#nondiscrimination laws

[genderqueerpositivity]

People are allowed to decide who they can and cannot give their services to, you fucking freak (coming FROM a gay person) you are all so unbelievably PATHETIC for acting like wedding designers refusing to do shit for us becos of our sexuality is some massive hit to lgbt rights. You all don’t seem to understand we had it much worse, and that this bill is allowing people behavioural freedom. We should be grateful for it, it’s not right to force people to do things they don’t want to with their own businesses.

It's not an object to me, because I would never deliberately hire a Christian to design anything if my queer heathen ass were getting married.

And that isn't the point, because what I know is this: legally this is purely another step towards removing nondiscrimination protections entirely.

Do you really think that they're going to stop at websites and wedding cakes?

It's about removing legal protections against discrimination in all areas for the entire LGBTQ+ community. This court case was never about a wedding website, the designer in question was never hired to design a website for a gay couple--this case was entirely about attacking and weaking a nondiscrimination law.

I hope you get your wish.

And when your Christian landlord evicts you, when you are fired from your job for posting a wedding picture of yourself and your partner on social media, when your children are denied opportunities for having same gender married parents, when your family is refused service in restaurants, when doctors refuse to treat you, when the pharmacy refuses to fill your prescriptions, and when the EMTs let you die on the street because saving your gay ass is an affront to Jesus...

I hope you remember to feel grateful.

[martyrbat]

posting on here really is just being expected to say ‘sorry for being desensitized by facing daily, real life homophobia and the constant threat of being killed for being a faggot-tranny to where i forgot to take into consideration that youre gonna be a whiny bitch about me making a light-hearted joke about a fictional character on my own blog’ while not feeling sorry at all.

[metanarrates]

I haven't seen a lot of coverage in the news about this, but my state has just advanced legislation on a bill that would criminalize trans bathroom use in publicly owned buildings. this could mean up to 6 months in jail and up to $1000 in fees for those convicted.

most alarming aspects of this bill:

-"publicly owned buildings" include airports, schools, libraries, government offices, some hospitals, and most terrifyingly AND explicitly within the bill, domestic violence shelters and rape crisis facilities. transgender people, who are estimated to be almost 4 times more likely to be victims of violent crimes than cisgender people, could become criminalized in the very spaces they seek out to shelter from abuse.

-on that note, the bill potentially threatens federal funding of already-underfunded domestic violence and sexual assault facilities. to recieve federal grants, facilities are required to follow nondiscrimination laws. this law could place the facilities in danger of losing the grants they rely on. this is severely going to impact victims' abilities to access critically needed services.

-the bill legally defines "sex" in a way that has a lot of potential impact across state legislature. according to the bill’s text, HB 257 would legally define a female as “an individual whose biological reproductive system is of the general type that functions in a way that could produce ova,” and a male as “an individual whose biological reproductive system is of the general type that functions to fertilize the ova of a female.” this could effectively end the state's legal recognition of trans people.

-the bill demands that trans people who DO use bathrooms in publicly owned buildings must have undergone both gender reassignment surgery and have had their birth certificate changed. this has several issues, obviously, but the biggest one I want to highlight is that this opens the door to potential genital inspection by law enforcement if someone is accused of being transgender in a bathroom. in addition to any other indignities suffered by being harassed by cops when trying to use the restroom, it is completely possible for law enforcement to now demand to see whether someone's genitals are in compliance with these laws. it's an unconscionable and humiliating invasion of privacy.

-the bill requires trans students to develop a "privacy plan" with their school in order to arrange access to unisex spaces. if unisex bathrooms are unavailable, the student can be granted access to a sex-designated space “through staggered scheduling or another policy provision that provides for temporary private access.”

-the bill allows the state’s attorney general to impose a fine of up to $10,000 per day on local governments that don’t enforce the bill. in essence, any government that isn't sufficiently committed to enforcing these draconian laws may face massive fines until they have reached the attorney general's standard of enforcement.

this is one of the most unbelievably severe anti-trans laws that have ever been proposed in the united states. it would effectively ban trans people from participating in public life, harm nearly every single victim of domestic violence and sexual assault who seeks services in the state, enforce criminality on random trans people in bathrooms, and open every single person who could be potentially accused of being trans up to a wave of harassment and discrimination from both private citizens and law enforcement. I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that this law would literally force me and my transfemme fiancee to flee this state.

the law's been fast tracked to an insane degree through the legislature. similarly to the anti-dei bill currently making its way through, it's only been a week since it was introduced, and it's already passed the house, and is now up for vote in the senate. if it passes both sets of votes, the only thing left in its way is the governor's decision to veto.

please share this post. make as much noise as you can. if you live in utah, please call and email your district senator as soon as possible. it doesn't matter how late you see this. the bill is up for vote this week (1/23/24 at the time of writing) and we need to do whatever we physically can to protest its passing. we've already moved past the opportunity for public comment on the bill, but a few organizations have called for a rally at the capitol steps on thursday (1/25/24) at noon. if you are in the salt lake area or are able to make it there, please consider attending. wear a mask and bring a sign. we are stronger together.

