#civil litigation long island

[kemetic-dreams]

Land taken from African Americans through trickery, violence and murder

For generations, African American families passed down the tales in uneasy whispers: "They stole our land."

These were family secrets shared after the children fell asleep, after neighbors turned down the lamps -- old stories locked in fear and shame.

Some of those whispered bits of oral history, it turns out, are true.

In an 18-month investigation, The Associated Press documented a pattern in which African Americans were cheated out of their land or driven from it through intimidation, violence and even murder.

In some cases, government officials approved the land takings; in others, they took part in them. The earliest occurred before the Civil War; others are being litigated today.

Some of the land taken from African families has become a country club in Virginia, oil fields in Mississippi, a major-league baseball spring training facility in Florida.

The United States has a long history of bitter, often violent land disputes, from claim jumping in the gold fields to range wars in the old West to broken treaties with American Indians. Poor European landowners, too, were sometimes treated unfairly, pressured to sell out at rock-bottom prices by railroads and lumber and mining companies.

The fate of African American landowners has been an overlooked part of this story.

The AP -- in an investigation that included interviews with more than 1,000 people and the examination of tens of thousands of public records in county courthouses and state and federal archives -- documented 107 land takings in 13 Southern and border states.

In those cases alone, 406 African American landowners lost more than 24,000 acres of farm and timber land plus 85 smaller properties, including stores and city lots. Today, virtually all of this property, valued at tens of millions of dollars, is owned by Europeans or by corporations.

Properties taken from Africans were often small -- a 40-acre farm, a general store, a modest house. But the losses were devastating to families struggling to overcome the legacy of slavery. In the agrarian South, landownership was the ladder to respect and prosperity -- the means to building economic security and passing wealth on to the next generation. When African American families lost their land, they lost all of this.

"When they steal your land, they steal your future," said Stephanie Hagans, 40, of Atlanta, who has been researching how her great-grandmother, Ablow Weddington Stewart, lost 35 acres in Matthews, N.C. A European lawyer foreclosed on Stewart in 1942 after he refused to allow her to finish paying off a $540 debt, witnesses told the AP.

"How different would our lives be," Hagans asked, "if we'd had the opportunities, the pride that land brings?"

No one knows how many African American families have been unfairly stripped of their land, but there are indications of extensive loss.

Besides the 107 cases the AP documented, reporters found evidence of scores of other land takings that could not be fully verified because of gaps or inconsistencies in the public record. Thousands of additional reports of land takings from African American families remain uninvestigated.

Two thousand have been collected in recent years by the Penn Center on St. Helena Island, S.C., an educational institution established for freed slaves during the Civil War. The Land Loss Prevention Project, a group of lawyers in Durham, N.C., who represent blacks in land disputes, said it receives new reports daily. And Heather Gray of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives in Atlanta said her organization has "file cabinets full of complaints."

AP's findings "are just the tip of one of the biggest crimes of this country's history," said Ray Winbush, director of Fisk University's Institute of Race Relations.

Some examples of land takings documented by the AP:

After midnight on Oct. 4, 1908, 50 hooded European men surrounded the home of a African farmer in Hickman, Ky., and ordered him to come out for a whipping. When David Walker refused and shot at them instead, the mob poured coal oil on his house and set it afire, according to contemporary newspaper accounts. Pleading for mercy, Walker ran out the front door, followed by four screaming children and his wife, carrying a baby in her arms. The mob shot them all, wounding three children and killing the others. Walker's oldest son never escaped the burning house. No one was ever charged with the killings, and the surviving children were deprived of the farm their father died defending. Land records show that Walker's 2 1/2-acre farm was simply folded into the property of a white neighbor. The neighbor soon sold it to another man, whose daughter owns the undeveloped land today.In the 1950s and 1960s, a Chevrolet dealer in Holmes County, Miss., acquired hundreds of acres from African American farmers by foreclosing on small loans for farm equipment and pickup trucks. Norman Weathersby, then the only dealer in the area, required the farmers to put up their land as security for the loans, county residents who dealt with him said. And the equipment he sold them, they said, often broke down shortly thereafter. Weathersby's friend, William E. Strider, ran the local Farmers Home Administration -- the credit lifeline for many Southern farmers. Area residents, including Erma Russell, 81, said Strider, now dead, was often slow in releasing farm operating loans to Africans. When cash-poor farmers missed payments owed to Weathersby, he took their land. The AP documented eight cases in which Weathersby acquired African-owned farms this way. When he died in 1973, he left more than 700 acres of this land to his family, according to estate papers, deeds and court records.In 1964, the state of Alabama sued Lemon Williams and Lawrence Hudson, claiming the cousins had no right to two 40-acre farms their family had worked in Sweet Water, Ala., for nearly a century. The land, officials contended, belonged to the state. Circuit Judge Emmett F. Hildreth urged the state to drop its suit, declaring it would result in "a severe injustice." But when the state refused, saying it wanted income from timber on the land, the judge ruled against the family. Today, the land lies empty; the state recently opened some of it to logging. The state's internal memos and letters on the case are peppered with references to the family's race.

In the same courthouse where the case was heard, the AP located deeds and tax records documenting that the family had owned the land since an ancestor bought the property on Jan. 3, 1874. Surviving records also show the family paid property taxes on the farms from the mid-1950s until the land was taken.

AP reporters tracked the land cases by reviewing deeds, mortgages, tax records, estate papers, court proceedings, surveyor maps, oil and gas leases, marriage records, census listings, birth records, death certificates and Freedmen's Bureau archives. Additional documents, including FBI files and Farmers Home Administration records, were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

The AP interviewed black families that lost land, as well as lawyers, title searchers, historians, appraisers, genealogists, surveyors, land activists, and local, state and federal officials.

The AP also talked to current owners of the land, nearly all of whom acquired the properties years after the land takings occurred. Most said they knew little about the history of their land. When told about it, most expressed regret.

Weathersby's son, John, 62, who now runs the dealership in Indianola, Miss., said he had little direct knowledge about his father's business affairs. However, he said he was sure his father never would have sold defective vehicles and that he always treated people fairly.

Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman examined the state's files on the Sweet Water case after an inquiry from the AP. He said he found them "disturbing" and has asked the state attorney general to review the matter.

"What I have asked the attorney general to do," he said, "is look not only at the letter of the law but at what is fair and right."

The land takings are part of a larger picture -- a 91-year decline in African American landownership in America.

In 1910, African Americans owned more farmland than at any time before or since -- at least 15 million acres. Nearly all of it was in the South, largely in Mississippi, Alabama and the Carolinas, according to the U.S. Agricultural Census. Today, Africans own only 1.1 million of the country's more than 1 billion acres of arable land. They are part owners of another 1.07 million acres.

The number of European American farmers has declined over the last century, too, as economic trends have concentrated land in fewer, often corporate, hands. However, African American ownership has declined 2 1/2 times faster than white ownership, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission noted in a 1982 report, the last comprehensive federal study on the trend.

The decline in African American landownership had a number of causes, including the discriminatory lending practices of the Farmers Home Administration and the migration of Africans from the rural South to industrial centers in the North and West.

However, the land takings also contributed. In the decades between Reconstruction and the civil rights struggle, black families were powerless to prevent them, said Stuart E. Tolnay, a University of Washington sociologist and co-author of a book on lynchings. In an era when African Americans could not drink from the same water fountains as European and African men were lynched for whistling at white women, few Africans dared to challenge Europeans. Those who did could rarely find lawyers to take their cases or judges who would give them a fair hearing.

The Rev. Isaac Simmons was an exception. When his land was taken, he found a lawyer and tried to fight back.

In 1942, his 141-acre farm in Amite County, Miss., was sold for nonpayment of taxes, property records show. The farm, for which his father had paid $302 in 1887, was bought by a European man for $180.

Only partial, tattered tax records for the period exist today in the county courthouse; but they are enough to show that tax payments on at least part of the property were current when the land was taken.

Simmons hired a lawyer in February 1944 and filed suit to get his land back. On March 26, a group of Europeans paid Simmons a visit.

The minister's daughter, Laura Lee Houston, now 74, recently recalled her terror as she stood with her month-old baby in her arms and watched the men drag Simmons away. "I screamed and hollered so loud," she said. "They came toward me and I ran down in the woods."

The Europeans then grabbed Simmons' son, Eldridge, from his house and drove the two men to a lonely road.

"Two of them kept beating me," Eldridge Simmons later told the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "They kept telling me that my father and I were 'smart niggers' for going to see a lawyer."

Simmons, who has since died, said his captors gave him 10 days to leave town and told his father to start running. Later that day, the minister's body turned up with three gunshot wounds in the back, The McComb Enterprise newspaper reported at the time.

Today, the Simmons land -- thick with timber and used for hunting -- is privately owned and is assessed at $33,660. (Officials assess property for tax purposes, and the valuation is usually less than its market value.)

Over the past 20 years, a handful of African families have sued to regain their ancestral lands. State courts, however, have dismissed their cases on grounds that statutes of limitations had expired.

A group of attorneys led by Harvard University law professor Charles J. Ogletree has been making inquries recently about land takings. The group has announced its intention to file a national class-action lawsuit in pursuit of reparations for slavery and racial discrimination. However, some legal experts say redress for many land takings may not be possible unless laws are changed.

As the acres slipped away, so did treasured pieces of family history -- cabins crafted by a grandfather's hand, family graves in shaded groves.

But "the home place" meant more than just that. Many Africans have found it "very difficult to transfer wealth from one generation to the next," because they had trouble holding onto land, said Paula Giddings, a history professor at Duke University.

The Espy family in Vero Beach, Fla., lost its heritage in 1942, when the U.S. government seized its land through eminent domain to build an airfield. Government agencies frequently take land this way for public purposes under rules that require fair compensation for the owners.

In Vero Beach, however, the Navy appraised the Espys' 147 acres, which included a 30-acre fruit grove, two houses and 40 house lots, at $8,000, according to court records. The Espys sued, and an all-white jury awarded them $13,000. That amounted to one-sixth of the price per acre that the Navy paid European neighbors for similar land with fewer improvements, records show.

After World War II, the Navy gave the airfield to the city of Vero Beach. Ignoring the Espys' plea to buy back their land, the city sold part of it, at $1,500 an acre, to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1965 as a spring training facility.

In 1999, the former Navy land, with parts of Dodgertown and a municipal airport, was assessed at $6.19 million. Sixty percent of that land once belonged to the Espys. The team sold its property to Indian River County for $10 million in August, according to Craig Callan, a Dodgers official.

The true extent of land takings from African families will never be known because of gaps in property and tax records in many rural Southern counties. The AP found crumbling tax records, deed books with pages torn from them, file folders with documents missing, and records that had been crudely altered.

