#Office for Civil Rights

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Leor Sapir and Joseph Figliolia

Published: Jun 11, 2024

In its recent Title IX guidance, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights redefines the 1972 law to ban discrimination on the basis of “gender identity” in federally funded education programs. In doing so, it showed willful disregard for scientific research on pediatric gender transition and for the findings of the Cass Review, a 388-page report and the most comprehensive to date on youth gender medicine.

OCR also ignored legal precedent. It said that its Title IX rule was a response to Bostock v. Clayton County, a 2020 Supreme Court decision that involved employment discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. OCR thus acted without regard for the vast differences between employment (which involves adults) and education (which involves primarily children). And it disregarded entirely the Bostock Court’s explicit statement that it was “proceed[ing] on the assumption that ‘sex’ . . . refer[s] only to biological distinctions between male and female” and consequently that its ruling does “not purport to address bathrooms, locker rooms, or anything else of the kind.”

The Republican response has been swift. Several red states have publicly condemned the update, and more than 20 have filed lawsuits. Much of the criticism has rightly focused on how creating “gender identity” rules will undermine women’s safety and opportunities by eliminating single-sex spaces and forcing the integration of male athletes into female sports.

The new rule effectively forces schools to facilitate so-called social transitions—recognizing trans-identifying students by their chosen “gender”—regardless of students’ age, familial circumstances, or medical and mental-health background. Schools won’t need to get parental consent; in fact, the rule effectively compels them to secure students’ consent before disclosing information about their social transition to their parents. It does so by recognizing students’ right to privacy from not just their school, but their own parents.

These new changes bring the Department of Education into conflict with the findings and recommendations of the recently published Cass Review. Immediately following the Review’s publication, Kamran Abbasi, editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal, acknowledged that the evidence base for gender medicine—“from social transition to hormone treatment”—is “threadbare.” He called the report “an opportunity to pause, recalibrate, and place evidence informed care at the heart of gender medicine.”

The Biden administration has declined that opportunity. Its new Title IX rules implicitly reject the report’s findings and further illustrate Democrats’ indifference to the rising chorus of international skepticism about pediatric gender medicine and early social transition.

Advocates of social transition make two arguments for the practice. First, they insist that social transition improves mental health in “trans kids” and that failing to “affirm” a child’s “gender identity” can be psychologically damaging. Second, and somewhat in tension with the first claim, proponents argue that using students’ preferred names and pronouns, and granting them access to their preferred sex-specific facilities and activities, is no big deal. It’s not a psychological intervention at all, they claim, but merely a show of “respect” and “inclusion.”

Like physical medicine, psychological interventions can be beneficial or harmful. Iatrogenesis—treatment-induced illness—exists in physical and mental-health care alike. For this reason, any intervention requires careful diagnosis, weighing of costs and benefits, consideration of alternatives, and informed consent, which, in the case of minors, comes from those legally responsible for their wellbeing.

In her report, Cass writes that social transition “in an NHS setting” is “an active intervention because it may have significant effects on the child or young person in terms of their psychological functioning and longer-term outcomes.” Cass and her team recommend that, for children, mental-health professionals advise parents “on the risks and benefits of social transition as a planned intervention, referencing best available evidence.” (Keep in mind that Cass’s recommendation assumes mental-health professionals will not automatically “affirm” a child’s feelings about gender.)

While Cass claims that social transition “is within the agency of an adolescent to do for themselves,” this needs to be clarified. A student may request new pronouns, wear clothing typical of the opposite sex, or want to use the other sex’s bathrooms, but a trans-identifying child has not socially transitioned unless adults in positions of authority treat the child as though he were what he claims to be. For very young children who don’t understand what pronouns are or how gender-related behaviors like dress and haircuts relate to one’s status as boy or girl, the “request” for social transition is inferred by adults from the child’s behavioral cues. In other words, by definition, social transition is something done to kids—not something they do to themselves.

If, as established, social transition is an active psychological intervention, the next question is: Does it help? The Biden DOE, which in 2021 encouraged schools to “use the name a student goes by, which may be different from their legal name, and pronouns that reflect a student’s gender identity,” thinks so. The department’s position mirrors that of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, which, in its Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People, Version 8, says, “Research indicates social transition and congruent gender expression have a significant beneficial effect on the mental health of [trans-identifying] people.”

This isn’t true, according to the Cass report. Cass and her team commissioned seven systematic reviews of evidence and medical guideline quality from experts at the University of York, one of which dealt specifically with the question of social transition. The findings of that review, Cass writes, support “none of the WPATH [SOC] 8 statements in favour of social transition in childhood.”

