Migration Category: news-10001-15000-national

On Thursday, hundreds converged on Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. to begin an ongoing nonviolent presence, with the aim of ending corporatism and militarism, among other issues. The organizing group, called October 2011: Stop the Machine, has been organizing the event since February. The start of the event marks the 10 year anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan.

The presence speaks to growing energy and anger at tax cuts for the wealthy and trillions of tax dollars spent on wars as giant cuts are made to education and healthcare and unemployment and poverty rates continue to increase. Similar in spirit to Occupy Wall Street in New York, the October 2011 movement, technically a separate group, stands in solidarity with the occupations in New York and those in other parts of the country.

According to the organizers, the purpose of the presence in Freedom Plaza is to create solidarity among the people and groups who support peace and economic, environmental, and social justice, to demonstrate the power of nonviolence, and to affect change in governmental action.

Committees formed by occupants of Freedom Plaza will begin to form today on topics such as health care, education, elections, and the environment. Skill-sharing sessions and teach-ins are also being held. Food, legal, and medical tents have been established, along with an art space to make signs and a stage with sound equipment from which to hold evening assemblies. Contrary to what some media are calling a movement solely of young, white, middle-class college students, participants are extremely diverse in age, race, gender, and socioeconomic status. The group expects the numbers to grow over the coming days into the thousands.

On September 8, the Shawnee County District Attorney’s Office in Topeka, Kansas announced that it would no longer be prosecuting domestic violence cases. Prosecutors for the county told city officials that they will no longer be prosecuting any misdemeanor cases, including domestic violence, in an effort to cope with a 10 percent budget cut. The city is now considering repealing its domestic violence ordinance, in an attempt to force the county to resume the prosecution of domestic violence cases. Supporters of domestic violence victims are outraged over the decision, fearing that victims will be left without a voice in the justice system. “The city of Topeka just said domestic violence is legal and you can beat your wife,” said Claudine Dombrowski, a domestic violence advocate and survivor.

According to the Topeka Capitol- Journal Topeka City Council members are expected to meet next week to consider the proposed changes.

Students at UC Berkeley have been engaged in an ongoing debate and protest this week after a GOP campus group organized an anti-affirmative action bake sale on Tuesday. The group sold baked goods that were priced according to the race and gender of their costumers. The bake sale was designed to protest the California Senate Bill 185, which authorizes state universities to consider race, ethnicity, gender, national origin, along with other relevant factors for undergraduate admissions. The bill passed the state Legislature and must be signed by Governor Jerry Brown (D) by October 9.

In opposition to the bake sale, 200 students from a new campus organization called the Coalition gathered in silent protest, while dressed in all black. Ruben Canedo, a member of the group said that the protest was not only a response to the bake sale, “but to larger, systemic problems in the UC system.” Others protesting the bake sale held a counter-bake sale of their own, offering free baked goods.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the number of minority students at UC Berkeley has decreased since California enacted Proposition 209, a ban on race preferences in government programs, in 1996. Underrepresented minority students, including Latinos, African Americans, and Native Americans, represent 16 percent of students, down from 20 percent in 1995 before Prop. 209 became law. The number of white students at the university has remained steady, representing 30 percent of the student population, while Chinese-American students have grown slightly from 19 to 20 percent.

Hundreds Of People packed the Capitol Rotunda in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Wednesday morning to call for the defeat of two bills that will restrict abortion access in Pennsylvania. The bills, SB 732 and SB 3, would require abortion clinics to become licensed as outpatient surgery clinics, and ban state-run health insurance providers from covering abortion care. The rally followed Tuesday’s effort by Pennsylvania Republican legislators to pass the anti-choice bills in the House.

