Jim Crow is rapidly returning in the South - Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, North/South Carolina, Texas, Alabama

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Texas judge seeks protection from sanctions in fight over gay marriage

Should a judge’s Christian beliefs allow her to abstain from officiating same-sex weddings? Texas' highest court took up the question in a hearing Wednesday.

www.courthousenews.com

Texas judge’s refusal to marry gay couples goes before state supreme court

Texas Supreme Court justices heard arguments Wednesday in the case of a Waco judge who refused to marry same-sex couples. It is unclear when the high court will issue a ruling.

www.texastribune.org

Texas judge’s refusal to marry gay couples goes before state supreme court​

Texas Supreme Court justices heard arguments Wednesday in the case of a Waco judge who refused to marry same-sex couples. It is unclear when the high court will issue a ruling.​

by Alejandro Serrano

Oct. 25, 20233 PM Central Republish
Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

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Texas Supreme Court justices Wednesday questioned whether a Waco justice of the peace should remain under threat of a judicial oversight body’s sanctions if she continues refusing to marry gay couples.

The State Commission on Judicial Conduct gave Judge Dianne Hensley a public warning in 2019 for performing opposite-sex weddings for couples but declining to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies on religious grounds — a move that raised doubts about her capacity to act impartially, according to the notice. Her refusal occurred in the wake of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that required all states to license same-sex marriages.

Hensley serves as a justice of the peace in McLennan County, an elected position whose role includes hearing traffic and misdemeanor cases; presiding over landlord and tenant disputes; and can include conducting weddings.

Following the 2019 warning, Hensley filed a lawsuit alleging that the judicial commission violated her rights under the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The 1999 act was designed to ensure the government cannot “substantially burden” free exercise of religious beliefs.

The state’s highest civil court heard oral arguments Wednesday after an appeals court affirmed a lower court’s decision to toss her legal challenge last year on grounds that the commission acted within its powers and is protected from lawsuits due to sovereign immunity.

The case is believed to be among several that will attempt to expand the reach of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that let a Colorado web designer refuse same-sex couples. However, most of Wednesday’s proceedings revolved around what Hensley had already done and what could happen to her in the future.

Justices asked why Hensley had not appealed the warning instead of suing the agency.

Hensley’s lawyer Jonathan Mitchell told justices that she would not have received the recourse she sought — including money and injunction against future sanction.

While Hensley had lost income by not performing weddings and sought financial award for damages with the lawsuit, Mitchell said what mattered is whether she will be subject to more sanctions in the future by not performing certain marriages, in accordance with her faith.

Mitchell further argued that state law protects people’s religious freedom unless there is a “furtherance of a compelling governmental interest.” He also said it prohibits wedding officiants from discriminating based on race, national origin or religion.

“Notably absent from that list of protected criteria that I just mentioned is any mention of discrimination on account of sex or sexual orientation,” Mitchell told justices. “It’s still permissible for wedding officiants — whether they’re judges or members of the clergy — to discriminate based on any other characteristic, as long as it’s not race, national origin or religion, when they decide which weddings they will officiate.”

The commission’s lawyer, Douglas S. Lang, argued to justices that they should not grant a license to discriminate.

One justice asked Lang what the difference was between Hensley’s case and instances of a judge stating their stance on an issue while campaigning for their seat. Lang said it was not an issue that Hensley had talked about, but her actions — which is what was sanctioned.

Justices also asked Lang about the difference between judges who refuse to marry same-sex couples and judges who do not perform any marriages to avoid the matter altogether — and what that portends for their impartiality. Justices of the peace can but are not required to conduct weddings.

“She has chosen to marry some folks and not others. She has chosen to discriminate between some folks in the state of Texas, in favor of other people — and it flies in the face of impartiality,” Lang said.

Justice Jimmy Blacklock followed up with a hypothetical about a judge who stops doing marriages because of an objection to same-sex marriage — why wouldn’t that judge manifest the same bias, he asked.

Lang responded that a judge does not have to say why they do not want to conduct marriages.

Blacklock asked if the hypothetical judge would go before the conduct commission if they explained their reasoning for stopping to be similar to Hensley’s.

Lang returned to Hensley and her conduct, not her belief: She reached out to a Waco newspaper and wearing a judge’s mantel told a reporter that she would not marry a same-sex couple because of her religion, he said, citing the actions that were outlined in the 2019 warning. She also got her court clerks to give an assumed gay couple a handout that said the judge could not perform same-sex weddings due to sincerely held Christian beliefs.

