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Ifeminist has been on a hiatus due to a personal illness that is curable and being cured.

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Data Privacy Experts Concerned About DOGE Access to ED
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Gov Tech
The American Federation of Teachers and two other labor unions have sued the Education Department for violating federal privacy laws by granting DOGE access to the agency's data systems. From President Donald Trump's plans to shutter the U.S. Department of Education to threats of federal funding cuts for diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, people who work in K-12 education are scrambling to keep up with all the education-related executive orders coming out of the White House. One additional concern that educators are now trying to make sense of is the protection of sensitive data for teachers and students, experts say. Education Week spoke with three experts in data privacy and security to find out how proposed policies, such as dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, and government-slashing actions by the Department of Government Efficiency, could affect the privacy and security of teachers' and students' data.

Columbia Univ Expels Some Students Involved In 2024 Hamilton Hall Takeover
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: The Epoch Times
What took them so long? [Ed: Trump is giving Columbia ultimatums and they know he is serious.] Columbia University said on March 13 that it has expelled or suspended some students who took over its Hamilton Hall last year amid pro-Palestinian protests, and temporarily rescinded the diplomas of others who have graduated. Columbia University said on March 13 that it has expelled or suspended some students who took over its Hamilton Hall last year amid pro-Palestinian protests, and temporarily rescinded the diplomas of others who have graduated.In a campus-wide email, the university said its judicial board levied a range of sanctions against the students who occupied the building last year while protesting the Israel-Hamas war.

BC nurse Amy Hamm found guilty of 'unprofessional conduct'
Topic: Violence Against Women
Source: The Post Millennial
A disciplinary panel of the British Columbia College of Nurses and Midwives has ruled that nurse Amy Hamm committed "unprofessional conduct" after putting up an "I love JK Rowling" billboard and posting statements online in defense of womens rights, which the panel viewed as being "discriminatory and/or derogatory." The panel took issue with three written article by Hamm and a podcast interview she did in which she identified herself as a nurse while making the "discriminatory and derogatory comments." They said that this was a reflection not only on Hamm but on the profession of nursing. Hamm believes that there are only two sexes, male and female, while the College apparently does not. Hamm's comments deemed "discriminatory and derogatory" included "trans activists determined to infiltrate or destroy women-only spaces," and "the falsehood that babies can be 'born in the wrong body' or that humans can change their sex."

Measles Cases Reach 294 in Texas and New Mexico: Here’s What to Know
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Med Page Today
Two unvaccinated people have died from measles-related causes. Measles outbreaksopens in a new tab or window in West Texas and New Mexico are now up to nearly 300 cases, and two unvaccinated people have died from measles-related causes. Measlesopens in a new tab or window is caused by a highly contagious virus that's airborne and spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes, or coughs. It is preventable through vaccines, and has been considered eliminated from the U.S. since 2000. Here's what you need to know about measles in the U.Sopens in a new tab or window.

Utah’s Hopes Of Keeping Sundance Threatened
Topic: Gay/Lesbian Issues
Source: Deadline
By Anti-Pride Flag Bill On Governor’s Desk. By the end of April, the new home of the Sundance Film Festival should be public knowledge with the Salt Lake City/Park City combo, Boulder, Colorado or Cincinnati bid picked as the host for the next decade. However, a bill heading toward Utah Gov. Spencer Cox’s desk that would ban the Pride flag in schools and other state government buildings might be an eleventh-hour obstacle to the Beehive State’s hopes of keeping the Robert Redford-founded shindig past 2026.

Mapping Europe's Coming Population Crash
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Zero Hedge
For the last few decades Europe’s birth rates have fallen below replacement rate (which keeps population levels the same), and this will only accelerate going into the future... Data is sourced from the UN World Population Prospects 2024, using their medium variant estimates.

Trump declares weaponization of DOJ v. Catholics, parents, pro-lifers are 'over'
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: The Post Millennial
[Ed: I hope it is not weaponized against anyone.] "I stand before you today to declare that those days are over and they are never going to come back. They're never coming back." He said that "we must be honest about the lies and abuses that have occurred within these walls," stating that "a corrupt group of hacks and radicals within the ranks of the American government obliterated the trust and goodwill built up over generations. They weaponized the vast powers of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies to try and thwart the will of the American people."

