#Discrimination Investigation

[alwaysbewoke]

[ragingbullmode]

so the newmanager issued "rule" at work is we arent allowed to wear company issued beanies unless we arent on the sales floor. even if were cold we have to suck it up & cant wear it where customers can visibly see us which defeats the entire point of company issued clothing thats part of our uniform lmfao

[caterjunes]

well management has taken a hard heel turn from good faith bargaining to sudden union-busting, including but not limited to

forbidding me to speak to my coworkers about the last bargaining session on the clock (illegal; if you are allowed to talk about your weekend plans you are allowed to talk union)

holding two captive audience meetings afterwards, forbidding my coworkers to talk about union stuff on the clock (ditto)

in an unrelated grievance meeting with the CEO, he brought up my talking union in a way that implies it will affect his decision on my grievance (illegal; retaliation)

as well as suddenly digging their heels in on bargaining, rejecting 6 proposals out of hand and deciding they can't find any compromise on our wages proposal (aka re-proposing their initial one from september with no edits). as well as clearly failing to understand the reasoning behind some of our non-economic proposals (so their counterproposals are laughably off the mark). which is what i was talking about with my coworkers in the first place.

AND today the ceo emailed all staff with his summary of the bargaining session, which is carefully written to make us sound unreasonable & divisive. (so he gets to tell everyone his side when they're on the clock, but we don't, apparently)

[doedipus]

I have to say I'm pretty skeptical of the idea that big companies doing pr stunts are intending to cover for specific scandals or whatever, because like, past a certain scale all of them are always doing at least one shady thing at any given time anyway

[xtruss]

Yale University students celebrate graduation in 1914—despite what the date scribbled on the image says. In the early 20th century, U.S. elite colleges were panicked about an influx of Jewish applicants. They devised a system to screen them out that remains mainly in place today. Photograph By George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress

Why Do Colleges Have Legacy Admissions? It Started as a Way to Keep Out Jews.

Standardized tests. Interviews. Extracurricular Activities. In the early 20th Century, Universities used these Tactics to Ensure their Students were Predominantly Protestant.

— By Erin Blakemore | July 28, 2023

Should college students gain admission based on academic merit—or who their parents are? That question has become more pertinent than ever with the U.S. Supreme Court’s invalidation of affirmative action and the Department of Education’s announcement of a civil rights investigation into Harvard University’s preferential treatment of “legacy” students with family connections.

Although it may seem like a modern problem, it’s only been about a century since U.S. colleges and universities began factoring family relationships and other criteria like extracurricular activities, interviews, and standardized test scores into their admissions decisions. These policies, it turns out, are rooted in anti-Semitic attitudes that aimed to keep Jewish students out of elite schools.

Here’s how anti-Jewish discrimination fueled modern college admissions—long before affirmative action ever existed.

Training Grounds For Society’s Elite

Before the late 19th century, a college education was largely out of reach for anyone but wealthy Protestants, who founded universities and colleges to prepare their sons for cultural and community leadership. Though these institutions extended preferential treatment to the sons of previous graduates, their entrance requirements were relatively lax. In a time before widespread public education, few who could afford to pay were turned away.

But beginning in the 1840s, the makeup of American society changed with waves of immigration that brought Catholics and Jews into the country in large numbers. As these emigrants flooded into the nation, write sociologists Deborah L. Coe and James D. Davidson, their presence threatened white Protestant groups who had previously dominated mainstream culture.

“As a result,” Coe and Davidson write, “anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic sentiments found their way into a variety of mechanisms that were created in response to the undesirable demographic changes.” This soon filtered into college admissions too.

Catholics quickly founded their own universities and encouraged members of their religion to attend them. So it was Jewish college enrollment that generated special concern at predominantly Protestant institutions.

Panic Over 'Undesirable' College Applicants

Institutions historically tolerated some Jewish students, but only those whom officials felt had the proper class standing and had appropriately “assimilated” into mainstream American culture.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, newer arrivals from majority Jewish enclaves didn’t fit that mold, so elite Protestants attempted to close ranks. University officials who bought into longstanding stereotypes of Jews as clannish, conniving, and socially undesirable worried that admitting Jews would taint the reputation of the schools. Plus, they disliked the idea of their sons being educated alongside them.