The handout also included alternatives for where the couple could go. Blacklock asked if that was conduct that undermined her impartiality. Repeatedly, Lang turned to Hensley’s actions being at issue.

It is unclear when the state Texas Supreme Court will issue a ruling on the lawsuit.

Hensley, who has not conducted weddings in years, said in a recent interview with The Dallas Morning News that she “would love to win, because I think it’s right. My life’s not gonna change one way or the other.”

She also said that officiating weddings became “more overwhelming than it got to be joyful for me. I can’t say that I have missed it in any sense.”

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/02/corporate-diversity-inclusion-affirmative-action-ruling/

The growing battle over corporate diversity practices, explained
The recent Supreme Court decision on affirmative action in college admissions emboldened objectors to corporate DEI practices. Here’s what might change.

By Taylor Telford
October 2, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. EDT

When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions in June, the effects ricocheted far beyond academia. In recent months, a flurry of litigation has aimed to translate the court’s race-blind stance on education to corporate diversity and inclusion policies.

Companies have long tried to eliminate inequality in their ranks, in part by encouraging the hiring and promotion of women and racial minorities. But recent lawsuits claim those efforts perpetuate discrimination on the basis of race and gender — the very injustice they claim to stamp out.

Here’s what you should know about the growing legal battle over corporate diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
Does the Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action apply to companies?

The short answer is that it doesn’t — at least not directly.

Unlike colleges and universities, private employers were already barred from making decisions based on race under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Companies cannot set aside a portion of jobs for minorities, or hire an applicant solely because of their race.
[ Affirmative action ruling puts target on corporate diversity programs ]
Decades of legal precedent have allowed employers to take race into account, especially in the interest of countering historical inequities in their workforces, according to Stacy Hawkins, a law professor at Rutgers University and a former corporate employment lawyer who specializes in diversity. But there’s growing pushback from litigants eager to see those practices curtailed as well.
“Quite frankly, the most risky thing an employer can do is make any employment decision explicitly on the basis of race,” Hawkins said. “But you can be committed to diversity in your workplace and take steps that are informed by that commitment.”

That might entail eliminating exclusionary parts of the hiring process or seeking alternative talent pools, Hawkins said. It could also mean providing employee resource groups, mentorship or other forms of support to members of underrepresented groups once they’re on board.
Wasn’t DEI under fire before the court decision?

Yes, and corporate commitments to these endeavors have been waning. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020, companies made $340 billion in commitments to improve racial equity in their ranks between May 2020 and October 2022, according to data from the McKinsey Institute for Black Economic Mobility. But in the past year, companies have been paring back DEI roles.

Conservative politicians and advocacy groups also have been challenging DEI practices. For example, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has barred spending on DEI at public colleges and universities in his state, declaring “Florida is where ‘woke’ goes to die.”

In July, 13 Republican attorneys general sent a letter urging Microsoft and other Fortune 100 companies to reexamine their DEI policies in response to the Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action. The letter threatened “serious legal consequences” for companies that rely on race-based employment preferences, including “explicit racial quotas and preferences in hiring, recruiting, retention, promotion and advancement.”
Companies take an expansive range of approaches to enhancing diversity, from tailoring their recruiting to better reach underrepresented groups to helping minority employees feel supported in the workplace, according to Stephanie Creary, assistant professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. And ever since these efforts began, in the wake of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, they’ve faced significant pushback.

“The government does not tell people how to execute this,” Creary said. Companies “have to figure out for themselves what that means and what practices they have to put into place.”

Modern incarnations of DEI policies emerged from major racial discrimination lawsuits, Creary said, such as the 2000 case in which Coca-Cola agreed to a $192 million settlement — a record sum for a corporate racial discrimination case at that time. To settle claims that the company relegated Black employees to the bottom of its pay scale, Coca-Cola was required to change performance evaluations and its processes for staffing and promotion decisions.
Now, corporate DEI practices are facing their own legal pushback.
How is the legal fight playing out?

In recent months, a steady trickle of lawsuits and decisions has challenged the legality of DEI policies and practices in the workplace. A few have been filed by the American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER), a group founded by conservative activist Edward Blum, who was behind the cases that culminated in the Supreme Court striking down affirmative action in college admissions.

In early August, the group filed a lawsuit against Fearless Fund, an Atlanta-based venture capital firm run by two Black women, alleging that the fund is engaging in racial discrimination by running a grant program exclusively for early-stage companies owned by Black women. On Tuesday, the firm notched a big victory when a federal judge declined AAER’s request for an injunction, which would have blocked the program.

