Advocates for people with disabilities want the U.S. Justice Department to investigate state employees who were fired for abuse, but never criminally prosecuted for it.
Emily Ramshaw
Emily Ramshaw was the editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribune from 2016 to 2020. During her tenure, the Tribune — billed “one of the nonprofit news sector’s runaway success stories” — won a Peabody Award, several national Murrow Awards and top honors from the Online News Association.
Before joining the Tribune in 2010 as one of its founding reporters, Ramshaw spent six years at The Dallas Morning News, where she broke national stories about sexual abuse inside Texas’ youth lock-ups, reported from inside a West Texas polygamist compound and uncovered “fight clubs” inside state institutions for the disabled. The Texas APME named Ramshaw its 2008 star reporter of the year. In 2016, she was named to the board of the Pulitzer Prizes.
A native of Washington, D.C., and the product of two journalist parents, Ramshaw graduated from Northwestern University in 2003 with dual degrees in journalism and American history.
Posted in
Health care
Abuse of Power: One Family’s Fight
With each day that passes, David Nicholson fears that the man who killed his profoundly disabled brother will join the ranks of state school workers who are never convicted for their heinous acts.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Abuse of Power
State employees who commit heinous acts against Texas’ most profoundly disabled citizens rarely get charged with crimes, let alone go to jail. A Texas Tribune review of a decade’s worth of abuse and neglect firings at state institutions found that just 16 percent of the most violent or negligent employees were ever charged with crimes.
Posted in
State Government
TribBlog: Dallas City Officials Do the Robot, the Running Man and the Hula In City Promo Video Featuring Mark Cuban
In a new city promotional video, Dallas city council members, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and a dozen other celebrities bust a move — and risk lifelong embarrassment. Did I mention Vanilla Ice is involved?
Posted in
Criminal Justice
TribBlog: Hi(gh) Again
A recent juvenile justice report finds drug-addicted TYC inmates who didn’t participate in the agency’s drug treatment program were less likely to reoffend than those who did.
Posted in
Public Education
Still Restrained
Texas educators forcibly pinned down students with disabilities as many times in 2009 as they did in 2008, despite efforts to curb the practice.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Sexual Abuse in State Lock-ups
Three years after a sexual abuse scandal rocked the Texas Youth Commission, one in five juvenile offenders in Texas youth lock-ups report being forced into sexual acts.
Posted in
Health care
No Country For Health Care, Part 4: Rural Recruitment
In rural counties, recruiting doctors is the single biggest health care challenge. Twenty-seven counties have no primary care physicians.
Posted in
Health care
No Country For Health Care, Part 3: Shrinking Rural Ranks
It’s no time to be an advocate for rural health care. Rural lawmakers say they’re consistently outnumbered and under-represented — and that redistricting will only make matters worse.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
TribBlog: Northwestern U. Investigation Hits Home
I received a letter this week from my alma mater, Northwestern University, notifying me that my notes, records, interviews — even my grades — from my senior year investigative journalism class were subject to a subpoena by the state of Illinois.