In Jackson Parish, La., 40 years of moldy, gnawed tax and mortgage records were piled in a cellar behind a roll of Christmas lights and a wooden reindeer. In Yazoo County, Miss., volumes of tax and deed records filled a classroom in an abandoned school, the papers coated with white dust from a falling ceiling. The AP retrieved dozens of documents that custodians said were earmarked for shredders or landfills.

The AP also found that about a third of the county courthouses in Southern and border states have burned -- some more than once -- since the Civil War. Some of the fires were deliberately set.

On the night of Sept. 10, 1932, for example, 15 Europeans torched the courthouse in Paulding, Miss., where property records for the eastern half of Jasper County, then predominantly African, were stored. Records for the predominantly white western half of the county were safe in another courthouse miles away.

The door to the Paulding courthouse's safe, which protected the records, had been locked the night before, the Jasper County News reported at the time. The next morning, the safe was found open, most of the records reduced to ashes.

Suddenly, it was unclear who owned a big piece of eastern Jasper County.

Even before the courthouse fire, landownership in Jasper County was contentious. According to historical accounts, the Ku Klux Klan, resentful that African were buying and profiting from land, had been attacking African-owned farms, burning houses, lynching African farmers and chasing African American landowners away.

The Masonite Corp., a wood products company, was one of the largest landowners in the area. Because most of the land records had been destroyed, the company went to court in December 1937 to clear its title. Masonite believed it owned 9,581 acres and said in court papers that it had been unable to locate anyone with a rival claim to the land.

A month later, the court ruled the company had clear title to the land, which has since yielded millions of dollars in natural gas, timber and oil, according to state records.

From the few property records that remain, the AP was able to document that at least 204.5 of those acres had been acquired by Masonite after African American owners were driven off by the Klan. At least 850,000 barrels of oil have been pumped from this property, according to state oil and gas board records and figures from the Petroleum Technology Transfer Council, an industry group.

Today, the land is owned by International Paper Corp., which acquired Masonite in 1988. Jenny Boardman, a company spokeswoman, said International Paper had been unaware of the "tragic" history of the land and was concerned about AP's findings.

"This is probably part of a much larger, public debate about whether there should be restitution for people who have been harmed in the past," she said. "And by virtue of the fact that we now own these lands, we should be part of that discussion."

Even when Southern courthouses remained standing, mistrust and fear of white authority long kept Africans away from record rooms, where documents often were segregated into "white" and "colored." Many elderly Africans say they still remember how they were snubbed by court clerks, spat upon and even struck.

Today, however, fear and shame have given way to pride. Interest in genealogy among African families is surging, and some African whispered stories.

"People are out there wondering: What ever happened to Grandma's land?" said Loretta Carter Hanes, 75, a retired genealogist. "They knew that their grandparents shed a lot of blood and tears to get it."

Bryan Logan, a 55-year-old sports writer from Washington, D.C., was researching his heritage when he uncovered a connection to 264 acres of riverfront property in Richmond, Va.

Today, the land is Willow Oaks, an almost exclusively European American country club with an assessed value of $2.94 million. But in the 1850s, it was a corn-and-wheat plantation worked by the Howlett slaves -- Logan's ancestors.

Their owner, Thomas Howlett, directed in his will that his 15 slaves be freed, that his plantation be sold and that the slaves receive the proceeds. When he died in 1856, his European relatives challenged the will, but two courts upheld it.

Yet the freed slaves never got a penny.

Benjamin Hatcher, the executor of the estate, simply took over the plantation, court records show. He cleared the timber and mined the stone, providing granite for the Navy and War Department buildings in Washington and the capitol in Richmond, according to records in the National Archives.

When the Civil War ended in 1865, the former slaves complained to the occupying Union Army, which ordered Virginia courts to investigate.

Hatcher testified that he had sold the plantation in 1862 -- apparently to his son, Thomas -- but had not given the proceeds to the former slaves. Instead, court papers show, the proceeds were invested on their behalf in Confederate War Bonds. There is nothing in the public record to suggest the former slaves wanted their money used to support the Southern war effort.

Moreover, the bonds were purchased in the former slaves' names in 1864 -- a dubious investment at best in the fourth year of the war. Within months, Union armies were marching on Atlanta and Richmond, and the bonds were worthless pieces of paper.

The Africans insisted they were never given even that, but in 1871, Virginia's highest court ruled that Hatcher was innocent of wrongdoing and that the former slaves were owed nothing.

The following year, the plantation was broken up and sold at a public auction. Hatcher's son received the proceeds, county records show. In the 1930s, a Richmond businessman cobbled the estate back together; he sold it to Willow Oaks Corp. in 1955 for an unspecified amount.

"I don't hold anything against Willow Oaks," Logan said. "But how Virginia's courts acted, how they allowed the land to be stolen -- it goes against everything America stands for."

[madamlaydebug]

The Destruction of Black Civilization and The Origin of African Civilization by Chancellor Williams were challenged at the Prince George County high school libraries in 1993 because the two volumes were said to promote “racism against white people.” In a complaint filed with the state, the works were called “racist pornography” written “to provoke emotions and actions of racial prejudice, bias, hatred, and hostility towards citizens and students in Maryland.”

A widely read history of Africans well researched analysis details the development of civilization in Africa. Now ask yourself, what information is contained in this they really did not want you to know? And do you know it?

Challenged and Banned Books by and about African Americans

Young and Black In America by Rae Pace Alexander

1983—After the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union sued the Elk River School Board, the Board reversed its decision to restrict the title to students who have written permission from their parents. (MN)

And the Walls Came Tumbling Down by Ralph D. Abernathy

1989—Burned protest in Denver because it alleges that Martin Luther King, Jr. was involved with three women. E. Napoleon Walton, the publisher of the Denver Cosmopolitan Advertiser, stated, “[Abernathy] has his freedom of speech, and we have our freedom to burn it.” (CO)

And Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

1982—Challenged at the Northside High School in Lafayette, Louisiana. (LA)

1987—Challenged at the Longview school system in Washington because some “students could be harmed by its graphic language.” (WA)

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

1983 – 2009—Over thirty-five challenges in twenty states since the book’s publication.

2009—Challenged in the Newman-Crows Landing School District on a required reading list presented by the Orestimba High English Department. A trustee questioned the qualifications of Orestimba staff to teach a novel depicting African American culture. (CA)

Another Country by James Baldwin

1963—Considered obscene, the book was banned from the New Orleans Public library. After a year of litigation, it was restored. (LA)

Blues for Mister Charlie by James Baldwin

1980—Challenged in Sioux Falls, South Dakota because it’s “pornographic,” and it “tears down Christian principles.” (SD).

Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

1994—Challenged as required reading in the Hudson Falls Schools because the books has recurring themes of rape, masturbation, violence, and degrading treatment of women. (NY)

1998—Challenged as a ninth-grade summer reading option in Prince William County because the book “was rife with profanity and explicit sex.” (VA)

If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin

1989—Removed from the St. Paul High School Library because the book contains obscene language and explicit descriptions of sexual activity. (OR)

Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone by James Baldwin

1983—Four members of the Alabama State Textbook Committee called for its rejection because Baldwin’s work preaches “bitterness and hatred against whites.” (AL)

The Toilet by Amiri Baraka

1969—Expurgated at Eastern High School to eliminate “four-letter words or vernacular.”

Manchild in the Promised Land by Claude Brown

1974 – 1987—Challenged five times in four states. (WI, FL, LA, OH, OR)

1987—Challenged at the Parkrose High School because the content is “violent, the language offensive, and women are degraded.” The protestors also questioned its relevance, claiming that Parkrose students have no need to understand life in a black ghetto. (OR)

A Hero Ain’t Nothin But a Sandwich by Alice Childress

1976 – 1994—Challenged five times in five states. (NY, GA, TX, MD, SC)

1976—Removed from Island Trees School Union Free District High School library along with nine other titles because they were considered “immoral, anti-American, anti-Christian, or just plain filthy.” (NY)

Rainbow Jordan by Alice Childress

1986—Challenged at the Gwinnett County public schools because of “foul language and sexual references.” (GA)

1986—Banned from Spokane middle schools because the book’s storyline about a prostitute’s daughter was “too mature.” (WA)

Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver

1969 -1979—Challenged five times in four states. (CA, CT, NY, WA)

1975—Challenged at the Greenwich High School library because the book is “crime provoking and anti-American as well as obscene and pornographic.” (CT)

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

1994—Retained in the Yakima schools after a five-month dispute over what advanced high school students should read in the classroom. Two parents raised concerns about profanity and images of violence and sexuality in the book and requested that it be removed from the reading list. (WA)

2013—North Carolina school board considers banning the book after the mother of an 11-grader complained, claiming Ellison’s work was inappropriate for 11th grade summer reading, citing both language and subject matter.

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines

2006—Challenged as an eighth-grade district-wide reading assignment in the Puyallup schools because “racial slurs and stereotyping are used throughout the book, as well as scenes of sex, rape, and implied incest.”

A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines

2004—Removed from the college bookstore at Louisiana College, Pineville by the college president “because a love scene described in the book clashes with the school’s Christian values.” (LA)

My House by Nikki Giovanni

1992—Challenged by the Duval County public school libraries because it contains the word “nigger” and was accused of containing excessive vulgarity, racism, and sex. (FL)

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

1979—Responding to criticism from an anti-pornography organization, the Ogden School District restricted circulation of Hansberry’s play. (UT)

Nappy Hair by Carolivia Herron

1998—Challenged in Brooklyn because it was considered racially insensitive. (NY)

The Best Short Stories By Negro Writers an Anthology From 1899 to the Presentedited by Langston Hughes

1976—Removed from Island Trees School Union Free District High School library along with nine other titles because they were considered “immoral, anti-American, anti-Christian, or just plain filthy.” (NY)

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

1997—Challenged for sexual explicitness, but retained on the Stonewall Jackson High School’s academically advanced reading list in Brentsville. A parent objected to the novel’s language and sexual explicitness.

Call Me Charley by Jesse Jackson

1979—Parents of a black fourth-grade student filed suit against Grand Blanc school officials after a teacher read this title to their son’s class. The work includes a black youth “Sambo,” “nigger,” and “coon.”