 

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Part 2:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/02/corporate-diversity-inclusion-affirmative-action-ruling/

On Saturday, however, a panel of federal appellate judges temporarily blocked the fund from awarding grants, effectively reversing Tuesday’s ruling.
Share this articleShare
In September, AAER also sued two major corporate law firms, arguing that their fellowships aimed at bolstering diversity amount to racial discrimination because they exclude non-minorities.
Shortly after the suits were filed, one of the firms, Morrison Foerster, removed all references to race from online descriptions of the fellowship, opening the program to students of all backgrounds. In September, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, one of the firms representing Fearless Fund, also changed the criteria for its diversity and inclusion scholarship. The award is now for students “who have demonstrated resilience and excellence on their path toward a career in law,” according to reporting from Bloomberg Law, as opposed to previous language specifying it was for “students who identify with an underrepresented group.”

America First Legal, the conservative nonprofit group backed by former Donald Trump adviser Stephen Miller, has filed complaints in recent months against Kellogg’s, Nordstrom and Activision Blizzard, alleging that their diversity and inclusion policies constitute racial discrimination.
In July, a federal judge in Tennessee thrust the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 8(a) Business Development program into chaos after he struck down a provision that equated race with social disadvantage. For about 50 years, the program has opened a pipeline to billions in government contracting dollars for historically disadvantaged groups.
Under the July ruling, a business owner’s Black, Hispanic, Asian or Native American heritage no longer automatically qualifies as evidence of social disadvantage. Instead, in a mass email distributed by SBA officials on Aug. 22, business owners were instructed to submit an essaydemonstrating that their race had somehow hindered their success.
What DEI practices are most likely to face scrutiny?

The purpose of DEI efforts is to “make workplaces that really work for everyone,” according to Alexis Robertson, director of DEI at law firm Foley & Lardner. But there’s a misconception, she said, that these policies unfairly give preference to some groups over others — a claim advanced in many ongoing lawsuits.

People of color and women held less than 14 percent of C-suite roles across Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies as of 2023, according to data from executive search firm Crist Kolder Associates.
In the field of law, which has already faced suits over diversity fellowships, less than 5 percent of practicing attorneys are Black, even though Black people make up roughly 15 percent of the U.S. population, according to the American Bar Association. About 10 percent of practicing attorneys fall into other minority groups.
Robertson said she is optimistic the tension around DEI will encourage companies to thoroughly examine their practices and develop more sophisticated solutions. If your organization’s DEI efforts amount to: “‘We’re giving some impermissible preference in hiring or promotion,’” Robertson said, “you’re going to get sued.”


Fearing legal challenge, organizations are likely to move away from DEI programs that exclusively target certain populations, such as minorities, Robertson said, because “these efforts invite scrutiny.” While some demographic-specific efforts will probably remain, overall, corporate DEI is likely to shift and focus more on “universal” efforts to make recruiting, hiring and retention more successful for everyone.

A sticking point is likely to be how the courts draw the line between diversity goals and quotas. The use of racial quotas has been illegal for decades under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but companies have long been permitted to enact targeted, temporary measures to improve diversity in their workforces, according to Sheila Willis, co-chair of the affirmative action and federal contract compliance practice group at law firm Fisher Phillips.
“When I hear ‘quota,’ I hear a requirement,” Willis said. “A ‘goal’ is something that’s more aspirational.”
This issue is being interrogated in a proposed class-action lawsuit from former employers of newspaper publisher Gannett, which accused the company of racial discrimination. The suit claims White workers were unfairly terminated or passed over for opportunities and replaced with less-qualified minority candidates amid Gannett’s efforts to increase the number of people of color in leadership roles by 30 percent by 2025.
In a statement, Gannett declined to discuss the lawsuit but said it “always seeks to recruit and retain the most qualified individuals for all roles within the company.”
“We will vigorously defend our practice of ensuring equal opportunities for all our valued employees against this meritless lawsuit,” Polly Grunfeld Sack, Gannett’s chief legal counsel, told The Washington Post in an email.
What should employers do about all this?

Experts on all sides of this issue are clear: Now is the time for employers to closely examine their DEI efforts and ensure they’re complying with the law.
Employers should be “vigilant and thoughtful” about the language used not only in their explicit DEI policies and practices, but also in their formal and informal communication about them, Willis said. She recommended that companies involve internal or external legal counsel in their evaluations.
“Regardless of how noble corporations may be with their DEI goals, the legality of this is now under the microscope,” said Leon Prieto, professor of management at Clayton State University. “Because of the fear of litigation, they have no choice but to adapt.”
Despite the scrutiny, Prieto cautioned companies against backing away from DEI efforts. But in demonstrating their commitment, companies must “do a more robust job of communicating their goals and their vision,” Prieto added.
“They need to let people know that DEI is not about just hiring ethnic minorities for the sake of hiring ethnic minorities.”

