#title vii discrimination

[556betrayed]

Sign and Share everywhere, brothers and sisters!!!

This union Bully speaks for the company: she does not speak for me or any other flight attendant represented by TWU 556. She is a company favorite of our Company Union!

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: River Page

Published: Feb 2, 2024

"Companies also cannot take race-motivated actions to maintain a demographically 'balanced' workforce." — Commissioner at Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Andrea R. Lucas in Reuters, June 29, 2023

"An unlawful employment practice is established when the complaining party demonstrates that race, color, religion, sex, or national origin was a motivating factor for any employment practice, even though other factors also motivated the practice." — 42 USC § 2000e–2(m) of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

---

In the wake of the George Floyd protests, tech companies promised to hire more minorities. One company that claims to help them do it is Gem, and although you might not have heard of it, you’ve probably heard of some of its 1,200-plus clients: Reddit, Dropbox, Robinhood, Discord, Zillow, Stripe, Affirm, and Grammarly, just to name a few. Although Gem’s software is primarily used for things like non-race- and gender-based recruiting, payroll, and benefits management, John, (not his real name) — who worked for Gem as a sales development representative through a B2B outsourcing firm from March to July of 2021, told us that the prospective corporate clients he talked to were most interested in Gem’s “diversity enhancing” capabilities. Essentially, they had race- and gender-based hiring quotas and wanted to use Gem’s software to meet them. He said one prospective client, an executive at the Bay Area-based AI and robotics research arm of one of the world’s leading car manufacturers, told him explicitly: “I need more black candidates this month.”

According to its website, Gem’s software allows recruiters to track “gender and race/ethnicity throughout the entire hiring funnel.” Essentially, it appears to include a comprehensive race and gender tracking system designed to help companies fill race- and gender-based quotas with precision. For example, in a 2021 diversity webinar posted on YouTube, a Gem employee seemed to explain how the software could show how many candidates a company would need to reach out to if it had three engineering positions open, but didn’t want to hire men for them (in her words: “wanted to give women a chance”). In the same video, she demonstrated how to break down each stage in the hiring funnel by race, and explained (but did not show, probably for privacy reasons) how companies could further track how their recruiters’ own efforts break down along the lines of the company’s race- and gender-based hiring quotas, so that the company may “hold them accountable.”

[ Screen capture from Gem’s diversity webinar ]

All this requires a lot of data. According to a recent LinkedIn post by Gem founder Steve Bartel, this data can come from three sources:

Self-ID: the demographic data collection on job applications

Manual override: the recruiter reports your race and gender based on visual cues such as your LinkedIn profile picture

Predicted: Gem’s proprietary AI determines a candidate's race and gender based on machine learning (Bartel notes this is only for aggregate/anonymized use, meaning that the UI doesn’t allow recruiters to see which race was assigned to individual candidates)

John told me that, of Gem’s features, its race- and gender-identifying AI was the biggest selling point. “A key part of the pitch was to tell clients that Gem uses AI and machine learning to determine race and gender.” (This is especially ironic, given the panic about “racist AI” that has consumed every discussion about artificial intelligence for years.)

“One thing that cracked me up was that recruiting/DEI buyers at companies would ask, ‘Is this legal?’” John told me. “Not because they were offended by how obviously racist the software was — they loved what they saw. The concern was pushback from their legal team.” He said this question was asked so frequently that Gem’s Chief Legal Counsel had a prewritten response to the question that would be passed along to clients who asked.

[ Source: Gem’s website, February 1, 2024 ]

The "Diversity Recruiting" section of Gem’s website offers a slate of what it calls “Case Studies” — essentially customer testimonials — where companies explain how they used Gem to hire based on race and gender.

In a case study for payroll firm Gusto, Gem seems to indicate the company used its “Candidate Rediscovery” tool to hire based on candidates’ race and gender. In Gem’s language, Gusto used the tool to “unearth talent who is vetted — and diverse — ultimately reducing time-to-hire.” In other words, companies could use Gem’s software to find people with specific racial and gender-based characteristics that meet the position’s requirements and hire them quickly, while weeding out similarly qualified candidates who are, presumably, white or male or both.

In a case study about the telecommunications company Twilio, Gem seems to describe how one of its senior recruiters was able to avoid hiring men with their tool:

Gem’s metrics have also helped [the recruiter] zero in on stages in the interview process where the team is falling short on equitable gender hiring. “For one division, we intuited that we were hiring more women than the average team—and we were! We were prepared to roll off our passive sourcing efforts for that division, but I don’t like to make a move without looking at all the data first. That’s where Gem came through.” [The recruiter] dug through the data in more detail and discovered that the proportion of male candidates was actually increasing quarter over quarter—so much so that, by Q3, they would have made significantly more male than female hires. “If we hadn’t had access to that data, we wouldn’t have been able to identify that trend and strategize on how to allocate our resources properly.”