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcom X with Alex Haley

1993—Challenged in the Duval County Public School district because the slain Black Muslim leader advocated anti-white racism and violence. (FL)

Mirandy and Brother Wind by Patricia McKissack

1991—Challenged at the Glen Springs Elementary School in Gainesville, Florida, because of the book’s use of black dialect. (FL)

Daddy Was a Number Runner by Louise Meriweather

1977—Removed from all Oakland junior high school libraries and its use restricted in senior high schools, following a complaint about the book’s explicit depiction of ghetto life. (CA)

Beloved by Toni Morrison

1995 – 2007—Challenged seven times in six states since its publication. (FL, TX, ME, IL, ID, & KY)

2007—Challenged in the Coeur d’Alene School District. Some parents say the book along with five others should require parental permission for students to read them. (ID)

2013—Parent wants the book removed because she believes it depicts scenes of bestiality, gang rape and an infant’s gruesome murder, content she believes could be too intense for teenage readers.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

1994 – 2007—Challenged eleven times in nine states since publication. (AK, PA, FL, MA, MD, NH, CA, CO, MI)

2005—Banned from the Littleton curriculum and library shelves after complaints about its explicit sex, including the rape of an eleven-year-old girl by her father. (CO)

2013– The board of education president in Ohio is criticizing the inclusion of the book on the Common Core Standard’s recommended reading list for 11th-graders, labeling the controversial work “pornographic,” and wishes to ban it from the classroom.

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

1993 – 2009—Challenged in five states due to its sexually explicitly language. (OH, GA, FL, MD, MI)

1998—Removed from the St. Mary’s County Schools’ approved text list by the school superintendent overruling a faculty committee recommendation. Complaints referred to the novel as “filth,” “trash,” and “repulsive.” (MD)

Sula by Toni Morrison

2000—Challenged on the Poolesville High School reading list because of the book’s sexual content and language. On October 5, 2000, Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Paul McGuckian dismissed the bid to band the work from the curriculum. The school, however, decided to remove the book from the summer reading list. (MD)

Learning Tree by Gordon Parks

1976 – 2006—Challenged seven times in seven states since publication. (WY, MD, RI, WA, FL, MN, AL)

2006—Challenged on the summer reading list at LeFlore High School in Mobile becdause the author frequently used inappropriate words, such as “nigga,” “bitch,” “bastard,” and “ass.” (AL)

The Black Poets edited by Randall Dudley

1982—Banned for use in English classrooms at the Tinley Park High School because the book “extols murder, rape, theft, incest, sodomy, and other acts.” (IL)

Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold

1994—Challenged in the Spokane elementary school libraries because it stereotypes African Americans as eating fried chicken and watermelon and drinking beer at family picnics. The book is based on the memories of its author’s family rooftop picnics in 1930’s Harlem. The book won the 1992 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for its portrayal of minorities. (WA)

Push by Sapphire

2005—Challenged, but retained at Fayetteville High School despite a parent’s complaint that it was sexually explicit. The complainant also submitted a list of more than fifty books, citing the books as too sexually explicit and promoting homosexuality. (AL)

The Friendship by Mildred Taylor

1997—Challenged, but retained in the Prince George’s County school system after a parent claimed that book has “no redeeming value.” (MD)

The Land by Mildred Taylor

2008—Removed from the Turner Elementary School media center shelves in New Tampa as age inappropriate. A parent challenged the book because the novel contains a racial epithet. The book was a 2002 Coretta Scott King Author Award recipient. (FL)

Mississippi Bridge by Mildred Taylor

2001—Challenged by retained at the Donahoe Elementary School library in Sandston despite objections of its “negative content and [that] it’s riddled with prejudice.” The novel by the Newberry Medal-winning author tells the story of a young black man who tries to save white passengers in a bus accident, despite being ordered earlier to give up his seat to “white folks.” (VA)

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor

1993 – 2004—Challenged four times in four states. (LA, CA, AL, FL).

Bloods: Black Veterans of the Vietnam War: An Oral History by Terry Wallace

1987—Banned from the West Hernando Middle School library in Spring Hill because of “harsh language and presents a moral danger to students.” The librarian filled a grievance and the book was returned to the shelves following a ruling by the American Arbitration Association. Forty minutes after the book was returned, the book was removed again, pending a review by an advisory committee. (FL)

Down These Mean Streets by Thomas Piri

1976—Removed from the Island Trees Union Free School District High School library along with nine other titles because they were considered “immoral, anti-American, anti-Christian, or just plain filthy.” Returned to the library after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on June 25, 1982 in Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 et. al. v. Pico et. al., 457 U.S. 853 (1982). (NY)

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

1984 – 2008—Challenged eighteen times since publication. (CA, VA, MI, TN, WY, NC, PA, CT, FL, OR, TX, WV, OH)

1985—Rejected for purchase by Hayward school trustees because of “rough language” and “explicit sex scenes”. (CA)

The Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker

1997—Removed from the Jackson County school libraries along with sixteen other titles. (WV)

Jubilee by Margaret Walker

1977—Challenged in the Greenville County school libraries by the Titan of the Fourth Province of the Knights of the Klu Klux Klan because the novel produces “racial strife and hatred.” (SC)

The Destruction of Black Civilization and The Origin of African Civilization by Chancellor Williams

1993—Challenged at the Prince George County high school libraries because the two volumes promote “racism against white people.” In a complaint filed with the state, the works were called “racist pornography” written “to provoke emotions and actions of racial prejudice, bias, hatred, and hostility towards citizens and students in Maryland.” (MD)

Black Boy by Richard Wright

1972 – 2007—Challenged nine times in seven states since publication. (MI, LA, TN, NY, NE, TX, FL)

1987—Challenged in the Lincoln school libraries because of the novel’s “corruptive, obscene nature.” (NE)

Native Son by Richard Wright

1981—Challenged in North Adam’s due to the book’s “violence, sex, and profanity.” (MA)

1988—Challenged in the Hamilton High School curriculum in Fort Wayne because of the novel’s graphic language and sexual content. (IN)

[mariacallous]

NEW YORK — Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman announced Thursday that transgender athletes are no longer allowed to compete in sports aligned with their gender identity at county-run facilities.

Blakeman, a Republican, said the executive order prohibits organizations with trans athletes in their teams “from playing at any of our 100 county facilities.”

The order is the first of its kind enacted by a local government, according to Blakeman, who announced it Thursday morning at a ceremony in Mineola.

According to the order, which did not have to pass the legislature and took effect immediately, “any sports, leagues, organizations, teams, programs, or sports entities” must assign athletes to one of three categories based on their gender assigned at birth when applying for a permit to use Nassau County Parks property.

The categories are “males, men, or boys,” “females, women, or girls” or “coed or mixed, including both males and females,” which excludes transgender athletes.

The ban appears to be a blatant violation of New York State anti-bias laws, which bar discrimination from public accommodations on the basis of “gender identity or expression.”

Attorney General Letitia James said her office is “reviewing (its) legal options,” calling the order “transphobic and deeply dangerous.”

“My office is charged with enforcing and upholding (anti-discrimination) laws, and we stand up to those who violate them and trespass on the rights of marginalized communities,” she said.

Blakeman’s announcement was also slammed by LGBTQ and legal rights advocates who vowed to fight back against the county executive’s “illegal” and “cynical” executive order.

“We will consider all options to stop it,” Bobby Hodgson, director of LGBTQ rights litigation with the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), told The News in an email.

The order is just an “attempt to shut trans people out of public spaces,” Hodgson said. “Requiring girls who are trans to compete on boys’ teams effectively bars them from sports altogether,” he added.

Dr. David Kilmnick, president and founder of the New York LGBT Network, a family of nonprofits serving the LGBTQ community of Long Island and Queens, said the “discriminatory move not only undermines the principles of inclusivity and fairness but also perpetuates harmful stereotypes and exclusion.”

Additionally, the order is “fundamentally flawed,” he said, noting New York state law “explicitly protects the rights of transgender individuals, ensuring their equal participation in all aspects of life, including sports.”

On Thursday, when signing his fifth executive order since taking office in January 2022, Blakeman maintained the order was not discriminatory, but simply a matter of fairness.

“It is an unfair advantage for (a trans girl or woman) to compete against (a cisgender girl or woman), he said in a speech filled with terms widely considered offensive to trans people, while surrounded by elementary school students holding pink signs that read “Protect women’s sports.”

“I view it as a form of bullying and it will not be tolerated,” he added.

Assemblywoman Gina Sillitti, a Democrat who represents parts of Nassau County, said Blakeman was not issuing the order to protect anyone, but instead to “grab headlines” that could lead to a “culture of hate towards transgender children.”

“Directing vitriol toward children should not and can never be tolerated,” she said in a statement to The News.

Nassau County Legislature’s Democratic Minority Leader Delia DeRiggi-Whitton criticized the county executive for “legislating little leagues” with the order.

Instead of giving Nassau County residents “falsely promised tax cuts and a fairer property assessment system,” Blakeman has instead been more interested in “self-promotion by spending public money on private golf outings, swanky galas, and unrelated press conferences” — such as the one announcing today’s transgender sports ban, “which has nothing to do with his responsibilities.”

[beardedmrbean]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday is taking up challenges by commercial fishermen to a fee requirement that could achieve a long-sought goal of business and conservative interests: limiting a wide swath of government regulations.

Billions of dollars are potentially at stake in front of a court that, like the rest of the federal judiciary, was remade during Donald Trump’s presidency by conservative interests that were motivated as much by weakening the regulatory state as social issues including abortion.

Lawyers for the fishermen are asking the justices to overturn a 40-year-old decision that is among the most frequently cited high court cases in support of regulatory power, including on the environment, public health, workplace safety and consumer protections.

Lower courts used the decision known colloquially as Chevron to uphold a 2020 National Marine Fisheries Service rule that herring fishermen pay for government-mandated observers who track their fish intake.

The 1984 decision states that when laws aren’t crystal clear, federal agencies should be allowed to fill in the details as long as they come up with a reasonable interpretation. “Judges are not experts in the field, and are not part of either political branch of government,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the court in 1984, explaining why they should play a limited role. The court ruled 6-0, with three justices recused.

But the current high court, with a 6-3 conservative majority that includes three appointees of Trump, has been increasingly skeptical of the powers of federal agencies. At least four justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — have questioned the Chevron decision.

Opponents of the Chevron doctrine argue that judges apply it too often to rubber-stamp decisions made by government bureaucrats. Judges must exercise their own authority and judgment to say what the law is, the lawyers for the company that owns the Rhode Island based Relentless and Persistence fishing boats told the court.

They also say that agencies effectively act as judges in their own cases. “It is patently unfair for a court to defer to an agency’s interpretation in cases where the agency itself is a litigant, before that same court, in the actual case at hand,” the lawyers wrote.

Defending the rulings that upheld the fees, the Biden administration said that overturning the Chevron decision would produce a “convulsive shock” to the legal system.

“Chevron gives appropriate weight to the expertise, often of a scientific or technical nature, that federal agencies can bring to bear in interpreting federal statutes,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote on behalf of the administration.

Environmental, health advocacy groups, civil rights organizations, organized labor and Democrats on the national and state level are urging the court to leave the Chevron decision in place.

Gun, e-cigarette, farm, timber and home-building groups are among the business groups supporting the fishermen. Conservative interests that also intervened in recent high court cases limiting regulation of air and water pollution are backing the fishermen as well.