Feminist Majority President Eleanor Smeal led the crowd of local feminists, physicians, patients, clergy, and reproductive health advocates. Smeal stated, “Anti-choice forces throughout the US are no longer chipping away at Roe; they are undertaking a full scale campaign to outlaw abortion through unnecessary regulation and will continue this campaign to deny women access to birth control. The bills proposed in Pennsylvania are in many ways worse than the provisions of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act. Make no mistake – this is not about protecting women’s health – it is about controlling women’s lives.”

The new licensing requirements would close abortion clinics, drive the cost of an abortion up from $400 to over $1,000 at clinics and do nothing to increase patient safety. These bills threaten to close the doors of low-cost, affordable clinics that provide comprehensive reproductive health care, including annual exams, pap smears, breast cancer screenings, and STI testing and treatment. If the clinics are closed, preventative health care, including birth control, would become inaccessible to many uninsured and poor women in the state.

Sen. Jane Orie (R-Allegheny) described the anti-abortion legislation at the Capitol news conference as “paramount” to the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s anti-abortion rights “Pro-Life Caucus.”

Yesterday Tina Tchen, executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls, John P. Holdren, policy director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, and National Science Foundation (NSF) Director Subra Suresh announced their new initiative to promote work place flexibility to women and men involved in research careers. Tina Tchen stated, “Jump-starting girls’ interest in science, technology, engineering and math – the so-called STEM subjects – and boosting the percentage of women employed in science and engineering is not just the right thing to do but is also the smart thing to do for America’s future and the economy.”

The “NSF Career-Life Balance Initiative” includes a provision that will enable parents to delay their grants for up to one year to fulfill family obligations, such as caring for a newborn or newly adopted child. First Lady Michelle Obama remarked in a press conference yesterday, “If we’re going to out-innovate and out-educate the rest of the world, we’ve got to open doors for everyone. We need all hands on deck, and that means clearing hurdles for women and girls as they navigate careers in science, technology, engineering and math.”

Currently, 41 percent of doctoral degrees in STEM field are earned by women, but women only hold 28 percent of tenure track jobs in those fields. This is the first foundation-wide NSF initiative aimed to enable postdoctoral fellows and faculty members who are at the beginning of their career to balance work and family obligations.

At Arlington Community High School in Indianapolis, public school officials are separating male and female students even in the hallways, cafeterias, and on buses, in what they claim to be an effort to boost academic performance. Students say that they rarely see those of the opposite sex on school property.

According to the Indiana Department of Education, no other public school in the country has segregated students by gender to such an extent. Other schools, including one in Vermillion Parish, Louisiana, and one in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, have suspended or abandoned single sex education programs this year. The Vermillion Parish school board decision came after a court found, in a case argued by the ACLU, inadequate justification for segregating students by sex and other violations of Title IX, a law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in all levels of education. Similarly, the Lancaster school district rescinded the pilot program after “blistering” criticism of the blatant segregation and racial stereotyping.

Feminist Majority Foundation President Eleanor Smeal, stated, “Such extreme restrictions are reminiscent of the separation of the sexes in Saudi Arabia and in Taliban-like regimes. These restrictions are clearly in violation of Title IX and have nothing to do with academic performance.”

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 (pdf). 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.” Where there are performance differences, they can be attributed to increased resources, smaller class sizes and additional teacher training, rather than sex segregation. Moreover, public single-sex classes or schools are rarely comparable for both sexes and can lead to gross violations of Title IX.

The segregation of students by sex in disadvantaged and predominantly African American schools could also include violations of the civil rights of students based on race, since white-dominated suburban schools are rarely, if ever, segregated on the basis of sex and generally have higher academic performance. Co-ed schools in the suburbs show that sex-segregation has nothing to do with academic performance, rather economic status does. Poor students inadequately fed and housed have a more difficult time staying in and performing in school because they are preoccupied with searching for employment and economic survival. Recent poverty studies show that in the United States, African American children are twice as likely to be living in poverty as their white counterparts. Thirty-nine percent of African American children and thirty-five percent of Latino children are living in poverty.

