Feminist News
+ The Department of Justice decided on Tuesday that it will not bring charges against the officers responsible for the murder of Freddie Gray. Independent investigations showing that five of the six officers facing charges violated police protocols.
+ Included in the Senate FY 2018 Foreign Relations Budget Bill is a repeal of the dangerous Global Gag Rule, which Trump re-instated and expanded upon taking office.
+ Writer and Afghan scholar Nancy Hatch Dupree has died at 89. This week also marked the death of Edie Windsor, trailblazing LGBT rights activist.
+ Activists hung a banner at Fenway Park this week reading “RACISM IS AS AMERICAN AS BASEBALL.”
Currently @fenwaypark #Racism is as American as #Baseball. #SocialJustice pic.twitter.com/3xLUyClr3e
— The Crystal Lens (@thecrystallens) September 14, 2017
+ Senators are calling on Betsy DeVos to uphold Title IX guidelines dealing with campus sexual assault.
+ The UN is investigating allegations of mishandling cases of sexual abuse in CAR.
+ Donald Trump won’t acknowledge that climate change matters, even after a two-week period of natural disasters worldwide.
+ Motel 6 employees in Arizona were reporting guests to ICE.
+ Yale University has renamed Calhoun College to honor Grace Murray Hopper.
+ Abortion providers are offering free abortions for the entire month to women impacted by Hurricane Harvey at locations set up through partnerships in Texas.
+ LGBT legal rights organizations have asked a federal court to halt the Trump administration’s ban on trans service in the military.
The Hillary Clinton Special
Watch: Hillary Clinton talks with @ezraklein about her new book, Donald Trump, and what should have happened in 2016 https://t.co/nxiFwRZfdN
— Vox (@voxdotcom) September 12, 2017
We hold these truths to be self-evident:
+ The 2016 election was a part of women’s history—and Hillary Clinton has more than earned her right to tell her story.
+ Hillary Clinton isn’t going away. (And we need her voice now more than ever.)
+ Hillary Clinton’s supporters don’t want her to shut up. Sorry, guys.
+ Hillary Clinton was the first woman to win a major party’s nomination, and she does not need to shut up about it.
+ Wait, why is everyone still telling Hillary Clinton to shut up?
+ Everybody needs to stop telling Hillary Clinton to shut up.
Movers & Shakers
+ Billie Jean King on Colin Kaepernick, Battle of the Sexes and staying woke.
We’ve made a lot of advances in the L.G.B.T. community. We still have a long way to go, and I think we’re starting to go backward a bit, especially with the ban on trans people in the armed forces. We have to keep pushing. We have to have equality in every way. Everyone deserves to belong.
+ According to report, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called for order during a dinner conversation with President Trump when the men in the room began talking over one another. “Do the women get to talk around here?” she asked the room. The room then fell silent.
+ North Carolina’s six Black woman police chiefs are proud to be breaking glass ceilings. This is the highest number of Black women chief the state has ever had.
+ Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) took on Betsy DeVos in Cosmopolitan:
This week, as millions of students were arriving back on campus for the new school year, the Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, announced a disturbing change in how the Department of Education will deal with campus sexual assault under her watch. Instead of using her position to enforce, or even strengthen, the Department of Education’s guidelines that have protected so many students – including sexual assault survivors and students accused of committing sexual assault – Secretary DeVos told CBS News that she wants to “revoke or rescind” them. She says that the Obama administration went too far in supporting the rights of survivors of campus sexual assault, but I couldn’t disagree more.
This decision betrays our students, plain and simple – and it’s especially egregious that she announced it during the period known as the “red zone,” which is the first few weeks of the school year when new students are more vulnerable and more likely to be sexually assaulted. With so many sexual assaults still happening on college campuses all over the country, we should be doing everything we can to make our sexual assault prevention and enforcement policies stronger – not weakening them, not jeopardizing them, and certainly not taking them away.
Deep Dives
+ African Americans are the only racial group in the U.S. still making less than they did in 2000.
+ Donald Trump’s transgender military service ban is already derailing the lives of these soldiers.
+ Confronting the racism behind reproductive research.
+ Domestic violence fatalities have surged in the Sacramento area this year.
Since January, there have been eight fatal domestic violence encounters in the Sacramento area involving the deaths of 14 victims – eight of whom were children, authorities said. All of the adult victims this year in Sacramento were women and most were women of color.
“I can’t remember a year with this many children killed,” said Sacramento County Assistant Chief Deputy District Attorney Paul Durenberger, who heads the domestic violence prosecution team. “This year has been really, really difficult. The children involved alone is just staggering … When you have a relationship with a person you are supposed to care about, it’s hard enough to envision. But when you have a relationship with a child, it’s hard to fathom.”
+ It’s time to stop stigmatizing people who have multiple abortions.
Media, Arts & Culture
The woman who survived the infamous #Gamergate smear campaign is still fighting for diversity in the gaming industry pic.twitter.com/DjaOE8ze0H
— NowThis Impact (@nowthisimpact) September 13, 2017
+ “Comics for Change” is taking on abortion stigma.
+ Coming soon: The Hidden Figures children’s book. Buy it after you buy Hillary Clinton’s It Takes a Village, perfect for the younger feminist in your family—and a good gift idea for the President, probably.
+ BREAKING: Male authors are still profiting from women’s pain.
+ Trans model Munroe Bergdorf will be the new face of Illamasqua after losing her contract with L’Oreal for speaking out about white supremacy.
Fight Back
+ The Department of Education is still accepting public comments on its civil rights policies. Tell Betsy DeVos you care about them.
+ Sign on to the #SilentNoMore open letter to call on business leaders speaking up on human rights issues across the country to take a firm pro-choice position as well. Their silence costs women their freedom—and their lives.