This is easily interpretable as: We thought everything was fine until Gem showed us that by Q3 we might hire a disproportionate number of men in a division that a disproportionate number of men applied to work in. It's worth noting that when announcing massive job cuts in 2022, Twilio’s CEO bragged that the layoffs had been carried out through an “Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens.”

In another testimonial from Chili Piper, an inbound conversion platform for B2B revenue teams, the company’s Talent Ops Manager says she used Gem to discover that URG (under-represented group) candidates were dropping off after the company stopped including a video submission in the application (itself seeming to indicate that a significant proportion “URGs” were being advanced through the hiring pipeline because of their race or gender). She successfully lobbied to bring the video submission back and modified the assignment. “Now it’s like, sell us a new smartphone: something that really levels the playing field and lets us see candidates’ creativity, communication, and approach in action. It’s not necessarily entrenched in experience in tech and SaaS sales.” Since then, the company has “seen a decisive shift in the demographics of candidates who make it to the interview stage of our process. We have seen a 54% increase in URG candidates and a 31% increase in female-identified candidates making it to the first round of interviews. Offers extended to, and offers accepted by URGs have increased.”

In other words, Chili Piper's testimonial seems to indicate that Gem showed the company that when it stopped asking applicants to submit a video that allowed them to see their race and gender, they stopped hiring more minorities. So they brought video back, and seemed to effectively lower their standards by changing the assignment to one in which industry experience was deprioritized.

Gem’s own hiring practices also raise red flags. An internal jobs board from June 2021 provided to Pirate Wires shows that under a field titled “Diversity Search,” positions are either listed as “Open,” “Women,” “URM,” or “Women & URM,” suggesting that certain positions were closed off to straight white males, or perhaps that women and minorities were being sought after in those positions. We sent the screenshot of the internal job board — with company name and other identifying information redacted — to a tech industry employment lawyer, who said:

Without knowing more about the company or getting clarification on what some of the designations mean on the chart, it looks a bit problematic. The law allows companies to set “targets” and “goals” as they relate to the hiring, retention, and promotion of women, veterans, and underrepresented minorities (those targets/goals must be temporary). But the law does not currently allow private companies to set aside or otherwise designate specific positions for such group members. There are some grey areas for certain types of federal contractors, but it’s the exception to the rule.

As a non-lawyer, I’ll not comment on the legality of Gem’s hiring practices. However, I will say the company seems to use unorthodox recruiting methods. In Gem’s diversity webinar I referred to earlier, one of the hosts said, “Here at Gem, each time we open a new req [position], we actually focus solely on sourcing URGs, and in conjunction [with that] we don’t post the job on the career site until other levers need to be pulled…”

The host then explained how she found candidates of specific races and genders at Gem, telling the audience: “Sourcing for URGs may require you to shift some fundamental ideas you have about what a quote-unquote good candidate looks like.” Next, she described how she would go through LinkedIn, searching for candidates with stereotypically minority names, who use neo-pronouns, or who went to minority-majority schools, among other tactics.

[ Slide from Gem’s diversity webinar]

When asked for comment, a representative from GEM told us “Our product provides interested customers with insights that help them build a diverse talent pipeline. We work closely with legal counsel to ensure our platform complies with all applicable laws and welcome potential customers looking to learn more to reach out to us."

Gem: a company that apparently doesn’t post some job announcements publicly without searching for specific races and genders on LinkedIn first. A company whose value proposition is to help companies hold their recruiters “accountable” for hiring too many of the wrong race and gender. A company that created an AI that predicts your race and gender. A company whose AI tracks race throughout the hiring pipeline so efficiently that, allegedly, even woke companies question its legality during sales calls. Gem is the company that vast swaths of the tech industry are using to hire.

So if you’re in the business, and you’re a Derrick O’Donnell or a John Chau, good luck out there. I think you’re gonna need it.

[ Via: https://archive.md/gxFMK ]

==

DEI is discrimination.

[ttpd-chair]

One of the problems with the whole “gay people aren’t radical enough because they focused on gay marriage instead of focusing on fighting discrimination in employment and healthcare” is that gay people and gay advocacy groups have actually put a lot of time, money, and resources towards fighting for legal protections against discrimination in all sectors including but not limited to employment and healthcare. Also, historically it has been really hard for gay people to live happy lives with their romantic partner(s) and advocating for that successfully enough that gay marriage is the law of the land is actually pretty radical.