Yesterday, the California Supreme Court heard arguments concerning whether ProtectMarriage, supporters of Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage in California, have standing to represent the state by defending the law in the pending case in the US Ninth Circuit Federal Appeals Court. ProtectMarriage has requested the standing to challenge Federal District Judge Vaughn 2010 ruling that Proposition 8 violates the federal constitutional rights of lesbians and gays because neither Governor Jerry Brown (D) nor Attorney General Kamala Harris will defend the law in the appeal.

Within 90 days, the seven members of the California Supreme Court will issue a decision regarding whether it will permit ProtectMarriage to represent the state in the Proposition 8 case. If the judges find that the challenging groups have standing, the court will then rule on the constitutionality of Proposition 8. However, if the California Supreme Court does not allow Proposition 8’s proponents to defend the law, same-sex marriages would be considered legal in California.

Roland Palencia, Executive Director of Equality California, stated, “Extremists that backed Proposition 8 want the court to grant them special authority to trump the decision of the Governor and the Attorney General. This request is not only ridiculous, it’s outrageous. Anti-equality individuals and organizations are not official representatives of the State and, despite their claims, they will not experience harm if same-sex couples once again have the freedom to marry. In fact, it is gay and lesbian couples and their families who are harmed every day that they are denied access to the fundamental right to marry.”

Judge Walker’s decision overturned a 6 to 1 ruling by the California Supreme Court which upheld the measure in May 2009. In 2008, Proposition 8 was passed by voters in an electoral referendum.

On Saturday, the Vatican issued a 24 page statement denying accusations made in an Irish government-mandated investigation, the Cloyn report, that the Vatican had thwarted the efforts of Irish bishops to protect children from sexual abuse. The Cloyn report states that the Vatican “effectively gave individual Irish bishops the freedom to ignore the procedures which they had agreed and gave comfort and support to those who…dissented from the stated official church policy.”

The Vatican’s defense comes after Prime Minster Enda Kenny and the Irish Parliament publically decried the Vatican in July for allegedly thwarting attempts of Irish bishops to report cases of child abuse to the police. Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore stated, “The sense of betrayal which was felt by the Irish people about this matter, and which was clearly expressed by [Kenny], came about not only because of the nature of child abuse itself but also because of the unique position which the Catholic Church enjoyed in this country, manifested in many ways, over many decades.”

Republican groups have spent approximately $800,000 on the special election in Nevada’s second district, to be held on September 13, to retain Republican control of the seat formerly held by Dean Heller, who will replace former US Senator John Ensign. The National Republican Congressional Committee spent $528,000 and American Crossroads added $250,000 in support of Republican candidate Mark Amodei in his race against Democrat Kate Marshall.

Following her nomination by the Democratic party to run in the special election, Marshall stated, “I am honored to receive this nomination, Nevadans deserve a voice in Congress that will fight for middle class families, and that’s what I intend to do. I’ll work every day to create jobs in northern Nevada.” Before serving as the state Treasurer, Marshall in the worked in the Department of Justice Anti-Trust Division and as the Senior Deputy Attorney General for Nevada.

Emily’s List, which focuses on getting pro-choice Democratic women elected to office, the National Alliance for Retired Americans, and the Feminist Majority have endorsed Marshall.

In Ghana, approximately 70 midwifery leaders met to participate in a workshop focusing on improving access to midwife services throughout the African continent. The workshop is organized by the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and will last for five days. Throughout the workshop, the leaders will work to develop plans to promote midwife education. According to UNFPA, approximately 358,000 women die annually from preventable complications in pregnancy and childbirth, and 90 percent of these deaths occur in developing nations.

ICM President Frances Day-Stirk stated, “Evidence shows that access to competent, educated midwives and high-quality midwifery services significantly reduces the number of women and babies who die in pregnancy and childbirth. As a result of ICM’s work, midwives now have global standards against which countries can assess their competencies, education and regulation of their workforce and save lives.”

