In the state of Virginia, it is
now legal for licensed adoption agencies and foster facilities to discriminate on the basis of a potential parent's sexual orientation, religion, age, gender, disability, political beliefs, or family status.
[more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen
on Dec 16, 2011 -
60 comments
Transgender Man Plays on Women's College Team. A guard for George Washington University's women's basketball team is a transgender man.
Kye Allums, who was born female and has not undergone any hormone treatments, changed his name from Kay-Kay to Kye within the last year and was relieved not to lose his scholarship. "When people refer to me as 'girl' or 'she,' it doesn't sit well with me," Allums said. "That feeling you get when someone pisses you off, that feeling you get when your stomach gets hot and it aches, that's what it feels like. And that's how I know I'm not supposed to be a girl." On Nov. 13, he will be the first transgender person to compete in Division One college basketball, according to
OutSports. Opposing fans used to taunt Allums about his masculine build, but it backfired. "I love it," he said. "It makes me feel better about myself to hear them call me a man."
posted by rcade
on Nov 2, 2010 -
187 comments
Judge Rules "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Is Unconstitutional - Judge Virginia A. Phillips of Federal District Court struck down President Clinton's
Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) policy in an
opinion (Scribd) issued late Thursday, ruling on the constitutionality of a complaint brought by the
Log Cabin Republicans (PDF). President Obama's Justice Department has until a September 23 deadline to submit objections to the court regarding Judge Phillips's permanent injunction, which is uncertain given Obama's previous support of his Department of Justice defending the legality of DADT, despite his opposition to DADT in principle.
posted by Blazecock Pileon
on Sep 9, 2010 -
91 comments
São Paulo Fashion Week, the nation’s most important fashion event, has been forced by local prosecutors to ensure that at least 10 percent of its models are of African or indigenous descent. The model scouts see it differently - it's all about what sells. "The goal" Brazilian model scouts say, "is to find the right genetic cocktail of German and Italian ancestry, perhaps with some Russian or other Slavic blood thrown in. Such a mix, they say, helps produce the tall, thin girls with straight hair, fair skin and light eyes that Brazil exports to the runways of New York, Milan and Paris with stunning success." Yet, "on the pages of its magazines, Brazil’s beauty spectrum is clearer. Nonwhite women, including celebrities of varying body types, are interspersed with white models. But on the runways, the proving ground for models hoping to go abroad, the diversity drops off precipitously."
[more inside]
posted by VikingSword
on Jun 8, 2010 -
38 comments
Disabled traveler Rachel D. took a
harrowing flight with United recently. Despite their
stated policy, she was told repeatedly that "It's not in our contract to assist passengers with their luggage and we reserve the right to refuse assistance to anyone." This is
not the first time United has had a problem with disabled people. (For reference, the federal
Air Carrier Access Act that prohibits discrimination towards disabled passencers.)
posted by restless_nomad
on Apr 12, 2010 -
102 comments
The Donald Sterling Rule "Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling lives by his own rules. And the only one that matters, apparently, is this:
all bad deeds go unpunished. Over the last six years, nearly two dozen L.A. residents have sued Sterling for engaging in racist housing practices and Jim Crow-style bigotry. In a 2003 deposition, the 76-year-old real estate mogul admitted to paying a former employee to have sex with him in an elevator. Three years ago, the U.S. government charged him with "willful" mistreatment of African-American and Latino tenants, and earlier this month, he agreed to pay the Dept. of Justice nearly $3 million to settle a federal racial-discrimination housing lawsuit, the largest award ever for a case of its kind." So why, asks California's
Tenants Together,
has the NBA said nothing about Sterling's less than sterling behavior?
[more inside]
posted by ocherdraco
on Nov 27, 2009 -
27 comments
Tim Nicholson, a UK former executive, believes he was
fired for his environmental views. He has
sued his former employer for discrimination on grounds of the
Employment Equality act, which states that employees may not be discriminated against for religious or philosophical beliefs. His former employers argue that his views were political, and thus do not fall under the act.
[more inside]
posted by mccarty.tim
on Nov 3, 2009 -
28 comments
Today, on the last day of this year's term, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its
opinion in
Ricci v.
DeStefano, the latest in the Court's line of decisions on
Title VII and the role of race in employment decisions. The famous case centers on white firefighters' claims of
race discrimination following the town of New Haven's decision to scuttle a
promotion exam after white test takers performed disproportionately better than black firefighters.
[more inside]
posted by Law Talkin' Guy
on Jun 29, 2009 -
89 comments
"
How do black women fight crime? They have abortions." "
How do you stop a poofter from drowning? You take your foot off his head." These and other 'jokes' featured in an advertisement on
The Gruen Transfer, an Australian television program focusing on advertising. The ad, part of a segment called 'The Pitch' which usually produces humorous ads, was banned by the ABC, but the national broadcaster has still allowed it to be viewed online, and hundreds have now seen it. The ad was designed to sell "fat pride", with creator Adam Hunt explaining his motivation behind the ad being to say "if you discriminate against somebody on the basis of their shape then you are no different to someone who is racist, homophobic or anti-Semitic."
Debate has raged online if the ad is offensive and discriminatory, as the ABC has declared, and whether or not it was effective.
Watch the ad and judge for yourself.
posted by Effigy2000
on May 15, 2009 -
157 comments
Many of us have seen or read
The Wave, but how many of us have seen
A Class Divided? It depicts
one third-grade teacher's attempts to teach Midwestern children about the civil rights movement, many of whom had never met a black person before. As part of a daring experiment, she split the class between brown-eyed children and blue-eyed children, and gave the "browneyes" special privileges. The children were told, in no uncertain terms, that the "blueyes" were inferior. What followed was a lesson in discrimination that the kids would remember for the rest of their lives.
posted by Afroblanco
on Dec 28, 2008 -
53 comments
