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Tag: discrimination

  • Supreme Court hears arguments on whether states can ban conversion therapy for LBGTQ+ kids

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    The Supreme Court will hear arguments in its latest LGBTQ+ rights case Tuesday, weighing the constitutionality of bans passed by nearly half of U.S. states on the practice known as conversion therapy for children.The justices are hearing a lawsuit from a Christian counselor challenging a Colorado law that prohibits therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation or gender identity. Kaley Chiles, with support from President Donald Trump’s Republican administration, argues the law violates her freedom of speech by barring her from offering voluntary, faith-based therapy for kids.Colorado, on the other hand, says the measure simply regulates licensed therapists by barring a practice that’s been scientifically discredited and linked to serious harm.The arguments come months after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority found states can ban transition-related health care for transgender youths, a setback for LGBTQ rights. The justices are also expected to hear a case about sports participation by transgender players this term.State says therapy is health care and subject to regulationColorado has not sanctioned anyone under the 2019 law, which exempts religious ministries. State attorneys say it still allows any therapist to have wide-ranging, faith-based conversations with young patients about gender and sexuality.“The only thing that the law prohibits therapists from doing is performing a treatment that seeks the predetermined outcome of changing a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity because that treatment is unsafe and ineffective,” Colorado state attorneys wrote.Therapy isn’t just speech, they said — it’s health care that governments have a responsibility to regulate. Violating the law carries potential fines of $5,000 and license suspension or even revocation.Linda Robertson is a Christian mom of four from Washington state whose son Ryan underwent therapy that promised to change his sexual orientation after he came out to her at age 12. The techniques led him to blame himself when it didn’t work, leaving him ashamed and depressed. He died in 2009, after multiple suicide attempts and a drug overdose at age 20.“What happened in conversion therapy, it devastated Ryan’s bond with me and my husband,” she said. “And it absolutely destroyed his confidence he could ever be loved or accepted by God.”Chiles contends her approach is different from the kind of conversion therapy once associated with practices like shock therapy decades ago. She said she believes “people flourish when they live consistently with God’s design, including their biological sex,” and she argues evidence of harm from her approach is lacking.Chiles says Colorado is discriminating because it allows counselors to affirm minors coming out as gay or identifying as transgender but bans counseling like hers for young patients who may want to change their behavior or feelings. “We’re not saying this counseling should be mandatory, but if someone wants the counseling they should be able to get it,” said one of her attorneys, Jonathan Scruggs.The Trump administration said there are First Amendment issues with Colorado’s law that should make the law subject to a higher legal standard that few measures pass.Similar laws also face court challengesChiles is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal organization that has appeared frequently at the court in recent years. The group also represented a Christian website designer who doesn’t want to work with same-sex couples and successfully challenged a Colorado anti-discrimination law in 2023.The group’s argument in the conversion therapy case also builds on another victory from 2018: A Supreme Court decision found California could not force state-licensed anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers to provide information about abortion. Chiles should also be free from that kind of state regulation, the group argued.Still, the Supreme Court has also found that regulations that only “incidentally” burden speech are permissible, and the state argues that striking down its law against conversion therapy would undercut states’ ability to regulate discredited health care of all kinds.The high court agreed to hear the case after the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver upheld the law. Another appeals court, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, has struck down similar bans in Florida.Legal wrangling has continued elsewhere as well. In Wisconsin, the state’s highest court recently cleared the way for the state to enforce its ban. Virginia officials, by contrast, have agreed to scale back the enforcement of its law as part of an agreement with a faith-based conservative group that sued.

    WASHINGTON —

    The Supreme Court will hear arguments in its latest LGBTQ+ rights case Tuesday, weighing the constitutionality of bans passed by nearly half of U.S. states on the practice known as conversion therapy for children.

    The justices are hearing a lawsuit from a Christian counselor challenging a Colorado law that prohibits therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation or gender identity. Kaley Chiles, with support from President Donald Trump’s Republican administration, argues the law violates her freedom of speech by barring her from offering voluntary, faith-based therapy for kids.

    Colorado, on the other hand, says the measure simply regulates licensed therapists by barring a practice that’s been scientifically discredited and linked to serious harm.

    The arguments come months after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority found states can ban transition-related health care for transgender youths, a setback for LGBTQ rights. The justices are also expected to hear a case about sports participation by transgender players this term.

    State says therapy is health care and subject to regulation

    Colorado has not sanctioned anyone under the 2019 law, which exempts religious ministries. State attorneys say it still allows any therapist to have wide-ranging, faith-based conversations with young patients about gender and sexuality.

    “The only thing that the law prohibits therapists from doing is performing a treatment that seeks the predetermined outcome of changing a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity because that treatment is unsafe and ineffective,” Colorado state attorneys wrote.

    Therapy isn’t just speech, they said — it’s health care that governments have a responsibility to regulate. Violating the law carries potential fines of $5,000 and license suspension or even revocation.

    Linda Robertson is a Christian mom of four from Washington state whose son Ryan underwent therapy that promised to change his sexual orientation after he came out to her at age 12. The techniques led him to blame himself when it didn’t work, leaving him ashamed and depressed. He died in 2009, after multiple suicide attempts and a drug overdose at age 20.

    “What happened in conversion therapy, it devastated Ryan’s bond with me and my husband,” she said. “And it absolutely destroyed his confidence he could ever be loved or accepted by God.”

    Chiles contends her approach is different from the kind of conversion therapy once associated with practices like shock therapy decades ago. She said she believes “people flourish when they live consistently with God’s design, including their biological sex,” and she argues evidence of harm from her approach is lacking.

    Chiles says Colorado is discriminating because it allows counselors to affirm minors coming out as gay or identifying as transgender but bans counseling like hers for young patients who may want to change their behavior or feelings. “We’re not saying this counseling should be mandatory, but if someone wants the counseling they should be able to get it,” said one of her attorneys, Jonathan Scruggs.

    The Trump administration said there are First Amendment issues with Colorado’s law that should make the law subject to a higher legal standard that few measures pass.

    Similar laws also face court challenges

    Chiles is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal organization that has appeared frequently at the court in recent years. The group also represented a Christian website designer who doesn’t want to work with same-sex couples and successfully challenged a Colorado anti-discrimination law in 2023.