In September, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the World Bank released a report stating that although maternal mortality rates have decreased by 34 percent since 1990, the decline in the rate of pregnancy-related deaths is not on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal target for 2015. Currently, there are approximately 1,000 maternal deaths per day caused by easily preventable conditions that include severe bleeding after childbirth, infections, hypertensive disorders, and unsafe abortion.

Today, the 91st anniversary of the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote, is Women’s Equality Day. In recognition of Women’s Equality Day on August 26, the anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, and the anniversary of the 1963 civil rights march on Washington, the women’s groups have launched the HERvotes effort with the release of a list of the top ten historic advances for women that are now at risk of being weakened, cut, or eliminated, including the Social Security Act, Medicare, Medicaid, Title X (the National Family Planning Program), and the Equal Pay Act. President Obama urged the nation to “celebrate the achievements of women and recommit ourselves to the goal of gender equality in this country.”

Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis remarked in a statement, “It has been a long journey, but each day brings America closer to the kind of true equality that our heroines like Susan B. Anthony and Alice Paul imagined for us when they led the fight for women’s suffrage generations ago.Our accomplishments are undeniable, but the fight for full equality endures.”

Currently, 23.5 percent of state legislators are women, but women are more likely to earn college degrees than men. Women are essential half of the US paid workforce. Moreover, according to the Department of Labor, the number of women in the workforce has more than doubled in the past four decades and businesses that are owned by women are growing at a rate of four times that of their male counterparts.

The Virginia Department of Health will post draft regulations for abortion clinics by 5pm this evening, which will impose unnecessary and onerous regulations on abortion providers and restrict women’s access to reproductive health services. In March, Republican Governor Bob McDonnell signed a bill requiring that clinics that perform first trimester abortions meet the Board of Health regulations on hospitals and comply with the regulations for ambulatory surgery centers, which are far more stringent than the current regulations on clinics and physician’s offices. The Virginia Senate and House voted to pass the bill in February.

The Virginia Board of Health is scheduled to vote on the regulations on September 15. Governor McDonnell, an opponent of abortion rights, has appointed eight of the fifteen-member Board of Health. Elizabeth Nash, public policy analyst at the Guttmacher Institute, stated, “These really have nothing to do with patients and everything to do with making it harder to provide abortion services.”

The new regulations may cause as many as 17 of the state’s 21 women’s health clinics that perform abortions and provide necessary women’s reproductive health services, such as STI testing, cancer screenings, and family planning, to shut down as a result of the cost to implement the required changes. Reproductive rights groups, including the Feminist Majority Foundation, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the National Organization for Women, and the American Civil Liberties Union are opposing the law.

At an audio news conference yesterday afternoon, a coalition of some 20 women’s organizations announced a new effort, HERvotes, to mobilize women voters in 2012 around preserving women’s Health and Economic Rights (HER rights). In recognition of Women’s Equality Day on August 26, the anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, and the anniversary of the 1963 civil rights march on Washington, the women’s groups have launched this effort with the release of a list of the top ten historic advances for women that are now at risk of being weakened, cut, or eliminated, including the Social Security Act, Medicare, Medicaid, Title X (the National Family Planning Program), and the Equal Pay Act.

Feminist Majority Foundation President Eleanor Smeal moderated the audio news conference and speakers included Joan Entmacher, Vice President of Family Economic Security at the National Women’s Law Center, Dr. Avis Jones De-Weever, Executive Director of the National Council of Negro Women, and Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, Executive Director and Co-Founder of MomsRising.

Smeal stated, “Current attacks against Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act and Title X are attacks against women, plain and simple. It’s unjust for leaders to prioritize Wall Street corporations over Main Street women and families.”

De-Weever remarked during the conference, “It could not be more clear, that access to healthcare for women is blatantly under attack in America, whether that attack comes in the form of the continuing all-out assault against Title X, which would eliminate reproductive health care and other preventive health care services to more than 5 million low income women across this country, or if that attack comes in the form of efforts to end Medicare as we know it.”

