Migration Category: news-10001-15000-national

Despite the defeat of Initiative 26, the so-called Personhood Amendment, by Mississippi voters last week, the group sponsoring the initiative, Personhood USA, has announced that they will attempt to place similar initiatives on the ballot in at least five states in 2012. Initiative 26, a state constitutional amendment, would have given full rights to fertilized eggs. Targeted states for 2012 include Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Nevada, and California. In 2014, the group plans to target Florida.

If personhood initiatives are approved for the ballots in these states, emergency contraception, birth control pills, IUDs, and abortions – even in cases of rape and incest or to save the life of the woman or girl – would be threatened. Initiative 26 in Mississippi would have even gone so far as to eliminate medical choices for women, including some cancer treatments, in vitro fertilization, and could allow the state to investigate and even prosecute a woman for a miscarriage.

Initiative 26 was rejected by Mississippi voters 58% to 42% percent. Prior to Mississippi, voters have defeated anti-choice state ballot measures in South Dakota, Colorado, and California in 2006 and 2008; and Colorado in 2010.

In its fifth blog carnival, HERvotes is taking on the need to keep the laws and public policies to end sex discrimination and sexual harassment in schools and at the workplace strong. HERvotes, a multi-organizational campaign launched in August 2011, advocates women must use our voices and votes to stop the attacks on the women’s movement’s major advances at risk in the next election.

While HERvotes called attention in early November to the dangerous personhood state constitutional amendment on the Mississippi ballot, sexual harassment emerged as an issue in the presidential primaries and the horrific sexual assault of children at Penn State by a former football coach captured the nation’s headlines. (The Mississippi ballot measure was defeated 58-42%.). Today a member organization of HERvotes, the American Association of University Women, is releasing an historic report on the high levels of sexual harassment in our nation’s schools.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects people in the workplace from sex discrimination and Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act of 1972 protects students, teachers, professors and staff in all educational institutions receiving federal funding from sex discrimination. Sexual harassment has been ruled decisively by courts as a form of sex discrimination. Both federal laws, major advances of the Women’s movement, are under attack by members of Congress who seek to gut such protections or by Supreme Court decisions that have weakened them. The Supreme Court has ruled, in various cases, to weaken or even gut the protections of both VII and/or Title IX. Congress has had to restore the Acts once weakened or gutted. Still, several members of the Court have ruled to weaken the Acts. We must keep Title VII and Title IX strong. We have a right to know where policymakers stand on these issues. Check out the #HERvotes blog carnival to learn more.

Amidst news of the Penn State abuse scandal, the Citadel, a South Carolina military academy, has released details of an alumnus and former camp counselor at the school who faces charges of criminal sexual conduct with a child. Louis Neal “Skip” ReVille is accused of attempting to perform lewd acts on a minor. The allegations come as the college admits to having received a complaint in 2007 in which ReVille invited two Citadel Summer Camp attendees to watch pornography in his room. ReVille denied the accusations, and taking into consideration his status as a highly respected cadet, the college dropped the matter.

On the initial handling of the complaint, Citadel President Lt. Gen John W. Rosa and Doug Snyder, chairman of The Citadel Board of Visitors, said in a statement that, “Despite the concerns of the family, whose right to privacy was foremost on our minds, we regret that we did not pursue this matter further.”

According to the Huffington Post, ReVille graduated from the Citadel in 2002, having received the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award for his service as a cadet. ReVille is said to have held the position of upper school principal at Coastal Christian Prep in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, where he spent years working with local children.

On Tuesday, Superintendent Linda Lane for Pittsburgh Public Schools recommended that George Westinghouse Academy, a local public high school, end its single sex education program. The decision came after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) threatened to file a lawsuit against the school district, claiming that the program violates Title IX, a law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in all levels of education. The district school board will be asked to vote on the matter on November 22.

Lane indicated that her recommendation came from her dissatisfaction with the staff training for single-sex classes, stating that “I wasn’t comfortable with some of the things that were stated to be characteristics of girls or characteristics of boys. I wasn’t comfortable with it, and I don’t think most people would have been.”

The decision is a victory for opponents of gender segregation in schools, who claim that gender segregation policies are detrimental to the academic learning environment and reinforce negative sex stereotyping.

