This video quotes a Harvard study that show 36% percent of trans kids are sexually assaulted when forced to use the sex on their birth certificate rather than the bathroom they gender identify with. Then the video talks about how the anti-trans bathroom laws physically harm trans kids while not help cis kids to stay safe at all. It is not cis kids in bathrooms being attacked, but trans kids. Hugs. Scottie
Diversity efforts are designed to bring more minorities into positions of authority and better paying jobs. Ask your self why anyone would be against that? Ask why those people would go to the point of using the power of the entire state to deny such programs? It is about white cis straight power! It is flat out racism! I don’t know how else to explain it. These people are threatened by programs that reach out to minorities instead of just giving all the good jobs to white people or include black / brown people in higher education. Hugs. Scottie Some quotes below
However, DEI programs typically provide support not only for students from marginalized communities, but also for veterans, low-income students, first-generation students, single parents and students with disabilities.
“Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) departments, programs, and entities play a pivotal role in providing a safe and inclusive space for minority and marginalized communities on higher education campuses,” the statement reads. “These initiatives offer students a platform to voice their concerns, establish a home away from home, and foster unity within the student life community. Any attempt to remove personnel, funding, and programming jeopardizes the very existence of these essential spaces.
Oklahoma’s ban is the latest in a wave of efforts across the country to walk back DEI initiatives that were largely popularized during and after 2020. Earlier this year Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, signed bills banning institutions from spending federal or state dollars on DEI initiatives, while, last month, the Iowa Board of Regents voted to direct the state’s public universities to cut DEI programs that are not necessary for research contracts or accreditation. The same day Stitt signed his executive order, according to WPR, Wisconsin Republicans successfully pushed the University of Wisconsin to freeze DEI staffing through 2026 and eliminate or refocus about 40 positions focused on diversity.
Order prohibits agencies and public colleges and universities from using state funds, property or resources towards DEI initiatives
University of Oklahoma Sooners’ college campus. The university’s president has stressed its commitment to ‘access and opportunity’ for all students. Photograph: Forge Productions/Alamy
On Wednesday Kevin Stitt, Oklahoma’s governor, signed an executive order in effect banning diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs at agencies and public colleges and universities across the state.
The order prohibits them from using state funds, property or resources towards DEI initiatives and orders them to dismiss “non-critical personnel”. It is effective immediately, but institutions are expected to comply no later than 31 May 2024.
The 25 public colleges and universities in the state also have to provide reports that detail the expenditure of their former DEI initiatives and job positions. Stitt said he is “implementing greater protections for Oklahomans and their tax dollars”. But according to local news outlet KFOR, only “around $10.2m was spent on DEI programs in the past decade. It accounted for three-tenths of one percent of all higher education spending.”
Kevin Stitt, the governor of Oklahoma. Photograph: Sue Ogrocki/AP
The governor also said that Oklahoma should focus on supporting low-income and first-generation students instead of supporting students based on their race. However, DEI programs typically provide support not only for students from marginalized communities, but also for veterans, low-income students, first-generation students, single parents and students with disabilities.
In response to the executive order Joseph Harrosz Jr, the president of the University of Oklahoma, sent a letter to the OU community acknowledging how alarming the elimination of these programs may be for some people. But he doubled down on the university’s commitment to accessible education, writing, “Please be assured that key to our ongoing successes as the state’s flagship university – now and forever – are the foundational values that have served as our constant north star: access and opportunity for all of those with the talent and tenacity to succeed; being a place of belonging for all who attend; dedication to free speech and inquiry; and civility in our treatment of each other. These values transcend political ideology, and in them, we are unwavering.”
“Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) departments, programs, and entities play a pivotal role in providing a safe and inclusive space for minority and marginalized communities on higher education campuses,” the statement reads. “These initiatives offer students a platform to voice their concerns, establish a home away from home, and foster unity within the student life community. Any attempt to remove personnel, funding, and programming jeopardizes the very existence of these essential spaces.
Oklahoma’s ban is the latest in a wave of efforts across the country to walk back DEI initiatives that were largely popularized during and after 2020. Earlier this year Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, signed bills banning institutions from spending federal or state dollars on DEI initiatives, while, last month, the Iowa Board of Regents voted to direct the state’s public universities to cut DEI programs that are not necessary for research contracts or accreditation. The same day Stitt signed his executive order, according to WPR, Wisconsin Republicans successfully pushed the University of Wisconsin to freeze DEI staffing through 2026 and eliminate or refocus about 40 positions focused on diversity.