    The group’s argument in the conversion therapy case also builds on another victory from 2018: A Supreme Court decision found California could not force state-licensed anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers to provide information about abortion. Chiles should also be free from that kind of state regulation, the group argued.

    Still, the Supreme Court has also found that regulations that only “incidentally” burden speech are permissible, and the state argues that striking down its law against conversion therapy would undercut states’ ability to regulate discredited health care of all kinds.

    The high court agreed to hear the case after the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver upheld the law. Another appeals court, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, has struck down similar bans in Florida.

    Legal wrangling has continued elsewhere as well. In Wisconsin, the state’s highest court recently cleared the way for the state to enforce its ban. Virginia officials, by contrast, have agreed to scale back the enforcement of its law as part of an agreement with a faith-based conservative group that sued.

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  • Opinion | The Global Intifada Has Arrived in England

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    London

    It was Yom Kippur when Jihad al-Shamie, a Syrian-born British citizen, attacked a synagogue in Manchester. According to the Guardian, al-Shamie was out on bail for an alleged rape and is believed to have a previous criminal history. Two Jews, Melvin Cravitz, 66, and Adrian Daulby, 53, were killed before police shot al-Shamie dead. Three other people are in serious condition. Al-Shamie’s method, car-ramming and a knife, is frequently used by Palestinian terrorists against Israelis. As the left-Islamist mobs say, “Globalize the intifada.”

    Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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    Dominic Green

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  • Workplace Discrimination Complaints Are Expected to Drop. Here’s Why

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    Business owners face one less threat of falling afoul of federal regulations, though that might not be good news to all entrepreneurs. This week, the Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) officially abandoned investigations of any discrimination complaints based on disparate impact liability, long viewed as an effective legal tool in those cases.

    What that means for employers is they no longer have to worry about being pursued by federal agencies for allegedly having policies or business practices that may unintentionally disadvantage certain groups of employees in hiring or promotion decisions. That’s the consequence of the EEOC now acting on an April executive order requiring all area, local, and district offices to cease pursuing worker complaints founded on disparate liability impact grounds, according to an internal memo reported by the Associated Press.

    For decades, that legal concept has allowed the EEOC and other agencies to investigate, and at times censure workplace procedures that upon first view may appear fair — but whose application are found to create discriminatory challenges or obstacles for certain workers. The order to cease use of disparate impact means that as of September 30, EEOC officials dropped all open inquiries based on that legal liability, and refuse to accept additional complaints citing it.

    The EEOC action comes in the wake of President Donald Trump’s executive orders to eliminate diversity, equality, and inclusion policies and equality opportunity practices by federal agencies — and encourage the spread of those prohibitions to the private sector. That’s happening through campaigns pressuring organizations and businesses to abandon a range of principles Trump and his supporters decry as “woke.” Disparate impact liability clearly falls into that category.

    “Disparate-impact liability all but requires individuals and businesses to consider race and engage in racial balancing to avoid potentially crippling legal liability,” said Trump’s April 23 executive order, which the EEOC has now applied. “It not only undermines our national values, but also runs contrary to equal protection under the law and, therefore, violates our Constitution.”

    While constituting a main plank of his political platform, Trump’s efforts to eliminate so-called “woke” concepts or policies in federal agencies is being paired with his effort to spare employers the time and money required to comply with numerous regulations.

    In banning disparate impact liability as part of that drive to ease life for businesses, Trump’s order decries the legal concept for creating “near insurmountable presumption of unlawful discrimination… even if there is no facially discriminatory policy or practice or discriminatory intent involved.”

    Most, if not all business owners, are likely to be relieved at no longer running the risk of being called out by the EEOC for well-intended policies that inadvertently produce discriminatory effects. But entrepreneurs who believe employers should be held accountable for both intentional and accidental bias against any employee may feel troubled by the disparate impact liability ban.

    That concern may be all the greater with the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in hiring, staff management, and promotion decisions that’s rapidly expanding across business.

    The reason? Evidence indicates that AI tools digest and act upon all the biases of humans overseeing their development and training. Meanwhile as AI platforms continue vacuuming up vast amounts of information to broaden their response capabilities, they also integrate partialities, or even prejudices from their data sources — including flawed internal employer practices.

    Indeed, Amazon stopped using an app that analyzed resumes sent in by higher-level recruits when the company realized the technology was favoring male candidates. In doing so, the automated AI agent apparently reflected conscious and unconscious biases in Amazon’s predominantly male tech workforce. By contrast, job post platform Indeed has developed an AI agent to help employers avoid unwanted biases in their decisions and policies.

    ‘Resegregate the workforce’

    As small business owners and corporate giants continue adopting AI tools in their businesses, worries are rising that the biases contained in the data that apps operate on will increase the number of discriminatory company policies.

    “As AI is becoming more and more popular, it’s particularly important that we have the disparate impact tools available to be able to police it and make sure it’s not being used to resegregate the workforce,” said civil rights and plaintiff-side employment attorney Christine Webber told the Associated Press.

    Despite Trump’s order and the EEOC’s new prohibition of disparate impact liability, companies would be wise to keep an eye open to any possibly unintentional discrimination results of their policies.

    As labor relations law firm Littler notes, even if the EEOC has abandoned disparate impact as grounds for investigating worker complaints, it remains an applicable discrimination charge under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That means that even though plaintiffs must first make what will now be a doomed disparate impact liability complaint to the EEOC, they can then file that as a suit in civil court once the federal agency rejects it.

    “Moreover, many states impose laws establishing disparate impact liability under their state non-discrimination laws,” a Littler blog post on the EEOC ban said. “Employers facing challenges to employment practices or charges of discrimination alleging disparate impact liability are advised to consult with counsel.”

    Meaning, even business owners who cheer the demise of disparate impact liability for the same reasons Trump banned it may still find themselves as concerned about its various consequences as less enthusiastic entrepreneurs worried it may result in increased workplace discrimination.

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    Bruce Crumley

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  • Opinion | Europe’s New War on the Jews

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    Yom Kippur sees a terror attack in Britain, while Germany foils one.

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    The Editorial Board

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  • British Jews Say U.K. Terrorist Attack Was Just a Matter of Time

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    LONDON—For many British Jews, Thursday’s terrorist attack that killed two people at a synagogue and seriously wounded a number of others was a question of when, not if.