The justices are hearing two cases on the same issue. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is recused in one case, from New Jersey, because she took part in it at an earlier stage when she was an appeals court judge. The full court is participating in the case from Rhode Island, which the justices added to their docket several months later.

[airasilver]

MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — Olympic gold medalist Caitlyn Jenner on Monday said she supported a local New York official’s order banning female sports teams with transgender athletes from using county-owned facilities.

The ban applies to over 100 athletic facilities in New York City's Long Island suburbs. Speaking alongside Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman at his office in Mineola, Jenner said allowing transgender athletes like herself to compete against other women will “ruin women’s sports” for years to come.

“Let’s stop it now while we can,” said the reality television star, who came out as a transgender woman in 2015.

The LGBT Network, a Long Island-based advocacy group, called Jenner’s comments a “baffling contradiction” to her own identity as a transgender woman that is “not only hypocritical but also harmful" to the LGBTQ community.

“It is disheartening to witness someone who has experienced the challenges of being marginalized actively contribute to the oppression of others within the same community,” David Kilmnick, the group’s president, said in a statement. “Such actions only serve to amplify the voices of intolerance and detract from the collective efforts towards a more inclusive society."

Blakeman, a Republican elected in 2021, issued an executive order in February requiring any teams, leagues or organizations seeking a permit from the county’s parks and recreation department to “expressly designate” whether they are for male, female or coed athletes.

Any teams designated as “female” would be denied permits if they allow transgender athletes to participate.

The ban doesn’t apply to men’s teams with transgender athletes. It covers all Nassau County-owned facilities, including ballfields, basketball and tennis courts, swimming pools and ice rinks.

Jenner, 74, competed against men when she won the Olympic gold medal in the decathlon in 1976. She said she has “sympathy” for LGBTQ people and “understands their struggles” but argued that allowing transgender people to compete with women would undermine gains female athletes achieved under Title IX, a law banning sex discrimination in programs that receive federal funds.

“All I’m trying to do is protect women,” Jenner said Monday.

Jenner, a supporter of former President Donald Trump, has been a vocal opponent of transgender athletes competing in women’s sports. A New York native, she has long lived in the Los Angeles area and ran unsuccessfully for California governor as a Republican in 2021.

Blakeman has argued the ban is intended to both foster fair play and protect girls and women from getting injured if they play against transgender women. His executive order, however, also covers sports like swimming, gymnastics, figure skating and track, where there is no physical contact between competitors.

The executive order also takes decisions about who can play out of the hands of leagues and gives it to the government.

The Long Island Roller Rebels, a local women’s roller derby league, asked a New York court to invalidate the county order, saying it violates the state’s anti-discrimination laws.

The New York Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the league, called Jenner's appearance “another disgraceful attempt” to target and villainize transgender women and girls. Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, said Blakeman's order is “transphobic and discriminatory” and violates state law.

Blakeman has filed his own lawsuit asking a federal court in New York to affirm that the order was legal.

The order is part of a growing number of anti-transgender athletic restrictions imposed nationwide. Bills banning trans youth from participating in sports have passed in some 24 states, though some have been blocked by ongoing litigation.

___

This story has been corrected to show that Blakeman was elected in 2021, not 2022.

This is surprising. I also agree with her. Though I think the male transgenders should not be allowed either.

You want to compete? Make a team of players that are transgender and then do so. People do it all the time with sports, why can’t they do it with transgender players only? Make it nation wide?

[dnaamericaapp]

Hundreds Of Lawsuits Allege Decades Of Sexual Abuse At Rikers Island

Of the more than 2,500 lawsuits filed under a special New York law, nearly 20% allege sexual violence against current or former prisoners at the infamous Rikers Island facilities.

New York’s Adult Survivors Act allowed survivors of sexual assault one year to sue no matter how long ago the alleged abuse happened. This has led to 479 lawsuits against New York City over alleged abuse at Rikers, a surge of litigation that may finally give many victims a chance at justice, legal experts and advocates say.

“There have been high rates of staff-on-inmate sexual victimization in New York state prisons,” attorney Anna Kull said. Kull said she has filed hundreds of civil cases related to reports of assault behind bars under the Adult Survivors Act.

“How do I have over 200 women who were sexually abused at Rikers? This is a systemic failure,” she said. “It requires comprehensive reform and you’re never going to see comprehensive reform without accountability.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the act in May 2022, to amend state law and allow survivors of sexual violence who were over 18 at the time of the alleged abuse to sue the people they have accused regardless of the original statute of limitations. The act expired on Nov. 24, but not before a swath of lawsuits against celebrities such as Sean “Diddy” Combs and Jamie Foxx and politicians such as New York City Mayor Eric Adams and former President Donald Trump made headlines.

Kull said she finds the number of lawsuits stemming from the jail to be staggering, but not surprising considering Rikers’ reputation as “one of the most dangerous prisons in the United States,” a sentiment shared by advocates supporting survivors of sexual violence. -(source: nbc news)

DNA America

“It’s what we know, not what you want us to believe.”

#dna #dnaamerica #news #politics

[nbmsports]

Virgin Islands says JPMorgan should pay damages in Epstein case

The government of the U.S. Virgin Islands in a court filing Friday estimated that it will seek damages of at least $190 million from JPMorgan Chase in a lawsuit accusing the big bank of facilitating sex trafficking by its former long-time customer Jeffrey Epstein.The Virgin Islands also said it wants an order requiring JPMorgan to take a series of steps to protect young women and girls from other predators in the future. "These sets of recommendations aim to address the same core problem: JPMorgan's knowledge of and failure to report Epstein's trafficking because it lacked the economic incentive and motivation to place compliance with the law and prevention of trafficking ahead of its own profits," the filing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan says.The American territory also said it will seek further compensatory damages specifically for victims of Epstein beyond the nearly $300 million JPMorgan agreed to pay victims last month to settle a lawsuit by one of his accusers. The filing did not give an amount for those additional damages from the bank, which has staunchly denied any wrongdoing.The new filing came in response to a request last week by Judge Jed Rakoff that the territory detail the damages it seeks in the case as it heads toward a scheduled Oct. 23 trial.The Virgin Islands' suit accuses JPMorgan of benefiting from Epstein's trafficking of young women to be abused by him and others during the 15 years he was a client of the bank, which is the largest in the United States.The complaint alleges JPMorgan allowed Epstein to keep many millions of dollars in accounts at the bank, which he used to fund his trafficking of women, despite multiple red flags about him raised by bank employees over the years. "We are pursuing this enforcement action because JPMorgan Chase's institutional failure enabled Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking, and JPMorgan Chase must make significant changes to detect, report and stop human trafficking," said U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Ariel Smith in a statement Friday."Financial penalties, as well as conduct changes, are important to make sure that JPMorgan Chase knows the cost of putting its own profits ahead of public safety," said Smith.She said that if the Virgin Islands wins its suit, it will uses the monetary damages it receives "to support efforts to strengthen, inform, and expand local law enforcement and enhance the Virgin Islands' services for victims of human trafficking and other victims of crime."A JPMorgan spokeswoman, when asked for comment about the filing, indicated for what appears to be the first time that the bank's attorneys have discussed a possible settlement of the lawsuit with lawyers for the Virgin Islands, which would avoid a trial."This document does not reflect the nature of settlement conversations," said the spokeswoman, Patricia Wexler. " As for the USVI's misdirected damages theories, they are not well founded and are being challenged by JPM in court."It is common in civil litigation for cases to be settled without trial.The filing says the Virgin Islands wants at least $150 million in civil penalties alone. The filing also says that it wants JPMorgan to disgorge at least another $40 million in fees that Epstein generated for the bank, and that JPMorgan received from "many ultra-high net worth clients" he referred to the bank.Those clients, the filing said, included Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Lex Wexner, the founder of Limited Brands, and the billionaire Glenn Dubin.In addition to the monetary damages, the Virgin Islands also is asking JPMorgan be compelled "to implement new policies, including separating its business and compliance functions and designating an independent compliance consultant, to prevent human trafficking," according to a press release by Smit's office.JPMorgan in its own court filings has accused the Virgin Islands itself of being "complicit in the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein." The bank alleges Epstein gave high-ranking officials there money, advice and favors in exchange for looking the other way when he trafficked young women to be abused there.Epstein had a residence on a private island in the territory, where accusers say he and other people sexually abused them.Last month in the same court where the Virgin Islands is suing the bank JPMorgan agreed, without admitting wrongdoing, to pay $290 million to victims of Epstein to settle a suit by one of his accusers.In May, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay Epstein victims $75 million to settle a separate lawsuit by an accuser who accused that back of abetting his sex trafficking of her and others. Deutsche Bank took on Epstein as a customer after JPMorgan severed ties with him in 2013, years after bank employees first voiced concerns about him.Deutsche Bank previously agreed to pay New York state's Department of Financial Services a $150 million penalty for failure to detect or prevent millions of dollars of suspicious transactions related to Epstein, which included "payments to Russian models and to numerous women with Eastern European surnames," the filing Friday by the Virgin Islands noted.Epstein, who had been a friend to former Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, as well as Prince Andrew of Great Britain, pleaded guilty in 2008 to a Florida state charge of soliciting sex from an underage girl. He served 13 months in jail, but spent much of that time on work release each day.Epstein, then 66, killed himself in a federal jail in New York in August 2019, a month after he was arrested on federal child sex trafficking charges. Source link Read the full article

[polawyer]

Rafferty Lawyer: Everything You Need to Know About This Prominent Law Firm

PO Lawyer - If you're looking for a reliable,prominent, and experienced law firm, Rafferty Lawyer might be the one for you. Based in New York, the firm has been providing legal services for years, earning a reputation for their commitment to clients and impressive success rates. Rafferty Lawyer is a full-service law firm with offices in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County. Founded by Patrick Rafferty, the prominent law firm has been operating for over two decades, earning a reputation for their professionalism and expertise in various legal fields. They specialize in personal injury, criminal defense, civil litigation, employment law, and business law, among others.

What Are the Areas of Expertise of Rafferty Lawyer?

Rafferty Lawyer's areas of expertise include: Personal Injury Rafferty Lawyer has extensive experience in handling personal injury cases, including automobile accidents, slip and fall accidents, medical malpractice, and wrongful death. Related : Consult a Lawyer for Free: Your Ultimate Guide They work tirelessly to help clients recover compensation for medical bills, lost wages, and other damages. Criminal Defense The firm has a team of skilled criminal defense attorneys who represent clients facing criminal charges, including drug offenses, white-collar crimes, and sex crimes. They work to protect the rights of their clients and ensure that they receive a fair trial. Civil Litigation Rafferty Lawyer handles civil litigation cases, including breach of contract, property disputes, and employment litigation. Their experienced litigators represent clients in both state and federal courts. Employment Law The firm also provides legal services related to employment law, including discrimination, sexual harassment, wrongful termination, and wage and hour disputes. Their attorneys work to protect the rights of employees and ensure that they receive fair treatment in the workplace. Business Law Rafferty Lawyer provides legal services to businesses, including contract drafting and negotiation, entity formation, and mergers and acquisitions. Their attorneys work closely with business owners to ensure that their legal needs are met.