[hailmaryfullofgrace55675]

“Ashkenazi Jews don’t actually have Levantine genetic ancestry” has been floating around lately among naïve and conspiracy minded anti-Zionists, a problematic claim that undermines actually correct anti-Zionist principles and defense of Palestinian rights. This claim is

absolutely irrelevant, as “blood” originating on the “soil” does not grant anyone any right to an ethnostate on any land. Using area-native ethnicity to justify discrimination and mass killing is bad when it’s Yamato Japanese discriminating against Korean, Mainland Chinese, and Taiwanese minorities in Japan and it’s bad when it’s Celtic-Germanic descent Brits oppressing Celtic-Germanic descent Irish who they’re genetically undifferentiatable from. It was bad when it was Hutus killing Tutsis and it was bad when it was the Khmer Rouge killing Chinese and Vietnamese Cambodians. The actions of the Israeli state in immiserating and slaughtering non-Jewish Palestinians would be equally harmful and wrong if the diaspora had never happened and every Israeli could trace their resident lineage in an unbroken line back to the time of the Second Temple, because it is bad to destroy people’s homes, burn their crops, imprison them, and kill them.

incorrect, at least according to current scientific consensus. Most genetic studies seem to indicate that Ashkenazim are of majority European descent and also have ancestry in the Levant, that is: the Ashkenazi population had some Levantine founders and there’s been significant amounts of intermarriage over the hundreds and hundreds of years of the diaspora into Southern Europe and from there across Central and Eastern Europe.

irrelevant again because even if, through a combination of conversions, adoptions, intermarriage, and adulterous and out of wedlock pairings between Jews and local gentiles, the diasporic European Jewish population had become completely genetically indistinguishable from local gentiles, those Jews would still have been the children of Israel. They still would have learned to read the Torah and celebrate its festivals. They still would have learned, from their families and communities in an unbroken line, to pray “Sh’ma Yisrael, Adonai eloheinu, Adonai echad” (Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one) as the rabbinic sages of Roman Judea observed in the Talmud that they were commanded to do. They still would have spoken languages with Hebrew and Aramaic elements, and they still would have written them with letters recognizable in the Dead Sea Scrolls. They still would have had the same interests, affirmed daily and yearly, in the land that their people left so many hundreds of years ago.

One formulation of the claim is “Israel bans direct to consumer genetic testing because it shows that (Ashkenazi) Jews don’t have Middle Eastern ancestry”. The Israeli government does ban DTC genetic testing as part of a genetic information privacy and nondiscrimination law passed in 2000, before companies like 23andMe existed. DNA testing for ancestry can be interpreted and presented many ways, and the ancestry breakdowns given by DTC GT companies just do not correspond to the question “where, how, and through what migrations did this population originate?”.

Once again, Zionism is not bad because people residing in places their ancestors are not from is bad. That is fine. Zionism is bad because from its beginning the Zionist project has been one of violent dispossession and because that violent dispossession continues in and through this very present moment.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lisa Needham at Public Notice:

It’s been barely a week since conservatives on the US Supreme Court radically upended the balance of power between the branches of government, giving the federal courts the exclusive power to interpret statutes rather than deferring to agency experts. And we’re already seeing impacts on the ground. Right-wingers have been in the habit of running to their preferred courts to get regulations overturned, but the decision in Loper Bright v. Raimondo, which officially destroyed agency deference, will make it easier — even routine — to block every Biden administration rule they don’t like.  Lawsuits to invalidate specific rules had been proceeding through the federal courts before Loper Bright, generally arguing that agencies exceeded their authority in promulgating a rule. These lawsuits exist in no small part because the Supreme Court made it clear they would destroy Chevron deference for years now, with Justice Neil Gorsuch having led the way well before his appointment to the Court. 

Trump appointee Sean Jordan, who sits in the reliably hard-right Eastern District of Texas, was so eager to block a Biden administration’s overtime rule that he dropped his decision the same day Loper Bright came out. It runs 36 pages and mentions Loper Bright multiple times, which means either Jordan was so confident of the Supreme Court decision that he either wrote it in advance or he hurried to stuff Loper Bright into his already-written opinion. Jordan’s opinion also rests heavily on dictionary definitions rather than expertise from the Department of Labor, which issued the rule. So now, the rule that would have made 4 million more Texas workers eligible for overtime, and thus more pay, is blocked thanks to a hurried read of a SCOTUS opinion and Webster’s Dictionary. 