No longer was mere money sufficient for acceptance into elite social circles. As historian John Higham writes, Protestant elites of the era “grasped at social distinctions that were more than pecuniary,” including “the cult of genealogy.” Suddenly, institutions including social clubs, sports organizations, prep schools, and even neighborhoods emphasized family connections as part of the price of entry—shutting Jews out by default.

It was no different in higher education, where leaders were alarmed by rising Jewish enrollment. In response, they began to brainstorm how to limit Jewish applicants without endangering public funding or damaging their reputations.

Elite Universities’ Anti-Semitic Legacy

Yale University was one of those institutions. “There seems to be no question that the University as a whole has about all of this race that it can well handle,” wrote Robert Nelson Corwin, Yale’s admissions chairman, in 1922. Though Jewish students showed the same academic achievement as their counterparts, Corwin wrote, “members of this race…graduate from college as alien in morals and manners as they were upon admission.”

He recommended that Yale implement “non-intellectual requirements,” including letters of recommendation, in-person interviews, and psychological testing, to limit its number of Jews.

Corwin was far from alone. From Harvard to Rutgers, Columbia to Tufts, elite colleges and universities began trying anything and everything to control the makeup of their student bodies. Some implemented quotas to limit the number of Jews in new classes. Others focused recruiting in areas they knew had lower populations of Jews, and began looking more closely at extracurricular activities that indicated the social class and religion of applicants. More admissions requirements meant more reasons to turn down students—and a way to mask anti-Semitic school policies.

When Jews won more academic scholarships, schools like Harvard and Yale discontinued them in favor of financial aid. They also embraced the new field of psychological testing, offering tests that measured aptitude and not achievement, such as the Thorndike Tests for Mental Alertness.

“The primitive and biased tests effectively reduced Jewish enrollment [at Columbia] by half,” write education historians Jim Horn and Denise Wilburn, noting that many such tests were developed by eugenicists in search of “a purportedly objective way to quantify the structural racism of the day and to have it accepted as scientific.”

Another new requirement was so common it became almost ubiquitous during the period: the photograph. Historian Marianne R. Sanua writes that at Columbia, one fraternity publication satirically recommended that to get around newly tightened admissions requirements, applicants should dye their hair blonde, pretend they were taller, and have photos taken that downplayed stereotypically “Jewish” facial features.

Finally, higher education institutions also implemented internal legacy admissions policies, actively recruiting relatives of alumni and offering them a leg up on other applicants.

“All properly qualified sons of Dartmouth alumni and Dartmouth College officers will be accepted,” wrote Dartmouth College in its alumni magazine in 1922. The school also required applicants to submit multiple letters from Dartmouth alumni, promising that it would prioritize “men who plainly possess the qualities of leadership or qualities of outstanding promise” over those “qualified by high scholarship ranks but with no evidence of positive qualities otherwise.”

The Persistence of Legacy Admissions

As anti-Jewish sentiment became less mainstream in the wake of World War II and the Holocaust and with the rise of the civil rights movement, many universities phased out their more overtly anti-Semitic policies. But many of the restrictions put in place to limit Jewish applicants stuck. Standardized testing and interviews are still common requirements for college admissions, and today’s institutions of higher learning still admit more wealthy students.

One recent analysis found that children from the top 0.1 percent income bracket are more than twice as likely to gain admission to Ivy League schools compared to poorer students with the same test scores—and that 46 percent of their advantage can be attributed to admissions policies that extend preferential treatment to “legacy” students.

Despite some institutions like Amherst, Johns Hopkins, and Wesleyan announcing that they’ve abandoning the practice, the system is still common today. In a 2018 survey by Inside Higher Education, 42 percent of admissions directors at private colleges and universities said legacy status is a factor in their admissions process, compared to 6 percent at public institutions.