Entmacher stated, “Women have yet to achieve economic equality. That’s especially true for women of color, single mothers, and elderly women. But the long and continuing fight for women’s rights has produced real gains – and they’re now under attack.”

Rowe-Finkbeiner also added, “We will be urging women and mothers across the nation to vote…it’s time to stop attacks on women’s economic and health security.”

The Census Bureau released a report entitled Marital Events of Americans: 2009, the first-ever detailed analysis of the marriage and divorce patterns of Americans 15 years and older, which found that southern and western states have both higher rates of marriage and divorce. In 2009, the divorce rate was 10.2 per 1,000 for men and 11.1 per 1,000 for women in the South, compared to the national average, which for men is 9.2 and for women is 9.7.

The southern states with the highest rate of divorce included Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia. By contrast, states in the Northeast have the lowest overall rates of divorce in the US, which the Census Bureau indicated was partially a result of a delayed age of marriage. Dr. Andrew Cherlin, professor of sociology and public policy at Johns Hopkins University, stated, “The reason is that young adults in the South and West tend to have less education and marry earlier, both of which lead to a higher risk of divorce. The South and West also have many migrants from other parts of the region who have left their social support networks behind. When they have marital problems, they have fewer people to turn to for help.”

Women who got a divorce within the last year had lower reported household incomes than recently divorced men and were more likely to be recipients of public assistance. Moreover, recently divorced women were more likely to be living in multigenerational households.

The Guttmacher Institute released a new study indicating that while the overall rate of unintended in the US pregnancies has remained steady since 1994, with approximately 5 percent of woman experiencing an unintended pregnancy each year, the rate of unintended pregnancies has actually increased dramatically, while the rate for higher-income women has steadily declined. According to “Unintended Pregnancy in the United States: Incidence and Disparities” by Lawrence Finer and Mia Zolna, the rate of unintended pregnancies was higher for women between the ages of 18 and 24, those who cohabitate, and minority women.

In 1994, the rate of unintended pregnancies for lower-income women ages 15 to 44 was 88 per 1,000 women; whereas in 2006 the rate was 132 for every 1,000 women, which represents a 50 percent increase. By contrast, the rate of higher-income women who experienced unintended pregnancies decreased by 29 percent in that time frame.

Sharon Camp, President and CEO of the Guttmacher Institute stated, “The growing disparity in unplanned pregnancy rates between poor and higher-income-which reflects persistent, similar disparities across a range of health and social indicators-is deeply troubling. Addressing them all requires not only improved access to reproductive health care, but also looking to broader social and economic inequities. At a minimum, however, we must ensure that all women and particularly those who are most vulnerable, have access to the education and range of reproductive health services and counseling they need.”

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Executive Director Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin announced that over the next five years, UNFPA will donate $70 million to Bangladesh to be used for maternal and reproductive health and to end violence against women. Osotimehin stated, “Healthy and educated people are human capital that helps nations fight poverty and promote development. Leaders should help them invest their energies in their nations’ progress.”

UNFPA declared Bangladesh one if its eight priority countries, where the agency will focus on improving maternal, infant, and child health. Since the 1970s, fertility rates in Bangladesh have dropped dramatically from 6.3 children per woman to approximately 2.5. Moreover, maternal mortality in Bangladesh has decreased by 61 percent in the past 20 years. Although Bangladesh is making the progress necessary to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for health, Osotimehin noted that improvements are still necessary to increase health and midwife services for pregnant women, end child marriage, and promote family planning.

The law firm of Katz, Marshall & Banks filed a lawsuit on behalf of Dr. Margo Fitzpatrick, a former Booz partner, in the District of Columbia Superior Court against Booz Allen Hamilton for allegedly discriminating against its female employees and engaging in retaliatory firing. Booz Allen is being charged with maintaining a “‘glass ceiling’ barring women from top leadership positions and oust[ing] female executives who object to sex discrimination.”

