Women's Rights Employment Law Blog

Let ‘Turkey’ (lest we forget the country on Thanksgivings) show some ways today:

Hürriyet İnternet reports:

The 2nd international conference on ‘Ending Domestic Violence’ came to a close yesterday at Bahçeşehir University in Istanbul. Workshops were organised throughout the two-day conference, where groups came together to create proposals and projects with the aim of eliminating violence within the home.

One of the issues discussed was the role of men against domestic violence, especially towards women. It was stated that men needed to speak out. A ‘white ribbon’ campaign was launched encouraging all men to wear a white ribbon in support of women suffering from domestic violence.

Racist supremacism is not just alive. Its kicking around right on the popular culture public sphere. Kramer just went honest about his feelings.

Marianne Means on Times Daily about how Bush is no comic character laughing away with meaningless syllables. He is in fact, a master crafter of his own agenda which have not died down any bit despite the recent polls. Not even when it comes to control the family planning programs. Well, that’s actually the start.
Here’s more:

President Bush's political fortunes have changed for the worst, but he himself is announcing that he hasn't changed a bit.

He still hates not getting his own way on everything.
…….

And just so he didn't overlook any area important to the religious right, Bush also appointed a new chief of family-planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services who is opposed to contraceptives for women. Eric Keroack works at a Christian pregnancy counseling organization that calls the distribution of birth control pills "demeaning to women.'' He gets to advise the department on reproductive health and adolescent pregnancy, with $283 million in grants to provide "access to contraceptive supplies and information to all who want and need them.'' The appointment does not require Senate-confirmation.

An interesting editorial on Lahontan Valley News on OJ controversy:

It's hard to fathom what Rupert Murdoch and his employees at News Corp. were thinking when they first decided to broadcast an interview with O.J. Simpson in which the accused murderer reportedly described how he would have killed his ex-wife, Nicole Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman 12 years ago.

Fortunately, Murdoch and Fox television came to their senses and at the last minute aborted the planned two-part interview and recalled the planned release of Simpson's book, "If I Did It," before it hit the shelves next week.

In a country where nearly three women a day are killed by their husbands or boyfriends and nearly a million more are beaten every year, to give Simpson a platform to describe how he "hypothetically" would have murdered his ex-wife is the height of insensitivity and bad judgment. The Simpson story and its hypothetical, which publisher Judith Regan characterized as a "confession," are not only an affront to women but also an insult to the intelligence and decency of all law-abiding citizens.

In the aftermath of Murdoch and News Corp.'s decision to cancel the Simpson interview, members of the Fox television news staff, who were among the most vociferous critics initially, have been heaping praise on their boss for "doing the right thing." It's too bad that Murdoch was unable to arrive at this decision using only his own moral compass. Sadly, he was unable to find his way without the threat of boycotts by customers and advertisers - in other words, only when his company's financial future was at stake. Wouldn't it be refreshing once in awhile to see the people running these companies make a move without parsing for the effect on the almighty dollar?

If there is a silver lining in all of this, perhaps it is collectively that the American people have voiced their extreme disgust over people who engage in, minimize or glorify domestic abuse, a sickness and a crime that tears at the fabric of every community. It should now be clear that the vast majority of Americans do not find domestic violence the slightest bit funny, acceptable or entertaining. And though many strides have been made toward raising awareness of this national epidemic, thanks to many dedicated volunteers and public servants, there is still much to be done, as News Corp.'s ill-fated affair with O.J. Simpson so dramatically illustrates.

A San Francisco Jury has awarded a total of $950,000 to a Federal Express Ramp Transport Driver Operations Manager who sued the delivery service company for race discrimination and retaliation in the United States District Court, Case No. C-04-0098-SI. Mr. Pernell Evans currently works for Federal Express in San Leandro, California and has been an employee with Federal Express for over 17 years, beginning his employment in January of 1990, compiling a good employment record over those years.

Wall Street Journal editorial is comprehensive about how the University of Michigan lost the case for affirmative action. But the opinion clearly is one of great rejoice at the defeat of pro-affirmative action proponents.

This is shocking to hear the collective voices condemning affirmative action all of a sudden following a juridical decision, despite their earlier stances to the contrary. This speaks of intellectual opportunism or hidden agenda of wish fulfillment, I am not aware of. But certainly, in a country of media agenda-setting and mainstream propaganda, its not difficult to imagine the euphoria. Ironic, that Michigan State failed for the baits.

Not all movements are progress, Frederick Douglas needs to remind the ‘majority’ that fails to see the fruits of affirmative action and its relevance till progress has been attained. But in a celebrity laden fast food nation, who has the time to think?

(Click below to read the entire editorial).