Among those institutions is Harvard, whose legacy admissions policy is now facing scrutiny by federal civil rights investigators. The Harvard Crimson reports that among its 2022 freshman class, more than 14 percent surveyed said they were legacy students, and self-reported legacies were likelier to be white. Over a third with one or more parents who attended Harvard reported a combined family income of $500,000 a year or more.

Will legacy admissions go the way of affirmative action? Until the results of the Department of Education’s reported investigation become clear, there’s no way of knowing. But many of the policies once implemented to keep Jews out of higher education in the U.S. are likely to persist.

[ausetkmt]

NBC News: Congress investigates Jackson water crisis and Mississippi's use of federal funds

JACKSON, Miss. — Two congressional committees want Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves to explain how the country’s poorest state is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds as its predominantly Black capital city struggles with crumbling water infrastructure.

Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., sent the request in a letter to Reeves on Monday as part of an investigation by the Homeland Security and the Oversight and Reform committees into a safe drinking water crisis that at its height left thousands of Jackson residents without running water this summer.

The breakdown occurred after Jackson was pummeled by days of heavy rain and the city’s main water treatment plant failed. In the past, Mayor Chokwe Lumumba, a Democrat, has argued that the city’s public water utility was poorly positioned to handle threats from climate change because Republican state leaders have provided little financial help for the aging system’s challenges. He has estimated that tackling the city’s water troubles, which stretch back decades, could cost billions of dollars.

Thompson, who chairs the Homeland Security Committee and whose district includes almost all of Jackson, has previously expressed concerns about whether enough federal aid allocated by the state is making its way to the city.

In an interview on Monday, he said that withholding the funds Jackson needs to ensure safe drinking water puts lives at risk. 

“Mississippi is one of several states that absolutely rely on the generosity of the federal government,” Thompson said. “That means we can’t really do anything for ourself without federal help. In return, the only thing the federal government asks is that you spend those monies in a nondiscriminatory fashion.”

Thompson and Maloney, who chairs the Oversight and Reform Committee, have asked Reeves for details about the racial makeup and population size of communities that have received federal funds or are slated to receive those funds to improve their water systems.

They also want to know why Jackson was the only city the Legislature placed under additional oversight as a condition for receiving money from a water infrastructure improvement program for local governments.

“We urge you to take action to protect the health and safety of Jackson residents and direct funding to Jackson immediately to fix this life and death issue,” Maloney and Thompson wrote.

A spokesperson for Reeves did not directly comment on the letter, and instead referred to a Twitter post by the governor on Monday sharing the state’s plans to address ongoing staffing challenges at Jackson’s water treatment plants through an emergency contract. In the past, the city has struggled to hire enough qualified workers at its water facilities. 

Reeves wrote that the proposal, which could bring in additional help, is “the next step in ensuring clean water continues to be delivered to the people of Jackson.”

Jacksonians had been under a citywide boil-water notice for more than a month when water pressure dropped in late August. 

Service was restored by the next week, and most Jackson residents no longer have to boil their water, but there are lingering concerns about water quality. For the past six years, the state Health Department has cautioned pregnant people and young children against drinking unfiltered tap water because of the potential danger of lead exposure.

While Reeves has contended that the city’s management of the water system is at the root of the crisis, there are growing questions about whether Mississippi has done enough to help shore up Jackson’s infrastructure.

In September, the Justice Department sent a letter to Lumumba saying both local and state officials “have not acted to protect public health.”

This summer’s outage was the latest crisis to roil the city, which suffered a stretch of low water pressure after a winter storm last year hobbled operations at the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant. And boil-water notices are common; the city has issued at least 300 of them over the past two years. 

Jackson has received some state funding in the past, using money from a loan program administered by the state Health Department to make upgrades. But the state’s decision to limit each municipality’s loan forgiveness to $500,000 leaves Jackson — which has needed to borrow almost $30 million for a single project alone — at a disadvantage compared to smaller, rural communities where requests often dip below $1 million. 