Read the full article. Stitt, who appeared here last month when he publicly praised illegal cockfighting, is a self-avowed Christian nationalist. He recently declared November to be “family month as ordained by God.” In June 2023, he authorized the nation’s first state-funded religious charter school. Last year he claimed “every square inch of Oklahoma in the name of Jesus.” Upon his inauguration, Stitt’s wife declared that his administration’s main priority would be “bringing people to Jesus.”
When he states that he wants to”protect Oklahomans” he really means the lily white males. Of course. The universe protect us from these Christian fanatics!
“Last year he claimed “every square inch of Oklahoma in the name of Jesus.” Upon his inauguration, Stitt’s wife declared that his administration’s main priority would be “bringing people to Jesus.””
The guy is proud of himself. After all, only his religion should be acknowledged in the US. After all, religious freedom is only for Christians. If the country is to be a democracy for everyone, then Christians must understand that they don’t get to rule over others. They don’t have the right to make rules that allow only their way of life and force others to live as they do. What do you think these same assholes would do if a Muslim or a person from another faith destroyed one of their Christian displays? Plus remember that this guy destroyed private property. That is a crime. Hugs. Scottie
The Satanic Temple of Iowa says a statue in its Iowa capitol display was destroyed “beyond repair.” The display made headlines this week when an Eastern Iowa state lawmaker called for the governor to remove it, calling the display “blasphemous.”
Governor Kim Reynolds issued a statement saying, “In a free society, the best response to objectionable speech is more speech.”
The Satanic Temple said in a Facebook post, “We are proud to continue our holiday display for the next few days that we have been allotted. We ask that for safety, visitors travel together and use the 7 Tenets as a reminder for empathy, in the knowledge that justice is being pursued the correct way, through legal means.”
Michael Cassidy, a Christian and former military officer, tore down and beheaded a Satanist altar erected in the Iowa Capitol as the display provoked nationwide controversy, The Sentinel has exclusively learned. Cassidy said in comments exclusively provided to The Sentinel that he destroyed the shrine on Thursday in order to “awaken Christians to the anti-Christian acts promoted by our government.”
Cassidy turned himself into police officers present in the Iowa Capitol, who confirmed that the Satanic Temple of Iowa desires to press charges. The Sentinel obtained a complaint and affidavit which said Cassidy was charged with fourth-degree criminal mischief. “I saw this blasphemous statue and was outraged,” Cassidy continued. “My conscience is held captive to the word of God, not to bureaucratic decree. And so I acted.”
Cassidy ran for the US House in Mississippi last year, finishing 35 points behind incumbent GOP Rep. Michael Guest in the primary. Earlier this year he lost a bid for the Mississippi House.
BREAKING: Satanic altar at Iowa State Capitol BEHEADED by Christian veteranhttps://t.co/nH93Mrs8tB
As long as ‘Satanism’ is considered a religion, then they have just as much right to showcase their ‘God/Prophet, as we Christians do. I realize this won’t be a popular opinion, we you have the freedom of NOT looking at it. It goes both ways.
Unfortunately, the right thing to do is not always the popular thing. I respect them very much for doing the right thing, anyway. They did it with women in the church, too. Surprise! The world did not come to an end.
Unless he was in Iowa for other reasons, this cultist drove 13 hours from Mississippi to Des Moines to earn social media cred from Christian nationalists.
That’s the problem with monotheism, the god has to run everything and even deities can get worn out. It’s why pantheons are better, the work gets delegated and important aspects get more focus.
Imagine if a Muslim beheaded a statue of the Virgin Mary and said it was against his religion. I don’t think many Christians would applaud that. But they’re cool with beheading a satanic statue.
Books at Vandegrift High School’s library on March 2, 2022. Credit: Lauren Witte/The Texas Tribune
Texas banned more books from school libraries this past year than any other state in the nation, targeting titles centering on race, racism, abortion and LGBTQ representation and issues, according to a new analysis by PEN America, a nonprofit organization advocating for free speech.