Continue reading "Michigan Loses. But no one wins." »

As Utah state releases its domestic violence report today, here are some more DV tips:

Domestic violence is:

1. Slaps, punches, kicks, bites, chokes, pulls your hair or burns you
2. Tries to make you have sex when you don't want to
3. Calls you obscene names
4. Tries to keep you from seeing family and friends
5. Controls the money so you have to account for every penny or beg for money
6. Threatens to harm you, your children or him/herself

Signs of a DV abuser:

1. Threatens violence
2. Breaks objects
3. Uses force during arguments
4. Shows intense jealousy
5. Shows controlling behavior
6. Quickly gets involved in relationships
7. Sets unrealistic expectations
8. Isolates partner
9. Blames others for their problems
10. Hypersensitive
11. Uses "playful" force during sex
12. Defines rigid sex roles
13. Rapid mood swings

Detailed report can be accessed on Daily Herald.

A Midland police department (Texas) report indicates that cases of domestic violence increase during holidays. Months of November and December are worst affected. Of course not to say that the cases drop down after the holidays, but their increase are most notable during this time.

Experts say it could be because of the stress related to holidays, the expectations involving celebration, additional financial demands, leading also to alcoholism and narcotics for the stressed ones. Midland Police Department's criminal analysis department reports show that a total of 6,192 emergency calls of domestic violence were made during the months November and December over the past five years. And the number only is slated to go up, unless the core issues are addressed.

A published report can be accessed here.

There is an increase in deaths involving domestic violence in Hawai’i. In fact all homicides recorded on the Big Island are as a result of domestic violence. Much of it is being blamed on lack of access to public educational programs.
A Honolulu paper today says:

Police statistics to the end of August show domestic abuse cases on the Big Island are running ahead of figures for last year in all parts of the island except for Hilo and Puna, said Lillian Tavares, domestic violence and sex assault victim service coordinator with Big Island police.

As of the end of August, there were 622 cases reported on the Big Island, compared with 582 for the same period the year before. The largest increases were in Kona and South Kohala, while the numbers of reported cases dropped in Hilo and Puna.

However, Tavares believes the true number of domestic violence cases is higher. She said some abuse cases may never be reported because the victims don't want family members to be jailed.

The Islamic Workplace Blog has well documented various facets related to religious accommodation, harassment and hiring/discharge issues that have been addressed by the EEOC. The three case studies cited in this entry are as follows:

I am a South Asian woman from Bangladesh. I applied for a job at a bakery and had a phone interview with the manager. She seemed to like me a lot and she offered me the job over the phone. When I came in to work the first day, she appeared to be startled by my appearance. I have dark skin and wear a hijab. She brusquely stated that she had found someone “better suited to the job” and sent me home. I don’t know what to do about this.
--

I am an Arab American man and have been a salesman at a large car retailer for five years. After September 11, my coworkers stopped talking to me, and there has been a lot of tension. One coworker started calling me names like “camel jockey” and “the local terrorist.” I used to have a good relationship with my coworkers and enjoyed my job, but now I dread coming to work each day. What can I do about my situation?
--

I am a computer specialist at a software company downtown. As a devout Muslim, I am required to attend prayer services at my mosque for a short period on Friday afternoons. Obviously this conflicts with my work hours. Can I ask for the time off to attend services?

New York Times editorial today has lambasted President Bush’s choices for judicial nominations as “archconservative and underqualified”.

This, apart from the ideological, speaks also of the dangerous apathy being exercised by the president in wake of the recent results that clearly demonstrate popular expressions that are liberal, at the very least.

NYT says:

The four most controversial nominees that President Bush resubmitted are ideological in the extreme. William Myers III, a longtime lobbyist for mining and timber interests, would no doubt use his position on the San Francisco-based United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to gut environmental laws. William Haynes II, who helped develop the administration’s torture and “enemy combatant” policies as the top lawyer for the Pentagon, could be counted on to undermine both civil liberties and reasonable limits on executive power.

Critical takes on the four nominees Haynes, Boyle, Meyers and Wallace had been also done by the TalkLeft blog in the past.

What does the Senate minority whip’s comeback mean for the racial minorities?

Media Matters for America takes note of Trent Lott’s “numerous” racially insensitive statements, and not just the most infamous one that the mainstream media recently revisited.

Bloggers had rightly taken the credit for highlighting Lott’s statements back at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party on December 5, 2002, when Lott quipped of Thurmond's 1948 campaign: “I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either.”

Quoting from Scripps Howard News Service, Media Matters outlines the racist past of Lott:

In 1982, Lott voted against the extension of the Voting Rights Act, which authorizes the Justice Department to review election law changes in Mississippi and other Deep South states and to monitor elections.

In 1983, he was one of 90 House members who voted against creating a national holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Six years later, Lott was one of seven senators who voted to abolish the King holiday commission, and in 1994, he was one of 28 who favored scrapping its federal funding.

Lott was one of 34 senators who voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1990, which reversed five Supreme Court rulings that had limited the ability of minorities to win job discrimination lawsuits and damages. After President George H. W. Bush vetoed the bill, Lott voted for a different version in 1991.

And in 2001, Lott was the only senator who opposed President George W. Bush's nomination of Roger Gregory, an African-American from Virginia, to the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
[...]

