https://tnc.news/2023/11/08/misled-mps-arrivecan-app/

Look like Queen Tay shows no mercy!

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/massachusetts-student-fights-two-genders-shirt-ban-us-appeals-court-rcna138115

BOSTON — A federal appeals court on Thursday appeared skeptical that a Massachusetts middle school violated a student's right to free speech by requiring him to stop wearing a T-shirt that said, “There are only two genders.”

A lawyer for Liam Morrison, 13, told the three judges of a 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in Boston that officials at the Nichols Middle School in Middleborough violated the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment by censoring him when he expressed a view opposing its pro-LGBTQ stances.

The lawyer, David Cortman, said Morrison wore the shirt in seventh grade to show he disagreed with the school's support of “views that biology alone does not determine s*x,” which it expressed via pro-LGBTQ posters and Pride Month celebrations.

“What the school cannot do, even though they could share their own views, is decide that only students who agree with those views can speak, but anyone who disagrees should be silenced,” Cortman said.

Yet Cortman, a lawyer with the conservative Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, said that's what the school did when it told him to either remove the shirt or leave for the day, which he did.

The same thing happened when a few days later he wore a shirt saying “There are [censored] genders,” Cortman said. He said a lower-court judge got it wrong when she declined to block the school's shirt ban last year.

The case is one of a growing number of lawsuits by conservative litigants challenging school policies aimed at protecting LGBTQ students from harassment and respecting their pronouns and gender identities.

The judges in Morrison's case, all appointed by Democratic presidents, questioned why the school's actions were not justified to ensure a safe educational environment for nonbinary students and deter disruptions the shirt would prompt.

U.S. Circuit Judge Lara Montecalvo contrasted the shirt with a brochure handed out by students expressing a particular message, saying unlike those pieces of paper, a student could not throw away the shirt that Morrison was wearing.

“A T-shirt that is worn all day is worn all day,” she said. “You have to look at it, you have to read it.”

Deborah Ecker, a lawyer for the Middleborough School Committee, said the school officials' actions were motivated by concern for the mental health of LGBTQ students, “who are captive in this classroom looking at it.”

“I think that this message, that there are only two genders, is vile and it says to someone who is nonbinary that you do not exist, that your validity does not exist, and it attacks the very core characteristic,” she said.

"So you're saying I don't exist??!" is a legal argument now btw

U.S. Circuit Judge David Barron noted that, following news reports about the incident with Morrison's first shirt, the school received threatening messages and was forced to call in a police detail as protests began.

“That's all traced back to the shirt,” he said. “Had that not happened, none of it would have happened.”

!chuds the West has not fallen

Progressive and LGBTQ+ groups say they've been excluded from Vancouver's Lunar New Year parade in Chinatown this weekend, with one of their representatives saying they were told it was because of a ban on “political activism.”

Chinatown Together, organized by community activist Melody Ma, and LGBTQ+ group Lunar New Year For All say their applications to march in the Spring Festival Parade on Sunday were rejected by the committee that runs the event.

The parade marks the year of the dragon, which starts on Saturday.

Ma posted a letter on social media that she says came from the parade's organizers, telling her that approval of Chinatown Together's participation had been rescinded because “political activism finds no place within the spirit of the event.”

The letter dated Feb. 3 says the parade is “dedicated to a sense of unity” and is intentionally distanced from religious or political affiliations.

But Pearl Wong, co-organizer of Lunar New Year For All, says they don't consider themselves political, and no reason for their exclusion was given in the letter they received.

“Our thought process was, hey, it would be really cool if we could form a group that is dedicated for queer and trans folks of Asian descent,” Wong said.

“We don't really understand why it has to be this hard, because I don't think it's very hard to be inclusive and welcoming.”

Wong, who is from New York, said Manhattan's Chinatown parade had incorporated LGBTQ+ members since 2010.

The Chinatown Spring Festival's organizing committee issued a response late Thursday, saying it is “committed to upholding the tradition of promoting community, collaboration and tolerance across cultures.”

“We are also committed to ensuring that the parade is a safe and inclusive event for all participants and spectators,” it said in a statement.

“The committee will make the decision to accept or reject parade team applications based on these criteria.”

Ma is a vocal critic of gentrification in Chinatown, opposing projects such as a residential tower at 105 Keefer Street, which was approved by Vancouver's permit board last June after years of dispute.

But she said none of the group's banners on Sunday would have mentioned gentrification or 105 Keefer Street, in accordance with parade rules.

“We decided to participate in the Lunar New Year parade despite the fact the organizers were pro-Chinatown gentrification, because we wanted to put that all aside,” Ma said. “For this, the largest celebration of Chinatown, we're going to put all these political differences aside and participate in this together.”

“Unfortunately,” she added, “what's ironic is that by rejecting and citing political activism – whatever that means to them in this case – they are inherently politicizing the event and the decision.”

The parade is organized by a consortium of six organizations – the Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver, the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Vancouver, the Vancouver Chinatown Merchants Association, the Chinese Freemasons Vancouver Branch, the Shon Yee Benevolent Association of Canada and social service agency said in a written response that it isn't the lead organizer of the parade and isn't involved with operational decisions.

The letter posted by Ma on social media says the festival's organizing committee had “steadfastly adhered” to its principles for decades, “ensuring the event remains a beacon of cultural heritage and community cohesion.”

“While your passion for advocacy has been recognized, it is essential to underscore that political activism finds no place within the spirit of the event,” it says.

Jordan Eng, president of the Vancouver Chinatown Business Improvement Association, said the case highlights the complexity of Chinatowns and their social and economic fault lines.

