Jilly_in_VA
Jilly_in_VA's JournalCalifornia students can no longer be suspended for 'willful defiance'. Could nationwide change be ne
California students can no longer be suspended for ‘willful defiance’. Could nationwide change be next?More than a decade ago, when he was a teacher and school counselor, Amir Whitaker was called into a Los Angeles classroom to support a student in a disciplinary situation. A Black girl had been humming in one of his white colleague’s classes. His fellow teacher, Whitaker said, had asked the student to stop humming to no avail.
Eventually, the student was recommended for suspension for “defiance” – a broad, subjective category that, under the California education code, meant a student “disrupted school activities or otherwise willfully defied the valid authority” of teachers, administrators and other school officials. Whitaker later learned the girl hummed to regulate her ADHD.
Years later, in 2021, Whitaker found himself in a similar situation. He had since become the senior policy counsel for the ACLU of Southern California, and was asked by a Black family to intervene at a different school where their young relative had been disciplined for drumming at his desk. “The [school’s] initial response was still punitive,” Whitaker said. “With some conversations, we were able to redirect.” By then, Whitaker could point to examples that showed officials didn’t need to resort to punishment when a student’s behavior appeared disruptive: several California districts, including Los Angeles Unified, had banned willful defiance suspensions. The school, he said, had a social worker who could talk to and support the student, who, in the end, avoided suspension.
At least 25 states and the District of Columbia allow schools to suspend students for “willful defiance”, according to the LawAtlas Project’s Policy Surveillance Portal. This week, California became the first state in the US to ban such suspensions for all students, expanding a pre-existing ban on the disciplinary practice for students in grades kindergarten through eighth grade. The new law, signed by the governor, Gavin Newsom, last Sunday, could represent a model for how other states approach reforming disciplinary practices, which disproportionately affect Black and Latino students, as well as those with disabilities and those from low-income backgrounds.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/oct/14/california-gavin-newsom-student-suspensions-willful-defiance
Seems like a very broad charge, for one thing. I mean, define "willful defiance" for starters.
Former MSU football coach Mel Tucker uses toxic tactic to defend himself
Ever since USA TODAY broke the news last month about Michigan State University’s investigation into Mel Tucker’s alleged sexual misconduct, the former football coach has been playing defense.
Statements from Tucker or his legal team have vehemently denied allegations he sexually harassed Brenda Tracy, a rape survivor and activist the coach had hired to speak to his team about sexual violence. The alleged harassment – an April 2022 phone call with Tracy during which Tucker masturbated and is accused of making sexual comments without her consent – was not harassment at all, according to Tucker.
While he has admitted to masturbating during the call, Tucker claims it was consensual phone sex.
No matter what happened in that phone call, Tucker’s public behavior since then has gone well beyond just denying sexually harassing Tracy.
In his first public statement addressing MSU’s investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct, Tucker went on the attack. He accused Tracy of fabricating the harassment to “revive her career” and “destroy” his life, and called the allegations “character assassination.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/10/13/michigan-state-football-coach-mel-tucker-darvo-sexual-harassment/71145641007/
Nasty man.
An Alabama woman was imprisoned for 'endangering' her fetus. She gave birth in a jail shower
In March 2021, sheriffs in Etowah county, Alabama, arrested Ashley Caswell on accusations that she’d tested positive for methamphetamine while pregnant and was “endangering” her fetus.
Caswell, who was two months pregnant at the time, became one of a growing number of women imprisoned in the county in the name of protecting their “unborn children”.
But over the next seven months of incarceration for “chemical endangerment” in the Etowah county detention center (ECDC), Caswell was denied regular access to prenatal visits, even as officials were aware her pregnancy was high-risk due to her hypertension and abnormal pap smears, according to a lawsuit filed on Friday against the county and the sheriff’s department. She was also denied her prescribed psychiatric medication and slept on a thin mat on the concrete floor of the detention center for her entire pregnancy.
In October, when her water broke and she pleaded to be taken to a hospital, her lawyer says, officials told her to “sleep it off” and “wait until Monday” to deliver – two days away.
During nearly 12 hours of labor, staff gave her only Tylenol for her pain, the suit says, allegedly telling her to “stop screaming”, to “deal with the pain” and that she was “not in full labor”. Caswell lost amniotic fluid and blood and was alone and standing up in a jail shower when she ultimately delivered her child, according to the complaint and her medical records. She nearly bled to death, her lawyers say.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/13/alabama-pregnant-woman-jail-lawsuit
Read on--it gets even worse. Alabummer sucks
Walgreens
The one near me where my quickly needed prescription is located is "temporarily closed due to an emergency". The CSR who answered the phone (heavily accented of course) had no information as to the emergency or whether they would be open tomorrow or when they would be open again. This is getting beyond ridiculous and into the sphere of enraging.
Rogues in a Nation-Steeleye Span
A song for RepubliKKKans! While this song was written many hundred years ago in Scotland, it is certainly applicable to them!
Black student suspended over his hairstyle to be sent to an alternative education program
After serving more than a month of in-school suspension over his dreadlocks, a Black student in Texas was told he will be removed from his high school and sent to a disciplinary alternative education program on Thursday.
Darryl George, 18, is a junior at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu and has been suspended since Aug. 31. He will be sent to EPIC, an alternative school program, from Oct. 12 through Nov. 29 for “failure to comply” with multiple campus and classroom regulations, the principal said in a Wednesday letter provided to The Associated Press by the family.