Cass also notes that “social transition in childhood may change the trajectory of gender identity development for children with early gender incongruence.” In other words, if all adults in positions of authority in a boy’s life consistently treat him as if he is a girl, he will be more likely to believe that he really is a girl. While data on the relationship between social transition and gender-identity outcomes is limited, the possibility that social transition solidifies a cross-sex identity is supported by desistance literature. A 2018 paper by University of Toronto psychologist Kenneth J. Zucker suggests that 67 percent of children who meet the diagnostic threshold of gender dysphoria outgrow those feelings by adulthood, typically during puberty. Of those below the diagnostic threshold, 93 percent desisted.

Crucially, the kids in those studies had not been socially transitioned in the way gender transition advocates now recommend. Compare these high rates of desistence to those from a 2022 study of a group of socially transitioned children, which found that 97.5 percent had not come to terms with their sex at the end of a five-year follow-up period. Though this study did not follow the kids all the way through adolescence, it suggests that social transition can lock in a child’s cross-gender beliefs and feelings that otherwise are likely to remit. Most of the children in this study were receiving medical interventions, including puberty blockers, by its end.

Cass and her team thus recommend caution. They instruct parents to socially transition a young child, if at all, only after consulting a clinician, and they counsel clinicians to prefer partial social transition (e.g., letting the child wear cross-sex clothes while maintaining his name and pronouns) to full social transition. For adolescents, they argue that “exploration” of identity “is a normal process” and “rigid binary gender stereotypes can be unhelpful.” (Of course, trans identities often rely on such stereotypes.)

While gender ideology critics may find it disappointing that Cass allows for social transition in some cases, it’s important to remember that her approach is pragmatic. She acknowledges the reality that parents, teachers, and clinicians only have so much control over a teen’s life. Whatever parents do, they should never make it harder for their kids to “return” to their sex (i.e., desist) after having declared themselves trans. The important thing is “keeping options open.”

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Cass emphasizes that there is no way of knowing which gender non-conforming or trans-identified kids, if any, will experience a lifetime of suffering if they are denied social or medical interventions. By contrast, getting it wrong means severe and potentially permanent iatrogenic harm. Clinicians have no diagnostic tool that can distinguish a child or adolescent who is destined to endure a lifetime of agony from one going through a phase. Normal distress over puberty, inability to accept oneself as gay, ongoing mental health challenges, and (in young children) simple confusion can all manifest symptoms consistent with the current definition of “gender dysphoria.” For this reason, Cass has warned of “diagnostic overshadowing.”

But even if a diagnostic test for “true trans” existed, there is no good evidence that the long-term benefits of early intervention outweigh the risks. And even if they did, it is doubtful that a young teen could understand the tradeoffs and give informed consent.

It is a mark of arrogance that the Office of Civil Rights took none of these facts—many well-known prior to the publication of Cass’s final report—into account when formulating its new Title IX rules. The agency couches its rules in absolutist “rights talk” and imposes highly inflexible requirements on schools.

The new regulations will force schools to accommodate a student who requests social transition, regardless of the student’s age, level of cognitive and emotional maturity, family circumstances, or mental-health challenges, and with or without a mental-health professional’s diagnosis or input from parents. Notably, the rules favorably cite two policy documents—an advisory from the California DOE and an administrative regulation from Nevada’s Washoe County School District—that endorse blanket social transition policies at school without requiring parental notification.

As one of us (Sapir) has pointed out in the past, legal rules like the new Title IX regulation generate considerable legal uncertainty for school districts. In their desire to avoid expensive and embarrassing civil rights lawsuits and OCR investigations, and on the advice of their risk-averse lawyers, school officials and boards find it in their interest to defer to the very advocacy organizations that, either on their own or through allies in their network, can initiate legal proceedings against the school. A self-interested administrator will thus adopt, say, GLSEN’s model policy on transgender accommodation, in the expectation that doing so will send a signal of compliance to the powerful ACLU. Unlike the Biden administration, neither GLSEN nor the ACLU are accountable to voters. Both can adopt radical policies far afield from what even an ideologically driven Department of Education can hope to achieve. This is essentially a racket underwritten by the federal government.

Following OCR’s logic to its conclusion, a school with a parental-notification policy could be guilty of “hostile environment harassment,” as defined in the new Title IX regulations. After all, some would argue, such a policy could be “subjectively and objectively offensive and . . . so severe or pervasive that it limits or denies a person’s ability to participate in or benefit from the recipient’s education program or activity.” Indeed, though the regulatory update goes into effect in August, the Office for Civil Rights has already cited this rationale to launch an investigation against a school district for its parental-notification policy.

The Biden administration, in its Title IX guidance and elsewhere, has stretched the term “abuse” beyond its obvious connotation to include failing to “affirm” a child’s gender identity. Proponents of the administration’s position claim that trans-identified students are at high risk of rejection and could face abuse at home if they are “outed” to their families, but we’ve noted serious problems with this argument. In effect, so has England’s National Health Service, which recommended last September that fit parents should always be involved in the decision-making process regarding social transition in school.