[kornymaggotboi]

I need to vent... Again... Again...

So, I recently got a job (yay! no more leeching off my parents and I can now help pay bills!) as a janitor, where, nobody accepts me for being transgender.

I'm a trans man, the reason nobody respects my gender is for a couple reasons:

1.) When my dad signed me up for this job (because he also works for the same company) he constantly dead-named and misgendered me, because he never uses my preferred name and pronouns because... Well, he's transphobic... And he told me I have to fill out my application using my legal name and legal pronouns (which is bullshit, but I'll touch on that later), and when I filled out the application, it had a section where you can put your preferred name and pronouns, so I put them in... But this is Pennsylvania, fuck those stupid people who think they can change their DNA, you will only be addressed by what you were born as, because trans is a mental disease and it's best not to humor those stupid trans people... So basically, nobody uses my preferred name or pronouns.

2.) I usually don't like correcting people when they misgender me, because people find it rude when you feel the need to interrupt them to insert your preferred name and pronouns, and it used to not really bother me... But obviously it does now...

3.) My coworkers are transphobic... Plain and simple. They constantly spew anti-trans rhetoric like "man, those trans people are good at blending in, I feel like i constantly have to check and make sure my wife doesn't have a penis" or "trans people don't like when we say it's a mental disorder, but they keep saying gender is what's in your head and sex is what's between your legs... so which is it!?" or "it's ridiculous that trans people can change their DNA... like, no matter how much surgery they get or hormones they take, they'll always be a (man, if they're talking about a trans woman, or woman if they're talking about a trans man)" or "did you hear about the tr*nny that shot all those people? this is why trans people should be refused treatments, because the hormones fuck with their mind"... So, I don't exactly feel safe coming out to anyone at my job.

In the beginning, it didn't bother me, because my gender isn't important, but I've been working there for a couple of weeks now, and constantly being dead-named and misgendered has been causing me mental distress, like, at times I have to go to a storage closet or lock myself in a private bathroom (I have keys to them) so I can have a mental breakdown in private.

It doesn't seem like something that should bother me, but it does... It surprisingly does quite a bit of mental damage to constantly be dead-named and misgendered.

I told my dad about this issue and he told me it's against the law to go by a name and pronoun that isn't legally yours at your job, which isn't true, I have trans and non-binary friends who go by their preferred names and pronouns at their job, there's literally no rules against going by your preferred name and pronouns.

I know some things I have to put my legal name and biological sex down, but that doesn't apply at a job.

And the thing that hurt me the most was when I told him about it, he said to me "you're always gonna be my little girl." and talked about how proud he was when he adopted me, trying to get me all emotional, so I'd maybe forget about the actual prejudice at work... But I didn't, it made it worse actually.

As I'm typing this I'm crying, because this shit legit triggers me.

I know I can't change people, I can correct them a million times and they don't have to correct themselves, and knowing that is really defeating, like, I will never be accepted because of my gender.

I also know there are laws in a lot of workplaces, Title VII of the Civil Right act, that say it's illegal to discriminate someone because of their race, gender, sexuality, age, disability, religion etc. and refusing to use someone's preferred pronouns and gender is considered discrimination, and you can get fines and stuff if you violate those laws, so maybe if I bring it up, they'll fix it.

But that still won't fix the fact nobody will accept me for being trans, because I know if I reported my coworkers for discrimination, they'll be bad blood, and I don't wanna make enemies over pronouns...

Thanks for reading my rant... If you actually read it...

[reasonsforhope]

do you have any good queer news? I'm a queer person and hearing all the shit thats happening across the world is making me bummed out

I do! All of this is from LGBTQ Nation's excellent good news tag

^Article date: July 6, 2023

"Only two months after its formation, the “No SB 180” initiative had succeeded at making the city of Lawrence, Kansas a sanctuary city for LGBTQ+ people. Last week, in a unanimous vote, Lawrence became the first city in the state to declare itself as such.

Ordinance 9999 bans the city and all of its employees from collecting or releasing information on a person’s “biological sex, either male or female, at birth” and from helping with any investigation, detention, arrest, or surveillance “conducted by a jurisdiction with the authority to enforce Senate Bill 180, as enacted.”"

^Article date: July 28, 2023

"A federal judge has told a group of anti-trans parents to mind their own business after the group filed a lawsuit challenging an Ohio school district’s bathroom policy.

The attempts to meddle do not “pass legal muster,” he wrote in his ruling, saying that the group has no reason to sue.

“Not every contentious debate concerning matters of public importance presents a cognizable federal lawsuit,” Judge Michael Newman wrote, denying their petition to stop the Bethel Local School District’s policy that allows a single transgender middle school student to use the restroom that aligns with her gender identity."