What Makes Rafferty Lawyer Stand Out?

Several factors set Rafferty Lawyer apart from other law firms. These include: Related : The Importance of Hiring an Attorney for Bankruptcy 1. Personalized Attention Rafferty Lawyer is committed to providing personalized attention to every client. They take the time to understand each client's unique needs and develop a customized legal strategy to achieve the best possible outcome. 2. Experienced Attorneys Related : Attorney for Workers Comp: What You Need to Know The firm has a team of experienced attorneys who are dedicated to providing high-quality legal services. They have a track record of success in various legal fields, and they use their knowledge and expertise to achieve the best possible results for their clients. 3. Proven Results Rafferty Lawyer has a proven track record of success, with numerous successful verdicts and settlements in various legal fields. Their attorneys work tirelessly to ensure that their clients receive the compensation they deserve. 4. Client-Focused Approach The firm's client-focused approach ensures that clients receive the attention and care they deserve. They keep clients informed throughout the legal process, answer their questions promptly, and work to alleviate their concerns. Related : Family Law Attorneys Near You: a Comprehensive Guide Rafferty Lawyer is a prominent law firm with a reputation for excellence in various legal fields. They provide personalized attention, experienced attorneys, proven results, and a client-focused approach that sets them apart from other law firms. Whether you need legal services related to personal injury, criminal defense, civil litigation, employment law, or business law, Rafferty Lawyer has the expertise and commitment to achieve the best possible outcome.

Frequently Asked Questions about Rafferty Lawyer

- How long has Rafferty Lawyer been in business? Rafferty Lawyer has been operating for over two decades, providing legal services to clients in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County. - What areas of law does Rafferty Lawyer specialize in? Rafferty Lawyer specializes in various areas of law, including personal injury, criminal defense, civil litigation, employment law, and business law, among others. - Does Rafferty Lawyer provide personalized attention to clients? Yes, Rafferty Lawyer is committed to providing personalized attention to every client. They take the time to understand each client's unique needs and develop a customized legal strategy to achieve the best possible outcome. - What sets Rafferty Lawyer apart from other law firms? Rafferty Lawyer's experienced attorneys, proven results, and client-focused approach set them apart from other law firms. They work tirelessly to ensure that their clients receive the compensation they deserve. - How can I contact Rafferty Lawyer for legal services? You can contact Rafferty Lawyer by visiting their website, calling their office, or sending an email. Their website provides information on their areas of expertise, attorneys, and contact details. We will provide information on Lawyers and Attorneys and Lawyers Near Me, Bankruptcy Attorneys, Personal Injury Lawyer, Auto Accident Lawyer, Family Lawyer and others. Don’t forget. With. Development Perfect Organiztion Lawyer by clicking on the link. In. Lower. This : Facebook. (By clicking on this link, you will be logged into PO Lawyer Facebook) Let’s click now. Or you can see our Twitter or you can visit our Google News. Check Channels YouTube For Look Lawyers Information us Visually Come on Now Join Us. Read the full article

[longislanddivorce1]

Family Law Attorney In Long Island, Ny

Court can hear the identical points that the Family Court can, many feel that the procedures are harder to navigate. For example, within the Supreme Court, paperwork must be filed requesting a choose to be assigned to a case, whereas in Family Court, a choose is routinely assigned. Additionally,

Another choice is a partial settlement agreement, the place each events can come to an settlement on most phrases, leaving the contentious factors to the choose to determine. The emotional toll is insufferable and the financial consequences can maintain even essentially the most financially secure people up at night. While some divorces are amicable and swiftly settled, others are caught within family law attorney long island ny the treacherous whirlpool of the court system. It can be disheartening to really feel as though you’ve given every thing to your husband, solely to search out yourself frequently dragged again to court, where the costs can quickly escalate.

If your partner contests the phrases, your solely recourse may be to arrange for a courtroom trial. However, there are alternate options to a trial, such as mediation or arbitration, the place a mediator or arbitrator might help iron out differences between each events. As you begin this new chapter of your life, it’s essential to ensure you’re protected and represented. A divorce attorney may be your advocate, your voice, and your support system throughout this challenging time. Don’t navigate the complexities of divorce alone, reach out for help and begin living the life you deserve.

We have mediated each scenario possible as the top divorce mediation attorney and psychologist in the area. In Divorce Litigation, the divorce lawyers and the Judge are in control. Often, the Judge will dictate the ultimate Agreement between you and your spouse. Mediation offers each family law attorney long island parties the opportunity to share their true feelings and opinions with out the presence or judgment of divorce attorneys and court witnesses. Mediation ensures that the communication is constructive, making a safe area for both events to talk issues through.

By settling issues in a civil and collaborative manner, you not only spare your kids the trauma of a contentious divorce, however you additionally retain management over necessary selections that can form your future. A settlement settlement is a chance for divorcing couples to return to a mutually useful association on the financial and parental phrases of their marriage. This might include division of assets and liabilities, spousal support, parenting plans, and baby support. Before the settlement is submitted to the court docket, you and your spouse are free to switch it at will.

your divorce or other family law matter. When dealing with your case, we are going to make it our objective to take every family law attorney in long island needed effort to get you the results you and your loved ones deserves.

incorrect within the marriage. Whether you've got been married for twenty years or two years, divorce isn't straightforward on anyone.

Usually, the Spouse with the health insurance can hold the other on the policy. In November, 2017, we opened a second  mediation office in Yaphank – proper off Exit 68 of the Expressway. Our Divorce Mediation Lawyer, Fred Klarer, then completes the divorce packet, one other set of documents wanted for a legal divorce in NY State. Your Mediator guides you and your Spouse through long island family law attorney every problem until you attain an agreement. In Divorce Mediation Long Island, we allow you to attain an agreement within a median of two classes. In working with a Divorce Mediator, you'll most likely reach a greater agreement.

[asengineering]

New York City, Ny Laws

He concluded with a review of the NYC Building Code provisions for resilience. We offered Advanced Project Delivery companies including connection engineering and Tekla modeling for SL Green’s newly opened One Vanderbilt, an iconic Class A office tower in Midtown Manhattan, to assist the project meet its aggressive building goals. HyperloopTT has announced a monetary funding from Thornton Tomasetti, a leading global scientific and engineering consulting agency that gives specialized safety, safety and threat administration providers. To better serve our mission of bringing businesses and folks together to offer cross-disciplinary options for our group and our clients, BRAVO expanded its curiosity in industry acknowledged Skyline Engineering. This merger increases BRAVO’s sources to supply further numerous providers to shoppers in search of more than simple project execution. He offers technical investigations, analysis, reviews, and testimony towards the decision of non-public injury litigation, development...

A portion of the course features distinguished guest lecturers who are experts in a variety of the methods and applied sciences included. Students in the structural engineering concentration structural engineer nyc are required to take four core programs , and four structural programs . The remaining 6 Credits may be taken as 2 electives, one elective and a 3-Credit Project, or as a 6-Credit Thesis.

Lobbying your legislature is quite a unique expertise until you hire somebody to do it for you. We don't have the cash to attempt this at this point, so this might be probably the most unnatural and challenging task for us to complete ourselves. I assume it's priceless for us to pay attention as a gaggle on some things that we all have an interest in making extra widespread from state to state. Glendale’s classical repertory company A Noise Within commissioned a 33,000 sf three-story theater constructed within the footprint of a partially demolished Stuart Pharmaceutical Company, the landmark designed by Edward Durell Stone. The New World Center indeed creates a brand new world of music and light-weight, and is true at residence in South Beach. The 100,641-sq.-ft facility is the new state-of-the-art house of Miami’s New World Symphony and was constructed as part of the City Center Redevelopment Project in a public/private partnership with Miami Dade County and the City of Miami Beach.

GMS served as structural engineer for this new brand to establish their first property in the US at 1201 K Street NW in Washington, D.C. Designs construction to meet estimated load necessities, computing size, shape, strength, and sort of structural members, or performs structural evaluation of plans and buildings prepared by other engineers. ERI'scompensation dataare based mostly onsalary surveysconducted and researched by ERI. Cost of labordata in the Assessor Series are based mostly on precise housing sales knowledge from commercially out there sources, plus rental rates, gasoline prices, consumables, medical care premium prices, property taxes, efficient revenue tax rates, and so on. Structural Engineer - Entry-Level access_time Posted 2 days in the past account_balance Bala Consulting location_on New York Bala is seeking formidable degreed Structural Engineers who thrive on challenges and need to grow their career. The qualified candidate will have a BS in Civil Engineering and software knowledge together with ...

In the neighborhood, Conry is involved in quite a few fundraising occasions for the American Cancer Society. An avid runner, he has accomplished the New York City Marathon, the Long Island Gold Coast Triathlon, and several other half marathons. He has also participated in racing events benefitting charitable organizations, together with several Tough Mudder obstacle courses for the Wounded Warrior Project as properly as the annual Tunnel to Towers run. Conry is an energetic member of ASCE and the Structural Engineers Association of NY .

GMS additionally reviewed the support and design for the new metal framed floor flooring public seating space. Situated across the street from the High Line Park, 837 Washington Street is a six-story workplace and retail development designed by Morris Adjmi Architects and constructed by Sciame Construction for Thor Equities and Taconic Investment Partners. Gilsanz Murray Steficek , which served as structural design engineer, was intensely involved in the construction part and offered particular inspection companies together with steel erection and structural safety. The constructing is a model new torquing tower that rises out of an existing two-story Art Moderne type brick warehouse in-built 1938, which was once a part of the Gansevoort Market.

My private time has been devoted to my spouse and youngsters but when I have some further time will play a spherical of golf or hit some spares within the bowling alley. I am also an avid chess player which provides me the brain enhance when making an structural engineer nyc attempt to think about an answer for a project. And, any chance I have to discover the wild great factor about Utah, Colorado, or Wyoming, I take it. I hold sane with scorching yoga and caring for my two giant malamutes, Togo and Daenerys.

The lecture lined kinds of bolts, welds, connections, and failures, in addition to inspection requirements for maintaining quality management of development. Jennifer Lan was a panelist on an EERI Technical Case Studies Webinar, during which audio system who carried out reconnaissance following the September 19, 2017 Puebla-Morelos earthquake introduced geotechnical and structural case research. Jennifer’s presentation described the reconnaissance methodology and provided an in-depth analysis of building efficiency, utilizing two buildings that were broken in the course of the earthquake as case research.