 

[Wild self]

Coli c00ns showed their hands in this thread. Every last one tried to change the topic

Tag them and their wannabe shaming language of "Dem Schills" while the GOP is taking away existing rights and not even confronting them.

 

[Nkrumah Was Right]

IDF confirms it killed dozens of civilians on a strike on a refugee camp in an interview with Wolf Blitzer

https://x.com/JoshuaPHilll/status/1719413408062218313?s=20

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

WSJ News Exclusive | What a Drop in Promotions for Black Workers Says About Corporate Diversity Efforts

An effort to promote Black men and women into management roles is losing ground in big companies.

www.wsj.com

Fewer Black Professionals Are Getting Promoted Into Management, Reversing Trend​

A push to elevate Black men and women into management roles is losing ground in big companies​

After the May 2020 murder of George Floyd set off a national conversation about race, equity and opportunity, American companies set ambitious goals for advancing Black talent in their ranks. They have made some strides in hiring and promoting more Black professionals, especially at the highest levels of the company; there are now eight Black chief executives in the Fortune 500, compared with four in 2020.

Yet on the critical first promotion to management, new McKinsey data now show U.S. companies are no longer elevating Black professionals at the higher rate of a couple of years ago, and have reverted to nearly the same promotion rates for Black staff as in 2019. The downshift suggests that as companies’ focus has shifted to trimming corporate budgets and getting more workers back into offices, many have gotten distracted from earlier commitments to hire and promote more people of color, human-resources and other corporate executives and consultants say.

James D. White, the former CEO of Jamba who now serves as board chair of the Honest Co., said the promotion data confirm what he has been hearing from Black professionals. “There is a really dramatic kind of pushback and retreat that I’ve seen in lots of places as it relates to the focus on Black men and Black women in the workforce.”

According to the McKinsey data, for every 100 men of all races promoted into their first management role in 2022, 54 Black women were elevated; in 2021, 96 Black women were promoted for every 100 men, approaching close to parity for a brief time.

First-time promotion rates for Black men have also fallen, dropping to 66 promotions for every 100 men of any race elevated into a first management role in 2022. That is down from 72 Black men promoted for every 100 men in 2021. White men and women, meanwhile, were promoted at relatively high rates consistently between 2019 and 2022.

McKinsey’s analysis included more than 270 companies that, together, employ more than 10 million people. The firm adjusted the population of each group to equal size to compare their rates of promotion.

Corporate diversity, equity and inclusion efforts have also become the subject of debate—and cost-cutting—as some employees complained that merit alone, not diversity goals, should be used to hire and promote people.

“If you were borderline committed, you’ve just kind of exhaled and retreated,” said Michael C. Bush, CEO of Great Place to Work, a research and consulting firm, citing culture audits based on questionnaires that his firm receives from the top quartile of the 18,000 companies it surveys each year. The series of questions probes each company’s core values and qualities that elicit trust, pride and fun.

Just after Floyd’s death in May 2020, top firms said they were focused heavily on equity, recruitment and promotions for Black men and women, the audits showed. More recent audits find most of the top 25% of companies have stopped making diversity a priority.

The power of promotion​

The first promotion from an entry-level role into the ranks of management can set a person’s earning trajectory for years to come. Getting left behind in promotions early on also delays future promotions, making it that much harder for Black professionals to eventually ascend to senior roles.

For companies, fewer first-step promotions for Black employees weakens the overall pipeline of future leaders, human-resource and other corporate executives say. Other research, including McKinsey’s, has shown lack of advancement opportunities is one of the biggest reasons Black workers leave jobs at higher rates than white employees do.

“When we were paying attention, particularly to the advancement of Black men and women, we were doing better,” Lareina Yee, a senior partner at McKinsey who co-wrote the study, said of businesses’ diversity efforts.

Bosses have recently faced skepticism from some workers about the aims of diversity initiatives, as well as criticism from politicians. By the spring of this year, company executives dialed down their use of certain terms in earnings calls, including “diversity, equity and inclusion” and “DEI,” by about a third.

Higher up the chain​

Higher up the corporate ladder, the picture is more mixed.

In 2022, Black women were promoted to the executive ranks at a higher rate than all men. For every 100 men promoted into the C-suite, 132 Black women were elevated to those roles, up from 88 Black women promoted for every 100 men in 2021, according to McKinsey’s analysis.