What this mean is that anytime a business doesn’t like a federal rule, it can just sue. It promises to be a free-for-all. Three hospitals in New Jersey sued HHS the day Loper Bright came down, saying the agency’s interpretation of a statute governing Medicare reimbursement is unlawful. In another case, filed before Loper Bright, a trucking company challenging the Biden administration’s rule that addressed misclassification of independent contractors filed a memorandum on July 2 arguing that Loper Bright means the court should not defer to the Department of Labor’s interpretation of the law. The next day, Trump appointee Ada Brown of the Northern District of Texas enjoined enforcement of the Biden administration’s rule prohibiting non-compete agreements but limited the injunction to the plaintiffs, which are various pro-business groups like the Chamber of Commerce. 

[...]

Bigotry from the bench

Unsurprisingly, much of the assault on administration rules relates to any regulation that would protect transgender people. Four days after Loper Bright was handed down, another Trump appointee, Judge John W. Broomes in Kansas, enjoined the Department of Education from enforcing its Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs rule in Kansas, Alaska, Utah, and Wyoming. The Department of Education spent two years finalizing the rule, which would have prohibited discrimination based on gender identity under Title IX.  The unofficial text of the rule, which runs 1,577 pages with supporting material, is jam-packed with legal analysis. Hundreds of pages are spent explaining how the DOE considered and addressed public comments and the document details the mental health impact of discrimination against LGBTQ students. 

Broomes’s expertise is in natural resource law, a background that does not lend itself to a detailed understanding of Title IX, sex discrimination, or gender identity. But none of that matters. His opinion sneers about “self-professed and potentially ever-changing gender identity” and insists that things like using correct pronouns for students and allowing them to use the bathroom that conforms with their gender identity is an issue of “vast economic” significance. Given that the only costs of the rule are things like updated administrative guidance and perhaps hiring additional Title IX staff, the idea it is a vast economic question is, to put it politely, a reach. Instead, Broomes sided with the conservative plaintiffs, including Moms for Liberty and an Oklahoma student who asserted that using the correct pronouns for other students violated her religious beliefs. Because of this mix of conservative state litigants, private anti-trans groups, and an Oklahoma student, the extent of Broomes’s injunction is even weirder than the patchwork blocking of the HHS rule.

Besides blocking the rule entirely in four states, the rule is also blocked for the schools attended by the members of two private plaintiffs, Young America’s Foundation and Female Athletes United, and all schools attended by the children of members of Moms for Liberty. So now, if you are a transgender student unlucky enough to attend school anywhere in the country where a child of a Moms for Liberty student also attends, you’re out of luck. If your school is free of children of book-banners, you get the protection of the federal rule — unless you live in Kansas, Alaska, Utah, and Wyoming, in which case it doesn’t matter what school you go to.  Over at Law Dork, Chris Geidner has a good rundown of not just how the courts are sledgehammering LGBTQ rights, but also how having courts, rather than regulators, make these decisions results in an uneven patchwork of rulings over a Health and Human Services rule that prohibited health care providers from discriminating based on gender identity. Only five days after Loper Bright was issued, three separate federal courts issued rulings blocking parts of the HHS rule. There’s no chance that William Jung, a Trump appointee to the federal district court for the Middle District of Florida, hadn’t already written most of his decision before Loper Bright was issued, but the case gave him far more ammunition. Fung’s ruling in Florida v. Department of Health and Human Services blocked part of the Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities rule from going into effect — but only in Florida. 

The Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo ruling by the judicial activist MAGA Majority on the Supreme Court is having devastating consequences.

[anastasiaoftheironwood]

US DISABILITY RIGHTS LAW EXPANSION

The US federal government has drafted a proposal to require health care providers to make real accommodations for disabled patients, "to ensure that MDE used by public entities to offer services, programs, and activities at places such as hospitals and other health care facilities is accessible to individuals with disabilities. MDE includes things like medical examination tables, weight scales, dental chairs, and radiological diagnostic equipment. Without accessible MDE, individuals with disabilities may not be afforded an equal opportunity to receive medical care, including routine examinations, which could have serious implications for their health. A lack of accessible MDE may also undermine the quality of care received by individuals with disabilities, “leading to delayed and incomplete care, missed diagnoses, exacerbation of the original disability, and increases in the likelihood of the development of secondary conditions.”

Comments are open through February 12, 2024. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/01/12/2024-00553/nondiscrimination-on-the-basis-of-disability-accessibility-of-medical-diagnostic-equipment-of-state

[mariacallous]

This spring, Tennessee passed a first-of-its-kind law that protects the rights of adults who object to LGBTQ+ identity on moral or religious grounds to foster and adopt LGBTQ-identifying kids. Tennessee’s move came partly in response to a considered Department of Health and Human Services rule designed to protect LGBTQ+ kids. The federal change, passed shortly after the Tennessee bill, was a reversal of a Trump administration decision to remove nondiscrimination protections.