^Article date: August 8, 2023

"The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the independent federal agency responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance, has released its first-ever “LGBTQI+-inclusive” policy since its founding in 1961.

The four-point policy is meant to serve as a blueprint for USAID staff and partners around the world to champion LGBTQ+ and intersex development and the human rights of all queer people through the agency’s work, said Jay Gilliam, USAID’s senior LGBTQI+ coordinator, in a video explaining the policy...

In simpler terms, the U.S. will try to improve diplomatic relationships with other countries by investing in locally-led LGBTQ+-inclusive programs that are shown to positively impact communities in need."

^Article date: August 3, 2023

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has ruled in favor of three transgender students who were forbidden by their schools from using bathrooms matching their gender identities. The circuit court upheld a lower court’s preliminary injunction that said the schools have to let trans students use facilities associated with their genders...

The case involves three trans boys in Martinsville, Indiana and Terre Haute, Indiana, who need access to the boys’ room at their middle and high schools...

The court took into account the fact that Title IX bans discrimination on the basis of sex in schools that receive federal money, which is most of them. Citing the 2020 Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton Co. that found that job discrimination against LGBTQ+ people necessarily takes sex into account and is therefore prohibited under Title VII, the appeals court ruled that the trans boys are likely to succeed in their case and that preventing them from using the correct bathroom while the case works its way through the court system could cause irreparable harm.

^Article date: August 2, 2023

^Article date: June 21, 2023

"A federal judge has ruled on the side of trans rights after a conservative group tried to overturn an Ohio school district’s anti-bullying policy.

The national conservative group Parents Defending Education (PDE) tried to get a preliminary injunction passed on the Olentangy Local School District’s prohibition on misgendering trans students. The policy includes students, teachers, and parents and it applies to out-of-school hours and social media as well."

^Article date: August 2, 2023

There's literally a bunch more I wanted to include, by the way! Tumblr just stopped being able to load them. Going back to add a few more in the reblogs now.

I know it feels like everything is against us right now. But I promise you: that is not true. The bigots and bastards may usually be the ones moving faster (in large part because they suck and don't care about democracy or due process at all),

But in the end, we are going to win. I promise.

[runawaymarbles]

The 30 chapters are a daunting read. Project 2025 proposes, among a host of things, eliminating the Department of Education, eliminating the Department of Commerce, deploying the U.S. military whenever protests erupt, dismantling the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, removing protections against sexual and gender discrimination, and terminating diversity, equity, inclusion and affirmative action.

Additional mandates include: siphoning off billions of public school funding, funding private school choice vouchers, phasing out public education’s Title 1 program, gutting the nation’s free school meals program, eliminating the Head Start program, banning books and suppressing any curriculum that discusses the evils of slavery.

Project 2025 also calls for banning abortion (which makes women second-class citizens), restricting access to contraception, forcing would-be immigrants to be detained in concentration camps, eliminating Title VII and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, recruiting 54,000 loyal MAGA Republicans to replace existing federal civil servants, and ending America’s bedrock principle that separates church from state.

Anyway anyone telling you that Biden is the same as Trump is either so deep in the sauce they don't know how to find a toilet, or actively lying to you because this is the outcome they want.

Project 2025 isn't going to kickstart the glorious revolution. It's going to make people exhausted, and scared, and dead.

[contemplatingoutlander]

A Trump judge sends Southwest Airlines to right-wing reeducation camp

Ruth Marcus does an excellent job of pointing out how another Trump appointed judge (from Texas) is stomping on the Constitution when it comes to the separation of church and state. The judge in this case doesn't seem to understand the difference between people being allowed to hold religious beliefs and religious people harassing others who don't share their religious beliefs. The article is well worth reading. Here are some excerpts:

Another day, another extremist ruling by another extremist Trump judge, and this decision — from Texas, no surprise — is straight out of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” The judge held lawyers for Southwest Airlines in contempt of court for their actions in a religious-discrimination case brought by a former flight attendant and ordered them to undergo “religious liberty training.” And not just any instruction, but training conducted by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a conservative group that litigates against same-sex marriage, transgender rights and abortion rights. [emphasis added] The issue arises from a lawsuit filed by Charlene Carter, a flight attendant for more than 20 years and a longtime antagonist of the Southwest flight attendants union. In 2017, after union members attended the Women’s March under a “Southwest Airlines Flight Attendants” banner, Carter sent Facebook messages to the union president containing graphic antiabortion messages.

[See more under the cut.]