In 1999, when Lott was embroiled in another racial controversy, he had only one African-American worker, a mail clerk, out of a staff of 65.

In 1981, Lott filed a brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit seeking to overturn an IRS decision to deny a tax exemption to Bob Jones University because of the school's ban on interracial dating.

In 1995, Lott criticized Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) for intervening with 39 other lawmakers to get the FBI to release documents in the 1966 death of civil rights activist Vernon Dahmer to Forrest County prosecutors.

In 1999, it was reported that Lott had spoken to and met with the segregationist Council of Concerned Citizens on a few occasions. Lott then condemned the group.

Last year, Lott and the other white members of the Mississippi congressional delegation refused an entreaty from former Netscape president James Barksdale to declare that they would vote in favor of a statewide referendum to remove the Confederate emblem from the state flag. The proposal lost.

According to the latest US Census Bureau report released today, racial disparities in income, education and home ownership have been growing in the United States. CBS News quotes the report to indicate that white households had incomes that were two-thirds higher than blacks and 40 percent higher than Hispanics last year.

CBS News story has more:

White adults were also more likely than black and Hispanic adults to have college degrees and to own their own homes. They were less likely to live in poverty.

"Race is so associated with class in the United States that it may not be direct discrimination, but it still matters indirectly," said Dalton Conley, a sociology professor at New York University and the author of "Being Black, Living in the Red."

"It doesn't mean it's any less powerful just because it's indirect," he said.

Home ownership grew among white middle-class families after World War II when access to credit and government programs made buying houses affordable. Black families were largely left out because of discrimination, and the effects are still being felt today, said Lance Freeman, assistant professor of urban planning at Columbia University and author of "There Goes the 'Hood."

Home ownership creates wealth, which enables families to live in good neighborhoods with good schools. It also helps families finance college, which leads to better-paying jobs, perpetuating the cycle, Freeman said.

"If your parents own their own home they can leave it to you when they pass on or they can use the equity to help you with a down payment on yours," Freeman said.

Three-fourths of white households owned their homes in 2005, compared with 46 percent of black households and 48 percent of Hispanic households. Home ownership is near an all-time high in the United States, but racial gaps have increased in the past 25 years.

Black families have also been hurt by the decline of manufacturing jobs — the same jobs that helped propel many white families into the middle class after World War II, said Hilary Shelton, director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's Washington office.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was sure called in to examine claims of racial discrimination by state agencies in Iowa, but most ironically, the famed organization itself faced challenges!

NAACP has been refrained from reviewing specific cases thereby causing potential conflicts of interests. This may not lead anywhere, despite the state having already paid around $850,000 to nine people and their lawyers who had filed race discriminations lawsuits.

Jeannie Claire, author of the book, Another Search for Shelter (regarding transition from victim to survivor of domestic violence), writes a thought provoking letter to the editor on Rocklin & Roseville Today.
Excerpts:

"Every seven seconds a woman is a victim of domestic violence, and one in four women are victims of domestic violence.

How many one in four women live in your city? No city or community is immune to domestic violence and it is important not to remain silent if you know someone that needs help, or if you yourself need help. Think about it: The victim could go to your church, live in your neighborhood, be your family member or friend, or the victim could be YOU."

According to a report by Wall Street Journal, Princeton University faces a fresh federal civil rights complaint from Yale freshman Jian Li for having rejected his application for admission on alleged ground of racial discrimination.

Princetonian Daily reports that Li, despite having a perfect 2400 SAT score and near-perfect SAT II scores, was rejected this past year from five of the nine universities he applied to — Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania.

Li cites a recent study conducted by two Princeton professors as evidence for his case. The study, published in June 2005, concluded that removing consideration of race would have little effect on white students, but that Asian students would fill nearly four out of every five places in admitted classes that are currently taken by African-American or Hispanic students.

Co-anchor of ABC News' "20/20", Elizabeth Vargas stirs up the debate further by doing a follow up on career issue via-a-vis motherhood, on the occasion of Nancy Pelosi becoming the Speaker of the House.

And she discovers that the US has an entirely unenviable record when it comes to maternity-leave program. The record is so bad that out of 168 countries surveyed in the world, only four offer no national maternity-leave program: Lesotho, Swaziland, Papua New Guinea, and the United States of America!

Here is the story:

Can Working Mothers Have It All?

Is Balance Truly Possible When It Comes to Family and Career?

By ELIZABETH VARGAS

Nov. 9, 2006 — My first week back to work after maternity leave turns out to be a historic one for women in this country.

With the Democrats winning the majority in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi stands poised to be the first woman ever to be Speaker of the House and second in line for the presidency.

Standing in front of a malfunctioning microphone at a news conference Wednesday, she joked that she would use her "mother-of-five voice" instead, so reporters could hear her.

Regardless of your politics, this working mother and grandmother is a terrific role model for the 26 million working mothers in this country.

Continue reading "Why can't working mothers have it all?" »

Arizona-based Tucson Centers for Women and Children has expanded its domes