Maysoon Khan is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Maysoon Khan on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court’s decision siding with Black voters in an Alabama redistricting case gave Democrats and voting rights activists a surprising opportunity before the 2024 elections.

New congressional maps would have to include more districts in Alabama and potentially other states where Black voters would have a better chance of electing someone of their choice, a decision widely seen as benefiting Democrats.

It’s been more than three months since the justice’s 5-4 ruling, and maps that could produce more districts represented by Black lawmakers still do not exist.

Alabama Republicans are hoping to get a fresh hearing on the issue before the Supreme Court. Republican lawmakers in Louisiana never even bothered to draw a new map.

Khadidah Stone, a plaintiff in the Alabama case, said the continuing opposition was “appalling” but “not surprising.” She noted that Alabama is where then-Gov. George Wallace blocked Black students from integrating the University of Alabama in 1963.

“There is a long history there of disobeying court orders to deny Black people our rights,” she said.

A similar dynamic is playing out in Florida, where Republicans are appealing a ruling favorable to Black voters to the Republican-majority state Supreme Court.

Lawsuits over racially gerrymandered congressional maps in several other states, including Georgia, South Carolina and Texas, quickly followed the Supreme Court’s landmark Voting Rights Act decision in June. But the continued pushback from Republican legislatures in control of redistricting means there is great uncertainty about whether –- or how soon -– new maps offering equal representation for Black voters will be drawn.

Whether the Republican strategy proves to be a defiance of court orders that the Supreme Court will shoot down or a deft political move will be become clearer over the next month.

Shawn Donahue of the State University of New York at Buffalo, an expert on voting rights and redistricting, said the Supreme Court could put a quick end to the delays and “summarily affirm” the decision of a lower court panel that rejected the latest Alabama congressional map. That map continued to provide just one majority Black district out of seven in a state where Black residents comprise 27% of the population.

“You could have some of (the justices) just kind of say — ‘You know what, I didn’t agree, but that’s what the ruling was,’” Donahue said.

The Supreme Court also could agree to hear Alabama’s challenge, bringing the state’s redistricting plans back to the court less than a year after it rendered its opinion in the previous case.

Republicans want to keep their map in place as the state continues to fight the lower court ruling ordering them to create a second district where Black voters constitute a majority or close to it. The state contends the Supreme Court set no such remedy and that the new map complies with the court’s decision by fixing the problems it identified — such as how the state’s Black Belt region was split into multiple districts.

“A stay is warranted before voters are sorted into racially gerrymandered districts that are by their very nature odious,’ the state attorney general’s office wrote in the stay request.

The stakes are high. With Republicans holding a slim majority in the U.S. House, the redistricting cases have the potential to switch control of the chamber next year.

Shortly after its decision in the Alabama case, the Supreme Court lifted its hold on a similar case from Louisiana, raising hopes among Democrats that the state would be forced to draw another Black majority congressional district.

But even if the court rejects Alabama’s latest plan, it would not necessarily bring an instant end to the case in Louisiana, where U.S. District Court Judge Shelly Dick has ruled that a second majority-Black district must be drawn.

Dick has three days of hearings scheduled to begin Oct. 3. But her initial order blocking the 2022 congressional map drawn by Louisiana’s GOP-controlled Legislature — which maintains white majorities in five of six districts in a state where about one-third of voters are Black — remains on appeal. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is to hear arguments Oct. 6.

Louisiana’s lawyers argue that the Black communities the plaintiffs and the district court seek to include in a second majority Black district are too far-flung, even under the Alabama precedent.

The high court’s decision in the Alabama case “did not present a free pass to future plaintiffs to establish (Voting Rights Act) liability without proving that the relevant minority population is itself compact,” Louisiana said in its argument.

The voting rights advocates suing the state argue that the plans they have suggested so far are “on average more compact” than the plan the state is trying to preserve.

Stuart Naifeh, who is a plaintiff as part of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said in Louisiana that the court is considering the maps drawn by only the plaintiffs because the Legislature chose not to draw any. Louisiana state Rep. Sam Jenkins Jr., a Democrat, said he is optimistic now that the matter is in the courts.

“We had the opportunity to do the right thing, which would have been fair for all the people of Louisiana,” he said. “I am disappointed that the court still has to come in and make our state do what is right.”

Louisiana’s argument against a second district has less merit than Alabama’s, said state Sen. Royce Duplessis, a Democrat. Louisiana has just one majority Black congressional district out of six even though Black residents account for one-third of the state’s population. That lone district encompasses both New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

“These are two distinct cities, two distinct regions, two distinct interests and needs, and it only makes sense to have these two large communities to anchor individual congressional districts,” Duplessis said. “We have shown that there is a multitude of ways to draw a map that has two majority Black districts that meet all the criteria for fair redistricting.”

A similar case is playing out in Florida, though not in federal court.

A state judge ruled earlier this month that a redistricting plan pushed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a GOP presidential contender, should be redrawn because it diminishes the ability of Black voters in north Florida to pick a representative of their choice.

The state is appealing that ruling, and the case might be fast-tracked to the Florida Supreme Court, where five of the seven justices were appointed by DeSantis. Both sides are requesting a quick resolution before the next legislative session in case districts need to be redrawn for the 2024 elections.

The new map essentially drew Democratic U.S. Rep. Al Lawson, who is Black, out of office by carving up his district and dividing a large number of Black voters into conservative districts represented by white Republicans. DeSantis contended the previous district extended 200 miles just to link Black communities, violating the constitutional standards for compactness.

Angie Nixon, a Black state representative from Jacksonville, was one of the Democratic lawmakers who led a protest against the DeSantis map. She said she is still hopeful the state’s high court will ultimately deliver the outcome wanted by voting rights groups.

Nixon said groups have been organizing to get more people engaged.

“We are going to use this as an opportunity to serve as a catalyst to get people moving and get people out to vote,” she said.

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Gomez Licon reported from Miami. Associated Press writers Kim Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama, and Kevin McGill in New Orleans contributed to this report.

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