Tag: Discrimination

Why Is Congress Probing a Union for Being Anti-Israel?

Like many progressive organizations, the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, a union that represents public defenders in the New York City area, has been convulsed by battles over Israel’s war in Gaza. A recent article in the right-leaning Free Press revealed the strident and sometimes ugly language that union members used during a fight over […]

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They Helped a Family Facing Discrimination 80 Years Ago. Now They’re Being Celebrated.

Ron Dong was only 2 years old when his Chinese American parents moved to Coronado, Calif., a change that had been possible only because of a Black couple who defied anti-Asian segregation to rent a house to his family. More than 80 years later, Ron and his younger brother, Lloyd Dong Jr., 81, are carrying […]

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David Mixner, Fierce Fighter for Gay Rights, Is Dead at 77

David B. Mixner, a political strategist who played prominent roles in the anti-Vietnam War movement and in the arduous fight for gay rights, and whose decades-long influence with Bill Clinton spanned both eras, died on Monday at his home in Midtown Manhattan. He was 77. The cause was complications of long-term Covid, said Steven Guy, […]

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Where Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism Do and Don’t Overlap

Every time I write, as I did last week, that I don’t think anti-Zionism is necessarily antisemitic, I get emails from Jewish readers that are angry, disappointed or sometimes simply baffled. “Israel is the political entity through which the Jewish people exercises its natural right of self-determination and control over its own fate,” said one […]

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Federal Judge Rules Minority Business Agency Must Serve White People as Well

The Minority Business Development Agency, a Commerce Department agency created during the Nixon administration to help minority-owned businesses, discriminated against white people and must offer its services to people of all races and ethnic groups, a federal judge in Texas ruled on Wednesday. Judge Mark T. Pittman of the U.S. District Court for the Northern […]

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Racial Profiling in Japan Is Prevalent but Unseen, Some Residents Say

It’s not that there is anything bad about your hair, the police officer politely explained to the young Black man as commuters streamed past in Tokyo Station. It’s just that, based on his experience, people with dreadlocks were more likely to possess drugs. Alonzo Omotegawa’s video of his 2021 stop and search led to debates […]

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How D.E.I. Efforts Can Help Minorities Flourish on Campus

Like many African American professors, I teach at a predominantly white institution (Wheaton College) and live in the largely white small city where it’s located, outside Chicago. I have not experienced serious acts of discrimination, but that doesn’t make life simple. When people think about the difficulty of being Black in largely white spaces in […]

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Because of the Black Civil Rights Struggle, These Groups Saw Progress Too

Photo: John Duricka (AP) Through nonviolent protests and other forms of civil disobedience, the Civil Rights Movement was a decade’s long effort to make racial discrimination, disenfranchisement and inequality illegal across the country. Advertisement But the efforts of leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King and John Lewis didn’t just work to help African Americans. They […]

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In Britain, Shockwaves From Israel-Hamas War Are Jolting Domestic Politics

Inside Britain’s Parliament, lawmakers jeered, booed, and stormed out of the House of Commons to protest the speaker’s handling of a vote calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. Outside, a crowd of pro-Palestinian demonstrators projected the slogan, “From the river to the sea,” on to the facade of Big Ben, drawing denunciations from those who […]

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Thanks to Civil Rights These Groups Saw Progress Too

Photo: John Duricka (AP) Through nonviolent protests and other forms of civil disobedience, the Civil Rights Movement was a decade’s long effort to make racial discrimination, disenfranchisement and inequality illegal across the country. Advertisement But the efforts of leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King and John Lewis didn’t just work to help African Americans. They […]

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Texas Judge: Punishment of Black Kid Over Hair Had Nothing to Do with Race

“I don’t care what the hell happens in this world,” Miller said earlier this month on a podcast with Charlie Kirk. “If President Trump gets reelected, the border’s going to be sealed, the military will be deployed, the National Guard will be activated, and the illegals are going home.” Behind the scenes, Trump has worked […]

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Texas Judge: It’s OK That School Punished Black Student Over His Hair

“I don’t care what the hell happens in this world,” Miller said earlier this month on a podcast with Charlie Kirk. “If President Trump gets reelected, the border’s going to be sealed, the military will be deployed, the National Guard will be activated, and the illegals are going home.” Behind the scenes, Trump has worked […]

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Texas Judge: It’s Totally OK That School Punished Black Kid Over His Hair

“I don’t care what the hell happens in this world,” Miller said earlier this month on a podcast with Charlie Kirk. “If President Trump gets reelected, the border’s going to be sealed, the military will be deployed, the National Guard will be activated, and the illegals are going home.” Behind the scenes, Trump has worked […]

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Justice Alito Renews Criticism of Landmark Ruling on Same-Sex Marriage

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. on Tuesday renewed his criticisms of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision recognizing the right to same-sex marriage, saying that people who oppose homosexuality risk being unfairly “labeled as bigots and treated as such.” The justice included his warning in a five-page statement explaining why the court had rejected a request […]

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Old and Young, Talking Again

On Fridays at 10 a.m., Richard Bement and Zach Ahmed sign on to their weekly video chat. The program that brought them together provides online discussion prompts and suggests arts-related activities, but the two largely ignore all that. “We just started talking about things that were important to us,” said Mr. Ahmed, 19, a pre-med […]

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Utah School Board Member Is Censured After Questioning Student’s Gender

A Utah State Board of Education member was stripped of her committee assignments and asked to resign this week after she questioned the gender of a high school basketball player in a Facebook post. Natalie Cline, the board member, posted a flyer for a high school basketball team in Salt Lake County on Feb. 6 […]

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Trans Visibility Is Nice. Safety Is Even Better.

