“A Century of Excellence: The Pulitzer Prizes and Journalism’s Impact at UNT,” screams the front page of The Campus Chat, the student newspaper of the University of North Texas that has morphed into the North Texas Daily.

The Mayborn Graduate Institute of UNT, observed a proud moment September 29,2016, when five Pulitzer Prize Finalists and five Pulitzer Prize Winners, all former UNT students took the stage at the UNT Student Union Lyceum to display their tradition of respect that span 100 years, for the much-maligned profession that is journalism.

Telling how they have earned this distinction among all journalists, each panel member showed how writing and photography, when done well, right wrongs in society.

Leona Allen who graduated in 1986, worked for the Dallas Times Herald before joining the Akron Beacon Journal where she rose to the position of editor. She is currently the deputy managing editor at the Dallas Morning News. Her work on public housing and the discrimination against minorities in the housing market earned her this much-coveted prize for examining race relations and hidden biases.

“Writing about race relations create risks and challenges. People do not want to talk about it. What it takes to get people to open up, show that you care,” she said. She talked about how she paired with a white reporter to get into certain neighborhoods. The housing laws have since changed for the better.

Dan Malone over a period of two years, investigating what he titled “Abuses of Authority” documented in the Dallas Morning News, how Texas law enforcement officials habitually infringed upon the rights of citizens. “Texas has more cops investigated than any other in the country,” he told the audience. He twitched expressing a beating of a kid in a holding cell for something in his words, “not-so-glorious.”

David Klement’s Pulitzer is for his team-work at the Detroit Free Press where they told the story of the Detroit riots that unfolds even today due to lack of housing and jobs. He graduated from UNT in 1962 and had written about 11,000 editorials.

UNT Adjunct Professor Gayle Reaves’ 14-part series – “Violence against women: A question of Human Rights,” deservingly got her the gold, the Pulitzer. She worked at the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Weekly.

Senior Director of Media Content, UNT Health Science Center Kerry Gunnels collaborated with Gayle Reeves at the Dallas Morning News and shared the Pulitzer for violence against women in 1992.

Melissa Boughton, Eric Gay, Kalani Gordon, Ray Mosely and Kenneth “Chip” Somodevilla have all been finalists.Ray Mosely is a 1952 graduate at a time when UNT was Texas State College. For 59 years, he covered events around the world as an international journalist from Africa to South Asia and beyond.  A Pulitzer for the report on the Little Rock school integration crisis in 1957, at the Arkansas Gazette, was won. He contributed to the coverage.

These writers and photographers made the argument that people the world over, just desire to be free and equal under the law. “Regardless of how massive the story may be, the human element is what reaches out and touches people,” one said.

In an economic downturn, it has been noted that it is men that lose their jobs first, given that they are paid higher while women retain theirs and get to be the breadwinners. The roles of men and women get reversed, so the woman goes to work while the men stay home to change diapers and do the cooking.

This happenstance is one that certainly hurts the egos of men who traditionally have been the ones to bring home the bacon. Gone are the days when women are relegated to the kitchen. Today’s women can do virtually anything a man does, and they comprise more than half the population of our country. I have sat in classes with a lot of women who kicked my rear end, and I am not stupid. Or so I have been told.

In spite of this assertion, it is my fervent belief that some men in America still find it hard to have a woman in the highest office in the land even though I can readily name the number of countries around the world that have had female presidents or heads of state.

Off the top of my head, I could easily count almost three dozen from Argentina to South Korea. It is a shame that even third world countries have had to do things differently in a male-dominated world, by electing women to the highest office while our country is guilty of dragging its feet.

I come from Sierra Leone, a corrupt small country in West Africa that is still teetering and unable to find its feet ever since self-rule over five decades ago. The current president is anything but good. Next door is  Liberia, where  Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is doing just fine, transforming her country that had been ravaged by war, to a steady and fast-growing economy.

Americans are never shy to tout the progressive nature and forward thinking characteristics of its population compared to the rest of the world, yet we are woefully behind when it comes to giving equal rights and opportunities to women.

Women earn just 78 cents for every dollar a man makes in a country where women make up about half the workforce. The outcry has been deafening in this regard and now that women have the chance to change that, I am surprised they are not pouncing on it.

There is only one job so far that I can certainly guarantee a woman will receive the same pay as a man. That is the presidency. So why are women not flocking to Hillary Clinton to make this happen and break that ceiling? She is perhaps the most qualified person to run for that office ever. And look who the opponent is. No contest here!

This is why I still fault women for maintaining the status quo. Last time I said this, I was almost chased out of a room outnumbered by women. Ladies, this is your chance to fight back and do so now or forever hold your peace!