    Since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas on Israel and the start of the war in Gaza, growing numbers of British Jews say they feel increasingly isolated and unsafe in a country that had been a relative haven for Jews in Europe in recent decades. 

    Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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    Natasha Dangoor

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  • Anti-Foreigner Sentiments and Politicians Are on the Rise as Japan Faces a Population Crisis

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    TOKYO (AP) — Outside a train station near Tokyo, hundreds of people cheer as Sohei Kamiya, head of the surging nationalist party Sanseito, criticizes Japan’s rapidly growing foreign population.

    As opponents, separated by uniformed police and bodyguards, accuse him of racism, Kamiya shouts back, saying he is only talking common sense.

    “Many Japanese are frustrated by these problems, though we are too reserved to speak out. Mr. Kamiya is spelling them all out for us,” said Kenzo Hagiya, a retiree in the audience who said the “foreigner problem” is one of his biggest concerns.

    The populist surge comes as Japan, a traditionally insular nation that values conformity and uniformity, sees a record surge of foreigners needed to bolster its shrinking workforce.

    In September, angry protests fueled by social media misinformation about a looming flood of African immigrants quashed a government-led exchange program between four Japanese municipalities and African nations.

    Even the governing party, which has promoted foreign labor and tourism, now calls for tighter restrictions on foreigners, but without showing how Japan, which has one of the world’s fastest-aging and fastest-dwindling populations, can economically stay afloat without them.


    Kamiya says his platform has nothing to do with racism

    “We only want to protect the peaceful lives and public safety of the Japanese,” he said at the rally in Yokohama, a major residential area for foreigners. Japanese people tolerate foreigners who respect the “Japanese way,” but those who cling to their own customs are not accepted because they intimidate, cause stress and anger the Japanese, he said.

    Kamiya said the government was allowing foreign workers into the country only to benefit big Japanese businesses.

    “Why do foreigners come first when the Japanese are struggling to make ends meet and suffering from fear?” Kamiya asked. “We are just saying the obvious in an obvious way. Attacking us for racial discrimination is wrong.”


    Kamiya’s anti-immigrant message is gaining traction

    All five candidates competing in Saturday’s governing Liberal Democratic Party leadership vote to replace outgoing Shigeru Ishiba as prime minister are vowing tougher measures on foreigners.

    One of the favorites, former Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi, a hardline ultra-conservative, was criticized for championing unconfirmed claims that foreign tourists abused deer at a park in Nara, her hometown.

    Takaichi later said she wanted to convey the growing sense of anxiety and anger among many Japanese about ”outrageous” foreigners.

    During the July election campaign, far-right candidates insulted Japan’s about 2,000 Kurds, many of whom fled persecution in Turkey.

    A Kurdish citizen, who escaped to Japan as a child after his father faced arrest for complaining about military hazing, said he and his fellow Kurds have had to deal with people calling them criminals on social media.

    Japan has a history of discrimination against ethnic Koreans and Chinese, dating from the colonialist era in the first half of the 20th century.

    Some of that discrimination persists today, with insults and attacks targeting Chinese immigrants, investors and their businesses.

    Hoang Vinh Tien, 44, a Vietnamese resident who has lived in Japan for more than 20 years, says foreigners are often underpaid and face discrimination, including in renting apartments. He says he has worked hard to be accepted as part of the community.

    “As we hear about trouble involving foreigners, I share the concerns of the Japanese people who want to protect Japan, and I support stricter measures for anyone from any country, including Vietnam,” Hoang said.


    Rising foreigner numbers, but not nearly enough to bolster the economy

    Japan’s foreign population last year hit a new high of more than 3.7 million. That’s only about 3% of the country’s population. Japan, which also promotes inbound tourism, aims to receive 60 million visitors in 2030, up from 50 million last year.

    The foreign workforce tripled over the past decade to a record 2.3 million last year, according to Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare statistics. An increase of 300,000 from a year earlier was twice the projected pace. Many work in manufacturing, retail, farming and fishing.

    Even as the foreign population surged, only about 12,000 foreigners were arrested last year, despite alarmists’ claims that there would be a crimewave, National Police Agency figures show.

    The pro-business ruling Liberal Democratic Party in 1993 launched a foreign trainee program and has since drastically expanded its scope in phases. But the program has been criticized as an exploitive attempt to make up for a declining domestic workforce. It will be renewed in 2027 with more flexibility for workers and stricter oversight for employers.

    Many Japanese view immigrants as cheap labor who speak little Japanese, allow their children to drop out of school and live in high-crime communities, says Toshihiro Menju, a professor at Kansai University of International Studies and an expert on immigration policies.

    He says the prejudice stems from Japan’s “stealth immigration system” that accepts foreign labor as de facto immigrants but without providing adequate support for them or an explanation to the public to help foster acceptance.

    A Sanseito supporter in her 50s echoed some of these views but acknowledged that she has never personally encountered trouble with foreigners.

    Meanwhile, Japan faces real economic pain if it doesn’t figure out the immigration issue.

    The nation will need three times more foreign workers, or a total of 6.7 million people, than it currently allows, by 2040 to achieve 1.24% annual growth, according to a 2022 Japan International Cooperation Agency study. Without these workers, the Japanese economy, including the farming, fishing and service sectors, will become paralyzed, experts say.

    It is unclear whether Japan can attract that many foreign workers in the future, as its dwindling salaries and lack of diversity makes it less attractive.


    A growing party that’s part of a changing political landscape

    Sanseito started in 2020 when Kamiya began attracting people on YouTube and social media who were discontent with conventional parties.

    Kamiya, a former assembly member in the town of Suita, near Osaka, focused on revisionist views of Japan’s modern history, conspiracy theories, anti-vaccine ideas and spiritualism.

    Kamiya said he’s “extremely inspired by the anti-globalism policies” of U.S. President Donald Trump, but not his style. He invited a conservative activist and Trump ally Charlie Kirk to Tokyo for talks days before his assassinationhas been also connecting with far-right parties such as the Alternative for Germany party (AfD) and Britain’s Reform UK.