The Feminist Majority Foundation is currently working to rescind the 2006 Bush-era Title IX regulations that make it significantly easier to allow single-sex classrooms in public schools. Research studies indicate that such rigid separation of sexes leads to sex discrimination and sex stereotyping to the detriment of academic learning. Even the Bush administration’s examination of academic performance studies found the results to be “equivocal.”

A civil jury in Miami awarded a record $100 million to Andres Sousana, who alleged that he was drugged and raped by a Roman Catholic priest when he was 14 years old. Reverend Neil Doherty, who is currently retired, awaits a criminal trial in jail.

Jeff Herman, Sousana’s attorney in the case stated, “It sets a standard. Now we know what a jury thinks about these cases. No. 2, it sends a message that we hope will protect other children.”

In total, 26 people have accused Doherty of sexual abuse. According to the Miami New Times, 36 priests have been accused of sexually abusing minors in the Archdiocese of Miami.

The Pennsylvania State University Board of Trustees has fired football coach Joe Paterno and University President Graham Spanier following a scandal involving former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky, who is charged with sexually abusing eight boys over a span of 15 years. According to a grand jury report, Paterno learned of Sandusky’s alleged assault in 2002 from a graduate student but failed to report the incident to the police.

Initially Paterno announced that he would finish out the season has head coach. John Surma Jr., Chairman of the Board, stated, “We thought that because of the difficulties that engulfed our university, and they are great, that it is necessary to make a change in the leadership to set a course for a new direction.”

Sandusky is accused of making sexual advances and having oral and anal sex with the victims, who were in their early teens when the alleged abuse occurred. In addition, two officials from Penn State, Senior Vice President Gary Schultz and Athletic Director Tim Curley, have been charged with failing to report the suspected child abuse to law enforcement officials and committing perjury in their grand jury testimony.

Paterno served 46 seasons as head coach and has had more victories than any other college football coach in history. Rodney Erickson, currently the executive vice president and provost at Penn State, will take over as acting president.

Israel’s Supreme Court’s three-judge panel ruled unanimously to reject former President Moshe Katsav’s appeal of his rape charges. Katsav was ordered to spend seven years in jail for sexually harassing two women while serving as president and raping an employee during his term as cabinet minister.

Judge Salim Joubran stated, that Katsav “fell from the loftiest heights to the deepest depths. Such a senior official should be a role model to his subordinates. Every woman has a right to her own body. A right to dignity. A right to freedom. No one has the liberty to take any of those from her.”

Katsav will begin to serve his sentence on December 7th. According to the Washington Post, “Katsav is the highest-ranking Israeli official ever sentenced to prison.” Katsav was first accused in 2006 and resigned in 2007, just two weeks before his seven year term was set to expire.

Two officials from Pennsylvania State University have been charged with failing to report suspected child abuse by the university’s former football coach and committing perjury in their grand jury testimony. Senior Vice President Gary Schultz and Athletic Director Tim Curley allegedly failed to inform law enforcement about complaints that former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky had sexually abused eight boys over a span of 15 years. Both Schultz and Curley stepped down from their positions immediately after the charges were announced.

Sandusky is charged with both making sexual advances and having oral and anal sex with the victims, who were in their early teens when the alleged abuse occurred.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly believes that there are more victims in this case who have not come forward. She stated, “When you look at the totality of the circumstances and the number of victims that we have, I don’t think it would be beyond the realm of possibility that there are other victims that exist here.” Kelly encourages witnesses to come forth and indicated that “This is an ongoing and active investigation. We are determined to quickly respond to any new witnesses or any additional information that may appear.”

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has been dispatching reproductive health care service providers and necessary resources to Central America, where approximately 1.2 million people have been affected by severe flooding. UNFPA has set up two mobile health centers and distributed over 5,000 kits, which include soap, sanitary pads, and towels, in El Salvador to reach the approximately 300,000 people impacted by the floods. UNFPA is also dispatching doctors and nurses to travel to Guatemala to provide vital maternal health care services.

