The Illinois House voted on Wednesday to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, following approval last month in the state Senate. The state is now the 37th to do so, following Nevada in 2017. What this means is that we’re now one state away from maybe enshrining women’s equal rights in the United States Constitution, a mere….. 231 years after the document was first ratified. Hey alright, ladies!
The ERA—which declares, rather simply, that the “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex”—was originally proposed in 1921, approved by the House of Representatives in 1971, and then by the Senate in 1972. Congress then sent it to the states for ratification, and set a deadline for a vote: June 30, 1982, which was 36 years ago. This means that, should another state ratify it, Congress would need to remove the deadline in order for it to become the 28th amendment. Given that Congress is full of misogynists, I can see that being a real fight!
Category: Civil Equality
Black People Created Memorial Day—Literally
Think barbecues, lemonade. A precious three-day weekend full of sun, sales and slacking off. But this is The Root, and you know there’s another part of this story.
Little-known fact: African Americans created Memorial Day.
Rewind to the end of the Civil War. In 1865, Charleston, S.C., was in ruins, and many Union soldiers were being held prisoner in a converted racecourse. At least 257 of the captives died because of the horrific conditions, and their bodies were discarded in a mass grave.
‘Highly Offended’ White Teacher Kicked My 9-Year-Old Son Out of Class for Taking Knee During Pledge
When my 9-year-old son told me that he had been thrown out of his fourth-grade class for kneeling during the Pledge of Allegiance, I was mildly surprised by his actions, but furious with his teachers.
Their instinctive responses were harsh reminders of how deeply white supremacy is embedded in the classroom. But more important for me in that moment were the shaming and intimidation tactics used against my child.
via ‘Highly Offended’ White Teacher Kicked My 9-Year-Old Son Out of Class for Taking Knee During Pledge
Betsy DeVos and the Department of Education Get Sued for Abandoning Discrimination Complaints
The NAACP is once again taking it to the courts, this time filing a federal lawsuit against Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her Department of Education for abandoning civil-rights-enforcement regulations and dismissing hundreds of complaints.
via Betsy DeVos and the Department of Education Get Sued for Abandoning Discrimination Complaints
Police Are More Likely to Arrest You at a Protest Where People Actually Give a Shit, Study Finds
A new study from the University of Southern California (USC) suggests that there is a correlation between an increase in violence at protests and tweets with “moral content” concerning what the protest is about—like, say, police violence. But dig a bit deeper, and you’ll find that the study’s implications are more complicated than that.
The research paper, which was published in the journal Nature Behavior last week, states, “When people encounter others who share their moral attitudes, those attitudes are validated and reinforced and, as moral beliefs become more intransigent, the likelihood of advocating or enacting violence to achieve desired moral ends (for example, topple a corrupt government, alter policing practices, stop the removal of a statue or defend the purity of one’s race) may increase.”
via Police Are More Likely to Arrest You at a Protest Where People Actually Give a Shit, Study Finds
The Government Is ‘Not Legally Responsible’ For Losing Nearly 1,500 Refugee Children
As for what happens to those children, migrant rights expert Michelle Brané told Mother Jones on Friday that frankly “we don’t know,” as the ORR “does very little to no follow-up.” In 2014, the Washington Post got a preview of what can happen to those children, as in the case of a group of minors who were given over to traffickers posing as family friends and ended up enslaved in an Ohio egg farm, where they lived in roach-infested trailers and spent their days debeaking chickens and cleaning the pens.
via The Government Is ‘Not Legally Responsible’ For Losing Nearly 1,500 Refugee Children
Federal officials lost – yes, lost – 1,475 migrant children
The Trump administration recently announced a new, get-tough policy that will separate parents from their children if the family is caught crossing the border illegally.
It was a big news story. So big it overshadowed the fact that the federal government has lost – yes, lost – 1,475 migrant children in its custody.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told Congress that within 48 hours of being taken into custody the children are transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services, which finds places for them to stay.
“They will be separated from their parent,” said Democratic Sen Kamala Harris.
via Federal officials lost – yes, lost – 1,475 migrant children
Trump Fantasizes About Abolishing Immigration Courts
In a surprisingly and wildly out of character turn of events, President Trump is questioning why our immigration court system isn’t even more cruel to undocumented immigrants than it already is.
After Trump’s MS-13 fear mongering session on Wednesday, the president met with Fox and Friends minion Brian Kilmedee for a brief interview. Trump lamented the current state of America’s immigration court system and the “thousands” of judges he imagines work within it.
‘Like a Bad Dream’: In New Orleans, Witnesses Are Going to Jail Instead of Perpetrators
But since 2010, Orleans District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro has sought more than 150 such warrants to arrest witnesses, including a significant number of victims, according to a data analysis by the Yale Law School students of the legal scholar James Forman Jr. that was shared with In Justice Today.
A 19-year-old victim of sex trafficking was arrested in November 2014, shortly after giving birth to her daughter. She had failed to appear at a hearing during her pregnancy because she was supposed to be on bed rest and had a doctor’s note to prove it. Even so, she was held in jail for nearly four months until she testified against the father of her child.
Another victim who was shot with a semiautomatic rifle was jailed as a material witness on a $100,000 bond in December 2016. Two victims of assault were arrested and jailed on $250,000 bond after they tried to recant their testimony against their alleged attacker.
via ‘Like a Bad Dream’: In New Orleans, Witnesses Are Going to Jail Instead of Perpetrators
Strikes, Rallies and Protests: The Grassroots Fight for a Moral Economy
One key functional difference between libertarians and neoliberals became apparent in 2008 with “Too Big to Fail Banks.” To the question of whether to let the banks fail, the libertarian says simply, “the government isn’t in the business of picking winners or losers, and so the government should let failing banks fail.”
On the contrary, the neoliberal says, “the government should save those banks in order to preserve stability and order.”
To the neoliberal, major banks are so essential that they are “too big to fail.” If those banks failed, they would bring entire global economic system down with them. And because neoliberals assume that the global economic system provides some sort of stability, the neoliberal finds it only reasonable that governments need to support those banks to promote as much stability as possible.
via Strikes, Rallies and Protests: The Grassroots Fight for a Moral Economy