Appeals court allows Trump to reinstate two executive orders targeting DEI
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Politico
The three-member appeals panel lifted a lower court’s injunction that had put the policy on hold. A federal appeals court has given President Donald Trump’s administration the go-ahead to enforce a pair of controversial executive orders that seek to root out diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at federal agencies and government contractors. The three-member appeals panel — including two judges appointed by Democratic presidents — lifted a lower court’s injunction that had put the policy on hold last month.

Trump admin gives Columbia 'next steps'
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: The Post Millennial
...for bringing school into compliance with policies against antisemitism on campus. Columbia University in the City of New York is on notice. The General Services Administration, along with the Department of Education and Health and Human Services, has sent a letter to the school's Interim President, Katrina Armstrong, to advise as to the "next steps" after the federal government terminated some $400 million in funding to the school.

Columbia Chief 'Heartbroken' as DHS Agents Enter Dorms
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Newser
Agents searched 2 student residences—and it's not the only university in the government's sights. As former Columbia University grad student Mahmoud Khalil fights the Trump administration's plans to deport him for his past pro-Palestine activism at the New York City institution, the school itself contended with more federal activity on campus this week. The New York Times reports that agents from the Department of Homeland Security entered two Columbia dorms on Thursday, after presenting two judicial search warrants. This week, Columbia also announced it had suspended and expelled some students who took over a campus building during pro-Palestine demonstrations last spring, as well as temporarily revoked some recent grads' diplomas. More on the continuing commotion as the Trump administration takes its fight to the college front on antisemitism, protesters, and DEI initiatives: [Ed: a round-up of stories follows.]

I Used to Teach Students. Now I Catch ChatGPT Cheats
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: The Walrus``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
T he Magic Bag. It’s a familiar storytelling device. Ask the bag for something, anything, whatever you might want—and poof, out it pops. We find variations in myths and fables, in jokes, in numerous Twilight Zone episodes. The genie in a bottle. The monkey’s paw. The holodeck on the USS Enterprise. The moral of the story, as often as not, turns out to be: Be careful what you wish for. By giving us what we thought we wanted, the Magic Bag instructs us on the danger of having one’s desires fulfilled, reminding us that it is often better to want than to get.

NAACP Backs High School Runner Who Bashed Competitor In Head With Baton
Topic: Violence Against Women
Source: Zero Hedge
Watch the video and see why she's been criminally charged. [Ed: both parties involved are black.] The NAACP is rallying around a Virginia high school track star at the center of a viral-video controversy and on the receiving end of criminal charges after she smashed a competitor in the head with a baton in the middle of a state-championship 4x200-meter relay race. In videos that most observers find damning, Alaila Everett, a senior at I.C. Norcom High School in Portsmouth, is seen swinging her baton into the back of the head of Kaelen Tucker, a junior at Brookville High School. Reeling from the pain, Tucker grabs her head and staggers to the ground alongside the track at Liberty University in Lynchburg. Everett proceeds to awkwardly flail her baton-arm.

“Too Far”
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Jonathan Turley
The Fourth Circuit Reverses Nationwide Injunction on Ending DEI Funding. On Friday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed the much-covered nationwide injunction imposed by U.S. District Judge Adam Abelson in Baltimore regarding ending federal support for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. The three-judge panel ruled that Judge Abelson had gone “too far” in seeking to enjoin the federal government across the country. The Fourth Circuit recognized that the executive orders “could raise concerns” about First Amendment rights that might have to be addressed down the road. However, it found Abelson’s “sweeping block went too far.” It also pointed out that the orders were not nearly as unlimited and sweeping as suggested by the district court or the media.