It’s a chilling law, one that echoes the most virulent anti-LGBTQ+ attitudes pushed across a number of Western democracies. The policy sets up the family as an instrument for disciplining unwanted elements in society, following the model established by Hungary, Russia, and others.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government in Hungary amended the constitution in 2020 for the purpose of redefining family and stripping same-sex couples of their parental rights. The change defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Non-married people require special permission to adopt children. As a government official put it, “The main rule is that only married couples can adopt a child, that is, a man and a woman who are married.” The constitution now defines family as “based on marriage and the parent-child relation. The mother is a woman, the father a man.” It goes on to declare, “Hungary defends the right of children to identify with their birth gender and ensures their upbringing based on our nation’s constitutional identity and values based on our Christian culture.”

In a country where pro-natalist subsidies bolster family planning through grants for families to purchase homes to the abolition of income tax for mothers who give birth to or raise at least four children, circumscribing same-sex couples as ineligible to foster or adopt is more than an act of cultural and economic discrimination. It’s an attempt at annihilation.

Tunde Furesz is the president of the Hungarian Maria Kopp Institute for Demography and Families and previously worked in the government as deputy secretary of state responsible for family policy and demography. In an interview with the Hungarian Conservative, she addressed criticism of Hungary’s family policies by saying, “Attacks on family policy, on the Fundamental Law and now on the child protection act are always ideological attacks. Right now, Hungary is against LGBTQ propaganda.” As to the appropriateness of Hungary’s discriminatory policies, she asserted that “every state has the sovereign right to prioritize which groups of society are to be focused on.”

This is a crucial point, because Furesz is drawing out exactly what’s at stake in the Tennessee law and so many other instances of anti-LGBTQ+ and discriminatory family policy. It is a question of what kind of country is being built, beginning with one of the smallest and most rudimentary units within society. How the family is defined and how the contours of parental rights and the nascent individualism of the child are traced posit fundamental ideas about who we are, how we relate to one another, and the boundaries between our freedom and society’s demands.

Of course, perhaps no other European state has been as pioneering in its anti-LGBTQ+ agenda as President Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Gay adoptions were banned in 2013, around the same time a ban on gay “propaganda” was implemented. A ban on adoptions by international same-sex couples came in 2014. Putin has repeatedly portrayed LGBTQ+ rights and other liberal ideals as a form of Western cultural aggression. He reiterated this in his speech announcing the Russian invasion of Ukraine: “They sought to destroy our traditional values and force on us their false values that would erode us, our people from within, the attitudes they have been aggressively imposing on their countries, attitudes that are directly leading to degradation and degeneration, because they are contrary to human nature.”

More recently, the Russian Supreme Court banned the “international LGBT social movement” as an extremist organization in November. In early 2024, the first convictions were handed out: a man in Volgograd for posting a picture of a pride flag and a woman in Nizhny Novgorod for wearing LGBTQ+ earrings. The man paid a 1,000-ruble fine, and the woman spent five days in detention.

But it’s Orban’s regime that has become a particularly popular rhetorical and policy touchstone for right-wingers in the United States. Americans who want to learn from Hungary’s illiberal cultural crusade in order to reshape this country see much to import. This spring, Gladden Pappin, the American academic and Catholic integralist who now works as the president of the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, told an interviewer from the National Catholic Register that “American conservative politicians need to ask: What positively can I do to make the traditional family more likely to survive? Sometimes it’s implementing the anti-woke policies in education. … But with changing mindsets, we need to think ahead about how to increase the likelihood that people will choose the family life they really want.”

Rod Dreher, another right-wing American expat in Orban’s orbit, has characterized Hungary as standing athwart the gates of European history, defending values against a woke horde: “For example, even as European Union inquisitors are trying to punish Hungary for protecting its children from LGBT propaganda, Disney—Disney!—in Germany has greenlighted a new series for youth about a teenager who has sex with Satan and falls pregnant with the devil’s baby. Not a peep from the bespoke Huns of Brussels about that. The real threat, you see, is from retrograde Christians like Viktor Orban, who believe things about family that most Europeans did seemingly the day before yesterday.”

On this side of the Atlantic, right-wingers are fond of parental rights arguments, but this commitment falters when the parents in question are LGBTQ+ or when they affirm such identities in their children.

Policies like Tennessee’s and the wider environment of hostility toward LGBTQ+ people also decrease the likelihood that potential LGBTQ+ parents will seek to foster or adopt. Polling from Gallup shows that LGBTQ+ adults are more likely to consider fostering or adopting, but they also report high levels of concern about possible discrimination in the process. The deterrent effects of anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination are visible, with nearly half of LGBTQ+ men reporting that fear of discrimination poses a “major barrier to fostering and adopting.”