    His priority, he said in an interview with The Associated Press, is to further expand his support base, and he hopes to field more than 100 candidates in future elections.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    Photos You Should See – Sept. 2025

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    Associated Press

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  • Fact Check: Music Lessons Have NOT Been Banned In Hamburg Because Muslims Consider Them Haram — The German News Report Is About A Joint Statement Against Intolerance and Exclusion

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    Did the public school system in Hamburg, Germany ban music lessons to avoid offending Muslims who view them to be forbidden or ‘haram’? No, that’s not true: The Hamburg public schools did no such thing. A German language news report has been misrepresented in social media posts. The report followed the signing of a joint statement by religious representatives and school officials against intolerance and exclusion — a move which was prompted by some incidents of religiously motivated bullying.

    The 33-second video clip appeared in a post (archived here) published on X by @realMaalouf on Sept. 29, 2025. The post was captioned:

    GERMANY: In Hamburg, music lessons (singing, piano, guitar) are no longer allowed in public schools because music is ‘haram’ in Islam, and it would be considered Islamophobia to impose them on Muslim students. Thoughts?!

    Muslims Threaten Classmates
    Hamburg takes a clear line against discrimination

    This news report was published by welt.de (archived here) on June 25, 2025. The screenshot below shows the German language webpage translated to English. The topic is “Bullying in Hamburg’s schools”. The headline, originally, “„Musikunterricht kann nicht stattfinden, weil man im Islam nicht singt”” reads:

    “Music lessons cannot take place because singing is not allowed in Islam.”

    These are still isolated cases, but apparently so numerous that the Hamburg Education Senator is now reacting together with Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religious associations. The issue is assaults and discrimination, predominantly by Muslim students. For example, isolated German girls are attacked – they don’t belong here – while others are prevented from attending music lessons because it is haram. These assaults will not be tolerated, not a single one, according to Senator Bekeris.

    The Hamburg Catholic Schools Facebook page published a post (archived here) about the signing of the joint statement on June 18, 2025. One photo in the post (pictured below) has a text caption (translated by Google) which reads:

    Religious communities take a stand
    against intolerance and exclusion

    The Facebook post includes the text of the joint statement (translated by Facebook):

    Promote and protect Hamburg’s diversity – Hamburg and its religious communities show a stance for a respectful dialogue

    Hamburg is a city of cultural and religious diversity.

    From this wealth we shape the future of our city. Children and adolescents grow up together and practice with each other early in kindergarten and school. Here they get to know and appreciate each other with their peculiarities and similarities. They realize differences and practice in dialogue resolving conflicts peacefully and constructively.

    In Hamburg’s nurseries and schools, there is no place for abuse and discrimination of any kind. Everyone who is responsible in nurseries and schools show attitude when people are abused or are pressured by others themselves. Kindergarten and school show attitude when whole groups are subjected to general suspicion due to unacceptable incidents or individuals are excluded or even defamed because of their belonging to a group.

    This attitude corresponds to the values shared by the religious communities and the city, and shaped daily in religious education for all. Mutual respect prohibits any kind of overbearing: no matter who, against whom and especially when coercion is practiced under the cover of supposed religious regulations. All religious communities involved speak out clearly against discrimination and extremism, no matter who they belong to. The religious communities stand for a respectful mutual understanding – with an attitude that draws clear boundaries.

    As cooperation partners, the religious communities work closely with the authorities in the context of school and beyond, to shape life in the Hanseatic city by holding a dialogue. This is how they counter discrimination and radicalization. In religious education for all, students learn together, completely regardless of their religious and secular background. They recognize similarities, explore differences, and practice appreciative interaction with cultural and religious diversity. This is how mutual understanding and respectful cooperation are created, which ensure cohesion in our city.

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  • DOJ sues LA sheriff for not giving out concealed carry licenses quickly enough

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    LOS ANGELES — The U.S. Department of Justice sued the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department on Tuesday, alleging it violated the Constitution by moving too slowly to process gun licenses for people who want to carry concealed weapons.

    The sheriff’s department’s “unreasonable delays” in granting licenses violates California residents’ Second Amendment right to bear arms outside the home, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division said in a complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court.

    “The Second Amendment protects the fundamental constitutional right of law-abiding citizens to bear arms,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “Los Angeles County may not like that right, but the Constitution does not allow them to infringe upon it.”

    Messages were sent to the sheriff’s department seeking comment.

    The lawsuit comes after the DOJ began analyzing concealed-carry permit applications in the county starting last March.

    “Almost two months after receiving notice of the Division’s investigation, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department provided data and documents that revealed only two approvals from over 8,000 applications, and that the Sheriff’s Department set out interviews to approve licenses as far as two years after receiving the completed application,” the DOJ statement said.

    The sheriff’s department waits an average 281 days to start processing applications, violating a California law requiring initial reviews within 90 days, according to the complaint.

    The lawsuit seeks a permanent injunction requiring the sheriff’s department to issue concealed carry licenses in a timely fashion under the law.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom has positioned himself as a leader on gun control and said he will push for stricter regulations.

    In January, a federal appeals court prevented a state law from taking effect that banned people from carrying firearms in most public places. That decision, which the state is appealing, kept in place a previous ruling by U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney blocking the law. Carney said it violates the Second Amendment and that gun rights groups would likely prevail in proving it unconstitutional.

    The law would prohibit people from carrying concealed guns in 26 types of places, including public parks and playgrounds, churches, banks and zoos.

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  • China launches probes targeting US semiconductors ahead of Madrid trade talks

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    TAIPEI, Taiwan — China launched two probes targeting the U.S. semiconductor sector Saturday ahead of talks between the two nations in Spain this week on trade, national security and the ownership of social media platform TikTok.

    China’s Ministry of Commerce announced an anti-dumping investigation into certain analog IC chips imported from the U.S. The investigation will target some commodity interface IC chips and gate driver IC chips, which are commonly made by U.S. companies such as Texas Instruments and ON Semiconductor.

    The ministry separately announced an anti-discrimination probe into U.S. measures against China’s chip sector.

    U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is set to meet Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Madrid between Sunday and Wednesday, He’s office said.

    U.S. measures such as export curbs and tariffs “constitute the containment and suppression of China’s development of high-tech industries” such as advanced computer chips and artificial intelligence, a Chinese commerce ministry spokesperson said.

