Around New England

Peter Lucas: Why Isn’t Massachusetts Legislature More Diverse? Because 80 Seats Have Gone Missing

Matthew McDonald

The slowness of the growth of racial diversity in the Massachusetts Legislature stems from demands by liberals in the late 1960s and and early 1970s to reduce the number of seats in the state House of Representatives by one-third, argues Peter Lucas in a column in the Lowell Sun.

But reducing the House from 240 seats, which it once had, to 160 seats in the November 1978 election also reduced the body's representativeness and made it harder for non-incumbents to break through. Among other things, that slowed the progress that black candidates and other racial minority candidates were making in the 1970s, Lucas says.

Around New England

New Deerfield Academy Headmaster Led School in Jordan

Matthew McDonald

The expected new headmaster of Deerfield Academy, a prestigious boarding school in western Massachusetts, most recently led a private school in Jordan established by King Abdullah II.

The two schools have close ties. The king, 56, attended Deerfield Academy as a teen-ager, graduating in 1980. He established King's Academy in Jordan in 2007 as a home-grown counterpart to the Massachusetts school. The first headmaster of King's Academy was a former headmaster of Deerfield Academy, Eric Widmer.

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