The structural engineer of record shall retain sole responsibility for the structural design. The actions and stories of the structural peer reviewer shall not relieve the structural engineer of document of this accountability. STRUCTURAL, a licensee of STRUCTURAL TECHNOLOGIES’ engineered services and products, integrates technology-driven solutions into its industry-leading repair structural engineer nyc and upkeep services to make constructions stronger and last longer. Determining how and why something fails structurally is a service that's usually known as upon by house owners, architects, contractors, attorneys, insurance coverage agents, and numerous different design professionals.

[smrbhagare97]

Law firm adds former NYS special assistant AG for Medicaid fraud

Law firm adds former NYS special assistant AG for Medicaid fraud

A law firm with offices across the state has added a former New York State special assistant for Medicaid fraud. Glenn Jones, a healthcare litigator, has joined Harris Beach, which also has an office in New jersey and Connecticut.  Jones works in the firm’s Long Island office in Uniondale. Jones brings decades of expertise complex regulatory proceedings and criminal and civil investigations in…

[jamesjcorbett]

James J. Corbett is a New York civil litigation attorney who has been serving clients throughout the region since 1997. Whether it’s a construction dispute or a real estate, contract, business, or trust and estate matter, our firm has the experience, knowledge, and ability to ensure that your interests are protected. For more information, visit us at https://jamesjcorbett.com/.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Benjamin Ryan

Published: Dec 5, 2023

A new front in the struggle over transgender issues has opened up. Two medical malpractice lawsuits, each levied by a plaintiff who regrets having undergone medication-based gender-transition treatment — one at age 14 — have taken aim at the American medical establishment’s support for prescribing such drugs to minors.

This litigation targets two of the most prominent and influential physicians to champion the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to treat gender-related distress in children: Dr. Jason Rafferty and Dr. Michelle Forcier. 

Isabelle Ayala, now 20 and back to identifying as her female birth sex, was 14 while in the care of these physicians and their Rhode Island colleagues. Her suit against them describes an adolescent in crisis. A sexual assault survivor, Ms. Ayala had been diagnosed with ADHD, depression, and anxiety; was apparently chronically suicidal, for which she was hospitalized; and had a long history of self-harm.

Ms. Ayala had learned about gender transition on social media and, despite her mother’s objections that she had never shown signs of a transgender identity prior to adolescence, was determined to become a boy. 

The suit alleges that the care team prioritized addressing this expressed desire of Ms. Ayala’s over treating her other mental health conditions. At one pivotal meeting, one of them suggested to Ms. Ayala’s mother that absent testosterone treatment, her child faced a high chance of death by suicide.

Crucially, this suit also names as a defendant the American Academy of Pediatrics, the influential industry group that shapes best practices for medical treatment of children. The suit accuses the organization of engaging in a civil conspiracy with Dr. Rafferty and Dr. Forcier to develop, promote, and ultimately profit off what has become the prevailing American medical treatment model for pediatric gender care — a model that the suit alleges is based on a fraudulent and misleading representation of scientific research.

The AAP’s support for what is known by its advocates as the gender-affirming care model has served as a beacon to which many of the more than two dozen other major medical societies that support pediatric gender-transition practices have looked when crafting their own endorsements.

LGBTQ advocacy groups routinely point to this unified front when characterizing such medicine as uncontroversial standard practice and asserting, as the LGBTQ press monitoring organization GLAAD has, that “the science is settled” on the question.

Ms. Ayala’s suit against the AAP could shed light on the opaque process by which the organization first came to endorse this care model. And it could show how AAP leadership has remained steadfast in this support even in the face of scathing criticism and after health authorities in multiple European nations concluded that pediatric gender medicine is based on uncertain evidence. Sweden, for one, has gone so far as to conclude that for minors the risks outweigh the benefits.

“To the extent that one of these pillars starts to crumble, that makes it more likely that the roof will collapse,” a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, Leor Sapir, said referring to the potential repercussions should the AAP sustain serious damage to its reputation on this issue.

The Legal Landscape

These lawsuits arrive at a time when Americans have become divided over the question of medical gender transitions for minors, often split along red-blue lines. Amid this raging culture war, Republican-controlled legislatures in more than 20 states have passed bans on such treatment for minors. 

In a marked contrast to the rancorous political divide, the U.S. medical establishment has stood unified in asserting that gender-transition treatments are beneficial, even life-saving, to transgender youth — a vulnerable population with a high rate of suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Yet the core of that unity now faces a major challenge. 

The two lawsuits that pose the biggest threat to the AAP in particular were filed in October by a Dallas law firm that promotes itself as fighting for “justice for the detransitioner community,” Campbell Miller Payne. These “detransitioners” are people who regret medically transitioning and have reverted to identifying and presenting as their biological sex.

These two cases are part of a burgeoning litigation movement that to date includes at least nine other detransitioner suits against care providers, all filed since August 2022. Campbell Miller Payne has filed five such suits all told, has one additional case close to filing and more in development, according to firm partner Jordan Campbell.

Five of the suits have been brought by plaintiffs who were first treated with medication and in some cases surgery starting when they were minors, as young as 12 years old. The six other suits concern such treatment that commenced during young adulthood, when the plaintiffs were as old as 29. So this wave of litigation, while apparently inspired by the backlash against pediatric gender-transition treatment, may pose a threat to the medical care of transgender adults as well.

Supporters of pediatric gender medicine accuse the firms behind these suits of egregious fear-mongering and of misrepresenting the typical experience of transgender adolescents in particular by broadcasting what they say are exceptional cases. The Human Rights Campaign, which is the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization, claims on its website that pediatric gender-transition treatment is “life-saving” and “medically necessary, safe health care” that is based on “clear, well-established, evidence-based standards.”

Yet with respect to this article, the major LGBTQ advocacy organizations have remained uncharacteristically silent. GLAAD and Lambda Legal did not respond to requests for comment; an HRC representative said no one was available to comment. The ACLU also did not respond to requests to comment. A slew of other smaller LGBTQ nonprofits were similarly unresponsive.

The likelihood that those who medically transition as minors will ultimately detransition, which for some means adopting a nonbinary identity, remains unclear due to limited, hazy research. Detransitioning has become a matter of fierce contention amid debates over what factors motivate it — regret, stigma, health concerns, finances, or otherwise. Many trans advocates point to studies suggesting detransition rates are as low as 1 to 2 percent; some skeptics, however, claim figures as high as 30 percent.

Legal scholars have said that the growing threat of detransitioner lawsuits could, at a minimum, steer the nation’s pediatric gender clinics toward more cautious practices. “The whole point of tort law is to encourage people to adjust their behavior,” a medical doctor who teaches tort law at the University of Baltimore School of Law, Dr. Gregory Dolin, said.

Dr. Julia Mason, who is a pediatrician at Gresham, Oregon, said she believes many pediatric gender clinics treat vulnerable children recklessly. She pointed to a 2022 Reuters investigation that found many pediatric gender specialists will often prescribe puberty blockers and hormones without, as the transgender-medicine organization WPATH recommends, first conducting a comprehensive, long-term psychological assessment of a child identifying as transgender. 

When asked what motivated her to serve as an expert witness on behalf of Campbell Miller Payne, Dr. Mason said, “I’d like to inspire a bit of concern on the part of practitioners. They need the fear of lawsuits.”

Kathleen Dooley is a South Carolina attorney and board member of the newly formed ad hoc legal advocacy group, Themis, which is raising money to back detransitioner suits. She anticipates that should the recently filed suits reap considerable settlements or damages awards, a snowball effect would likely spur a surge in further litigation while driving up malpractice insurance premiums for pediatric gender clinics and possibly also for the related treatment of adults. 

The Suits

Mr. Campbell’s firm filed in October two suits against a child psychiatrist and pediatrician, Dr. Rafferty, and Dr. Forcier, who is also a pediatrician. They accuse the Rhode Island doctors of medical malpractice and a lack of informed consent through their work at the Thundermist Health Center and the Lifespan Physician Group at the Hasbro Children’s Hospital. Dr. Rafferty is also accused of fraud in the pediatric case, and the clinics are accused of negligence and what’s called vicarious liability, which holds clinics responsible for the actions of their employees and agents.

Both the plaintiffs are biological women who while in Dr. Rafferty and Dr. Forcier’s care were prescribed testosterone — one at age 14, the other at age 25 — for gender dysphoria, which is a psychiatric diagnosis involving marked distress over a conflict between an individual’s sex and gender identity. The suits accuse the physicians, plus other colleagues, of failing to adhere to the applicable standard of care.

The team allegedly ignored “red flags,” suggesting that the young people’s gender-related distress was driven by their poor mental health, not vice versa. Each plaintiff had multiple serious psychiatric conditions. Both presented as suicidal and were sexual assault survivors. The young adult was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder and had survived a cult and gay conversion therapy.

Each of the plaintiffs ultimately detransitioned and, according to the suits, now grapples with various harmful effects of their time on testosterone, including: in the pediatric case, vaginal atrophy and excess facial and body hair; and in the adult case, genital pain and “body disfigurement,” including, according to her attorney, Ron Miller, a deep voice, broad shoulders, “bone density and other osteo disorders and issues, and other issues related to her female anatomy and body hair growth.”

Mr. Campbell said that all his firm’s clients are primarily motivated to sue “so what happened to them doesn’t happen to another individual.” He continued: “That’s really what motivated our firm as well.”

Dr. Forcier has been a leader in the movement to promote a U.S. version of pediatric-gender-medicine practices that were developed by Dutch researchers starting in the mid-1990s and first imported to the United States in 2007. A professor at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Dr. Forcier mentored Dr. Rafferty during his medical residency at Brown, where he is now a clinical assistant professor.

Almost immediately after finishing his residency in 2017, Dr. Rafferty, who has three Harvard degrees, became a leading figure in the by-then fast-growing field of pediatric gender medicine. His early-career status notwithstanding, he was the sole author of a broadly influential policy statement the AAP published in October 2018 that endorses the affirming care model for treating gender dysphoria in children.

The pediatric suit against Dr. Rafferty and Dr. Forcier alleges that the pair, along with other providers, engaged in a civil conspiracy with the AAP to develop the policy statement, which the suit alleges “fraudulently and misleadingly misrepresents” the relevant scientific evidence. It further alleges that the two doctors “implemented and tested the new, experimental” treatment model in private practice during a period overlapping the time — early 2017 to the middle of 2018 — when the plaintiff, Isabelle Ayala, was in their clinic’s care.

The AAP policy statement takes a more liberal approach to treating gender dysphoric children than what’s known as the traditional “Dutch protocol.” The crux of the statement is Dr. Rafferty’s assertion that children reliably know their gender identity. Pediatric providers, he states, should follow children’s lead by affirming that identity, which includes the option of facilitating a medical transition with puberty blockers and hormones and in some cases surgery.