Indeed, mental-health outcomes for gender-distressed youth are better when they have supportive relationships with their family. “Outcomes for children and adolescents are best,” Cass writes, “if they are in a supportive relationship with their family. For this reason parents should be actively involved in decision making unless there are strong grounds to believe that this may put the child or young person at risk.” Secret social-transition policies—which Parents Defending Education estimates are in effect in 18,878 schools in the United States, affecting close to 11 million students—establish an adversarial dynamic between parents and children.

The Cass Review contrasts an “evidence-based” approach to managing gender-related confusion and distress with a “social justice model,” in which considerations of evidence are secondary to political goals. The Biden administration’s Title IX rules, which subordinate the interests of vulnerable children to those of powerful interest groups in the Democratic coalition, clearly belong in the second category. 

==

When they can't define a thing or even agree that it exists, it's unethical to insert language protecting it. Otherwise, it's just a covert blasphemy law, and no better than inserting Title IX protections for "god."

[nationallawreview]

HHS Publishes Final Rule to Support Reproductive Health Care Privacy

The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to eliminate the federal constitutional right to abortion continues to alter the legal landscape across the country. On April 26, 2024, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) published the “HIPAA Privacy Rule to Support Reproductive Health Care Privacy” (the “Final…

[ohnoitsz1m]

Uhh post canon Barney

Man who has not had a break since the rescas and refuses to start now. Alyx and Gordon are hiding his gear as we speak while Kleiner distracts him.

I was sposed to do Alyx too but I blinked and it was 3 am so. Next time

Oh also I forgot to make a note but he does carry a sidearm

[whitesinhistory]

On July 1, 1965, a white sheriff in Camden, Alabama, forced people to leave and then padlocked the doors of the Antioch Baptist Church—a Black church where leaders were discussing civil rights—even though he did not have the authority to do so. Community members from the Summer Community Organization and Political Education (SCOPE) group had been meeting at the church for several months, working to promote Black voter registration in Alabama and the rest of the South. According to the 1960 census, Black residents made up over 75% of the population of Wilcox County. However, because of established practices and laws passed with the intent of suppressing the Black vote—which were enforced in discriminatory ways—no Black people in Wilcox County were registered to vote during the 1964 election. When people at the Antioch Baptist Church began registering Black voters, they were quickly targeted by the white community. Two days before Sheriff P.C. Jenkins evicted people from the church, a group of white men had broken into the building and beaten two Black teenagers, inflicting injuries so severe that they were both hospitalized. Rather than providing protection from this violence, on July 1, Sheriff Jenkins announced that the church had been the cause of “too much disturbance,” and gave people only a few hours to clear out their belongings before putting a padlock on the door.  Though Sheriff Jenkins claimed that at least one church leader had expressed opposition to having the church involved in civil rights activism, the following day the chairman of the Board of Deacons denied that claim, and two weeks later the congregation and board of the church unanimously voted to support the church’s involvement in registering Black voters.   Read EJI’s report, Segregation in America, to learn more about how local white officials targeted civil rights activists and the Black church in their quest to uphold segregation.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas ruled yesterday that portions of Texas Senate Bill 1, adopted in September 2021, violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The court found that parts of S.B. 1 require officials to reject mail-in ballot applications and mail-in ballots based on errors or omissions that are not material in determining whether voters are qualified under Texas law to vote or cast a mail ballot.

“The District Court’s decision affirms what the Justice Department has argued for nearly two years: these provisions of Texas Senate Bill 1 unlawfully restrict the ability of eligible Texas voters to vote by mail and to have that vote counted,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The Justice Department will continue to defend against unlawful efforts that undermine the right to vote and restrict participation in our democracy.”

“In requiring rejection of mail ballots and mail ballot applications from eligible voters based on minor paperwork errors or omissions, Texas Senate Bill 1 violates the Civil Rights Act,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “This ruling sends a clear message that states may not impose unlawful and unnecessary requirements that disenfranchise eligible voters seeking to participate in our democracy. The Justice Department will continue to use every available tool to protect all Americans’ right to vote and to ensure that their voices are heard.”

“The right to vote is one of the fundamental rights in our democracy,” said U.S. Attorney Jaime Esparza for the Western District of Texas. “This important ruling protects the rights of eligible Texas voters to cast a vote and have it counted consistent with federal law.”

The court issued a preliminary ruling yesterday in favor of the United States’ motion for summary judgment, which asserts that two provisions of S.B. 1 violate Section 101 of the Civil Rights Act by requiring rejection of mail ballots and mail ballot request forms because of paperwork errors that are not material to establishing a voter’s eligibility to cast a ballot. The first provision requires that early voting clerks “shall reject” mail ballot applications that do not include a Texas driver’s license or ID number that identifies “the same voter identified on the applicant’s application for voter registration.” The second provision provides that a mail ballot “may be accepted only if” the ID numbers on the carrier envelope or signature sheet identifies “the same voter identified on the applicant’s application for voter registration.”