UNFPA notes “In the aftermath of such natural disasters, women and young people may be left unaccompanied – out in the open or in temporary shelters – as chaos and breakdown in policing could lead to increased lawlessness and attacks. In these circumstances, sexual violence may become widespread.” UNFPA is also deploying professionals to assist sexual violence survivors in Nicaragua and Guatemala.

On October 5, the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted along party lines to pass a bill to defund the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The vote was 23 to 17, with all 23 Republicans present voting in favor of blocking US funding to UNFPA and all of the Democrats voting against the measure.

According to a study released by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), 48 percent of students in grades 7-12 experience sexual harassment, either in person or through texting, emails, or social media platforms. Catherine Hill, director of research at AAUW, stated, “It’s reached a level where it’s almost a normal part of the school day. It’s somewhat of a vicious cycle. The kids who are harassers often have been harassed themselves.”

AAUW conducted the survey in both private and public schools and polled over 1,000 girls and some 963 boys. The study found that girls were more likely than boys to experience sexual harassment, with 56 percent of girls indicating that they had been harassed compared to 40 percent of boys. In regards to the gendered nature of the harassment, the study stated, “Too often, the more comfortable term bullying is used to describe sexual harassment, obscuring the role of gender and sex in these incidents. Schools are likely to promote bullying prevention while ignoring or downplaying sexual harassment.”

Moreover, only 9 percent of the students who indicated that they had been harassed reported the incident to a school official, such as a teacher or guidance counselor. The report calls for each school to develop, publicize, and a sexual harassment policy.

The World Economic Forum released the annual Global Gender Gap Report 2011 on Tuesday. The report indicates that while women have made progress in decreasing the gender gaps in health and education, there still remains considerable disparities in the areas of political participation and economic equality. The report surveyed 135 countries which make up more than 93 percent of the world’s population and ranked each country based on the various levels of women’s education, health, economic and political participation.

“A world where women make up less than 20 percent of the global decision-makers is a world that is missing a huge opportunity for growth and ignoring an untapped reservoir of potential,” said Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum.

According to the report, Nordic countries, such as Iceland, Norway, and Sweden are leaders in the movement toward increased gender equality while Great Britain and the United States trail behind. The report also found that wage inequality is still a persistent problem in the United States, with the US ranking 68th in the world on this issue.

Virginia Rometty was named the first female CEO of the 100 year old company IBM last week. The Board of Directors of IBM announced that she would succeed current CEO Samuel J. Palmisano when he leaves on January 1st 2012. Rometty joined the company in 1981 as a systems engineer and rose through the ranks to become Sales and Marketing Chief. She supervised IBM’s acquisition of PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting in 2002. The $3.5 billion deal was a seen as a risk for IBM and Rometty received praise for her successful integration of the two companies.

Rometty will become only the 17th woman CEO of a Fortune 500 company when she takes over for Palmisano next year. IBM, known for its male workers dressed in blue blazers, has strived to end the perception that it is a “boy’s club.” Rometty had been a front runner to succeed Palmisano because of her experience and success with the company. Palmisano stressed that she was named CEO because of her skills and talents, telling the New York Times, “Ginni got it because she deserved it. It’s got zero to do with progressive social policies.”

Past allegations of sexual harassment by Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain have resurfaced, with Cain being accused of having demonstrated suggestive sexual behavior towards at least two former employees during his tenure as CEO of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s. Two women are said to have complained of Cain’s sexual misconduct, only to be asked to leave the company and sign confidentiality agreements in exchange for payment.

According to Politico http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/67194_Page2.html , which broke the story, a former board member for the National Restaurant Association recalled events surrounding one of the women’s complaints, stating that, “She was offered a financial package to leave the association, and she did. What I took offense at was that it was clear that rather than deal with the issue, there was an effort to hush it up. She was offered a way out to keep quiet.”

Political pundits such as Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell have criticized the campaign and Cain for mishandling the allegations. Instead of forthrightly dealing with the issue, Cain and his campaign have changed their comments concerning the allegations from the time the story broke throughout the news cycle on Monday.

The Catholic Church is at odds with the Obama Administration over a recent decision to end Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) funding to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops because of its stance on birth control and reproductive rights. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was previously awarded grants from HHS to help victims of human trafficking. In September, HHS awarded the grants to other organizations because the Catholic Bishops refused to provide referrals for reproductive services to human trafficking victims.

