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(CNN)Over the course of four days, five reports of hate-related incidents recently made national headlines. The news illustrates a disturbing trend, civil rights groups say.

On Friday, December 7, a fire destroyed a Jehovah’s Witnesses house of worship. It was the fifth attack this year targeting the religious group in Washington state, federal officials said.
The next day, a black man was assaulted at a bar in Lynnwood, Washington, by eight self-professed members of a neo-Nazi skinhead group, according to the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office. Members of the group allegedly yelled racist slurs during the incident, and an employee identified as an Asian man was injured as he tried to intervene. On Sunday, Pittsburgh officials said that anti-Semitic pamphlets were being spread throughout the city, including in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, the site of a mass shooting that targeted Jews in October.

A federal judge this week ordered Maryland to remedy the lack of investment in the state’s historically black colleges and universities, in an effort to resolve a decade-old lawsuit over inequality in public higher education.

The state must establish a set of new, unique and high-demand programs at each historically black institution, the judge declared.

Since 2006, a coalition of alumni from Maryland’s four historically black institutions have been locked in litigation with the state to dismantle what they say are vestiges of racial segregation. The group says Maryland has underfunded Morgan State University, Coppin State University, Bowie State University and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, and allowed other state schools to duplicate their programs, placing pressure on enrollment.

(Reuters) – Georgia voters return to the polls on Tuesday to elect a new elections chief in a state where critics accused Republicans this autumn of exploiting the position to suppress minority voting rights. Republican Brad Raffensperger and Democrat John Barrow were forced into a runoff in the secretary of state race after neither candidate secured a majority of the vote in the Nov. 6 general election as required by state law. The contest has showcased the partisan divisions still rankling the state after its hard-fought governor’s contest, which saw widespread reports of voting problems during an election overseen by the Republican candidate, Brian Kemp, then secretary of state. Kemp’s narrow victory over Democrat Stacey Abrams, who sought to become the nation’s first female African-American governor, followed complaints of hours-long waits in heavily minority precincts, polling equipment failures and concerns about absentee ballots getting rejected under stringent rules that voters’ signatures exactly match the records on file.

WASHINGTON ― The Senate on Wednesday inched closer to confirming Thomas Farr to be a lifetime federal judge, despite strong opposition from civil rights groups and Democrats over his long career of trying to weaken black voters’ rights.

The Senate voted 50-50 on a procedural step to advance Farr’s nomination to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Vice President Mike Pence came in to break the tie. Every Democrat voted against Farr, as did Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who is opposing all of President Donald Trump’s nominees until he gets a vote on a bill to protect special counsel Robert Mueller.

Farr’s final confirmation vote is expected later this week.

Civil rights groups and the Congressional Black Caucus have been trying to sink Farr’s nomination for nearly a year.

Ahead of Mississippi’s runoff election for US Senate on Tuesday, a national civil rights group has sued the state’s governor and top election officials over stringent absentee ballot requirements that make it impossible for many voters to have their ballots counted.

Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democrat Mike Espy both failed to secure a majority in the November 6 election, triggering a runoff. But Mississippi county election officials didn’t begin sending absentee ballots out until Saturday, November 17, according to the lawsuit from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Many out-of-state voters received those ballots around Thanksgiving. Under Mississippi law, an absentee ballot must be notarized and received by county election officials by 5 p.m. on the day before Election Day.