These measures are not limited to Tennessee. At the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, this February, right-wing commentator Michael Knowles declared that “true freedom is a national policy based on what we know in our hearts as morally right” and went on to attack same-sex couples and the practice of surrogacy, insisting that “children are people and no one has a right to another person.” Last week, Gabriella Gambino, the Vatican’s undersecretary for the Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life moderated a panel at the U.N.’s Geneva headquarters on the need to abolish interns surrogacy. Gambino referred to international surrogacy as “procreative tourism.” Italy’s Minister for Family, Natality, and Equal Opportunities, Eugenia Roccella, also participated.

Last year, during a House subcommittee hearing, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene attacked American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, who is gay, as “not a biological mother.” Parents’ rights tend, however, to mainly run in one direction: exerting control over trans youth. Tennessee passed a law in May that criminalizes adults who assist minors in receiving out-of-state gender-affirming care without parental or guardian consent and another that would require schools to out trans students to their parents.

I am adopted myself, and I’ve written before about some of the thorny challenges around adoption and its ethics. But in places like Nashville and Budapest, what we find are not moral gray areas or troubling dilemmas. There is only the use of state power to impose a rigid concept of family and to further marginalize a minority under the guise of defending values and honoring would-be parents.

The hard-line approach to cultural issues in Republican-dominated states threatens to turn parts of America into places that more closely resemble the illiberal regimes of Europe’s backsliding democracies rather than the fully free society the United States is at the national level. In places like Tennessee, just as in Orban’s Hungary, the sort of society being molded and the kind of family being promoted are exclusionary, regressive, and profoundly illiberal.

[rjzimmerman]

Judge Blocks E.P.A. From Using Civil Rights Law in Pollution Case. (New York Times)

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

A federal court in Louisiana has dealt a serious blow to the Biden administration’s effort to protect communities heavily affected by toxic industrial pollution.

The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana ruled on Wednesday that the Environmental Protection Agency is barred from using the federal civil rights law to prevent Louisiana from granting permits for numerous polluting facilities in minority and low-income communities.

Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act allows the E.P.A. to investigate whether state programs that receive federal money are discriminating on the basis of race, color or national origin.

But the judge’s ruling effectively means that the federal government is limited to taking action against specific agency decisions that are intentionally discriminatory. The E.P.A. cannot, however, consider cumulative or “disparate” environmental harms. That means the state cannot be held liable for actions like allowing several chemical plants, refineries and other industrial operations in minority communities.

Debbie Chizewer, an attorney at Earthjustice, an environmental group that has pursued Civil Rights Act cases on behalf of heavily polluted communities, called the decision “outrageous.” She said: “Residents were already struggling because of the disproportionate exposure to environmental harms in Louisiana. This leaves them unprotected.”

The E.P.A. issued a statement saying the agency and the Justice Department “remain committed to enforcing civil rights law, consistent with the court’s order” and said in the coming weeks the agency would determine its “next steps to ensure nondiscrimination in the programs and activities our agencies fund.”

The ruling applies only to Louisiana, though environmental activists said the case could have national implications if other states opened legal challenges similar to Louisiana’s.

[kick-a-long]

y

Haley Cohen

September 4, 2024

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The new school year is bringing fresh protections for Jewish students at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, following the administration’s announcement on Tuesday that its nondiscrimination policy will now extend to harassment or discrimination based on Jewish students’ connections to Israel and Zionism.

The guidelines are part of a new agreement with Hillel International, Illini Hillel and the Jewish United Fund, Chicago’s federation, and it comes as several elite universities have received criticism for a lack of transparency about specific messaging as to what university policies are and how they are going to be enforced.

Under the agreement, announced on Tuesday, the University of Illinois declared that the protections offered by the university’s nondiscrimination policy extend to harassment or discrimination of Jewish students, including harassment or discrimination based on Jewish students’ connections to Israel and Zionism.

UIUC published a set of examples, for the first time, of discrimination and harassment of protected classes as part of its nondiscrimination policy.

The examples include the use of antisemitic slurs and stereotypes, blaming a Jewish student for Israel’s policies, physical contact with an individual and derogatory or hostile messages on social media.

In 2020, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the law firm of Arnold & Porter filed a Title VI complaint on behalf of University of Illinois Jewish students who alleged antisemitism on campus. Also on Tuesday, a resolution agreement issued by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) was reached.

Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education, said that UIUC “has now agreed to take the steps necessary to ensure its education community can learn, teach, and work without an unredressed antisemitic hostile environment, or any other hostility related to stereotypes about shared ancestry.”

Lonnie Nasatir, president of JUF, told Jewish Insider that “the terms in this settlement are the best achieved across the country and will have a significant positive impact on the campus climate for Jewish students.”

Additionally, the university agreed to publish a summary report of bias incidents every month, commit to mandatory antisemitism training for administrators and students and hire an expert on campus antisemitism to enhance the university policies.

The agreement does not include implementation of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, a definition that mainstream Jewish groups and congressional leaders have called for universities to adopt as schools confront antisemitism on campus. .