“This is what you supported during your Paid Leave with others at the Women’s MARCH in DC …. You truly are Despicable in so many ways,” Carter wrote in one message accompanying a video of an aborted fetus. After the union president complained, Southwest fired Carter, saying her conduct “crossed the boundaries of acceptable behavior,” was “inappropriate, harassing, and offensive,” and “did not adhere to Southwest policies and guidelines.” An arbitrator found that Southwest had just cause for the firing. Carter, represented by the National Right to Work Committee, sued, claiming Southwest and the union violated her rights under federal labor laws and Title VII. The federal job-bias law bars employers from discriminating on the basis of religion, and Carter claimed she was dismissed because of her sincerely held religious beliefs against abortion. [...] The scary part is what came next. [U.S. District Judge Brantley] Starr instructed the airline to “inform Southwest Flight Attendants that, under Title VII, [Southwest] may not discriminate against Southwest flight attendants for their religious practices and beliefs.” Instead, Southwest said in a message to staff that the court “ordered us to inform you that Southwest does not discriminate against our Employees for their religious practices and beliefs.” This sent Starr into orbit.... “In the universe we live in — the one where words mean something — Southwest’s notice didn’t come close to complying with the Court’s order,” Starr said. “To make matters worse,” he said, Southwest had circulated a memo about the decision to its employees repeating its view that Carter’s conduct was unacceptable and emphasizing the need for civility. “Southwest’s speech and actions toward employees demonstrate a chronic failure to understand the role of federal protections for religious freedom,” Starr decreed. He proceeded to order three Southwest lawyers to undergo eight hours of religious-liberty training — a move he described as “the least restrictive means of achieving compliance with the Court’s order.” Luckily, Starr observed, “there are esteemed nonprofit organizations that are dedicated to preserving free speech and religious freedom.” [...] Adjectives fail me here. This is not even close to normal.... the notion of subjecting lawyers to a reeducation campaign by the likes of the ADF is tantamount to creating a government-endorsed thought police. Imagine the uproar — and I’m not suggesting these groups are in any way comparable — if a liberal-leaning federal judge ordered instruction on women’s rights (those are constitutionally protected, too) by Planned Parenthood. [...] This is the alarming legacy that former president Donald Trump has left us — a skewed bench that he would augment if reelected. The Trump judges seem to be competing among themselves for who can engage in the greatest overreach. [...] Conservatives are quick to balk at anything resembling the order that Starr issued when they disagree with the underlying principle. [...] I need no excuses for calling this what it is: a reeducation program — outrageous, unconstitutional and an abuse of judicial authority. [emphasis added]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Trudy Ring at The Advocate:

If you’re looking for yet another reason that Donald Trump shouldn’t be elected president again, we have two words for you: Project 2025. You’ve probably been hearing these words, but you may be sketchy on what they mean. We’re here to fill you in on the details thanks to a report by Accountable.US.

What is Project 2025?

Basically, Project 2025 is a blueprint of what far-right activists want from the next conservative president — and Trump is the conservative who’s running. It includes plans to fire as many as 50,000 career federal employees and replace them with people who have unquestionable loyalty to the president; restrict access to contraception; possibly implement a national abortion ban; cut federal health care programs; and much more, designed to make the U.S. an authoritarian nation. And LGBTQ+ people are directly in its crosshairs. “Project 2025 couldn’t make its anti-LGBTQ+ agenda any more clear. With far-right extremists at the helm, the project is a power grab by conservatives attempting to turn back the clock on hard-fought progress and fundamental rights,” Accountable.US President Caroline Ciccone said in a statement to The Advocate. “Project 2025 doesn’t just pose an existential threat to our democracy but seriously threatens the rights and freedoms of LGBTQ+ communities across the country.”

[...]

How will it affect LGBTQ+ Americans?

Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership” is a document taking up 900 pages, but Accountable.US has put together a succinct summary of what Project 2025 would mean to LGBTQ+ Americans, and The Advocate has a first look. Here are the key points. The project urges the next conservative president to basically ignore the 2020 Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, in which the court found that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in banning sex discrimination in the workplace, also bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. President Joe Biden, in contrast, had directed all federal agencies to implement the provisions of Bostock not just in the workplace but in health care, education, and other aspects of life. It calls for barring transgender people from the military and to stop what it considers the “toxic normalization of transgenderism” across the government and American society. It seeks to abolish the president’s Gender Policy Council, “which it views as promoting abortion and the ‘new woke gender ideology,’” Accountable.US notes.

