Diaries

DoE to Illinois school district: We're serious

Submitted by Robyn on Tue, 11/03/2015 - 2:51pm

Yesterday federal education authorities found that Township High School District in Palatine, IL violated anti-discrimination laws when it denied a transgender girl who participates on a girl's sports team free access to change and shower in the girl's locker room.

Education officials said the decision was the first of its kind on the rights of transgender students, which are emerging as a new cultural battleground in public schools across the country. In previous cases, federal officials had been able to reach settlements giving access to transgender students in similar situations. But in this instance, the school district in Palatine, Ill., has not yet come to an agreement, prompting the federal government to threaten sanctions. The district, northwest of Chicago, has indicated a willingness to fight for its policy in court.

Can you chip in to crowd fund 10,000 pieces of Bernie Lit

Submitted by Roger Fox on Mon, 11/02/2015 - 9:20pm

I went off the deep end, after swearing off campaigns after 2010, I'm now chest deep in my 14th campaign since 2004. So I put up a website westchester4bernie.org, got a NY state voter database for Westchester County, with no phone numbers. A Volunteer wrote a program to scrape phone numbers from White Pages & the Yellow pages, at a 42% hit rate.

Orange County swim school creates homeless veteran

Submitted by Robyn on Mon, 11/02/2015 - 2:40pm

photo Owen_zpssjklf99p.jpgJuliet Owen is a veteran. She served in the Marine Corps 1993-94, working in aviation electronics, until being honorably discharged after being diagnosed with chondromalacia (runner's knee). She is currently unemployed and homeless. Being a veteran she has managed to score housing in Long Beach's Villages at Cabrillo.

The reason for her jobless state is a sore point, however. Juliet has filed a wrongful termination complaint October 1 claiming gender identity discrimination against Australian Swim Schools, an Orange County swimming school with students aged three months to adult.

Owen said she had never experienced discrimination because of her transgender status until she moved from Virginia Beach, VA to southern California and began work as a swim instructor in May at Australian Swim Schools Anaheim location. After informing her boss that she is transgender, she was laid off a month later. She was told that not enough students had signed up for summer water safety classes, but when she visited the facility two weeks after her termination, she discovered three new employees.

Open Thread 11-01-15

Submitted by JtC on Sun, 11/01/2015 - 8:21am

Good morning 99percenters!
Morning news dump and music by Merle Travis.

With War Now Displacing 60 Million, Time for World to 'Reaffirm Its Humanity'
In rare joint call, head of both UN and International Red Cross say human conflict is reaching unprecedented proportions

Citing nearly unprecedent levels of conflict and instability across the world, the heads of both the United Nations and the International Red Cross on Saturday issued a rare joint call warning that nations and global leaders must dramatically step up efforts to scale back wars and miltary actions that are causing massive human suffering while ripping apart families, communities, entire nations, and regions.

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