Racist—But Underfunded?
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: The City-Journal
Universities have gone from arguing that science is biased to claiming that even the overhead on their massive federal research budgets must not be cut. In October 2020, the American Association of Medical Colleges published “Framework for Addressing and Eliminating Racism at the AAMC, in Academic Medicine, and Beyond.” The publication calls for “individual self-reflection on systemic racism,” “anti-racism efforts within the AAMC,” “anti-racism efforts within the academic medical community,” and “anti-racism efforts within the broader community.” In 2021, the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA launched an initiative called “Anti-Racist Transformation in Medical Education.” The initiative aims to “mitigate racism in the learning and work environment of medical schools through a formal management change process.” In January 2023, an antiracism committee at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine offered a Facing Microaggressions in the Workplace training, part of the school’s Action for Cultural Transformation. ACT aims to eliminate “structural injustice across Penn Medicine”; it is overseen by the medical school’s vice chairs for Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity. Now the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California, and the AAMC are telling a different tale about science and medicine. These fields are unqualified civilizational triumphs, they say, jeopardized not by racism but by MAGA ignorance. What changed?

Here's How Big Tech Could Be Held Accountable for Enabling Child Exploitation
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Townhall
[Ed: real question is should they be accountable for providing a service? Where are the parents?] Big Tech companies enabling the circulation of child exploitative material could be held accountable under the "STOP CSAM Act," a bipartisan bill soon to be reintroduced by Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Dick Durbin (D-IL). Hawley, chairman of the Senate Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee, and ranking member Durbin held a hearing Tuesday on advancing the STOP CSAM Act, which would crack down on the online proliferation of child pornography and allow victims to sue social media platforms that host this harmful material.

More UN lies about Israel
Topic: Violence Against Women
Source: Spiked Online
[Ed: I do not know the truth of this matter.] A new UN report on Israel’s ‘gender-based violence’ against Palestinians is full of hogwash. The United Nations is hardly known for fair or cool commentary on Israel. But its latest report really takes the biscuit. It comes from its Human Rights Council. It is titled ‘More Than a Human Can Bear’. It is a breathless account of all the ‘gender-based violence’ Israel has apparently visited on Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas War. ‘Gender persecution’ and ‘sexual violence’ have been rife courtesy of those monsters in the Israel Defence Forces, the report says. Guess what? It’s hogwash. This is without question one of the most dishonest official documents I have ever read.

Randi Weingarten deserves the fury of parents across the nation
Topic: Children and Family
Source: New York Post
American Federation of Teachers honcho Randi Weingarten’s sudden outrage over Team Trump’s plan to abolish the federal Department of Education is simply about losing her own power and influence — not any risk to the kids. America’s “competitors — and adversaries — are no doubt cheering President Donald Trump’s plan to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education,” Weingarten asserts in an MSNBC column, pretending the DOE “helps give all children in the United States access to the great public school education they deserve.” Nonsense: Few kids in America have “access” to “great public school education”; we lag our peers badly in international testing.

Justin Trudeau’s ‘feminist‘ hellscape
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Unherd
He failed to protect women from abuse. One of the most inspirational and successful feminist organisations I have ever encountered was founded here in 1973. Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter was led by the indomitable Lee Lakeman who sadly died last year. And she, along with her team, fought hard to protect that safe space for women. But the self-declared “male feminist” Justin Trudeau fought back. And not for women’s rights. Although a big fan of posturing about indigenous people’s rights, he did little to protect these women and girls from the abuse they suffer. Meanwhile, he removed their right to safe spaces and decriminalised prostitution. In any case, in Canada anyone can be a woman.

The Red Scarf Girl: The Fight Over Parental Rights Just Got Primal
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Jonathan Turley
In her celebrated book “Red Scarf Girl,” author Ji-li Jiang recounts growing up during the Cultural Revolution in China. She and millions of others had to choose between obeying the country’s communist government or obeying her parents. “’Now, you have to choose between two roads,’ ” Jiang wrote. “Thin-Face looked straight into my eyes. ‘You can break with your family and follow Chairman Mao, or you can follow your father and become an enemy of the people.’” Thankfully, we are constitutionally and culturally protected against such authoritarianism. Yet, we are experiencing our own type of cultural revolution as parents and schools collide over the education of our children.