Section 5.07 requires that early voting clerks “shall reject” mail ballot applications that do not include a Department of Public Safety (DPS) number or the last four digits of a Social Security Number (SSN) that identifies “the same voter identified on the applicant’s application for voter registration.” Section 5.13 provides that a mail ballot “may be accepted only if” the DPS number or last four digits of an SSN on the carrier envelope or signature sheet identifies “the same voter identified on the applicant’s application for voter registration.”

The United States presented evidence to the court that S.B. 1 has resulted in Texas election officials rejecting tens of thousands of mail ballot applications and mail ballots cast in elections since the bill was enacted in 2021. The Department asserts that these rejections violate federal law, denying Texas voters the statutory right to vote protected by Section 101.

Yesterday’s preliminary ruling from the court grants the Justice Department’s motion for summary judgment, which the Department filed in May 2023, in its entirety. The decision addresses the Justice Department’s sole pending claim in La Unión del Pueblo Entero v. Abbott, No. 5:21-cv-844 (WDTX), a case in which the United States and several private parties are challenging various aspects of S.B. 1. The court noted that the ruling will be followed in the coming weeks by a final written opinion and order. A group of private plaintiffs will be going to trial on the remaining claims in the case, which have not yet been resolved. That trial is scheduled to begin on Sept. 11.

Complaints about discriminatory practices may be reported to the Civil Rights Division through its internet reporting portal at www.civilrights.justice.gov or by calling (800) 253-3931.

Additional information about the Civil Rights Division’s work to uphold and protect the voting rights of all Americans is available on the Justice Department’s website at www.justice.gov/crt/voting-section.

[coochiequeens]

A fully intact male walked into a shower with girls and then exposed himself. But that never happens.

The Department of Education (DOE) has opened an investigation into an incident at a Wisconsin school involving a transgender woman student in a locker room with female students.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a conservative law firm, announced this week that it received a letter from the DOE saying that the department's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) was opening an investigation into a complaint it filed earlier this year involving a transgender student who undressed in front of female students in the Sun Prairie Area School District (SPASD). Newsweek reached out to the DOE via email for comment.

"Following the school's failure to sufficiently address the incident, disregard for parents' concerns, and their stonewalling of an open records request, WILL worked alongside parents of the school district to seek an investigation and remedies from the Department of Education under the Biden Administration," the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty [WILL] said in a press release on Thursday. "The federal government notified WILL that in response to our complaint they are opening an investigation of SPASD."

WILL Deputy Counsel Daniel Lennington told Newsweek on Thursday: "This opening of a formal civil rights investigation is tremendously significant, not only for this case, but as a warning to other schools nationwide that embrace new and untested transgender policies without considering the impact on female students."

According to the WILL, in June, it filed a complaint with the DOE after learning that an 18-year-old transgender woman student undressed in front of four female high school students in a locker room.

"As the girls began to shower, the male student approached them, entered the shower area, announced 'I'm trans, by the way,' and then fully undressed and showered next to the girls," the complaint said. "He was initially turned towards the wall but turned and fully exposed his body to the four girls. He had not transitioned medically and had the physiological appearance of an adult male. Understandably, the girls closed their eyes and tried to hurry up and leave the showers."

Conservatives have continued to slam the LGBTQ+ and transgender community this year after Bud Light partnered with transgender influencer and activist Dylan Mulvaney, with many calling for boycotts and an end to the inclusion of transgender women in female sports.

Many Democrats have shown support for the transgender community, with President Joe Biden recently calling for an end to discrimination against trans individuals and saying: "My Administration ended the ban on transgender Americans serving our country and I signed historic executive action to strengthen civil rights protections for all LGBTQI+ Americans."

In the complaint to the DOE, WILL said that the locker room incident is a violation of Title IX law involving the prohibition of discrimination based on sex.

"Under this law, sex discrimination encompasses sexual harassment, which includes unwelcome conduct so severe that it effectively denies a person equal access to the education program, like the incident that occurred at SPASD," it said.

"WILL claims in this complaint that SPASD discriminated against four freshman girls on the basis of sex. Not only did the district fail to comply with requirements under Title IX, but its policies fail to protect all female students in the district."

The law firm said it previously listened to complaints from parents following the incident, and that the female students initially informed an assistant principal, who was required to notify the Title IX coordinator but failed to do so.

"Over a month after the incident, a principal emailed our client and apologized 'for the incident that occurred' and attached a copy of a 'Restroom and Locker Room Accessibility Guidance' document [Ex. A], which by all accounts was never adopted by the school board," the complaint said. "No one at SPASD contacted the girls to offer supportive measures or an opportunity to file a formal complaint of sexual harassment until after WILL became involved."

