No more ‘DEI’

The three campuses in the University of Alabama System — The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Birmingham and Huntsville — are shutting down their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs per a new state law banning DEI offices, programming and training in public colleges, reports AL.com’s Alaina Bookman.

Earlier this summer, Jacksonville State closed its DEI office.

We don’t know to what degree the changes will mean a change in practices versus a change in nomenclature. A UA System spokesperson said no system-level staff had been let go. And as DEI offices closed, A Division of Opportunities, Connections and Success was opened in Tuscaloosa and an Office of Access and Engagement was opened at UAB. Both those programs are being led by the people who led the campuses’ respective DEI programs.

A hoss of a bull shark

Another shark record appears to have been broken during the Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo, reports AL.com’s Laurence Specker.

During last year’s Rodeo, the state-record, 1,019-pound tiger shark was caught. This past Sunday, on the last day of the tournament, an apparent Alabama-record 494.5-pound bull shark was hauled in.

That’s only about 45 pounds more than the current bull-shark record, set in 2015.

It took the team a couple of hours to get the big fish to the boat, the Orca. It had to be taken out of the boat by crane for weigh-ins back on Dauphin Island.

It won’t be an official record until it’s validated by the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

A legacy of child advocacy

Former Alabama Supreme Court justice Mark Kennedy has passed away, reports AL.com’s Mike Cason.

Originally from Greenville, Kennedy was elected to the state’s high court in 1988 and re-elected in 1994. He later served a stint as chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party.

It was his time as a juvenile-court and family-court judge in Montgomery that inspired Kennedy to help found the Children’s Trust Fund in 1983 with the goal of preventing child abuse and neglect.

He leaves behind his wife of 50 years, Peggy Wallace Kennedy, who’s the daughter of George and Lurleen Wallace.

Mark Kennedy was 72 years old.

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In 1900, Zelda Fitzgerald of Montgomery. She was an iconic Jazz Age socialite and one half of a partying power couple with F. Scott Fitzgerald. She’s often referred to as “America’s first flapper.”

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