The next Health and Human Services secretary, Project 2025 recommends, should reverse what it calls a focus on “‘LGBTQ+ equity,’ subsidizing single-motherhood, disincentivizing work, and penalizing marriage, replacing such policies with those encouraging marriage, work, motherhood, fatherhood, and nuclear families.” “The Project 2025 playbook laments the fact that family policies and programs under President Biden’s HHS are ‘fraught with agenda items focusing on “LGBTQ+ equity,”’ making it clear that they intend to roll those agenda items back,” Accountable.US explains. It further calls for the Department of Justice “to defend the First Amendment right of those who would discriminate against LGBTQ+ people. It also objects to the DOJ notifying states that their bans on abortion and medical services to transgender persons may violate federal law,” Accountable.US reports. On foreign policy, Project 2025 says a new conservative president should dismantle and U.S. Agency for International Development programs that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, such as what it dubs “the bullying LGBTQ+ agenda.”

Project 2025’s harmful anti-LGBTQ+ agenda is just one piece of the radical right-wing Heritage Foundation document. Project 2025’s goals are to make life harder for LGBTQ+ Americans.

[beardedmrbean]

September 12, 2024, Elk Grove, Ca.—California teacher Isaac Newman has won a judgment just three months after he alleged in a federal civil rights lawsuit that his teachers’ union discriminated against him on the basis of race. Newman, who is white, was unable to run for a union executive board position because the union required candidates to “self-identify” as a racial minority.

Following Newman’s lawsuit, the union quickly folded by ending the segregated board seat and committing to non-discriminatory practices in other union positions. A judge also entered an order requiring the union, the Elk Grove Education Association (EGEA), to pay Newman $12,000 and to pay his attorneys’ fees.

“I’m delighted that my lawsuit forced union officials to admit something every high school student knows: Racial segregation is wrong,” said Newman, who teaches history at Elk Grove Unified School District in suburban Sacramento. “I hope this victory returns union officials’ focus to representing all teachers, rather than dividing us based on race. I plan to donate every penny I receive from the union to a local scholarship fund for Elk Grove students.”

Newman’s lawsuit cited Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act, both of which prohibit unions from racial discrimination.

“Based on union officials’ immediate capitulation to Isaac’s demands, it’s clear that they thought they didn’t have a legal leg to stand on to defend their segregated board seat,” said Nathan McGrath, president and general counsel for the Fairness Center. “Isaac’s win affirms that unions don’t get a pass on anti-discrimination law.”

The EGEA has created a new board seat open to all members to replace the one for which only non-whites were eligible.

“After this major victory, I will continue my fight to hold the union accountable to the letter and the spirit of the law by running for the union’s new board seat on a platform of true fairness and equal representation for all members, regardless of race,” responded Newman.

Background

In 2023, EGEA officials created a “BIPOC At-Large” seat on its executive board with the approval of its statewide affiliate union, the California Teachers Association. Newman, a decade-long union member, resolved to run for the board seat, but the union’s nomination form required him to check a box confirming that he identified as a member of one of several racial minority groups. Newman could not in good conscience check the box and was, therefore, unable to run for the board position.

[nationallawreview]

Supreme Court Ruling on Affirmative Action and Impact on Companies’ DEI Programs

In June 2023, the US Supreme Court voted 6-3 in a decision that significantly changed the way colleges and universities used affirmative action in their admissions. The targets of the lawsuit were Harvard University and University of North Carolina for alleged racial discrimination in admissions. The Ruling  The Court ruled that race conscious college admission policies aimed at maintaining…

[samueldays]

I don’t know if you’ve seen the news about the federal lawsuit against the Sheetz convenience store chain charging them with hiring discrimination. Apparently refusing to hire people who fail a criminal background check is racist. Do you think there’s any chance of this rolling back some disparate impact hiring rules?

Almost no chance, good luck with that! Most of the reporting I can find seems to agree on this example of tone:

Federal officials said they do not allege Sheetz was motivated by racial animus, but take issue with the way the chain uses criminal background checks to screen job seekers. The company was sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion and national origin.

“Federal law mandates that employment practices causing a disparate impact because of race or other protected classifications must be shown by the employer to be necessary to ensure the safe and efficient performance of the particular jobs at issue,” EEOC attorney Debra M. Lawrence said in a statement.

Finding evidence of wrongdoing is too hard work for the EEOC, so they find evidence of Bad Percentage and prosecute people for that instead!

Disparate impact is a totalitarian insanity of American law, for which the EEOC should be prosecuted by the successor regime.

And it's also well established in precedent of the current regime that disparate impact law gets to micromanage hiring, reverse the burden of proof, invent a Numbercrime, create contradictory obligations on employers to fill racial quotas and also not do that, and contribute to even more problems as side effects such as university diploma mills and inflaming racial taboos.