In a statement, Robert Jones, UIUC’s chancellor, said that the university is “deeply committed to implementing the Mutual Understandings we are announcing today and to working together to provide a safe and supportive educational environment for our entire Jewish student community and for all students at Illinois.”

Erez Cohen, executive director at Illini Hillel, said in a separate statement that Hillel will “work alongside UIUC during the implementation of their new policies and to help reaffirm their promise to protect the rights of Jewish students on campus.”

While antisemitism on campuses has skyrocketed since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks and the subsequent war in Gaza, the university’s agreement with Jewish groups had already been in discussion for several years. An OCR investigation from 2015 through December 2023 found 135 allegations of anti-Jewish discrimination (compared to four related to anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian or anti-Arab discrimination). Incidents in the OCR investigation include flyers distributed around campus via plastic bags containing rocks stating, “Every single aspect of the Covid agenda is Jewish” and a student throwing a rock toward an event at the Hillel Center.

Brandeis Center President Alyza Lewin said in a statement that “UIUC’s administration began engaging in meaningful discussions with the Jewish community about how to address antisemitism on campus after we filed our OCR complaint years ago.”

Lewin called the agreement “a significant milestone,” adding that it will “when implemented, improve the campus climate for Jewish students

[genderqueerpositivity]

Absolutely fuckin wild that SCOTUS delivered a blow to LGBTQ inclusive nondiscrimination laws nationwide based on that case...because one web designer went to court to have the "right" to refuse to design wedding websites for same gender couples hypothetically.

Hypothetically, because no one even tried to hire her to do that. But this is the outcome.

I hope Lorie Smith never has a day of peace ever again.

...And they just stuck down the Biden administrations student loan forgiveness program.

Fuck SCOTUS.

[self-loving-vampire]

Dhillon, known for her staunch opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, has represented Chloe Cole, a prominent anti-trans detransitioner who has called puberty blockers a “gateway drug” and testified in favor of numerous state-level trans bans. Cole’s lawsuit against Kaiser Permanente is just one example of Dhillon’s alignment with far-right anti-trans movement. With the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division at her disposal, Dhillon’s appointment signals an alarming shift that could make life increasingly difficult for transgender people nationwide, including those who have sought refuge in blue states to escape anti-trans legislation. Harmeet Dhillon's most prominent work includes founding the Center for American Liberty, a legal organization that focuses heavily on anti-transgender cases in blue states. The organization's "featured cases" section highlights several lawsuits, such as Chloe Cole's case against Kaiser Permanente; a lawsuit challenging a Colorado school's use of a transgender student's preferred name; a case against a California school district seeking to implement policies that would forcibly out transgender students; and a lawsuit against Vermont for denying a foster care license to a family unwilling to comply with nondiscrimination policies regarding transgender youth. With Dhillon's potential new role at the Department of Justice, these cases may gain renewed significance, as she is given the ability to leverage the department's power against states that protect their transgender residents. The attorney herself has openly advocated for overturning blue-state laws that protect transgender individuals. For instance, in response to Maine’s designation as a refuge for trans people fleeing anti-trans crackdowns in red states, Dhillon claimed such a law would be unconstitutional. Safe-state laws like Maine’s have grown increasingly common, explicitly preventing care provided within the state from being subpoenaed by out-of-state actors seeking to prosecute individuals under laws that do not apply in blue states. These laws safeguard residents from interstate legal attacks over actions such as traveling to access gender-affirming care, abortions, or other reproductive healthcare. As of December, 17 states have enacted “shield laws” designed to protect their transgender residents from these efforts to eliminate access to care, even in jurisdictions where bans do not exist. Such laws have taken on heightened importance this year as officials like Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton attempt to access medical records of transgender individuals across state lines. Paxton issued subpoenas to healthcare providers in states as far away as Georgia and Washington, seeking information on transgender patients from Texas who received gender-affirming care. In Washington, a robust shield law effectively blocked his out-of-state legal efforts. Dhillon has repeatedly expressed extreme anti-transgender views on social media, often engaging with and praising the Libs of TikTok account—an account whose posts frequently precede bomb threats targeting schools and hospitals. In one such post, Dhillon commented on a school in Idaho respecting a transgender student, stating, “We are talking IDAHO, folks. Not coastal California. I’m telling you this predatory gender madness is everywhere!” In another post, she responded to Glenn Beck by calling gender transition a lie, writing, “Make it unsafe for American doctors to destroy young American lives through the lie of sex change aka ‘gender transition.’ Expand the statutes of limitation. Make insurance paying for these procedures also pay for detransition. Make it stop.” In that interview, Dhillon doubled down, declaring that hospitals providing gender-affirming care must be “made unsafe” to do so.

[beardedmrbean]

The University of California, Berkeley has been hit with a federal civil rights complaint for allegedly engaging in discrimination on the basis of race and nation of origin.