Last month, the NAACP asked the Environmental Protection Agency to open a civil rights investigation to determine whether the way Mississippi disperses federal funds meant to keep communities in compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act has discriminated against Jackson.

Separately, the EPA’s Office of Inspector General, which is independent from the agency, announced last month that it was probing the water crisis.

[ugisfeelings]

my quirky private liberal arts college deciding to enforce their policies against unregistered & masked student demonstrations for the first time 5ever by collaborating w/ the campus police to hunt down antizionist activists disrupting a pro-normalization event 🥰🥰🥰

[tiredsadpeach]

Y’all my work place has been absolute shit to a working mother lately on top of not taking racism claims seriously and constant scare tactics instead of using mistakes as teaching moments and I’ve been wanting to quit so I put in my two weeks today because the coworker that’s been treated like shit also is quitting and it kinda gave me a push and my store manager texted me telling me my experiences are wrong and trying to make my coworker look bad 😐 said he’d forward it to upper management with his statements of proof but little does he know I’m contacting HR tomorrow with my statements of proof you’re not scaring me off

[transformativework]

The Importance of a Neutral Workplace Investigator in Conflict Resolution

Workplace conflict is an inevitable part of any organization, whether it’s a small business or a large corporation. Disputes between employees, disagreements with management, and interpersonal conflicts are common occurrences that can disrupt the productivity and harmony of a work environment. When conflicts escalate or involve serious allegations, it becomes essential to investigate the issue thoroughly.To learn more, Click Here

[chloeworships]

I would definitely try to avoid this situation from escalating.

Now that I’m thinking about it, I could have been in Human Resources in the dream, however once again, this individual was from a “rival” tech company. I could have been a lawyer and yes this could have something to do with schools 🏫

Perhaps someone is thinking of taking this route of perusing legal action. I believe the LORD is saying to seek legal counsel first.

Perhaps the reason for not being promoted could be because of how someone is being perceived. In other words their “looks”.

Angelica was mean as hell and by the way she treated her “doll” as a girl, you know she didn’t care about that doll 😂 My Barbie’s were always well taken care of. If this is/was your boss, I feel for you 😭 That’s why I say I believe this person isn’t ok.

UPDATE:

Uuummmmmm rugRATS 🐀 and that’s all I’m going to say!!!! #details

[redgearguru]

What Happened To The FBI Investigation of MSNBC Joy Reid Hate Speech

The FBI started looking into Joy Reid, an MSNBC host, for possible hate speech and online bullying against the LGBTQIAP+ community. They checked her words and actions online for bias and extremist views. This big investigation aimed to see if her words could lead to hate crimes. Many people are watching how deep and long this probe will go. The FBI wants to find out how serious Reid’s online…

[alwaysbewoke]

[ragingbullmode]

im just griping about work dont mind me lol

shut my boss up REAL fast when she asked how id been doing health wise & i was like ‘oh its been on the decline but ive been paying out of pocket to see my doctor so. im doing good ig 😌’ like.

this is the same boss who thought saying ‘lets hope you dont get into a horrible accident before benefits open up again haha 😋’ as a ‘joke’ would be appropriate in regards to me, freshly 26, losing all my healthcare lol

like how tf has she not been fired or at the very least demoted like her equally horrible husband. i dont understand yet am 110% unsurprised

[catsnuggler]

I should curate who I follow and which blogs are allowed on my dash at some point. There's at least one I think I should blacklist.

[massivelyspeedyobject]

The real story of prosecution of minorities by Hitler & the resemblance

Credit: quora The prosecution of minorities under Hitler’s regime, particularly targeting Jews, is a dark chapter in history. Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party implemented policies of systematic discrimination, persecution, and ultimately extermination of various minority groups, most notably Jews, but also including Romani people, disabled individuals, homosexuals, and others. The persecution…

[ersahtz]

Application of the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (UKRAINE v. RUSSIAN FEDERATION) Case Note

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is an analysis of the ICJ’s judgement on merits in the case of Application of the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, rendered on 31 January 2024. This is a summary of the judgement, with the occasional comment or analysis. This is only half the…