[shalom-iamcominghome]

Hi, me again with an ask response to an ask, this time re asking for Shabbat accommodations before converting. If anon lives in the US, these FAQs, these guidance materials, and this text of the law, all from EEOC, should help. I pulled this from the first link (bolding for emphasis is mine):

"Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on religion. This includes refusing to accommodate an employee's sincerely held religious beliefs or practices unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship (more than a minimal burden on operation of the business). A religious practice may be sincerely held by an individual even if newly adopted, not consistently observed, or different from the commonly followed tenets of the individual's religion."

If anon is not from the US, I recommend researching all relevant laws before they approach their employer.

Best of luck, anon!

Exactly!! This is great information to have in general, and I hope this will prove helpful to everyone!

This is absolutely true; in my answer, I focused mostly on the idea that you don't have to tell them why you need the time off. I am selective about what my employers know about me, and I encourage everyone to have the discernment between professional and personal life and boundaries. You don't have to justify your life to your employer, and they (in the U.S.) are not entitled to religious discrimination regardless of your status. This is a great reminder, and I want to thank you for reminding me of what is in that title, and for taking the time to send this! It's most certainly appreciated 🩵

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

The Christian Employers Alliance (CEA) won an important victory when a North Dakota federal court ruled that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Health and Human Services cannot force religious employers to pay for or perform “transgender” medical interventions.

The case stemmed from an EEOC decision to redefine and reinterpret “sex discrimination” in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include “sexual orientation” and...

[stressedlawsecretary]

Today's Focus

Photo credit: Mess Studio

09.24.24 - Once again, I find it harder to get out of bed on a Tuesday than a Monday; the good news is I've been waking up naturally like a couple min before my alarm. Yesterday and today have been new dresses, and the 'belt' for this one is a couple of necklaces strung together. Looks cute though, doesn't it?

Work - Well I didn't leave anything for myself but boy was I busy yesterday. Put together like three of case files, did half a dozen mailings, saved dozens of efiles (I did finish saving the whole docket of the one old case) along with booking a hotel for CSB for today and a couple other emails/reaching out type things. Hopefully today is quieter?

Background Noise - In the office so binging YT. Again, I know I didn't get close to the 50 videos I did over the weekend, but I did watch 21 videos yesterday. This is at least on par with the average, and includes an hr long video on the Dress to Impress ARG, and a two part podcast (over an hr each) on the "Who tf did I marry?" TikTok story.

Study - Tuesday is article reading day and I'm hoping to read a lot. Yesterday wasn't awful either, despite how busy I was. I only got a little farther in the election complaint I started last week, but I also read six press releases, three random articles, four articles related to the Jefferson-Heming controversy, which I got off of a PBS Frontline timeline called "History of a Scandal" that I also finished going through. Plus three published decisions: I finished up the one in Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., and read both decisions related to Allen v. Lovejoy which was a Title VII sex-discrimination case.

Extras - Tuesday and the last one of the month so it's the deep-cleaning of the bathroom on the list today; I'm making an easy dinner by grilling a steak and roasting some sweet potatoes, so I should have time to clean. I'm starting Kaitou Sentai Lupinranger vs Keisatsu Sentai Patranger today, and I have to make sure I get season 20 of Whose Line as well. My mini-essay is turning into a long one so if I post it today, I'll be happy.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Joseph (Jake) Klein

Published: Apr 13, 2023

Segregation has a new brand name: racial “affinity groups.” Race-based “affinity groups” have exploded in prevalence across the United States over the last few years, moving from workplaces into schools, religious congregations, and other organizations all across the country. Affinity groups can also be organized around other identity categories such as gender, sexuality, disability, and religion, but affinity groups were first created around racial identity.

In 1969, Xerox employees based in San Francisco launched the Bay Area Black Employees (BABE) caucus, the first known workplace affinity group ("caucus," "employee resource group," and "affinity group," are all terms that have been used to describe the same idea).  Overall, Xerox's chairman at the time, Joseph C. Wilson, was an important leader in driving workplace integration. He reacted to race riots in the 1960's with a mission to increase integration and hire African-Americans who had previously been denied employment opportunities, and took numerous concrete actions to do so.

However, as has happened on numerous occasions to other well-intentioned leaders (including in response to other 1960’s race-riots), Wilson chose to take advice not just from integration-oriented civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., but from the Black Power activists responsible for the riots. Wilson enlisted the counsel of a group called “F.I.G.H.T.” While much of F.I.G.H.T.’s activism was productive and aimed at pushing back on genuine and oppressive racism, it was also a “decidedly militant” organization that “alienated much of the black middle class” and worked closely with the explicitly anti-integrationist founder of the Black Power movement, Stokely Carmichael.