Last spring, as the contract between HHS and the Catholic Bishops was set to expire, HHS issued new guidelines for the awarding of the funds which included a “strong preference” for a contractor who would refer victims to family planning and reproductive health services. The ACLU had filed a lawsuit in 2009 because many victims of human trafficking are raped and need access to a wide range of services, including abortions and birth control. Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the Catholic Bishops, told the Washington Post, “The principle of church teaching is that all sexual encounters be open to life. It’s not a minor matter; this is intrinsic to our Catholic beliefs.”

Ms. Magazine previously exposed this issue of the Catholic Church refusing to provide reproductive health services as early as 2006 and it appeared as a cover story in the Winter 2010 magazine. The Catholic Church is now claiming discrimination and calling the decision politically-motivated. The Church was already angered with the Obama Administration’s recent mandate that private insurers not charge co-pays for contraceptive services for women. The HHS funds for the victims of Human Trafficking, $4.5 million, will now be split between three nonprofits- Heartland Human Care Services, Tapestri and the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.

The world’s population reached 7 billion today. The population as a whole is aging, particularly in developed areas in which people are living longer and the fertility rates are lower. However, the number of births continues to increase in developing countries. There are 158 more births than deaths each day in the world, but 154 of these births occur in developing countries.

Women throughout the world have on average 2.5 children in their lifetimes, but in the poorest countries this rate is closer to 4.5. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest fertility rate, with an average of 5.2 children born to each woman. Carol Haub, a senior demographer for the Population Reference Bureau stated, “The world added the sixth billion and the seventh billion in a record 12 years for each. The eighth billion may also take about 12 years, but only if birth rates in all developing countries follow projections that assume a smooth decline to two children or fewer.”

Nearly 215 million women in the developing nations want access to modern contraception but lack access. More than 1 billion people in the world live on less than a dollar a day and do not have access to safe drinking water. According to the United Nation’s World Food Program, “Hunger is the #1 world’s risk – it kills more people every year than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined.” A Population Action International report states that most governments in developing countries are unprepared to meet the demands of the growing population.

Learn more about the impact of population growth and take action now!

On Thursday, current and former employees of Wal- Mart’s California stores filed a lawsuit against the corporation on grounds of sex discrimination. This is the first of many class action suits designed to serve as a scaled down version of the initial lawsuit, which was filed in 2001 and rejected by the U.S Supreme Court in June. The court ruled that the suit was too varied in its allegations, showing no concrete pattern of gender bias, effectively making Wal-Mart “too big to sue.”

Attorneys for the plaintiffs have come up with a new legal strategy that includes drafting more detailed and tailored lawsuits. According to the Associated Press, the new lawsuit could include as many as 95,000 women who have worked in California’s 220 Wal-Mart stores between 1998 and the time the case goes to trial.

“The evidence is still apparent,” said Betty Dukes, the Wal-Mart greeter in Pittsburg whose name first appeared on the original complaint. “We are determined to see them in court.” The initial lawsuit was filed in 2001 by Betty Dukes, a former Wal-Mart employee, and six other women. They allege Wal-Mart systematically paid and promoted women employees less. They were seeking what could have been billions of dollars in punitive damages and back pay for all female employees of the big-box chain since 1998.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) voted yesterday to recommend that boys between 11 and 21 years old be vaccinated for the human papilloma virus (HPV). Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of the Department of Preventative Medicine at Vanderbilt University, stated, “If the boys are also immunized, it reduces the transmission back and forth.”

Previously, the CDC only recommended the vaccine for women ages 9 to 26. According to CNN, HPV is the most prevalent disease in the United States and over 50 percent of people who are sexually active with become infected with HPV. The CDC indicated that the vaccines “were tested in thousands of people around the world. These studies showed no serious safety concerns.”

The Journal of the American Medical Association (AMA) reports that over one-third of American women are infected with the human papillomavirus (HPV) by the age of 24. While the majority of HPV strains are benign, some strains can cause cervical cancer and genital warts. About 2.2 percent of infected women have a strain that is high-risk for cervical cancer, the recent research finds. Gardasil, which prevents cervical cancer and genital warts caused by HPV types 6, 11, 16, and 18, was approved by the FDA in June 2006.