Black women’s promotion rate into the C-suite for 2022 was higher than Black men, white men and white women.

Promotions into the C-suite for Black men in 2022 declined to 74 for every 100 men, down from 130 Black men for every 100 men in 2021, McKinsey said.

Overall Black representation at the C-suite level has been steadily rising since 2020—although still far behind that of white professionals.

Three Black executives were tapped to lead Fortune 500 companies in 2021: Thasunda Brown Duckett at TIAA, David Rawlinson II at

Qurate Retail
, and Rosalind Brewer at
Walgreens
, who has since stepped down. In 2022, Franklin Clyburn Jr. was tapped to lead
International Flavors & Fragrances
and Calvin Butler took the helm at
Exelon
. This year, Christopher Womack took over as Southern Co. CEO, while Toni Townes-Whitley became the CEO of
Science Applications International
.


Still, the rising trend line of Black CEOs might be disguising a problem lower down the ladder, said White, the former CEO of Jamba.

“They’re going to seek an opportunity where there’s upward mobility at some other company,” he said.

Leaky bucket​

Since 2020, companies have been focused more on recruiting new hires rather than retaining, training and promoting existing employees, said Joelle Emerson, CEO of

Paradigm
, a provider of consulting services and analytic tools that has worked with organizations including American Express, Grubhub and the National Football League on their DEI efforts.


“Organizations are filling a leaky bucket,” she said, referring to the hiring and retention of employees of color. “They’re bringing more people in, but those folks are not staying as long and certainly don’t tend to get promoted as quickly.”

Of 148 companies that Paradigm has worked with this year, a third track promotion rates by race and ethnicity, Emerson said: “If we aren’t even measuring these things, we have very little hope of addressing gaps.”

The Supreme Court’s recent decision to ban affirmative action in college admissions is making chief human resources officers nervous about tracking promotion rates by race, Emerson said, citing legal risk.

Write to Ray A. Smith at Ray.Smith@wsj.com and Vanessa Fuhrmans at Vanessa.Fuhrmans@wsj.com

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

 

[3rdWorld]

The Texas GOP voted against a proposed ban on members associating with Nazi sympathizers​

Kenneth Niemeyer
Dec 3, 2023, 11:16 PM GMT+2

Read in app

A woman wearing a Republican t-shirt at a convention. PAUL VERNON/Getty Images

• The Texas GOP voted against a ban on associating with Nazi sympathizers.
• The proposed ban came after a top state conservative met with Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist who praises Hitler.
• Members who voted against the ban said it was too vague.

The Texas GOP executive committee voted against a measure that would ban Republicans from associating with Holocaust deniers and Nazi sympathizers.

The committee, by a vote of 32 to 29, removed the clause from a pro-Israel resolution, according to The Texas Tribune. The resolution would have banned members of the party from associating with people who "espouse or tolerate antisemitism, pro-Nazi sympathies or Holocaust denial," according to the outlet.

Members of the executive committee who disagreed with the inclusion of the language said that words like "tolerate" and "antisemitism" are too vague, according to The Texas Tribune. Some committee members said the ban was akin to "leftist" tactics and would be problematic for the party, according to the outlet.

"It could put you on a slippery slope," committee member Dan Tully said.

The measure came just two months after former Republican Texas state representative Jonathan Stickland met with white nationalist Nick Fuentes. Fuentes is an avowed Hitler admirer who has called for a "holy war" against Jews. The Texas Tribune took photos of Fuentes entering Pale Horse Strategies, a conservative consulting agency owned by Stickland, in October. Following the meeting, nearly half of the executive committee called for the party to stop associating with Defend Texas Liberty, a political action committee headed by Stickland, the outlet reported. The language in the pro-Israel resolution was proposed as an alternative to cutting ties with Defense Texas Liberty, according to the report. The committee ultimately passed the resolution without the provision, according to the Rome News-Tribune, a local newspaper.

Rolando Garcia, a committee member who drafted the language, said its removal "sends a disturbing message." "We're not specifying any individual or association," Garcia said, according to The Tribune. "This is simply a statement of principle." The Texas GOP did not immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider

 

[TheJet]

Ain't it saltine cracker ass republicans doing this shyt? So why do we have fools telling us to vote for them

 

[3rdWorld]

Ain't it saltine cracker ass republicans doing this shyt? So why do we have fools telling us to vote for them

It's an historic scam and con.
They benefit greatly if you vote against your own best interests. They reap rewards intended for you.
Convincing people to be fools so you can eat more is as American as Jim Crow.