The report released on Monday found that school administrators in Texas have banned 801 books across 22 school districts, and 174 titles were banned at least twice between July 2021 through June 2022. PEN America defines a ban as any action taken against a book based on its content after challenges from parents or lawmakers.
The most frequent books removed included “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe, which depicts Kobabe’s journey of gender identity and sexual orientation; “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison; “Roe v. Wade: A Woman’s Choice?” by Susan Dudley Gold; “Out of Darkness” by Ashley Hope Pérez, which follows a love story between a Mexican American teenage girl and a Black teen boy in 1930s East Texas; and “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson, a personal account of growing up black and queer in Plainfield, New Jersey.
“This censorious movement is turning our public schools into political battlegrounds, driving wedges within communities, forcing teachers and librarians from their jobs, and casting a chill over the spirit of open inquiry and intellectual freedom that underpin a flourishing democracy,” Suzanne Nossel, PEN America’s chief executive officer, said in a statement.
Across the country, PEN America found that 1,648 unique titles had been banned by schools. Of these titles, 41% address LGBTQ themes or have protagonists or prominent secondary characters who are LGBTQ. Another 40% of these books contains protagonists or prominent secondary characters of color.
Summer Lopez, the chief program officer of free expression at PEN America, said what’s notable about these book bans is that most are on books that families and children can elect to read, not any required reading.
Florida and Pennsylvania followed Texas as the states with the most bans, respectively. Florida banned 566 books, and 457 titles were banned in Pennsylvania, where a majority of books were removed from one school district in York County, which is known as being more conservative.
Lopez said her organization could not recall a previous year with as many reported book bans.
“This rapidly accelerating movement has resulted in more and more students losing access to literature that equips them to meet the challenges and complexities of democratic citizenship,” Jonathan Friedman, director of PEN America’s free expression and education programs and the lead author of the report, said in a statement.
Texas’ book challenges can be traced to last October, when state Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, sent a list of some 850 books about race and sexuality — including Kobabe’s — to school districts asking for information about how many of those are available on their campuses. This one move spurred parents to challenge and successfully remove books they believe are not appropriate and “pornographic.”
The Keller Independent School District in Tarrant County was one of the first to successfully remove “Gender Queer” from school libraries after a group of moms complained it was “pornographic.”
This recent series of book bans has unfolded against the backdrop of a national debate over critical race theory, a college-level academic discipline that examines how racism is embedded in the country’s legal and structural systems. It is not taught in Texas’ public schools. However, some conservative politicians and parents have assigned the term “CRT” to dismiss efforts in public schools to incorporate a more comprehensive and inclusive public school curriculum, something they equate to indoctrination.
Conservatives in some school districts have used the book bans and rancor over social studies teachings to help bring rally support and attracted unprecedented money to win school board seats campaigning under the promise to clear out “critical race theory” and “pornographic” materials from schools. In the midst of continuing Republican-led political fights over how issues related to race, gender and sex are allowed to be taught in public schools, Gov. Greg Abbott has put a promise to increase parental rights at the center of his reelection platform.
However, Texas parents already have the right to remove their child temporarily from a class or activity that conflicts with their religious beliefs. They have the right to review all instructional materials, and state law guarantees them access to their student’s records and to a school principal or administrator. Also, school boards must establish a way to consider complaints from parents.
PEN America’s analysis also found that these bans have been largely driven by organized groups formed over the last year to combat “pornographic” and “CRT” materials in school.
“The work of groups organizing and advocating to ban books in schools is especially harmful to students from historically marginalized backgrounds, who are forced to experience stories that validate their lives vanishing from classrooms and library shelves,” Friedman said.
I have no more words left, only anger. Hugs. Scottie
30 Palestinian child detainees were released on Tuesday morning, as part of the prisoner exchange deal between the Palestinian Resistance and the Israeli government.
Mohammed Nazzal, from the city of Qabatiya, was one of them. Soon after his release, he was moved to the emergency room of the Ibn Sina Hospital in the city of Jenin.
Mohammed was severely injured in both his hands due to the beating by Israeli soldiers in the Negev prison, one week ago. The hand fractures were deliberately neglected by the Israeli Prison Service, which led to complications in the child’s right hand.