Along with pediatric-gender-medicine guidelines issued by the Endocrine Society and WPATH, the AAP policy statement is part of a crucial trifecta to which many other medical associations have looked when establishing their own public support for treating gender dysphoric minors.

Over the past five years in particular, the gender-affirmation principle has garnered support nationwide, both across the medical and mental health fields and within schools. And it has inspired a fierce cultural and political backlash. Opponents of medical gender transitions for minors often argue that children are not mature enough to make an informed decision about receiving irreversible medical treatments that pose a risk, most notably, of infertility and sexual dysfunction; and that amid an epidemic of poor mental health among young people, social media drives many adolescents to misattribute their psychological struggles to gender dysphoria. 

A Suicide Slogan

Ms. Ayala’s suit also alleges that Dr. Rafferty and his colleagues “coerced” her wary mother into consenting to the testosterone prescription by exaggerating her risk of suicide and presenting hormonal therapy as, the suit states, the “accepted and sole course of action in the medical community and backed by the current body of scientific research.” The suit states that during a March 2017 meeting with the care team, a team member asked Ms. Ayala’s parents whether they would, as the suit paraphrased, “prefer to have a dead daughter or a living son.” 

This is widely reported to be a common question that gender-clinic providers pose to parents facing such a decision, including those of Chloe Cole, who has become the most prominent and publicly outspoken of the detransitioners who have filed suit against their care providers.

The suit attests that every systematic review of the scientific evidence behind gender-transition treatment has “contradicted the claims that non-medical intervention for gender diverse youth leads to increased suicides.”

Eight months after beginning testosterone, Ms. Ayala attempted suicide and was once again hospitalized.

The only defendant of the two suits involving Dr. Rafferty to respond to multiple requests for comment was the AAP. A spokeswoman for the organization, Susan Martin, wrote in an email to the Sun that the AAP was “unable to comment on ongoing litigation.” 

Otherwise, Ms. Martin denied that Dr. Rafferty was the sole author of the 2018 policy statement. She pointed to a document outlining the apparent group-effort process by which such statements, which the AAP states are “evidence driven” and “nonpartisan,” are edited, revised, and “rigorously reviewed.”

However, in the PDF of the published policy statement, Dr. Rafferty’s is the sole name below the title.

Additionally, the document includes the following note: “Dr. Rafferty conceptualized the statement, drafted the initial manuscript, reviewed and revised the manuscript, approved the final manuscript as submitted, and agrees to be accountable for all aspects of the work.”

What Discovery Could Yield

The AAP policy statement dismisses as “outdated” a philosophy central to the Dutch protocol known as “watchful waiting.” This refers to providers effectively remaining neutral and hands off regarding a prepubescent gender-dysphoric child’s desire to transition. Only if this desire persists from early childhood through puberty’s onset should care providers consider advocating a social and medical transition, per the Dutch protocol. 

As the suit against the AAP notes, the policy statement was met with scathing criticism in a peer-reviewed paper published in 2019 by Canadian sex researcher and psychologist James Cantor. Dr. Cantor found that many of Dr. Rafferty’s citations either did not back his support for a more liberalized treatment approach or contradicted his claims. 

Neither Dr. Rafferty nor the AAP has ever responded to Dr. Cantor’s criticisms. 

“Not a word. It’s truly extraordinary,” said Dr. Cantor, who has served as an expert witness in support of U.S. state legislatures’ bans on pediatric gender-transition treatment.  

In recent years, investigators in England, Sweden, and Finland have conducted systematic literature reviews — the gold standard for assessing evidence — of the research behind pediatric gender medicine. Between them, these reviews have found that the scientific evidence informing gender-transition practices among minors is of low or very low certainty.

Accordingly, those nations, along with Denmark, France, and Norway, have each recently at least proposed — and in some cases implemented — policies that sharply dial back or otherwise restrict the prescription of pediatric gender-transition treatment. They typically establish psychotherapy as the first-line treatment for childhood gender dysphoria.

If the AAP’s attorneys don’t win a dismissal of the suit against the organization, the discovery phase could potentially divulge internal documentation detailing how its leadership cultivated and edited Dr. Rafferty’s policy statement. Discovery might shed further light on any internal response to challenges to the statement’s scientific validity.

However, a judge might limit access to any such documentation, at least initially shielding it from public view.

Who Are the Heroes of This Story?

Beginning in 2020, a small but vocal group of AAP members led by Dr. Mason began pressuring the organization to conduct its own systematic literature review and to revise Dr. Rafferty’s policy statement accordingly.

The AAP leadership resisted these calls. And in August, the organization reaffirmed its support of Dr. Rafferty’s position statement, making no changes to the document. However, the organization also announced it would commission an independent systematic literature review of the relevant evidence.

Dr. Mason said she expected that the review’s findings would be similar to those of the European reviews. Its release could dovetail with discovery from the suit against the AAP and damage the organization’s reputation, she said. 

Not that Dr. Mason ascribes ill intent to the AAP leadership. “Everyone assumes that they’re doing the right thing,” she said. “You’re generally the hero of your own story.”

In January, well before the systematic review will be completed, the AAP is slated to publish a 320-page book offering physicians “practical guidance and overview on access” to pediatric gender-transition treatment. Dr. Mason said she believed the book’s publication represents a new effort on the part of the AAP to expand such treatment out of specialized gender clinics and into everyday primary care practices.

The book includes commentaries from four physician authors. 

Dr. Rafferty is listed as the first author.

==

Note: The AAP has postponed publication of the book:

"Due to an upcoming policy review on this topic, the publication of this book has been placed on hold."

They know they're in trouble.

[successdigestonline]

Construction Defects Emerge at Pandemic-Era New Developments

Construction Defects Emerge at Pandemic-Era New Developments

“I don’t accept the excuse of the pandemic,” said Will Hodges, a 31-year-old software developer who bought a two-bedroom apartment at Hero in early 2021 for $100,000 below the asking price — a discount of about 8 percent, not including partial coverage of his closings costs. He said he thought the discount was in line with the depressed condo market and didn’t think the building would have so…

[m1ssc0mmun1cat10n]

Chevron sends an activist to jail in a terrifying overreach and I only heard about it because I'm in an environmental reddit sub.

This is straight from the reddit post verbatim. There is also a change petition here, since the one in this post is only signable by US folks.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chevron sent environmental attorney Steven Donziger to prison, in the what’s being called the first-ever case of corporate prosecution.

Steven Donziger sued Chevron for contaminating the Amazon and won. Chevron was found guilty and ordered to pay $18,000,000,000. Yesterday, Donziger went to prison, in the what’s being called the first-ever case of corporate prosecution.

Over three decades of drilling in the Amazon, Chevron deliberately dumped more than 16 billion gallons of toxic wastewater and 17 million gallons of crude oil into the rainforest. Chevron committed ecocide to save money—about $3 per barrel. Many experts consider it the biggest oil-related disaster in history, with the total area affected 30 times larger than the Exxon-Valdez spill. Chevron created a super-fund site in the Amazon rainforest that is estimated to be the size of Rhode Island.

Steven Donziger visited Ecuador in 1993, where he says he saw "what honestly looked like an apocalyptic disaster," including children walking barefoot down oil-covered roads and jungle lakes filled with oil. Industrial contamination caused local tribes to suffer from mouth, stomach, and uterine cancers, respiratory illnesses, along with birth defects and spontaneous miscarriages.

As an attorney, Donziger represented over 30,000 farmers and indigenous Ecuadorians in a case against Chevron and won. In 2011, Chevron was found guilty and ordered to pay $18 billion. Rather than accept this decision, the company vowed to fight the judgment "until Hell freezes over, and then fight it out on the ice." Chevron has been persecuting Steven Donziger for his involvement ever since. In an internal memo, Chevron wrote, “Our L-T [long-term] strategy is to demonize Donziger.”

Chevron sued Donziger for 60 billion dollars, which is the most any individual has ever been sued for in American legal history. Over the course of ten years, armed with a legal team numbering in the thousands, the company set out to destroy Donziger. Chevron had Donziger disbarred, froze his bank accounts, slapped him with millions in fines without allowing him a jury, forced him to wear a 24h ankle monitor, imposed a lien on his home where he lives with his family, and shut down his ability to earn a living. Donziger has been under house arrest since August 2019.

Chevron has used its clout and advertising dollars to keep the story from being reported. “I’ve experienced this multiple times with media,” Donziger said. “An entity will start writing the story, spend a lot of time on it, then the story doesn’t run.” This unprecedented legal situation is happening in New York City, the hometown of the New York Times—but the paper has yet to report on the full story.

On October 27, 2021, Donziger entered federal prison for a six-month sentence. He had already spent over 800 days in house arrest, which is four times longer than the maximum sentence allowed for this charge. Anyone who cares about the rule of law should be appalled. It is an absolute embarrassment, to our government and to our constitution, that Steven Donziger is imprisoned on US soil.

As the title states, Chevron is in the process of executing the first-ever corporate prosecution in American history. This case sets a terrible precedent for attorneys and activists seeking to hold oil companies liable for pollution. Chevron is pursuing this case—to the benefit of the entire fossil fuel industry—to dissuade future litigation that may call them to account for their role in climate change.

Lawyer Steven Donziger, Who Sued Chevron over “Amazon Chernobyl,” Ordered to Prison After House Arrest

This Lawyer Went After Chevron. Now He’s 600 Days Into House Arrest.

EDIT 1: Chevron went after him with a civil RICO lawsuit (accusing him of racketeering) because he’s trying to force Chevron to pay the $18B judgment and follow through with the clean-up. Their “argument” is that Donziger is a fraud who just wanted to extort them for big bucks. They’ve been working hard to paint him as such in the media. Chevron sued him for $60B but then dropped the damages just weeks before because they realized it would necessitate a jury. In the proceeding, Judge Kaplan (who had undisclosed investments in Chevron!) ordered Donziger to turn over his computer to Chevron (with decades of client communications!) effectively violating attorney-client privilege which is the backbone of our legal system. He refused to comply so the judge charged him with contempt of court. US attorneys declined to pursue the charge (because it was ridiculous!) so Judge Kaplan made the exceedingly rare move to get private law firm Seward Kissel to prosecute him “in the name of” the US govt. Except Seward Kissel has Chevron as a major client. So many conflicts of interest it’s insane.

EDIT 2: Chevron wants this to go away quietly. They have done their best to suffocate this story. Chevron does not want us to draw attention to the ecocide they deliberately committed (and were literally found guilty of!) in the Amazon. They do not want Donziger to become a household name. They don’t want to create a martyr for the cause against Big Oil. We can foil their plans by signing the MoveOn petition below and making sure this story gets shared widely.