    The announcements of the probes follow the U.S. on Friday adding 23 Chinese companies to an “entity list” of businesses that will face restrictions for allegedly acting against U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. The list includes two Chinese companies accused of acquiring chipmaking equipment for major Chinese chipmaker SMIC.

    The meetings between Bessent and He in Madrid will be the latest in a series of negotiations aimed at reducing trade tensions and postponing the enactment of higher tariffs on each other’s goods.

    U.S. and Chinese counterparts previously held discussions in Geneva in May, London in June and Stockholm in July. The two governments have agreed to several 90-day pauses on a series of increasing reciprocal tariffs, staving off an all-out trade war.

    Bessent described the talks during the last round in Stockholm as “very fulsome.”

    “We just need to de-risk with certain, strategic industries, whether it’s the rare earths, semiconductors, medicines, and we talked about what we could do together to get into balance within the relationship,” Bessent said at the time.

    U.S. President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden placed curbs on China’s access to advanced semiconductors including restrictions on the sale of chipmaking equipment to the country. While Washington cites national security concerns, China argues the curbs are part of a U.S. strategy to contain its growth.

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  • Uber sued over alleged discrimination against people with disabilities

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    The federal government said Friday that it is suing Uber for allegedly discriminating against passengers with disabilities.

    The Department of Justice said Uber drivers routinely refuse to serve individuals with disabilities, including those with service dogs. Uber is the largest ride-hailing company in the U.S.

    The lawsuit alleges that Uber drivers have charged illegal cleaning fees for service animal shedding and imposed cancellation fees after denying service. The lawsuit also alleges that drivers have refused to allow disabled individuals to sit in the front seat so they can use the back seat for mobility devices.

    Disabled individuals have missed appointments, experienced significant delays and have been stranded in inclement weather, the lawsuit said.

    “For too long, blind riders have suffered repeated ride denials by Uber because they are traveling with a service dog,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “This lawsuit seeks to end this persistent discrimination and allow riders with disabilities to use Uber.”

    In a statement Friday, Uber said all of its drivers must acknowledge and agree to comply with its service animal and accessibility policies.

    Uber said it prohibits drivers from denying service to someone with a service animal and it requires drivers to provide transportation to a person with a disability as long as they get into the vehicle on their own. It also prohibits drivers from refusing to assist with the stowing of devices like walkers, crutches and folding wheelchairs.

    “Riders who use guide dogs or other assistive devices deserve a safe, respectful and welcoming experience on Uber — full stop,” the company said. Uber said it disagrees with the allegations in the lawsuit.

    Uber said it established a hotline in 2023 for customers who were denied a ride because of a service animal. Uber said when it confirms that a violation has occurred, it takes action, including deactivating a driver’s account.

    The Department of Justice is seeking $125 million for disabled individuals who have previously submitted complaints to Uber or the Department of Justice.

    The case was filed in federal court in Northern California. Uber Technologies is based in San Francisco.

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  • Racial abuse of Black players spikes early in European soccer season

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    The Premier League season wasn’t even 30 minutes old when Bournemouth forward Antoine Semenyo reported being racially abused by a spectator.

    The same weekend, a German Cup match was stopped after Schalke midfielder Christopher Antwi-Adjei said he was racially abused at a throw-in.

    In Italy, Juventus condemned racist abuse targeting U.S. player Weston McKennie as he warmed down after a league game.

    And in Spain, police on Wednesday arrested a spectator for allegedly making monkey noises and gestures toward Real Madrid star Kylian Mbappé during a match on Aug. 24.

    An early-season surge in abuse directed at Black players in competitions across Europe has alarmed anti-discrimination campaigners and highlighted how racism persists in soccer despite multiple initiatives by soccer bodies FIFA and UEFA, national federations and individual clubs to eliminate it.

    “I think it’s more than double what we had last season at the same time,” said Piara Powar, executive director of the Fare network, an anti-discrimination group which works with the global and European soccer bodies to monitor and advise on incidents at games.

    “If you layer social-media issues on top of that,” Powar added in a phone interview, referencing the abuse of England player Jess Carter at the Women’s European Championship this summer, “then you really are getting into a lot of stories coming out.”

    Frustrated at the lack of progress, some Black players have called for tougher penalties against offenders from both the justice system and soccer institutions.

    “In this day and age, we’re still, us players, getting racially abused and it just doesn’t make sense,” Semenyo told British broadcaster ITV. “We just want to know why it keeps happening.”

    The man arrested on suspicion of hurling abuse at Semenyo in the Premier League opener against Liverpool was released on bail and told he cannot go within 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) of a soccer stadium in Britain while police investigate the incident.

    Soccer’s tribal culture and frenzied fan base makes it a prime stage for societal problems like racism to surface. English soccer had a particularly harrowing time with racism in the 1970s and ’80s when Black players were regularly subjected to monkey chants and offensive slurs.

    A generation later, racial abuse of players is more common in social media but also continues in stadiums. A high-profile example came in Spain in 2023 when Real Madrid’s Vinícius Júnior confronted a supporter who called him a monkey. Months earlier, four people hung an effigy of the Brazilian player off a highway bridge, resulting in prison sentences this year.

    Soccer’s governing bodies have struggled to stamp out the problem, despite measures such as longer bans for players, heavier fines for clubs, partial stadium closures, points deductions and a three-step protocol used by referees when racism occurs in matches.

    FIFA recently fined the soccer federations of Albania, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina for offenses including racism during World Cup qualifiers they hosted in June. Argentina, Colombia and Chile also were punished for what FIFA said was “discrimination and racist abuse.”

    FIFA created a racism task force in 2013 but controversially disbanded it three years later, saying it had “completely fulfilled its temporary mission.”

    Last week, FIFA announced its latest initiative: a 16-strong group of former players, including soccer greats such as George Weah and Didier Drogba, which will advise on anti-racism initiatives.

    “They will further push for a shift in football culture,” FIFA President Gianni Infantino said about The Players’ Voice Panel, “making sure measures to counter racism are not just talked about, but actioned, both on and off the pitch.”

    One member of the panel, former Manchester United defender Mikael Silvestre, said he received racist insults on Instagram the day after the initiative was announced.

    “It was a surprise,” Silvestre said in comments provided by FIFA, “but it made me even more motivated.”

