President Clinton’s Press Secretary, Mike McCurry, announced on December 20th that the Department of Justice will intervene on behalf of opponents of the anti-affirmative action California Proposition 209. McCurry said that the President, who strongly opposes Prop 209, and lawyers for the Department of Justice examined the Constitutional issues involved in the proposition thoroughly before […]
After watching a videotape made by three former college basketball players accusing of recording their gang-rape of a female student, a judge has decided the men will stand trial. Four men accused of raping or helping to rape the woman were expelled from Southwestern Michigan College on November 7, six days after the alleged attack […]
The 14th Court of Appeals in Houston, Texas decided on December 19 to uphold a $1 million jury award against two anti-abortion groups who staged demonstrations at Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas during the 1992 Republican Convention. The three-judge panel ruled that the group’s use of firebombing and death threats was “highly offensive […]
The Navy and Air Force are investigating charges of sex and race harassment at the Charleston Naval Weapons Station. The Post and Courier papers said they received two written Navy reports indicating a climate of racial and sexual tension at the brig. The report did not recommend immediate punishment for the military prison’s Navy Commander […]
The Washington Post reported Sunday, December 22, on a number of sexual harassment cases in the workforce. One major incident of “serial” sexual harassment in which a harasser’s actions impact numerous women involved Dan Wassong, chief executive of cosmetic company Del Laboratories. After 15 women told the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that Wassong had asked […]
Vice President of the National Organization for Women Karen Johnson said that Rep. Steven Buyer (R-Indiana) should step down from the Congressional panel investigating claims of pervasive sexual harassment at Aberdeen Proving Ground’s Ordnance Center in Maryland. Buyer, an Army Reserve major, said that the scandal was the result of a “few bad apples.” Johnson […]
Margret E. Rey, part of the husband and wife team which created the mythical Curious George died on December 22nd in her Cambridge home. She had suffered a heart attack three weeks earlier. She helped create the monkey character while she and her husband were living in Paris during the 1930s. They smuggled an unpublished […]
Clinton has appointed his close aide, Alexis Herman, to become the Secretary of the Department of Labor. Herman has previously served as the Director of the Women’s Bureau in President Carter’s Labor Department and has served as the vice-chair for the Democratic National Committee. She has most recently served as the White House public liaison, […]
The Citadel has announced that it plans to station overnight, adult supervisors to all barracks. This change, taking effect next month, was instituted to try and prevent the hazing incident which happened to two female cadets this past semester. The women reported the hazing to their student cadet supervisors but the supervisors did not take […]
Clinton aides helping the President with the 1997 budget have disclosed plans to increase some welfare programs radically cut in last year’s welfare legislation. The plans include an additional $13 billion, aimed mainly at aiding legal immigrants, especially immigrant children and disabled immigrants. The plan also includes plans to give indigent people with high housing […]
Voice of America, a government sponsored overseas radio broadcasting program, faces sex discrimination claims in excess of $500 million dollars. Twelve years ago, a federal judge ruled that VOA discriminated against women in its hiring practices. Now, a special master, law professor Stephen A. Saltzburg, is in the process of deciding how much, if any, […]
A proposed plan to base Social Security on an average of 38 instead of 35 years work will disproportionally hurt women. An Advisory Council on Social Security plans to deal with cuts including the above change in calculating benefits. Only 15% of women have been in the workforce for an average of 38 years while […]
President Clinton has offered the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, the panel which advises the President on economic issues to Brown (B.S.) and Yale (Ph.D.) University Graduate Janet Yellen. Yellen, who has taught economics at Harvard, London School of Economics and at Berkeley, has most recently served on the Federal Reserve board. Born […]
Viriginia Woolf’s nephew and biographer Quentin Bell died on December 15th in England. Born to Woolf’s older sister, Vanessa Bell, Bell spent his childhood with the now legendary Bloomsbury group and eventually became its most sensitive biographer. Growing up with such figures as E.M. Forster, John Maynard Keynes, Vita Sackville-West, and Virigina Woolf, Bell, in […]
A Somerset, Kentucky doctor who has twice been on probation for allegedly sexually abusing female patients, has given up his license amid new charges. The Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure required a nurse to monitor the examinations because Dr. Russell C. Holtzclaw had been placed on probation in 1987 and 1993 for sexual misconduct. He […]
Attorneys for two women cadets at the Citadel released new information on recent hazing incidents. The attorneys claim that male cadets sprayed the women with nail polish and set their clothes on fire, not once, but three times within the past two months. Male cadets also allegedly entered the female cadet’s rooms late at night, […]
The Congressman in charge of the investigation of the Army’s sexual harassment scandal, Representive Steve Buyer (R-IN), graduated from the then all-male military college The Citadel, has served in the United States Army and continues to serve in the Army reserves. In 1995, while the Citadel was in the midst of a legal challenge of […]
The Wall Street Journal reports December 18th that a new Texaco program would expand the amount of business, by fifty percent, that it does with minority-owned companies. Texaco also plans to increase its minority workforce. The company settled a discrimination lawsuit last month for $176.1 million. When it did so, the company also promised to […]
San Francisco U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson extended the temporary restraining order on the anti-affirmative action initiative Prop. 209 by one week. The order prohibits either CA. Governor Pete Wilson or Attorney General Dan Lungren from implementing the measure until December 23rd. On the 23rd, Henderson will decide whether or not to grant a preliminary […]
The Citadel has suspended a second cadet in an incident involving the hazing of two female cadets. The charges of hazing include that one woman was thrown up against a wall and hit in the head with a rifle, while another woman’s clothes were sprayed with nail polish and set on fire. Five other male […]