A spokesperson for the school district confirmed to WMSN-TV in Wisconsin receipt of the letter from the DOE but didn't comment further.

The letter announcing the investigation by the DOE said the department will remain "neutral," and "will collect and analyze the evidence it needs in order to make a decision."

"We applaud the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights for investigating the allegations made in our complaint, but we all need to wait and see if they take this as seriously as they should," WILL Associate Counsel Cory Brewer said. "We hope this results in answers for parents and families at the Sun Prairie Area School District, but we won't know until we see the results of the investigation."

[todaysdocument]

“My husband had to go out and stand on the dance floor while the Colonel told him if I danced with a colored man again I would be barred from the Officers' Club.” Letter to Pres. Truman, 11/12/1950. 

File Unit: Segregation, OF 93b, 1945 - 1953

Series: Official Files , 1945 - 1953

Collection: Official Files (Truman Administration), 1945 - 1953

Transcription: 

[handwritten: "Mr. Niles" ; "Filed by Mr. Niles 1/4/51" "C[?]"]

909 Washington Ave.

Evansville, Indiana

November 12, 1950

Dear Mr. Truman: 

Last evening, Saturday, November 11th, I attended a [underlined] dance at the Officers Club, Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky. [/underlined]  The dance was sponsored by my husbands regiment, the 502nd Airborne Infantry.

The party at our table numbered about ten and included was a 2nd Lieutenant, George Dunnings, and his wife.  Lt. Dunnings is, in my opinion, one of the finest examples of the Army has of an officer and a gentleman.  Lt. Dunnings is a negro officer. [left margin; vertical line marked paragraph]

During the course of the evening another white officer and my husband danced with Mrs. Dunnings.  Nothing was said.  Then Lt. Dunnings and I danced.  When we returned to the table a full Colonel came over and tapped my husband on the shoulder.  My husband had to go out and stand on the dance floor while the Colonel told him if I danced with a colored man again I would be barred from the Officers' Club.  My husband tactfully re-  

[handwritten: "File"]

[page 2]

minded the Colonel that the gentleman in question was an Army officer.  The Colonel replied by saying, "We don't allow colored and white to dance together."

I feel that I was insulted for practicing what the Army preached - non-segregation.  I've never crusaded for the NAACP, FEPC or any similar organization, but I will fight for my rights as an individual.  [left margin; vertical line marked paragraph]

I realize, [underlined] of course, that publication [/underlined] of this letter [underlined]may result in the "railroading' of my husband and Lt. Dunnings [/underlined] to some isolated [underlined] outpost, [/underlined] but I feel that the American public should know that although negroes may die in Korea fighting for our country, they are still second class citizens even in the Army's Officers' Club.

Sincerely,

Rose H. Hepp

[the-local-eldritch-microwave]

Ink and Error the type of parents at a parent-teacher conference to argue and make petty remarks to each other the whole time but the second said teacher says smth(literally anything) they both turn to them and start to cause problems(and PJ is sinking deeper and deeper into his seat trying to hide the fact that his parents are idiots)

[ausetkmt]

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Nine current or former Northern California police officers were charged Thursday in a federal corruption investigation that found evidence they committed civil rights violations and fraud in an effort to get a pay raise and lied on reports to cover up the use of excessive force, U.S. authorities said.

Ismail J. Ramsey, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California, filed four indictments that outlined charges including wire fraud, deprivation of rights under color of law, conspiracy against rights, and conspiracy to distribute anabolic steroids. Nine police officers and one community service officer are named in the charges, though only two are charged in multiple indictments.

The investigation centered on the departments in Antioch and Pittsburg, two cities in the San Francisco Bay Area. Only three of the officers remain employed by the departments and were not on active duty, officials said.

Arrest warrants were served Thursday in California, Texas and Hawaii, said Robert Tripp, special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Francisco Field Office. One has not yet been arrested, officials said.

Morteza Amiri, Eric Allen Rombough, Patrick Berhan, Samantha Peterson, Brauli Rodriguez Jalapa and Ernesto Juan Mejia-Orozco pleaded not guilty to various charges, and most were released on condition that they posted property bonds, the Bay Area News Group reported.

Rombough appeared in Oakland federal court dressed in ripped clothes, with bloody hands and knees and wearing a shirt that read: “don’t weaken,” the Bay Area News Group reported.

His attorney, Will Edelman, told the judge that there was “absolutely no reason” that his client had to be taken into custody and handcuffed because he would have willingly appeared if ordered.

The defendants could face decades in federal prison if convicted of the charges.

Tripp said the arrests were the result of a two-year investigation.

“Any breach of the public’s trust is absolutely unacceptable,” Tripp said while discussing charges against Antioch officers that include using their official positions as officers to deprive people of their rights.