Yesterday, the Uniform Crime Report Subcommittee of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) voted unanimously to recommend a new, more inclusive definition of Rape in the UCR Report. The recommendation will be considered at a public meeting of the CJIS Advisory Policy Board in December. If approved, it will be forwarded to FBI Director Robert Mueller who will make the final decision.

The vote came after years of urging by feminist organizations, spearheaded for more than a decade by the Pennsylvania-based Women’s Law Project and reinforced by the Feminist Majority Foundation, the National Center for Women and Policing and Ms. magazine. This past year, the Rape is Rape campaign, launched by the Feminist Majority Foundation and Ms. Magazine and picked up by petition website Change.org resulted in nearly 140,000 emails to the FBI and the Department of Justice urging the change.

“Although long overdue, we are pleased that the FBI has vetted this extensively with their local and national law enforcement advisors and a clear consensus is emerging that a more accurate definition will better inform the public about the prevalence of serious sex crimes and will ultimately drive more resources to apprehend sexual offenders,” said Carol Tracy, Executive Director of the Women’s Law Project.

Eleanor Smeal, President of the Feminist Majority Foundation, stated, “This will ensure the crime of rape is measured in a way that it includes all rape, and it will become a crime to which more resources are allocated. It’s intolerable the amount of violence against women, and we feel this will have a significant impact.”

The current definition from the 1920s, which has been criticized for underreporting rape and omitting a significant number of rape cases, defined “forcible rape” only as “the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will.” In response to a recent survey by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), eighty percent of responding police departments agreed that the definition should be changed.

Now entering its third week, what began in New York with a few hundred activists has fast spread throughout the country, with over 1,300 cities or towns currently taking part in occupations. Occupy Wall Street, a movement that has given a voice to the growing discontent with corporatism and militarism in the U.S., has grown not only in numbers, but in scope. Activists shouting chants like “Tax the Rich, End the Wars” and “We will not pay for your crisis,” are also actively organizing for the environment, civil rights, reproductive rights, labor rights, education, and health care.

Now called Occupy Together, the response from mainstream media has evolved, and response of police and government has varied by time and place. In Des Moines, Iowa, 37 people were arrested Sunday after 500 gathered outside of the Iowa Statehouse, renaming the capitol complex “People’s Park.” 100 were arrested yesterday for occupying Boston’s financial district. In other cities, like Washington, D.C., there has been little clash with the police. The group currently occupying Freedom Plaza

In D.C. was granted a 4 month extension on their permit by the U.S. Park Police yesterday. Support from labor unions was strong last week, and this week several government officials voiced their support for the occupations, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who said in an interview last week that she supports the message that “change needs to happen.”

Occupations are also seeing a flood of support in donations from across the globe. Writer Naomi Klein spoke to the crowd in New York last week, saying, “the baffled pundits on TV ask ‘Why are they protesting?’ Meanwhile, the rest of the world asks: ‘What took you so long? We’ve been wondering when you were going to show up.'” Klein ended her speech to the crowd saying, “Let’s treat this beautiful movement as if it is most important thing in the world. Because it is. It really is.”

Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate announced Monday that petitioning in favor of a recall election for their Governor Rick Scott would begin on November 15. The move comes after Governor Scott was elected in November 2010 and came under heavy scrutiny for anti-labor rights laws he supported earlier this year. According to the Government Accountability Board (GAB), the state agency which oversees elections in Wisconsin, recall supporters will have until January 17 to collect 540,000 signatures in support of the measure.If these signatures are obtained, an election would be held sometime in Spring 2012.

Last week, state elections officials retreated from a plan that would have allowed residents of Wisconsin to download petitions supporting the recall from the Internet. Wisconsin Republicans came out against the new rule saying that this method would reshape the recall process. The GAB was also considering a rule that would have allowed stickers to be produced for Wisconsin students to make their school identification cards acceptable for newly enacted voter identification standards.

The GAB has now retreated from both proposals, although the Board will proceed with a vote this month that would provide an option for schools to issue two-year IDs acceptable for voter identification to students.