Today, more than 50 years later, affinity groups have spread to 90% of Fortune 500 companies. These companies sometimes claim that racial affinity groups help foster communication and help bring new ideas to leadership. Corporations also point out that membership in racial affinity groups is usually voluntary, and therefore it cannot be a form of racial discrimination as banned under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

However, despite these claimed positives, many corporations have also found that affinity groups polarize employees, and many people of color are reluctant to join such groups for “fear of being reduced to their racial identity.” Even when they are organized and advertised as voluntary, the social pressures on individuals to join racial affinity groups are substantial. And although some data supports companies’ intuitions that affinity groups are helpful idea generators, these positive results may be better explained by the existence of a group creating increased discussion time, rather than the racial makeup of that group.

With affinity groups’ recent spread throughout K-12 schools, higher education, religious groups, and many other key institutions throughout our society, we face an even worse danger. While businesses are beholden to the profit motive, schools and other non-profit institutions are not. This creates more opportunities for affinity groups in non-profit institutions to advance a fanatical ideology, since organizational leadership doesn't need to worry, as businesses do, about the possibility that a Marxist ideological agenda would compromise their ability to operate in a financially viable manner.

Advocates of racial affinity groups claim they are not racist or segregationist, but do so while practicing racial segregation and making explicitly racist claims. For example, Truss Leadership, a so-called “racial equity” consulting group that works with numerous school districts, declares that “Racial Affinity Groups are NOT … Racist or segregationist,” but also says they are a place where white people can “reckon with their Whiteness” and non-white people can “take care of themselves and one another…in the absence of Whiteness.”

FAIR ally Ye Zhang Pogue has written beautifully for this Substack on how affinity groups in schools can harm our society by needlessly pitting people against each other along racial lines. What advocates of affinity groups often ignore is how prejudice and discrimination is often caused by diminished contact between groups, and can be overcome by increasing that contact and having group members work cooperatively instead of separately (one of psychologist Gordon Allport’s four conditions for reducing racial prejudice). This insight into the power of contact is the same idea that has driven FAIR Senior Fellow Daryl Davis’s pioneering efforts to get Klan members and neo-Nazis to give up their lives of hate.

Even racial affinity groups' most extreme and vocal advocates have acknowledged that “Caucusing can generate anxiety even at a visceral level for some. For people of color, history has shown that real harm can come from spaces exclusively reserved for white people. … People of color may also experience racial anxiety and stereotype threat, the fear of being viewed through societal stereotype ‘lenses’ by white colleagues and supervisors.” These are not ungrounded fears. Corporations seeking to pursue effective anti-racist strategies would do well to remember the horrors of the interoffice segregation of America’s past.

Segregation in the form of racial affinity groups today is disturbingly similar in concept to the separate bathrooms, water fountains, bus sections, and other spaces in generations past. Then as now, we ought to remember the worldchanging verdict from Brown v. Board of Education, that “Separate [is] inherently unequal.” As Supreme Court Chief Justice Fred M. Vincent explained in the Court’s also unanimous decision for McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, which was cited in Brown v. Board of Education, “To separate [children] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their-hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.”

==

The KKK must be beaming with pride at the outright enthusiasm of re-implementating segregation.

Were it discovered that they were shadow-funding this, I would be incapable of feigning any amount of surprise.

Wokeness divides and destroys.

EDIT:

That's so weird. We keep being told that "cRt iS nOt iN sChOoLs." And yet, here we find out that not only is it in schools, but it's a good thing, because "opposing" - as ominous, authoritarian, and nigh on DiAngelo-istic choice of words as I've ever heard - is wrong. Gee, when did that happen? They must have done that really quickly. /s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM2JvQVXWQg

"DiAngelo's essay doesn't talk about disagreements or debates, but only about those who 'practice' social justice, and those who, quote, 'resist' it."

To actually tell people "[not to] entertain this blog or its opinions" or "don't read the post" has really strong religious blasphemy overtones. Like the priest telling the congregation not to read Harry Potter.

Still, the very first thing the kids do when they get home from church after being told not to read Harry Potter is to read Harry Potter. So sermonizing people on how to close their ears to maintain their moral purity usually doesn't work out that well for the clergy. So, thank you for dangling an irresistible temptation for them, like the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden..

P.S. Opposing gay conversion therapy and child mutilation is a hill I'm willing to die on. Line in the sand. Pretty comfortable there. The latter, at least, used to be a self-evident taboo: you don't tattoo kids, you don't cut children's testicles or breasts off, you don't drug girls by flooding their bodies with quantities of hormones their body is not equipped to handle so they're balding and infertile at 16. Despite pretence to the contrary, these positions aren't the slightest bit controversial.