Charges against Amiri, Rombough and Devon Christopher Wenger say the three Antioch police officers conspired between February 2019 and March 2022 “to injure, oppress, threaten and intimidate residents of Antioch, California” and later falsified reports about the encounters.

In obscenity-laden text messages, the three men referred to some suspects as “gorillas.” They laughed and joked about harming people who apparently had surrendered or appeared to be asleep by setting Amiri’s police dog on them or Rombough shooting them with a 40mm “less-lethal” projectile launcher, the indictment said.

Prosecutors say from 2019 to 2021, the dog bit 28 people while Rombough used the launcher 11 times in 2020 and 2021.

Amiri posted graphic photos of the dog wounds, and Rombough said he was keeping the projectiles to make a trophy flag, according to the indictment.

In one case, a man suspected of five armed robberies had given up and was lying on the ground when Amiri’s K-9 bit him, the indictment alleged.

In one text, Amiri wrote: “let’s (f-obscenity) some people up next work week.”

Amiri says that he will find some action and write up the police report, adding: “Just come over and crush some skulls.”

In one 2020 text sequence, Amiri says that he confronted a transient he believed had stolen his mail “and dragged him to the back of a car to ‘discuss’ the matter.”

“Lol. Putting a pistol in someone’s mouth and telling them to stop stealing isn’t illegal,” he texted. “It’s an act of public service to prevent further victims of crimes”

“Defendants authored police reports containing false and misleading statements to suggest that the force they used was necessary and justifiable,” the indictment said. “In truth and in fact, and as the Defendants well knew, Defendants willfully used excessive force in numerous incidents, including those identified in this Indictment.”

Police unions did not immediately respond to requests for information on whether the defendants had lawyers who can speak on their behalf. Emails to the Pittsburg and Antioch police departments seeking comment were not immediately returned.

Thousands of incendiary text messages by more than a dozen officers in the Antioch Police Department had previously come to light and led to a federal lawsuit. The texts contained derogatory, racist, homophobic and sexually explicit language. In some of them, the officers bragged about making up evidence and beating up suspects. They freely used racial slurs and made light of the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.

The city of Antioch, with about 115,000 residents 45 miles (72 kilometers) east of San Francisco, was once predominantly white but has diversified in the last 30 years. Federal and state prosecutors have dropped or dismissed dozens of cases that relied on the impugned officers, and the city now faces a federal civil rights lawsuit over the text messages.

Jalapa, Mejia-Orozco and Amanda Carmella Theodosy/Nash, as well as Antioch community service officer Peterson, were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud surrounding allegations they had other people take and complete online university courses toward a criminal justice degree. The police departments offered reimbursement for college tuition and pay raises for those who graduate college, prosecutors said.

Two Antioch officers, Daniel Harris and Wenger, were charged with several counts related to distributing anabolic steroids.

Another Antioch officer, Timothy Manly Williams, faces charges related to the obstruction of a federal investigation for allegedly using a personal cellphone in 2021 to talk to the target of an FBI wiretap investigation and then made sure the call wasn’t recorded or accurately logged.

“Today is a dark day in our city’s history, as people trusted to uphold the law, allegedly breached that trust and were arrested by the FBI,” Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe said in a statement. “As our city absorbs this tragic news, we must come together as one. Today’s actions are the beginning of the end of a long and arduous process.”

Thorpe is among three Black, progressive members of the five-person council who have said they are committed to holding police accountable.

“To those that have accused me and others of being anti-police for seeking to reform the Antioch Police Department, today’s arrests are demonstrative of the issues that have plagued the Antioch Police Department for decades,” he added.

[eatember]

trying very hard not to go off on a dude who just said something anti-vax adjacent while I'm 8 day into autoimmune covid with medical ptsd

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: The National Desk

Published: Jun 11, 2024

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton praised a federal court's decision on Tuesday that blocked the Biden Administration from forcing its recently updated Title IX policies on schools across the state.

Paxton in a news release described it as a "major victory" against the Biden Administration’s Department of Education.

Joe Biden’s unlawful effort to weaponize Title IX for his extremist agenda has been stopped in its tracks,” Paxton said in the release. “Threatening to withhold education funding by forcing states to accept ‘transgender’ policies that put women in danger was plainly illegal. Texas has prevailed on behalf of the entire Nation.”

The Biden administration in April unveiled a final set of changes to Title IX, the federal civil rights law prohibiting sex-based discrimination at government-funded schools. The changes would reinstitute protections for student survivors of sexual assault and harassment that were rolled back during the Trump administration.

The changes, which were met with backlash and faced nearly 70 GOP lawsuits, were set to take effect Aug. 1.

But Judge Reed O’Connor ruled the government Biden's Administration "failed to follow the proper procedures" to enact changes to Title XI.