A new federal civil rights complaint filed by the Equal Protection Project (EPP) on Tuesday demanded an investigation into programs at the Haas School of Business, alleging that certain students were excluded from an MBA (Masters of Business Administration) preparatory program due to their race and ethnicity, violating Title VI and the Equal Protection Clause.

Cornell Law professor William A. Jacobson founded the EPP to ensure fair treatment of all people without regard to race or ethnicity – and he feels Berkeley is being unfair to non-Hispanic students. The complaint, which has been obtained by Fox News Digital, details that the Haas Thrive Fellows program is to "educate, prepare, and motivate Latinx/Hispanic individuals" to apply and succeed at a top business school.

"The Haas Thrive Fellows program openly discriminates on the basis of race and national origin. Haas clearly tells students the program is intended for 'Latinx/Hispanic' students, setting up a barrier that would deter other students from applying. Regardless of the purpose of the discrimination, it is wrong and unlawful," Jacobson told Fox News Digital.

"After the Supreme Court's 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admission, it is clear that discriminating on the basis of race to achieve diversity is not lawful," he continued. "Haas knows better than to run a program that excludes and discriminates against students based on race and ethnicity."

Berkeley did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Jacobson feels that the "harm from racial and ethnic educational barriers is that it racializes not just the specific program, but the entire campus." He said that non-discrimination standards, which have been adopted by University of California institutions, should apply to the Haas School of Business.

"At every level, by policy the university rejects discrimination. UC-Berkeley and Haas should live up to their own set of rules. Sending a message to students that access to opportunities is dependent on race and ethnicity is damaging to the fabric of campus," Jacobson said.

"Haas needs to come up with a remedial plan to compensate students shut out of this educational opportunity due to race or ethnicity," Jacobson added. "The Equal Protection Project calls on the leadership of UC and UC-Berkeley to make sure nondiscrimination standards are upheld throughout the university system."

The EPP’s guiding principle is that there is "no ‘good’ form of racism," and that the "remedy for racism never is more racism," according to its website.

"Colleges and universities need to adopt the approach of EqualProtect.org, which is that there is no 'good' form of racism, and the remedy for racism is not more racism," Jacobson said.

[antisemitism-us]

The accord resolves one of the earliest of the many lawsuits accusing major universities, including New York’s Columbia University, of allowing and encouraging antisemitism following the outbreak of war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.

It was announced the same day Brown University agreed to bolster nondiscrimination training for employees and students, to resolve a complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education over its handling of discrimination and harassment claims, including those related to antisemitism.

The NYU lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court last November by Bella Ingber, Sabrina Maslavi and Saul Tawil, all juniors at the time.

They accused the school of violating federal civil rights law by enforcing its anti-discrimination policies unevenly, including by allowing chants such as “Gas the Jews” and “Hitler was right” while ignoring other bigotry.

[darkmaga-returns]

Chances are that your DNA is already in a database somewhere, waiting to be analyzed by wannabe Technocrats for markers to discriminate against you. Perhaps you gave blood, had surgery, or used companies like 23andMe. You will never know who gave you a negative assessment nor who ordered it in the first place. But, when you can’t buy life or health insurance you will get the picture. ⁃ TN Editor

The news came four years ago, at the end of a casual phone call. Bill’s family had always thought it was a freak coincidence that his father and grandfather both had ALS. But at the end of a catch-up, Bill’s brother revealed that he had a diagnosis too. The familial trend, it turned out, was linked to a genetic mutation. That meant Bill might also be at risk for the disease.

An ALS specialist ordered Bill a DNA test. While he waited for results, he applied for long-term-care insurance. If he ever developed ALS, Bill told me, he wanted to ensure that the care he would need as his nerve cells died and muscles atrophied wouldn’t strain the family finances. When Bill found out he had the mutation, he shared the news with his insurance agent, who dealt him another blow: “I don’t expect you to be approved,” he remembers her saying.

Bill doesn’t have ALS. He’s a healthy 60-year-old man who spends his weekends building his dream home by hand. A recent study of mutations like his suggests that his genetics increase his chances of developing ALS by about 25 percent, on average. Most ALS cases aren’t genetic at all. And yet, Bill felt like he was being treated as if he was already sick. (Bill asked to be identified by his first name only, because he hasn’t disclosed his situation to his employer and worried about facing blowback at work too.)

What happened to Bill, and to dozens of other people whose experiences have been documented by disease advocates and on social media, is perfectly legal. Gaps in the United States’ genetic-nondiscrimination law mean that life, long-term-care, and disability insurers can obligate their customers to disclose genetic risk factors for disease and deny them coverage (or hike prices) based on the resulting information. It doesn’t matter whether those customers found out about their mutations from a doctor-ordered test or a 23andMe kit.

