Ligue du LOL: Secret group of French journalists targeted women – BBC News

~ mcequality

Several senior French journalists have been suspended or fired for allegedly co-ordinating online harassment through a private Facebook group.
The largely-male Ligue du LOL (League of LOL) mocked women, including other journalists, with rape jokes and photoshopped pornographic images.
Dozens of women have spoken out since the group was uncovered by the major French daily Libération.
Libération’s online editor Alexandre Hervaud is among those suspended.
People in the League of LOL set up anonymous Twitter accounts in order to harass prominent journalists, writers and activists – predominantly targeting women.
Vincent Glad, a well-known freelancer who also worked for Libération, admitted founding the group in 2009. He has also been suspended from the paper.

via Ligue du LOL: Secret group of French journalists targeted women – BBC News

England in West Indies: Joe Root showed ‘integrity and leadership’ – Ebony Rainford-Brent – BBC Sport

~ mcequality

England captain Joe Root showed integrity and leadership in his response to a comment from West Indies fast bowler Shannon Gabriel, says former batter Ebony Rainford-Brent.

Sky Sports published a clip of Root, 28, telling Gabriel: “Don’t use it as an insult. There’s nothing wrong with being gay.”

Gabriel, 30, was warned by the umpire for the language he used, though his original comment was not picked up.

via England in West Indies: Joe Root showed ‘integrity and leadership’ – Ebony Rainford-Brent – BBC Sport

Journalists Recycle Racist Talking Points in Shutdown Stories

~ mcequality

As Donald Trump holds the government—and the salaries of some 800,000 federal workers—hostage for one of the longest shutdowns in history, three separate national news outlets each ran pieces about how unpaid prison guards were disgruntled that incarcerated people were eating nice meals on New Year’s Day.

Though each had different bylines, stories from USA Today, The Washington Post, and NBC News (the story was also picked up by the New York Daily News and a number of local news outlets) had the same implied framework: namely, that it was despicable for people in prison to have a decent meal during the holidays when prison guards were working without pay because of the shutdown.

via Journalists Recycle Racist Talking Points in Shutdown Stories

The Most Inspiring Women of 2018

~ mcequality

Jezebel’s annual list of Best Women is always invigorating for us to put together. But 2018 had a special tenor to it, not because it was the Year of the Woman as some rather emptily declared, but because it was a year when so many of them showed true resilience, in both triumph and (relative) defeat. Here’s to our list of heroines, who stood tall and kept us motivated.

via The Most Inspiring Women of 2018

Videos Show Southwest Key Staff Dragging, Shoving Migrant Kids

~ mcequality

Using state public-records laws, The Arizona Republic has obtained video from surveillance cameras showing staff at a now-shuttered Southwest Key shelter for migrant children in Arizona physically dragging and pushing children in their care. But authorities determined that the physical aggression used against the children last September does not constitute a crime.

This week, Splinter’s Samantha Grasso reported that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office closed three cases of child abuse reported at the Hacienda Del Sol children’s shelter, operated by Southwest Key in Youngtown, Arizona, after only reviewing security camera footage and without interviewing the Southwest Key employees allegedly involved or the minors reported to have been abused.

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In the videos obtained by the Republic, incidents that occurred on Sept. 14, 17, and 21 involved shelter staff dragging, pulling, and slapping a young boy, and dragging another child against their will. The videos are blurred to protect the identities of the children.

via Videos Show Southwest Key Staff Dragging, Shoving Migrant Kids

Jessica Sunderland Denied Hormones in Jail, Won Landmark Decision

~ mcequality

During the 16 months Jessica Sunderland was incarcerated at the Riverside Correctional Facility in Suffolk County, New York, jail officials refused to give her the hormones she had been taking for two years. In response, in August 2013, Sunderland filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Suffolk County, arguing that the jail’s failure to provide her hormones violated her constitutional rights.