Paxton noted his office in 2023 sued the Department of Education for issuing "arbitrary and capricious guidance that unlawfully extended Title IX to include 'sexual orientation' and 'gender identity' as protected classes. This would have forced Texas schools and universities to allow biological males to use women’s restrooms, locker rooms, and other sex-specific spaces. Any Texas school refusing to follow the mandate risked losing federal education funding. Today, a federal court vacated the unlawful guidance nationwide and issued a permanent injunction against its enforcement against Texas and its schools. This ruling ensures that no school district in the State of Texas will have to comply with the Biden Administration's interpretation of Title IX as including gender-identity requirements, including allowing men into women's restrooms or locker rooms or sports teams, or requiring students or teachers to use pronouns based on gender identity rather than biological sex."

[feckcops]

Jeremy Corbyn: LGBT rights are refugee rights – let’s stand up for both

“In 2020, there were more than 1,000 asylum applications lodged in the UK where sexual orientation formed part of the basis for the claim. This figure does not include trans people, whose persecution is scandalously ignored altogether. LGBT refugees have already been punished for being themselves. Now, they get to experience the trauma of rejection all over again.

“Not content on abandoning those in need, the government has been determined to implement a policy that would actively place them back in harm’s way. This week, the Court of Appeal ruled that Suella Braverman’s dream to deport refugees to Rwanda was unlawful. It was a dream that the Home Office itself admitted could put LGBT people at risk ...

“Some government ministers are keen to downplay the persecution of LGBT people abroad to quash their asylum claims. Others rely on colonial narratives to condemn other nations whilst turning a blind eye to our own record at home. Both are gravely misguided. Instead, we should acknowledge how the UK’s historic role in creating LGBT persecution generates additional obligations to those still suffering the consequences ...

“We can stand up for LGBT rights, or we can abandon refugees. We can’t do both. We should stand up for LGBT people for the same reason we should stand up for refugees: everybody—no matter their sexuality, gender or ethnicity—deserves to live a life of safety, joy and love.”

[the-faultofdaedalus]

actually hilarious that my conclusion in the last post is that wanda and peitro should've done more terrorism, actually

[booksinpiles]

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

The Environmental Protection Agency is launching an investigation into whether the Republican-controlled state of Mississippi violated the Civil Rights Act by depriving the predominantly Black city of Jackson of federal funds to repair its beleaguered water system.

The probe comes in response to a complaint filed by the NAACP alleging a pattern of discrimination by the state against the city, where residents have faced more than 300 boil water orders in the past two years and were left without running water for days at the end of the summer after flooding overwhelmed the city-run water plant.

Despite the well-documented problems, Mississippi allocated none of the nearly $75 million in water funding it is receiving from the bipartisan infrastructure law this year toward fixing the plant’s fundamental problems, and it added an additional layer of review for any application Jackson submitted for a water infrastructure funding from earlier federal coronavirus relief legislation.

Mississippi’s Governor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

THE DETAILS: EPA will investigate whether the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality and the Mississippi Department of Health “discriminated against the majority Black population of Jackson, Mississippi, on the basis of race and color, by intent or effect, in funding water infrastructure and treatment programs and activities, in violation of Title VI and EPA’s implementing regulation at 40 C.F.R. Part 7,” according to a letter from Anhthu Hoang, the acting head of EPA’s new Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, to the NAACP’s attorneys.

The agency will also investigate whether the two state departments have procedural safeguards in place to prevent discrimination, according to the letter.

EPA tries to resolve complaints “informally,” under its regulations, but failing that it would have 180 days to complete it’s investigation. If the agency were to find that the state agencies discriminated in violation of the law, the agency could refer the matter to the Department of Justice, or could threaten to withhold future federal funding until the state comes into compliance.

REACTION: “This action is only the first step. We encourage EPA to move expeditiously to conduct its investigation and to require comprehensive remedies to help resolve this crisis,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson, who is also a resident of Jackson, said in a statement.

The probe could represent the first big test of the Biden administration’s promises to ensure that the deluge of federal funds from the bipartisan infrastructure law is distributed equitably. Two congressional committees have also opened their own investigation into Mississippi’s handling of federal funds.

[reasoningdaily]

Authorities have released civil rights attorney Jill Collen Jefferson from jail in Holmes County after Lexington Police arrested her on Saturday, June 10, while she was filming a traffic stop she saw after leaving an event. Police arrested the JULIAN president nine days after she complained about the department’s treatment of Black residents while meeting with U.S. Justice Department officials.

Jefferson’s attorney, Michael Carr, who said he “is very concerned (Lexington Police) engaged in a false arrest in this case,” informed the Mississippi Free Press this morning that she was being released. Bail bondsman Bonita Streeter also confirmed the release, saying officials had waived fees for the civil rights attorney’s release.