    Powar said his organization, which sends observers to men’s matches in international soccer and European club competitions, has sent reports to UEFA and FIFA for 18 alleged discriminatory incidents so far this season, excluding online incidents. Based on news reports and its own observations, the Fare network found 90 clear incidents of discrimination in 67 matches. Nearly half of them involved racism.

    Powar said there was “more awareness” of racist incidents happening in soccer, mainly because of increased media coverage, but was still surprised to see so many reports so early in a season. He suggested a heightened focus on migration in European politics may have contributed to the surge.

    “Every week now we are seeing far-right parties, parties of the center-right, prioritizing migration as an issue that Europe needs to get a grip of,” he said. “And that inevitably plays out amongst fan groups, many of whom have a far-right agenda in any case, and it plays out in the minds of the general public.”

    Jacco van Sterkenburg, a professor of race, inclusion and communication in soccer and the media at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, cautioned against blaming racism in soccer on broader political trends.

    “Football itself produces racism that to some extent is independent from society,” Van Sterkenburg said, “because behind it are some aspects like, for example, (the lack of) diversity of boardrooms, in coaching staffs.”

    Organizations like FIFA and UEFA have to tread a fine line as they balance being a competition organizer as well as a regulatory body.

    Powar pointed to the example of Mexico, a co-host of next year’s World Cup whose federation is getting regularly fined because of its fans’ use of a homophobic chant during matches.

    “FIFA has fined them probably close to 20 times over the last few seasons,” Powar said, “and really, given their offenses, they should be closer to being kicked out of the FIFA World Cup.”

    Gary Neville, the former Manchester United and England defender, also wants there to be a bigger “consequence” for offenders.

    Neville is a co-owner of English fourth-tier team Salford City, whose players walked off the field during a friendly match at York in July after one of them was allegedly racially abused by a home supporter.

    Speaking at the launch of UK anti-discrimination group Kick It Out’s five-year “Football United” strategy, Neville said the conversation on racism must move beyond education.

    “Should the (offender’s) employer be contacted? Should there be further punishment for the club? Should the players continue to be on the pitch?” he asked. “We have to take the conversation beyond what is the norm because I just see exactly the same response every single time.”

    ___

    AP Sports Writer Graham Dunbar contributed to this story.

    ___

    AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

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  • Youth detention center in Golden emptied amid what advocates called deteriorating safety conditions

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    Colorado’s Division of Youth Services last month removed all youth from its Lookout Mountain detention center amid what advocates say were deteriorating safety conditions.

    All 36 young people at Lookout Mountain Youth Services Center in Golden were temporarily transferred to other state-run facilities, DYS interim director Dave Lee told juvenile justice stakeholders in an Aug. 28 memo reviewed by The Denver Post. Many of the staff members there have also been temporarily relocated to support youth at their new centers.

    Lee did not discuss the reasoning for the sudden move, only saying that this “will allow DYS to use available statewide resources to support youth currently assigned” to Lookout Mountain.

    “The division takes action like this from time to time and comes as part of our ongoing commitment to ensuring the highest quality of care for the youth we serve,” he wrote.

    A DYS spokesperson, when contacted by The Post last week, was similarly vague about why the state had emptied the long-troubled campus.

    “The temporary transfer of youth and staff from the Lookout Mountain Youth Services Center to other DYS facilities is a result of our commitment to providing a supportive environment that enables youth to achieve success,” spokesperson Alex Urbach said in an email. “After careful consideration and an assessment of staffing capacity, the division transferred youth to other facilities to provide them with increased supports to meet the dynamic needs of (Lookout Mountain’s) complex youth population.”

    Lee, through the DYS spokesperson, declined an interview request for this story.

    Urbach said the division anticipates returning to normal operations “at some point this calendar year.”

    Dana Walters Flores, Colorado campaign coordinator at the National Center for Youth Law, said her organization in early August received a critical mass of calls from parents and advocates saying Lookout Mountain “was in real trouble.”

    “The conditions of confinement deteriorated rapidly in ways that felt unmanageable to staff and kids living there,” she said.

    Staff had done everything they could and used all the tools at their disposal, Flores said. But reports kept coming about brutality, discrimination and the improper use of physical restraint by Lookout Mountain’s administration, she said.

    At that point, she said, a number of organizations that go onto the campus to provide services got wind that “something potentially very dangerous was going to happen there.”

    A second person, who spoke to The Post on condition of anonymity because they continue to work with youth inside DYS, said they grew so alarmed by a dangerous rumor circulating inside Lookout Mountain that they urged one of their teens to report it to the state child abuse hotline.

    Flores said she reported the urgent concerns to DYS leadership as well as the Office of the Colorado Child Protection Ombudsman, which investigates youth safety issues, in mid-August. The ombudsman, Stephanie Villafuerte, declined to comment on the report.

    Soon after, Lee announced the changes at Lookout Mountain. DYS officials did not respond to questions from The Post about safety concerns at the facility.

    “I want to commend leadership at the division for recognizing this was a circumstance where they needed to proactively do something that I don’t know if there’s precedent for,” Flores said. “Moving all the youth from a facility in order to prevent injury or the loss of life to kids or staff is exactly how we hope that any youth correctional leader will behave. It took a lot of courage and creativity on their part to do what they did.”

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    Sam Tabachnik

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  • Denver Public Schools defies Trump administration deadline for removing all-gender bathrooms

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    Denver Public Schools has not complied with the Trump administration’s request that the district convert all multi-stall, all-gender bathrooms in its schools into separate facilities for female and male students by the agency’s Monday deadline.

    In a five-page response dated Sunday, DPS general counsel Kristin Bailey accused the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights of “intransigence,” a failure to adequately communicate and a “startling” lack of clarity surrounding the alleged Title IX violation levied against the school district.

    “We write to rebut the stated presumption that the District and the Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) are at an impasse,” Bailey wrote. “We are not. In fact, as the District has shared throughout this Directed Investigation, we want to discuss resolution options with OCR, and at this stage, the District remains interested in doing so.”

    Education Department representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Denver Post on Monday.

    On Aug. 28, the Education Department announced that it had found DPS discriminated against girls by creating a gender-neutral bathroom at East High School and by adopting a districtwide policy allowing students to use facilities corresponding with their gender identities.