In October of this year, Sunderland won her case. As reported by Melissa Gira Grant at the Appeal, a jury agreed that Sunderland’s constitutional rights had been violated, and awarded her $280,000 in damages, plus an additional $75,000 in punitive damages against Vincent Geraci, the jail’s medical director. It’s a groundbreaking decision, according to Sunderland’s attorney Joel Wertheimer.

via Jessica Sunderland Denied Hormones in Jail, Won Landmark Decision

Office of Personnel Management Manager Explains Removal of Transgender Guidance

~ mcequality

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, ThinkProgress reported that guidance protecting transgender people in the federal workforce were quietly removed from the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) website. As ThinkProgress noted, the guidelines offered definitional and practical information on how to better ensure that trans employees have essential workplace protections and are free from harassment. The decision to remove that language is just the latest in a series of actions the Trump administration has taken to strip federal protections from trans people in the workplace and at school, but according to audio obtained by Government Executive, Natalie Veeney, the OPM’s diversity program manager, reportedly explained the change to an LGBTQ employee group as a way to “afford agencies more discretion in responding to the needs of their workforce” and give agencies more “autonomy.”

In other words, OPM believes that federal agencies should have more freedom to discriminate how they best see fit. (This mirrors language the administration used when rescinding guidance on protection for trans students: framing an erasure of basic protections as an expansion of freedom for local schools.) Previously, the trans guidances on OPM’s site directed managers to use their trans employees’ preferred names and pronouns and ensure access to bathrooms consistent with their gender. The guidance also noted that even if employees had not yet changed their name legally, agencies should “adopt procedures that allow employees to use the name of daily usage or first initial in or on email accounts, employee directories, business cards, name tags, and similar items.” Basic, but essential, stuff.

via Office of Personnel Management Manager Explains Removal of Transgender Guidance

Jazmine Headley’s Arrest and the ‘Slow Violence’ of Poverty

~ mcequality

On Tuesday afternoon, elected officials in New York City gathered in front of City Hall to denounce the violent arrest of 23-year-old Jazmine Headley, which had happened the previous Friday while she and her 1-year-old son were waiting at one of the city’s public assistance offices. Headley’s arrest was captured in a hard to watch video taken by a bystander; in it, you can see a swarm of security guards and police officers surrounding her as she sits on the floor clutching her son Damone, repeatedly calling out, “They’re hurting my son!” before an officer ripped the one-year-old out of her arms. At one point, an officer takes out a bright yellow taser and waves it around at the people watching in horror.

In the days that followed, the consequences had continued to compound for Headley, who did nothing to provoke the reaction of the Human Resource Administration security guards and NYPD officers except, perhaps, commit the sin of being black and in need of childcare assistance and a place to sit. The Brooklyn district attorney had dropped all charges against Headley, but as of Tuesday afternoon, she was still being held, without bail, at Rikers Island, the city’s jail, as a result of an outstanding warrant related to a credit card fraud case in New Jersey.

via Jazmine Headley’s Arrest and the ‘Slow Violence’ of Poverty

Judge Rules Federal Female Genital Mutilation Ban Unconstitutional

~ mcequality

A U.S. district judge in Michigan has ruled against a federal ban on female genital mutilation, arguing that Congress overstepped its constitutional authority in passing the 1996 law.

According to the New York Times, Judge Bernard Friedman ruled on Tuesday that Congress had violated the commerce clause of the Constitution by enacting the ban, and that only individual states have the constitutional power to outlaw female genital mutilation. He wrote in his ruling that “[a]s despicable as this practice may be, it is essentially a criminal assault,” and “’local criminal activity’” and therefore outside of federal regulation.

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Friedman’s ruling came about in a case against Jumana Nagarwala, a doctor from outside of Detroit who is accused of cutting the genitals of nine girls ages 7 to 13. Another doctor, internist Fakhruddin Attar, was also implicated in the case, as were four parents who allegedly brought their daughters to Nagarwala to be cut. Friedman’s ruling dismissed the main charges against Nagarwala.

via Judge Rules Federal Female Genital Mutilation Ban Unconstitutional

EastEnders: Busting myths around sexual consent – BBC News

~ mcequality

Instead, EastEnders had a special episode dedicated to sexual consent – with characters discussing and arguing over the issue.
It came from the latest storyline where Ruby Allen says she was raped after a night out – but the men accused say she’d given her consent.
Radio 1 Newsbeat’s picked out five examples that came up – and asked Kate Russell from the charity Rape Crisis to explain why there shouldn’t be any confusion.

via EastEnders: Busting myths around sexual consent – BBC News