Jefferson, who is from Jones County, founded JULIAN in 2020. She named the organization, which conducts investigations into possible civil rights violations, after her mentor, longtime civil rights leader Julian Bond.

The arrest sparked a backlash from the community over the weekend.

“The citizens of Lexington are fearful of driving for fear of harassment from the police,” the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party said in a statement this morning condemning Collen’s arrest. “Innocent mentally ill citizens are brutalized on our streets and imprisoned unlawfully. Our elected officials have refused to act on this matter because these unlawful arrests are benefitting the city financially.”

‘I Guess She Thought That Was A Good Idea’

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Kristen Clarke, who is with the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, visited Lexington on June 1 along with U.S. Attorney Darren J. LaMarca of the Southern District of Mississippi.

The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party said its members “were feeling hopeful” after Clarke and LaMarca’s visit—until Jill Collen Jefferson’s arrest.

“Upon leaving an event, she witnessed police officers engaging with a citizen, but because of the numerous complaints against the police department, she decided to drive by the scene and record,” MFDP said. “While driving, an officer asked her to show her driver’s license Other officers approached the vehicle and began to pull her out. She was placed in handcuffs and put in the patrol car.”

Attorney Carr said police charged Jefferson with three misdemeanors, including failure to comply, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. But he told the Mississippi Free Press this morning that the police department had offered no “narrative supplement” to explain why they charged her with those offenses.

After this story first published, though, Carr shared a recording with the Mississippi Free Press that his office obtained that he says includes remarks the arresting officer made about Jefferson. This reporter could not verify the identity of the person speaking in the recording, however.

“I told her to give me her license five, six, seven, eight times,” a man can be heard saying on the recording. “She argued she ain’t got to. … She was riding by filming. I guess she thought that was a good idea.”

The Mississippi Free Press reached out to the Lexington Police Department for comment this morning, but an employee said there was “no one here right now to speak about that matter” and to call back later. Reached again this afternoon following this story’s initial publication, the department again said no one was available to speak.

Jefferson Speaks: ‘I Did Not Resist’

Later this afternoon, attorney Carr sent this reporter a video of Jill Jefferson speaking with members of the media in Lexington, where she accused the local police of “terrorizing Black people here.”

She said she was driving around with a passenger when she saw the police had someone pulled over and decided to film the incident. The passenger, she said, got out of the car, fearing the police would pull Jefferson over for filming them.

“As soon as the cops saw me, Officer Scott Walters started flagging me down with his flashlight,” Jefferson told reporters. “I stopped, I let my window down, and he said, ‘Show me your ID.’ I said, ‘Why do you need to see my ID?’ … And then he pulled out his taser. And I said, ‘You’re going to tase me?’ And that point, I called my attorney. He said, ‘Jill, of course this is not right, but just show them your ID so you can get this over with.'”

Jefferson said she followed her lawyer’s suggestion, but the situation only escalated from there.

“I held up my license. At that point, Officer Walters snatched my phone out of my hand, he slammed it on the top of the car,” she said. “He started trying to yank at my door handle, trying to pull it open. My car door was locked. He reached through the window and unlocked my car door through the inside. He pulled the door open, pulled me out of the car, pushed me against the car, and then proceeded to arrest me—cuff me. He put my hands behind my back. I did not resist.”

Jefferson said that, after the officer put her in the back of a police car, Jefferson said another officer joined Walters searching her car.

“Then they went to the driver’s side and Officer Walters knelt down and put his hand under the seat and he said, ‘Oh, looky here.’ He’d found my firearm,” she said. “And he said, ‘I sure hope it’s stolen.’ At that point, he came back to the police car. I told him the search was illegal. He told me he would never hire me. He told me I was a shit lawyer since I didn’t know about search incident to arrest. He told me I was being arrested for failure to comply. I told him I had not done anything wrong. He said nothing and shut the car door. He took me to the police station.”

‘It’s Actually Beyond A Breaking Point’

A month later, JULIAN filed a lawsuit against the Lexington Police Department, alleging that it “operates within a culture of corruption and lawlessness, daily and habitually subjecting Black citizens to harassment and brutality, in violation of their civil rights.”

“We are just asking the court to restrain them from targeting, harassing, assaulting Black citizens and violating their constitutional rights in other ways,” Jill Collen Jefferson told the Mississippi Free Press last year. “It’s at a breaking point—it’s actually beyond a breaking point.”

Carr said Jefferson’s court date is set for July 13 at the Lexington Municipal Court.

Lexington is 86% Black and 13% white, but has a deeply racist past. At the dedication of a Confederate monument there in 1908, Confederate veteran Wiley N. Nash said that “these Confederate monuments, these sacred memorials, tells in silent but potent language, that the white people of the South shall rule and govern the Southern states forever.”

The monument still stands at the center of Lexington’s town square.

This story has been updated to add comments from Jefferson after her release.