In my childhood, trans representation was largely confined to sensationalized daytime talk shows — think “Jerry Springer” — and fictionalized stories of cisgender people reacting with disgust or violence upon learning someone was trans — think of the movies “Boys Don’t Cry,” “The Crying Game,” even “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.” In the last several years, […]

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On Capitol Hill, Republicans Use Bigoted Attacks Against Political Foes

When Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, stood on the House floor this month to announce her proposal to censure the only Somali-born member of Congress, she said she was seeking punishment for “Representative Ilhan Omar of Somalia — I mean Minnesota.” Earlier that same week, Representative Troy Nehls, Republican of Texas, called the […]

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Why Reparations For Slavery Are Long Overdue

In my debut novel, a family retraces their lineage in order to be eligible for the nation’s first federal reparations program for Black Americans. When I was selling my novel in 2021, it was pitched to publishers as “speculative fiction, but only slightly.” I hadn’t specifically identified that genre, but I could see how it […]

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The Queen Goes Country

Feb. 8, 2024, 11:11 a.m. ET Feb. 8, 2024, 11:11 a.m. ET Oscar Bait is The Point’s series of conversations about films nominated for the Academy Award for best picture. Today, Christopher Orr, an editor in Opinion and a former film critic, discusses “The Zone of Interest” with Annie-Rose Strasser, Opinion Audio’s executive producer. Christopher […]

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Some Fall Out of Vogue. Gabriella Karefa-Johnson Jumped.

When Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, the fashion editor-personality who became famous as the first Black woman to style a Vogue cover (in 2021) and even more famous after she got into a social media brouhaha with Kanye West, was interviewing for her first big fashion job at Vogue, she ended up, not surprisingly, in front of Anna […]

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Supreme Court Won’t Block Use of Race in West Point Admissions for Now

The Supreme Court declined on Friday to temporarily block race-conscious admissions at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, clearing the way for the school to continue considering race as a factor in selecting the class that will enroll in the fall. The court’s order rejected a request for emergency relief from Students for Fair […]

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The World Has Caught Up to Frantz Fanon

The shock of the new, in political life, often sends us back to the past in search of an intellectual compass. Amid the rise of Donald Trump, Viktor Orban, Jair Bolsanaro and other authoritarian leaders, Hannah Arendt’s “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” published in 1951, enjoyed a surge of attention, and Arendt herself acquired a prophet-like […]

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Pollution Is Driving Black Americans to the South. It May Not Be Any Better.

The air pollution in Emma Lockridge’s community in Detroit was often so bad, she had to wear a surgical mask inside her house. The smokestacks of nearby refineries and factories filled the sky outside her windows with black particles. “I couldn’t sleep because of those fumes,” she told me last year. In 2021 she fled […]

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An Autistic School Board Member Sued for Discrimination. She Won $10.

When Sarah Hernandez joined the Enfield, Conn., Board of Education in 2017, she had a goal: making sure schools met the needs of students with disabilities. Among the first openly autistic candidates to be elected to public office in the country, she saw her win as a sign that her small town was open to […]

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Utah Sets Restrictions on Transgender People’s Bathroom Use

The News Utah will prohibit transgender people from using bathrooms in public schools and government-owned buildings that align with their gender identity, after Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill on Tuesday imposing the restrictions. Background The bill, House Bill 257, which passed the Legislature last week, set sweeping restrictions for transgender people. Under the bill, […]

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In a New Cannabis Landscape, a Navy Veteran Battles for Racial Equity

“Transforming Spaces” is a series about women driving change in sometimes unexpected places. Jam the towel under the door. Open the window. And hide the bong. For decades, college students have found ways to mask the pungent aroma of marijuana smoke on campuses. Wanda James, however, did not always feel a need to hide. A […]

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‘Barbie’ Is Bad. There, I Said It.

We can all agree 2023 was a good year for the movies. Critically and commercially, several movies did well, and only one of those successes took place within the Marvel cinematic universe. Even the 10 Oscar nominees for best picture, announced on Tuesday, included nine actually good films. Is it safe now to call “Barbie” […]

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First Black Women to Cover the White House Are Honored in the Briefing Room

On her first day covering the White House, Alice Dunnigan had every reason to stand out. She was the first Black woman to be credentialed to join the White House press corps, and she had even arrived an hour early to cover her first news conference with President Harry S. Truman. But as she sat […]

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