    DPS Superintendent Alex Marrero issued a statement the following day, vowing to protect Denver students and families from an administration hostile to the LGBTQ community.

    The department’s Office of Civil Rights said DPS’s all-gender restrooms violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, enacted to allow girls and women to participate in educational activities in school, including sports, without sexual harassment.

    The office gave the district 10 days to agree to a proposed resolution — which included converting all-gender restrooms back to single-sex facilities — or “risk imminent enforcement action.”

    The findings come after the Education Department announced in January that it was investigating DPS over the East High’s conversion of a girls restroom into a bathroom for all genders last academic year.

    The Denver high school created the gender-neutral bathroom at the request of students who wanted another facility, choosing to convert a girls bathroom because it was more cost-effective, district officials said.

    The all-gender bathroom has stalls that offer more privacy than other facilities, with 12-foot walls that nearly reach the ceiling and metal blocks that prevent people from seeing through.

    In response to the January investigation, East High recently renovated a boys bathroom into a second all-gender restroom — a move the district said it made to address any disparity. The district has two other all-gender facilities, at the Denver School of the Arts and the Career Education Center Early College.

    In the federal agency’s letter alleging DPS violated Title IX, the Education Department also said the Denver district created “a hostile environment for its students by endangering their safety, privacy and dignity” through its use of all-gender restrooms.

    The Trump administration has repeatedly threatened to cut K-12 and higher education funding from schools with policies that the federal government calls discriminatory, particularly those that relate to gender identity, the LGBTQ community and race.

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    Elizabeth Hernandez

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  • Employers have used E-Verify for years. ICE’s arrest of a Maine police officer raises new questions

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    OLD ORCHARD BEACH, Maine — The case of a Maine police officer arrested by immigration authorities even though he was vetted by a government system called “E-Verify” has raised questions about what employers can do to make sure they’re employing people who can legally work.

    E-Verify is an online system that compares information entered by an employer from an employee’s documents with records available to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration. It’s used to determine the employment eligibility of citizens and noncitizens.

    Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin accused Old Orchard Beach, Maine, of “reckless reliance” on the E-Verify program when it hired Jamaica national Jon Luke Evans, who was later detained and agreed to leave the country earlier this month.

    But it’s the government’s own program. And experts say there’s not a whole lot more employers can do in terms of vetting.

    “I think employers are between a rock and a hard place,” said Madeline Zavodny, an economics professor at the University of North Florida. “Even an employer who is trying to comply with the law can have difficulty doing it.”

    Before 1986, it was essentially legal for employers to hire people regardless of their immigration status. Then came the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which involved a large-scale immigrant legalization program that was paired with a requirement that employers no longer hire people who weren’t legally authorized to work in the U.S.

    Employers then had to fill out a form called an I-9, which required workers to present documents showing that they were authorized to work. But it was difficult to verify if the documents were valid. As part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, the E-Verify system was established to help verify those documents.

    Unlike I-9 forms, which are federally required for every employer, E-Verify is mandated on a state-by-state basis, otherwise it is voluntary. According to an Equifax tally, about 23 states require E-Verify for at least some public and/or private employers.

    Zavodny said the system is generally accurate in terms of matching documents, but there are flaws. For example, if an employee’s right to work is revoked after it has already been verified — perhaps if their visa expires — it doesn’t automatically notify the employer.

    A lack of biometrics also hinders the process. If there’s a photo in the E-Verify system, manual photo matching by the employer helps. But a lot of times, there’s no photo in the system.

    And the system is not without critics. A 2021 review of E-Verify by the Office of the Inspector General concluded that until U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services addresses the system’s shortcomings, “it cannot ensure the system provides accurate employment eligibility results.”

    The federal government’s disagreement with Old Orchard Beach over E-Verify’s reliability came despite pushes by President Donald Trump and his allies to bring the system into wider use. Project 2025, the blueprint for Trump’s second term, calls for it to be mandatory.

    Use of the system is not widespread. Barely a fifth of U.S. employers use it, though some huge businesses do, including Walmart, Starbucks and Home Depot.

    Language calling for mandatory nationwide E-Verify was dropped from budget proposals during the first Trump administration. The system has also faced criticism from some employers.

    An Omaha, Nebraska, food packaging company owner said a raid of his business by immigration officials this year came despite his use of E-Verify for employees. Glenn Valley Foods owner Gary Rohwer said in June that the business “did everything we could possibly do” to hire eligible workers.

    Rohwer didn’t respond to requests for comment this month. Old Orchard Beach officials declined to comment on the town’s recent troubles. DHS officials also didn’t respond.

    Others say they’ve had good experiences with the system. Kyle Sobko, CEO of SonderCare, a Calgary, Alberta-based company that makes hospital beds for the home, has a staff of 50, including 20 in the U.S.

    He uses E-Verify and said he hasn’t had any problems.

    “We trust the system for its reliability and integration with our hiring process,” he said.

    Sobko said the situation in Old Orchard Beach raises some concerns about the system’s limitations. But he doesn’t plan on making any changes since the warning about “reckless reliance” on E-Verify.

    Despite the system’s flaws, characterization of E-Verify use as “reckless” is an “outrageous” claim, said Kathleen Campbell Walker, a Texas attorney who is a former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

    Walker described the process as “not a get out of jail free card” for prospective employees, but as one that has evolved over the years and become more robust in its ability to provide accurate background checks.

    Walker said McLaughlin’s description of “reckless reliance” on E-Verify should give employers pause.

    “The whole idea is that I’m supposed to rely on E-Verify to show my good faith and to have a more secure workforce,” she said. “Not that reliance upon it is somehow irresponsible.”

    Advocates for the rights of immigrants have said instances in which employees clear the E-Verify system but end up arrested by immigration officials anyway point to a broken immigration system.

    “We have an immigration system that is not functioning to the extent that a federal system would both clear someone to work and at the same time, they could somehow get onto ICE’s radar,” said Molly Curren Rowles, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    Small businesses are in a tough spot since they don’t necessarily have the resources or motivation to do more than what is required to verify employment eligibility status.

    “Businesses should not be in the business of being the paperwork investigator for the federal government,” said Frank Knapp Jr., president & CEO of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce. “The federal government ought to be doing that.”

    Knapp has pushed back on his state’s mandate for E-Verify because he said it puts too much of the onus on small business owners.