Principal Lance Murphy wrote that George has repeatedly violated the district’s “previously communicated standards of student conduct.” The letter also says that George will be allowed to return to regular classroom instruction on Nov. 30 but will not be allowed to return to his high school’s campus until then unless he’s there to discuss his conduct with school administrators.
Barbers Hill Independent School District prohibits male students from having hair extending below the eyebrows, ear lobes or top of a T-shirt collar, according to the student handbook. Additionally, hair on all students must be clean, well-groomed, geometrical and not an unnatural color or variation. The school does not require uniforms.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/black-student-suspended-hairstyle-texas-crown-act-rcna120073
Texass. In direct violation of the state's own CROWN act.
Trump demands apology from Forbes for being cut from wealthiest list again
Donald Trump “demanded” an apology from Forbes magazine after it dropped him from its list of the 400 wealthiest people in the US for the second time in three years.
“I hereby demand a full apology from the failing Forbes magazine,” the former president wrote on Wednesday on Truth Social, the reportedly struggling social media platform he set up after being expelled from mainstream platforms over the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
Forbes released its Trump-free list last week, saying the his net worth was down $600m from a year before. Trump has been on the list since the 1990s, other than in 2021.
In response, Trump complained about “really dumb writers assigned to hit me hard” and bragged about huge leads in Republican presidential polling he holds despite facing 91 criminal charges and assorted civil threats.
In that post from Monday, Trump concluded: “So much for Forbes!” But as usual he could not resist returning to the well, using his Wednesday post to complain about the “writer, Dan Alexander, for the many false and libelous articles [Forbes] have written about me”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/12/trump-forbes-magazine-wealthiest-people-list
Facts is facts, Donnie. Go tell someone who cares.
Kushner says Chuck Schumer told family friends 'Jared's going to jail'
Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the US Senate, upset Jared Kushner’s mother by telling her friends her son would go to jail over his ties to Russia, Kushner said on Wednesday.
“My poor mom, I told her to stop, you know, reading whatever. I said, ‘I promise you, we didn’t do anything wrong, it’s good,’” Kushner told the Lex Fridman Podcast. “But you know, she’d call me [to] say … ‘Our friends on the Upper East Side were talking with Chuck Schumer, who says Jared’s going to jail.’”
Schumer, the senior senator from New York, was Democratic minority leader in the US Senate during the presidency of Donald Trump, Kushner’s father-in-law and White House boss. Since 2021, Schumer has been majority leader.
Married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, Kushner became his father-in-law’s chief adviser on the campaign trail and then in the White House.
Trump’s first two years in power were dogged by investigations and speculation over his links to Russia and interference by Moscow in the 2016 US election.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/12/jared-kushner-chuck-schumer-jail
Ken doll is as big a liar as his father in law. And hopefully he will go to jail!
John Fetterman Expertly Trolls His GOP Haters With Colbert
John Fetterman’s Late Show with Stephen Colbert appearance is likely not scoring him any points on the right, but something tells us that won’t bother him too much.
During the Pennsylvanian senator’s appearance, the two discussed his recovery from a recent stroke, his battle with depression, and what it’s like to navigate the chaos of Washington, D.C. When asked how he deals with running into fellow lawmakers whom he’s mocked in memes online, Fetterman didn’t seem stressed.
“You all need to know that America is not sending their best and brightest to Washington, D.C.,” he quipped. “Sometimes you can’t believe that these people are making the decisions that determine the government here. It’s actually scary.”
Regarding our recent near-government shutdown, Fetterman recalled the moment when it came time for the Senate to vote. “Out of 99 of us, if one single one of us would have said ‘no,’ the whole government would have shut down,” he said, adding that it’s “dangerous” to give individuals that amount of power “because you have some very less gifted kinds of people there that are willing to shut down the government just to score points on Fox.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/john-fetterman-trolls-gop-haters-fox-news-with-colbert
I love this guy! Sometimes I think he aligns more closely with Jon Testerman than anyone else, other times, I dunno.
13 Things Nancy Mace's 'Scarlet Letter' Could Stand For
On Wednesday, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) wore a gigantic red “A” on a white shirt as she walked through a House office building. She stopped to speak to reporters after a closed-door meeting among the GOP to figure out who would be the next Speaker of the House. (Mace was one of just eight Republicans, and the only woman, who voted last week to oust former speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.)
For the uninitiated, Mace thinks very highly of herself and loves to appear on the Sunday shows to tout herself as a voice of reason in the Republican party—for example, she claims to be a “moderate” on abortion, despite supporting bans and voting for restrictions. Her actions often belie her self-mythology, and the latest example is her joining the block of far-right members of the Freedom Caucus to vote out McCarthy.
When reporters asked Mace what her shirt meant, she said it’s her “scarlet letter.” She continued, “I’m wearing the scarlet letter after the week that I just had, last week, being a woman up here and being demonized for my vote and for my voice.” And she kept going! “I’m here to let the rest of the world know and the country know: I’m on the side of the people. I’m not on the side of the establishment. And I’m going to do the right thing every single time, no matter the consequences, because I don’t answer to anybody in D.C.; I don’t answer to anyone in Washington. I only answer to the people.”
The concept of a scarlet letter, meant to refer to the stigma that happens after some sort of misdeed, comes from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 novel, The Scarlet Letter, in which the protagonist, Hester Prynne, believes her husband is dead and has a baby with another man. Her Puritan community thenforces her to face a public shaming and wear the letter A for “adultery” for the rest of her life.
https://jezebel.com/13-things-nancy-maces-scarlet-let-could-stand-for-1850917517
Nancy has a very exalted opinion of herself.
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