EDIT 3: You can also follow him on Twitter. His handle is @SDonziger.

EDIT 4: I know we are all rightfully pissed off but please refrain from advocating violence in the comments. I’ve been unable to post this story on any other sub (many others have also tried and failed) so I’m really grateful to the mods for keeping it posted here. Let’s not make things difficult on them.

MoveOn Petition: Free Steven Donziger

(https://sign.moveon.org/petitions/free-steven-donziger?source=rawlink&utm_source=rawlink&share=6bf7358e-6264-4bc0-99c3-ef740e3fb6ce)

If you want to learn more about this incident check out Chevron Toxico and watch the documentary CRUDE.

[tanadrin]

Legal Systems Very Different From Ours (Because They Do Not Exist)

(I forgot Scott had already done this, lol)

AZAREN

There is the land of Azaren, far to the north; a rugged, windswept country, it was settled by hardy explorers in an ancient age of migration, who have always been disdainful of central authority, and permit themselves to be governed only to the most minimal extent. As a consequence of this skepticism of government, there is also a general skepticism of public law. All law in Azaren--except the few scraps of administrative and procedural law necessary to operate the government--is private, and there is no criminal law. All disputes between parties are resolved by what we would consider in other countries civil suits, governed by strict rules involving standing. Theft, arson, even murder may all go unpunished, unless there is an interested party willing to file suit to obtain redress. The Azarenes by and large consider this system exemplary of freedom and justice, and we cannot help but admit an attraction to the cleanness of its philosophy.

A key component of Azaren justice is the principle that no entity is above the law; no entity, however powerful, is so majestic that it is immune from suit. This meant that gods, natural forces, even celestial bodies have been sued (though principally in more superstitious days long past), and where by the weight of evidence, or the simple failure to appear, have been duly issued fines, which remain on the public register of debts waiting to be paid. And naturally, Azaren countenances no doctrine of state or sovereign immunity. This principle, especially due to the absence of public law, extends also to relations between Azaren and other states. Naturally this principle extends to sublunary bodies like Azaren's own government: Azaren recognizes to doctrine of state or sovereign immunity, and not a few political revolutions have been wrought through cunning arguments in the courtroom. And note also that Azaren conducts no foreign policy as a unified whole--for that would require an intolerable tyranny imposed on her people, that is to say some form of tax to pay the salaries of a diplomatic corps--but what individuals and groups of individuals see fit to conduct. So from time to time, an individual or group of individuals together will decide some foreign state has wronged them, and, as is Azarene custom, will petition their courts for redress; and despite the diplomatic protestations of the representatives of that government, that any such proceeding is a clear violation of precedent in the community of nations, that by dint of its sovereignty no state may be sued in the courts of another, the Azarene court will hear the suit. And should the plaintiffs prevail, an order will be issued for the recovery of damages.

And it is for this reason and this reason alone that Azaren has any armed force: in case of a judgement entered against a foreign government, the militia of Azaren is authorized to confiscate property--in Azaren or abroad--belonging to that government (and if need be, its citizens) until enough has been seized to cover the amount owed. Whereupon, whatever the state of the field of battle, however close the foe is to total capitulation, they return to their ships instantly and retire to their home country.

GKNAI

The land of Gknai is ancient, possibly one of the longest-inhabited regions in the world; and as it is nestled deep in often-overlooked mountain valleys, it has enjoyed a history of uncommon peace and tranquility, well-fortified against the ambitions of neighboring princes; it has indeed earned its epithet of Many-Fortressed-Gknai; and in later millennia, this reputation for indomitability has served by itself to safeguard its borders.

As a consequence of its long, long history, it is said, Gknai is uncommonly bound by the pageantry of Tradition. Just as other countries have monarchies that have withered away into irrelevance, performing a few desultory functions of government under the strict control of their ministers, Gknai has its own titular kings and princes. Indeed, it has them by the wagonload. The difficulty of warfare in the region and the bombasticity of ancient aristocrats means that every valley is thick with Kings and Over-Kings, and Lords President, and Grand Dukes, and even Emperors. Most Sublime Hierophants tend their vegetable patches across the road from Thrice-Exalted Tyrants, and the multiplication of titles is not helped by the fact that under Gknaian traditions, every child inherits some share of the honors of their parents.

The Gknaians have never had a single political revolution to sweep the old order away, only centuries of incremential change. Therefore, each of these titles, in the abstract legal sense, still has some privilege attached to it, however slight it may be. Nor, if they wished to abolish their cumbersome system, is it clear how they might legally do so: there is no legislative authority in Gknai but custom, and for every amendment to the law some precedent, even if very weak, must be found that may be expanded and elaborated upon and carefully argued for until it is generally agreed upon in the whole land. Gnkaian legal codes incorporate much of this commentary, and a Gknaian law library is thus a fearsome thing indeed.

The most curious relic of Gknaian tradition is a form of trial, still in general use, called gopi-gai ogmo, or Trial By Endurance. It was argued by an ancient Gknaian scholar that wealth, strength, and even legal persuasiveness were poor proxies for the righteousness of a cause, and so poor criteria for deciding a lawsuit. For with wealth often comes prestige, and undue influence over the public; with strength, assured victory in the trials by combat; and a well-spoken orator might convince even the best of judges to decide a case in contravention of the law, if his eloquence and flattery are sufficient. Better, said this scholar, to align public interest with individual preference, and a hint of utilitarianism: clearly, the side that *wishes* to win more, should prevail. And how to decide that more efficiently, than with a test of endurance?

This is the form of the test: a hillside of a valley is chosen, one warm in the morning and cool in the evening, but not too hot or too cold; and the plaintiff and the defendant are seated upon it, gazing down at the valley below; and the judge and officers of the court withdraw to observe. That is all. Whomever remains seated and motionless the longest is judged to desire victory more. To stand, speak, cry out, laugh, smirk, or fall down is to forfeit the case. Neither of the parties may be spoken to; neither may be disturbed in any way. The only modification ever made is this: in matters deemed especially urgent, sometimes the parties are made to stand instead.

Judgement, naturally, usually takes days. One especially notable figure, Hrakal the Vexatious Litigant, widely feared for his tolerance of boredom and inclement weather, successfully lodged no less than three dozen lawsuits against his neighbors, until he met his match in Tatavru the Stubborn. That particular proceeding lasted more than two weeks, until an out-of-season snowfall gave Hrakal frostbite, and caused him to relent. I have also heard of a legendary conflict over a spite-fence in the valley of Upper Dabbar, where, it is said, the parties sat immobile for *three years*, sustained by surreptitious nighttime meals and the kind of intense mutual hatred known only by neighbors who share a property line. Another interlocutor I spoke with, an older woman, said that this was a corrupted version of an older tale, altered for believability's sake. In fact, she said, the dispute was *never* resolved. The parties sat immobile until the vegetation grew thick on their laps and shoulders; and if you visit a certain hilltop in Upper Dabbar, you can still see them, two seated figures covered in grass that have now become part of the hill.

BOSSUL

In the city of Bossul, all important questions must be settled by a consensus agreeable to all parties. Although apparently cumbersome, this system has many virtues. The government of Bossul enjoys approval ratings usually seen only in the most tyrannical of dictatorships, and though the city's martial fury has been inflamed many times, it has never actually gone to war, for there have always been one or two heads cool enough to refuse to support it. Alas, every occasion of government is nearly interminable as a result: even the most trivial meeting of the least prestigious committee can drag well into the night; and nothing about the culture or institutions of Bossul does anything to restrain the impulses of busybodies or know-it-alls who have, in every other culture on the planet, driven such consensus-driven systems into the dirt. Yet Bossul's persists, for uncertain reasons.

One, perhaps, might be the custom of Utabani-mo-Kalutabani, which might very roughly be translated into English as "Agreeing To Disagree." When a consensus *cannot* be reached--for instance, in an intractible legal case--a temporary truce may be enacted in the form of Utabani-mo-Kalutabani. In short, each side continues to live their life, pretending that they have won. Thus, from time to time, you may explore the city of Bossul and find such oddities as two different families, each on the opposite side of an inheritance dispute, living in the same apartment and pretending the other does not exist. You may find an employee, who has sued for wrongful termination, coming to work every day at a company that insists she does not work there. You may even, on occasion, find someone walking the street as a free man, whom the police insist that they currently have in their custody.

It is a strange custom, and one cannot help but wonder if it is of any practical use at all.

MOZICK

Mozick is a small island in the Hraspedain Sea, rainy in winter but temperate in summer, which like Gnkai has a deep respect for the usages of its past. In Mozick, this is something of a religious conviction, for their society is organized around the pronouncements of the Great Oracle of the Smoky Mirror, who lived and died more than a thousand years ago.

Such was the inerrancy of the Oracle's predictions (it was said), that the Oracle was trusted utterly in settling disputes and prosecuting criminals. Usually, the Oracle heard arguments before pronouncing judgements, but this was considered a formality; many times, a judgement could be given as soon as the parties entered the courtroom. And such was the faith the people had in their Oracle, that they feared what would become of their society when she died; so she set down in an enormous volume a list of judgements--thousands of them--in cases yet to come. They named no parties, nor any details of the case: only Guilty, Not Guilty, Liable for a sum of 400 Mozickian drachmas, etc.

The procedure in Mozick is thus: when cases are brought before the court, the time and order of each filing is carefully noted. Once a year, amid solemn ritual, the Book of Judgements is opened, and a judgement for each case is read off, in order. It is an article of faith in Mozickian law that the judgement is never wrong, though at times the wisdom of the Oracle has, the Mozickians admit, seemed... startling. There was, for instance, the legendary case of Uckmar the Arsonist, caught in the act of burning the Temple of Ytrabel-Sheh; the sentence read aloud before the prosecutors was "Defendant to go free, be compensated 10 drachmas." But, the legal scholars carefully explain, Ytrabel-Sheh was the god of rain, and an unusually wet summer that year had caused the slugs to flourish in Uckmar's garden, devouring his tomatoes. The arson was, perhaps, justified, or considered just compensation; the 10 drachmas were for emotional damages. So the careers of legal scholars in Mozick are made, harmonizing the decisions of the great Oracle with the principles of justice.

A careful accounting of judgements is important to the system--once it was discovered that one judgement had accidentally been used twice, necessitating a redistribution of three years' worth of punishments and fines; fortunately, no death penalties had been handed out. But the Book of Judgements is finite. And one day--a day that soon will be in the expected lifetime of Mozickian lawyers now practicing--those judgements will run out. What does this portend? Will Mozick be conquered? Sink beneath the sea? Will--as some quietly hope--the Oracle return? No one knows. But each year sees more of the judgements used up than the last, and soon the book will be empty.