“One week ago, we were savagely beaten with metal bars. I put my hands on my head to protect it from injury, but the soldiers did not stop until they broke my hands,” Mohammed added.
They waited for the journalists to leave, then the police call and told the family they would be arrested again if their interview aired. The family called the report in panic. Tells me two things, they are watching the families and they do not want the truth out in the world. Like all abusers, they want it to be their dirty little secret between them and the abused. Hugs. Scottie
Freed Palestinians spoke about the grave conditions they faced while in prison. More Palestinians are expected to be released as part of the truce agreement between Israel and Hamas. But there are concerns among who have already been freed about the never ending intimidation and threats of being arrested again.
Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel Hamid sat-down with three recently freed Palestinian prisoners in the Occupied West Bank.
A Palestinian child describes how he and his family were trapped in their home for five days at the start of Israel’s attack on Gaza. He said that if anyone went outside, the soldiers shot them, killing them. When they took the house they made sure to damage it as much as possible to make it unlivable, then they forced everyone including the women to come out naked, then allowed them to redress, took them to separate places where they beat him and those with him. The US and western governments are supporting Israel on this. Why? Over 18,000 Palestinians dead, many more wounded. All because Israel lost less than 1,200 in the Hamas attack. Israel got their pound of flesh and a hell of a lot more. Hugs
“They kidnapped us in a house and violently beat us.”
WATCH: The testimony of a Palestinian child, who was released after days of being detained with others by Israeli forces in the Zaytun neighbourhood in Gaza city, after his home was stormed and Israeli soldiers “bombed it all and shot at the walls”.
“The women were taken to another unknown place. We didn’t know anything about them.”
Mohammad Mahmoud Saleem described being strip-searched, before Israeli forces took the men and women to separate unknown houses, saying that he doesn’t know the whereabouts of his mother and younger siblings.
Israel is ensuring there will not be peace with Palestinians nor those of Palestinian desent. As this young boy said “God will take my vengence!” which you can beleive means he now is willing to hurt those who hurt him and those around him. But the question asked is true, where is the UN, where is anyone to help stop Israel. Hugs. Scottie
An Israeli air strike on a UN-run school sheltering displaced Palestinians at the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza killed at least 15 people and injured dozens more, according to a doctor at al-Shifa Hospital. According to CNN, the Israeli Defense Forces allege the Central Jabalya Battalion took control of civilian buildings, adding collapsed tunnels were partly a reason for the destruction caused by the strike on Tuesday. “I carried a body and another decapitated body with my own hands,” a Gazan boy said at the site. At least 9,488 Palestinians including 3,900 children have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since Oct. 7, the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza said on Saturday. “There are 15 martyrs and the number is expected to increase,” Mohammad Abu Selmeyah, who is also an official in the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave, said. During the conflict, Israel has consistently claimed it’s targeting Hamas militants following the Oct. 7 attack on the Israeli kibbutz, Be’eri kibbutz. For more info, please go to https://globalnews.ca/news/10070941/i…
“When I woke up, I discovered that I had been shot 30 times.”
Abderrahman Al Zeghel, a 14-year-old Palestinian child and the youngest prisoner released in the Hamas-Israel hostage exchange, sustained deadly head injuries after Israeli forces assaulted him while he was buying bread in occupied East Jerusalem’s Silwan.
Despite undergoing multiple surgeries, he now lives with “half a skull” and faces health issues preventing a return to normal life.
Israeli law doesn’t permit the imprisonment of children under 14 and instead enforces house arrests as a form of punishment.
The report shows how Israeli military fakes videos to claim it is Hamas surrendering, while they make the Arab men stand in public view in their underwear. They wouldn’t do that to an Israeli man, so why is it OK to do a Palestinian one? Plus the abused the children they took and kept for days refusing them water or the right to use a bathroom, ordering the kids to pee on themselves. Again humiliating them and torturing them with long periods of discomfort / need. They are numbering the kids with hard to get off ink! They staged mock executions of some men by threatening to bury them alive! Which is another war crime, all to terrorize the civilians. Imagine the fear of the men. How in the world can we allow this to continue? Hugs. Scottie
University of Oklahoma Sooners’ college campus. The university’s president has stressed its commitment to ‘access and opportunity’ for all students. Photograph: Forge Productions/Alamy
Puny god…
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