“Chinatown is like a city in itself,” with strong opposing views on issues such as gentrification, Eng said.

“On 105 Keefer, even within those legacy organizations, that was a really hard decision,” Eng said, noting many groups changed positions over time to support the project.

“Our views don't necessarily align with the legacy organizations, and the last go-around for 105 (Keefer), most of those organizations did not support it as well.”

Eng's groups supported the project.

He said this year's parade, celebrating both the year of the dragon and the event's 50th anniversary, would play a crucial role in the revitalization of the neighbourhood after the pandemic.

“This is really a time for us to showcase Chinatown in a very positive light, in a unified light,” he said. “We need good news stories. We don't need people trying to bring us down.”

!foidmoment

Earlier this month, Zoom followed in the footsteps of many of its peers in the tech industry and laid off 150 employees---about 2% of its workforce---in an effort to redirect its resources and invest in what the company described as "critical areas for the future." One of the teams that Zoom deemed superfluous was the group of employees working on diversity, equity, and inclusion, according to a Bloomberg report this week.

In an internal note to employees, chief operating officer Aparna Bawa claimed that, in lieu of an internal team, Zoom would bring on DEI consultants who would focus on inclusion. Per Bloomberg, Bawa also said that Zoom had to "change its approach to DEI." In a statement to Fast Company, a Zoom spokesperson said, "Zoom remains committed to DEI and ensuring its principles remain firmly rooted in our DNA across our entire company."

As Fast Company reported last year, this decision is in line with a broader trend across the tech industry---and other sectors, too---that has led companies to quietly disinvest from the very public commitments they made in 2020, in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder. Too often, when companies are forced to trim headcount, DEI jobs are among the first to go. As the tech industry cut over 400,000 jobs between 2022 and 2023, many DEI teams were gutted; Twitter's 30-person DEI team, for example, was reduced to just two employees after repeated layoffs and Elon Musk's acquisition. In other cases, at companies like Amazon, former employees have reportedly been replaced with cheaper, less-experienced hires.

Like so many companies, Zoom brought on its first chief diversity officer, Damien Hooper-Campbell, in June 2020 and published its first diversity report in 2022. But Hooper-Campbell left within 22 months and was never replaced. (As Fast Company reported in 2021, Zoom did not have Hooper-Campbell report to the CEO or head of operations.) Over the past few years, many DEI leaders have left their posts due to burnout or opted to start their own consulting practices, often in response to shrinking budgets and the exhausting pace of their work---which is all the more challenging when corporate DEI commitments are constantly in flux.

While DEI practitioners have long had to contend with cyclical investment in their work, the Supreme Court's ruling on affirmative action last year has sparked an especially strong backlash from politicians and business leaders. More recently, the issue has become the target of outspoken executives including Musk and Bill Ackman, who have openly derided DEI initiatives. And while the affirmative action ruling did not apply to private employers, Edward Blum---the conservative lawyer driving much of the anti-affirmative action movement---has brought lawsuits against such organizations as the Fearless Fund, a VC firm that invests in underrepresented founders.

Even beyond cutting jobs or trimming budgets, it's clear that this broader cultural pushback is impacting how companies are approaching DEI. As conservative activists have threatened legal action, companies including JPMorgan Chase and Tesla have already altered the language of their diversity initiatives or revised their DEI goals.

!chuds !nooticers

A passenger on board a Lufthansa flight from Thailand to Germany died Thursday, after his fellow travelers watched in horror as blood gushed out of his mouth and nose.

The unidentified 63-year-old German man was seen boarding the Airbus A380 in Bangkok shortly before midnight visibly sick, with "cold sweats" and "breathing much too quickly," Karin Missfelder recounted to SwissGerman outlet Blick.

At first, she said, his wife claimed they had to rush to catch the flight --- which is why he wasn't feeling well.

But after watching the man for a few moments, Missfelder --- who is a nursing specialist at University Hospital in Zurich --- said she informed a flight attendant that he needed to be examined by a doctor.

A young Polish man answered the call, but he reportedly only asked the man how he was feeling, felt his pulse and said he was OK.

"They gave him a little chamomile tea, but he already spit blood into the bag that his wife held out to him," said Missfelder's husband, Martin.

Soon, blood started spilling out of his mouth and nose.

"It was absolute horror, everyone was screaming," Martin said.

He claimed that the man lost liters of blood, some of which splattered the walls of the plane.

For about half an hour afterward, flight attendants tried to perform CPR — even as the nurse said she knew it was hopeless.

When he finally went still and the captain announced the man's death, “it was dead quiet on board,” she said.

Staff then carried the man's body into the galley of the plane, as it turned and headed back to Thailand.

“Although immediate and comprehensive first aid measures were taken by the crew and a doctor on board, the passenger died during the flight,” a Lufthansa spokesperson confirmed in a statement.

“Our thoughts are with the relatives of the deceased passenger. We also regret the inconvenience caused to the passengers of this flight,” the spokesperson said.

Flight data show it left Bangkok at 11:50 p.m. Thursday and landed back in Thailand at 8:28 a.m. Friday.

There, the passengers said they had to wait two hours without any guidance from Lufthansa before they were finally booked on another flight to Germany, with a stopover in Hong Kong.

But for Missfelder, the worst part was that the man's wife now had to go through customs alone.

She said she regrets that she did not try to help.

“I should have intervened, but I saw that a doctor was looking after him, so I didn't want to get involved,” she said, noting that “the man looked so bad, I don't understand why the captain took off.”

Truthout is a vital news source and a living history of political struggle.

>Living history

>Corporations aren't people.