Debra Katz, an attorney representing the plaintiff, stated, “Contrary to Booz Allen’s self-claimed and much-hyped commitment to a diverse workforce, the highest circle of its corporate leadership is off-limits to women and is maintained that way by its male executives. No matter how accomplished or successful you are at Booz Allen Hamilton, if you’re a woman, you will hit a glass ceiling. And when you raise concerns about the exclusion of women from leadership positions at the Firm or other blatant acts of sex discrimination, you will find yourself, as Dr. Fitzpatrick did, out of a job.”

The lawsuit alleges that Booz Allen used sex stereotyping and discriminatory language in its promotion evaluation system and prevented women executives from entering into high ranking positions. When women executives inquired about the absence of women in top leadership positions, they were told by senior male employees that such questions would lead to the women’s termination.

This is the second sex discrimination suit filed against Booz Allen this month. The first suit was filed by Molly Finn, formerly the company’s highest ranking woman employee. Currently none of Booz Allen’s top 45 leadership positions, including its board of directors and executive vice presidents, is occupied by a woman.

President Obama issued an executive order to increase diversity in the federal government through the recruiting, hiring, and promotion process. According to a White House statement, the federal government must “endeavor to achieve a work force from all segments of society.” Within 90 days of the order, the Director of the Office of Personnel Management and the Deputy Director for Management of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in conjunction with the President’s Management Council and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, must develop an initiative to increase diversity and inclusivity in the federal government’s workplace.

President Obama stated, “By this order, I am directing executive departments and agencies to develop and implement a more comprehensive, integrated, and strategic focus on diversity and inclusion as a key component of their human resource strategies. This approach should include a continuing effort to identify and adopt best practices, implemented in an integrated manner, to promote diversity and remove barriers to equal employment opportunity, consistent with merit system principles and applicable law. According to the Washington Post, “Latinos were only 4.1 percent of the employees in the senior pay levels in fiscal 2010; African Americans, 6.7 percent; and women, 31.2 percent.” Moreover, Caucasians currently make up 81 percent of senior level workers.

Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor and former administration official for the Obama Administration, is considering running for a Republican Scott Brown’s seat in the US Senate in Massachusetts. Warren filed late last week to establish an exploratory committee.

Stephanie Schriok, president of Emily’s List, expressed her support for Warren: “Elizabeth is poised to make a run in this critical race, and she’s just the candidate to take on Scott Brown, a bait-and-switch tea-partying Republican whose pockets are lined with millions.” Warren is a supporter of consumer rights and is a strong advocate for women’s rights, who formed a new government agency to protect families from corporate abuses, according to Emily’s List. Last week, she traveled throughout Massachusetts conducting what she described as a listening tour.

Senator Brown has indicated his support for Roe v. Wade, but supports the Stupak-Pitts amendment to Health Care Reform. He also supports the Defense of Marriage Amendment (DOMA). He also voted against the Paycheck Fairness Act last November.

Beginning tomorrow morning, hundreds of farmworkers, organized by the United Farm Workers, will embark on a 167 mile pilgrimage from the Central Valley to Sacramento, CA to urge Governor Jerry Brown (D) to sign the Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act, which would allow farmworkers to privately fill out state-issued ballots for union elections. The march will conclude on Labor Day at the State Capitol.

The bill has passed both houses of the California Legislature; however, Governor Brown has indicated that he is “not yet convinced” that he should sign the bill. United Farm Workers said in its statement, “For California’s more than 400,000 farm workers, most of whom are not in unions, ‘not yet’ means most of them do not have basic justice enjoyed by other workers, including fair wages and protection from abuse. ‘Not yet’ it’s been 73 years and counting since agribusiness successfully lobbied Congress to exclude agricultural workers from overtime-pay rules under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.”