For decades, researchers have feared that people might be targeted over their DNA, but they weren’t sure how often it was happening. Now at least a handful of Americans are experiencing what they argue is a form of discrimination. And as more people get their genomes sequenced—and researchers learn to glean even more information from the results—a growing number of people may find themselves similarly targeted.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

On Monday, Donald Trump announced his selection for Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights: Harmeet Dhillon, a far-right California lawyer with a track record that could pose significant threats to transgender Americans. Dhillon, known for her staunch opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, has represented Chloe Cole, a prominent anti-trans detransitioner who has called puberty blockers a “gateway drug” and testified in favor of numerous state-level trans bans. Cole’s lawsuit against Kaiser Permanente is just one example of Dhillon’s alignment with far-right anti-trans movement. With the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division at her disposal, Dhillon’s appointment signals an alarming shift that could make life increasingly difficult for transgender people nationwide, including those who have sought refuge in blue states to escape anti-trans legislation.

Harmeet Dhillon's most prominent work includes founding the Center for American Liberty, a legal organization that focuses heavily on anti-transgender cases in blue states. The organization's "featured cases" section highlights several lawsuits, such as Chloe Cole's case against Kaiser Permanente; a lawsuit challenging a Colorado school's use of a transgender student's preferred name; a case against a California school district seeking to implement policies that would forcibly out transgender students; and a lawsuit against Vermont for denying a foster care license to a family unwilling to comply with nondiscrimination policies regarding transgender youth. With Dhillon's potential new role at the Department of Justice, these cases may gain renewed significance, as she is given the ability to leverage the department's power against states that protect their transgender residents.

The attorney herself has openly advocated for overturning blue-state laws that protect transgender individuals. For instance, in response to Maine’s designation as a refuge for trans people fleeing anti-trans crackdowns in red states, Dhillon claimed such a law would be unconstitutional. Safe-state laws like Maine’s have grown increasingly common, explicitly preventing care provided within the state from being subpoenaed by out-of-state actors seeking to prosecute individuals under laws that do not apply in blue states. These laws safeguard residents from interstate legal attacks over actions such as traveling to access gender-affirming care, abortions, or other reproductive healthcare. As of December, 17 states have enacted “shield laws” designed to protect their transgender residents from these efforts to eliminate access to care, even in jurisdictions where bans do not exist.

[...] If Dhillon is confirmed, she will have an array of tools at her disposal to reshape the legal landscape for transgender people. She could direct the Department of Justice to intervene in lawsuits against hospitals or states that provide protections for transgender residents. Schools that affirm transgender students could become targets of federal scrutiny. Existing civil rights laws might even be reinterpreted under her guidance to mandate discrimination against transgender people rather than shield them from it. Dhillon has previously expressed support for such interpretations, stating, “Title IX was passed by Congress to protect women’s rights, not the rights of men pretending to be women in sports and equal treatment in our educational institutions.”

Harmeet Dhillon, Trump's pick to lead the DOJ Civil Rights Division, has a history of anti-trans animus.

[descenacre]

do you ever plan on making more pikmin echo ost videos like the one for the wild edge, or was that more of a one-time thing?

I have a couple of songs on the backlog I wanted to animate but as always, my brain has 10,000x more ideas than my humble hands can carry u_u

Taking a mild break from art at the moment because of you know... got a lot of work ahead of me.

My biggest priority, beyond all else, is making sure that everyone I love is safe, happy and healthy, and doesn't have to grow up in fear.

I encourage any US residents reading this to take this short free course on Coursera (well, it's free if you don't want the credentials) https://www.coursera.org/learn/using-public-policy-for-social-change Take a look through this website, and find one single issue that is important or personally relevant to you (Maybe you have a disabled family member, or maybe you work on a farm far from any hospitals, or maybe you feel frightened by the recent wave of anti-trans legislation): https://defeatproject2025.org/issues/

and just. Looking up "[your city name] city council", finding out when they hold town halls, and just attend, and just listen and learn, when they ask for comments, go up there and don't be shy, introduce yourself to the people there! The people attending are people who all care about making their home a better place in their own way, and some of them are even volunteers. Share your perspective, voice your concerns and give your thoughts, ask for feedback and ask them how you can help. Me personally, I'm... honestly having a lot of trouble focusing on one issue, there are so many things in here that I care about But I know that spreading myself too thin will obviously limit my effectiveness, so I'm trying to focus specifically on listening to my local policymakers to see what kinds of policy they'd be most receptive to. If you want to do this, for example, you could look through their past hearings by searching "[your city] council minutes", there should be public records--usually relatively boring stuff like the rotation of staff, purchases of vehicles or other public resources, donations to certain charities, etc. Do they pass ordinances related to employment/labor laws? Focus on imploring them to protect employment nondiscrimination law, workers rights for immigrants with work visas, the restrictions on DEI training resources being put into effect.

Anyone can do this, I believe in you all! If even one person walks away from this post and gives it a shot, I would be happy :) anyway that's what I'm busy with atm lmfao, I hope I can come back one day to doodle more pikmins when it feels more stable!