    “It’s an extra layer of administration just to do the E-Verify for small businesses, and the federal government is saying, oh, you do this because you want to verify that somebody is in this country legally,” he said. “But now their own administration is saying, ‘Oh, no, no. That’s not enough.’”

    James M. Cooney, a labor and employment law expert in the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations in New Jersey, said it can be tricky to go beyond the basics of what’s required to verify identification without running the risk of a discrimination charge.

    “If an employer tries to do more than what is permitted under the I-9 and E-Verify, that will very often be seen as illegal discrimination,” he said. “And so that really puts employers at a tough spot.”

    ___

    Anderson reported from New York.

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  • Al Sharpton to lead pro-DEI march through Wall Street on anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington

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    NEW YORK — The Rev. Al Sharpton will lead a protest march on Wall Street to urge corporate America to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

    The New York civil rights leader will join clergy, labor and community leaders Thursday in a demonstration through Manhattan’s Financial District that’s timed with the anniversary of the Civil Rights-era March on Washington in 1963.

    Sharpton, in a statement, called DEI the “civil rights fight of our generation.”

    Since returning to the White House in January, President Donald Trump has moved to end DEI programswithin the federal government and warned schools to do the same, or risk losing federal money.

    In response, Sharpton’s civil rights group, the National Action Network, has encouraged consumers to avoid U.S. retailers that scaled backed policies and programs aimed at bolstering diversity among their employees and reducing discrimination against members of minority groups, women and LGBTQ+ people.

    Earlier this year, Sharpton met with Target’s CEO as groups called for a boycott of the retail giant, which joined Amazon, Walmart and other major retailers in foregoing DEI initiatives.

    The civil rights leader has also called for “buy-cotts” in support of companies such as Costco that have stuck by their DEI principles despite the conservative backlash.

    “Corporate America wants to walk away from Black communities, so we are marching to them to bring this fight to their doorstep,” Sharpton said in a statement ahead of Thursday’s march.

    The march is expected to start around 10 a.m. in Foley Square, located in downtown Manhattan near the African Burial Ground that’s the largest known resting place of enslaved and freed Africans in the country.

    The square is also near 26 Federal Plaza, the federal government building that’s become a symbol of Trump’s nationwide immigration crackdown.

    U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been detaining migrants during their routine appearances at the immigration court located there. A federal judge earlier this month also ordered the Trump administration to improve conditions for migrants jailed there.

    Marchers are expected to make their way past Wall Street’s famous Charging Bull statue before the event ends with a speaking program.

    New York City mayoral candidates, including incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, state Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani, and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, are among those expected to join the demonstration.

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  • CU’s Colorado Springs campus thought it could avoid Trump’s education crackdown. Here’s what happened

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    By BYRON TAU, The Associated Press

    COLORADO SPRINGS — Administrators at the University of Colorado’s campus in Colorado Springs thought they stood a solid chance of dodging the Trump administration’s offensive on higher education.

    Located on a picturesque bluff with a stunning view of Pikes Peak, the school is far removed from the Ivy League colleges that have drawn President Donald Trump’s ire. Most of its students are commuters, getting degrees while holding down full-time jobs. Students and faculty alike describe the university, which is in a conservative part of a blue state, as politically subdued, if not apolitical.

    That optimism was misplaced.

    An Associated Press review of thousands of pages of emails from school officials, as well as interviews with students and professors, reveals that school leaders, teachers and students soon found themselves in the Republican administration’s crosshairs, forcing them to navigate what they described as an unprecedented and haphazard degree of change.

    Whether Washington has downsized government departments, clawed back or launched investigations into diversity programs or campus antisemitism, the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs has confronted many of the same challenges as elite universities across the nation.

    The school lost three major federal grants and found itself under investigation by Trump’s Education Department. In the hopes of avoiding that scrutiny, the university renamed websites and job titles, all while dealing with pressure from students, faculty and staff who wanted the school to take a more combative stance.

    “Uncertainty is compounding,” the school’s chancellor told faculty at a February meeting, according to minutes of the session. “And the speed of which orders are coming has been a bit of a shock.”

    The college declined to make any administrators available to be interviewed. A spokesman asked the AP to make clear that any professors or students interviewed in this story were speaking for themselves and not the institution. Several faculty members also asked for anonymity, either because they did not have tenure or they did not want to call unnecessary attention to themselves and their scholarship in the current political environment.

    “Like our colleagues across higher education, we’ve spent considerable time working to understand the new directives from the federal government,” the chancellor, Jennifer Sobanet, said in a statement provided to the AP.

    Students said they have been able to sense the stress being felt by school administrators and professors.

    “We have administrators that are feeling pressure, because we want to maintain our funding here. It’s been tense,” said Ava Knox, a rising junior who covers the university administration for the school newspaper.

    Faculty, she added, “want to be very careful about how they’re conducting their research and about how they’re addressing the student population. They are also beholden to this new set of kind of ever-changing guidelines and stipulations by the federal government.”

    A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

    Misplaced optimism

    Shortly after Trump won a second term in November, UCCS leaders were trying to gather information on the Republican’s plans. In December, Sobanet met the newly elected Republican congressman who represented the school’s district, a conservative one that Trump won with 53% of the vote. In her meeting notes obtained by the AP, the chancellor sketched out a scenario in which the college might avoid the drastic cuts and havoc under the incoming administration.

    “Research dollars –- hard to pull back grant dollars but Trump tried to pull back some last time. The money goes through Congress,” Sobanet wrote in notes prepared for the meeting. “Grant money will likely stay but just change how they are worded and what it will fund.”

    Sobanet also observed that dismantling the federal Education Department would require congressional authorization. That was unlikely, she suggested, given the U.S. Senate’s composition.

    Like many others, she did not fully anticipate how aggressively Trump would seek to transform the federal government.

    Conservatives’ desire to revamp higher education began well before Trump took office.

    They have long complained that universities have become bastions of liberal indoctrination and raucous protests. In 2023, Republicans in Congress had a contentious hearing with several Ivy League university leaders. Shortly after, the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania resigned. During the presidential campaign last fall, Trump criticized campus protests about Gaza, as well as what he said was a liberal bias in classrooms.

    His new administration opened investigations into alleged antisemitism at several universities. It froze more than $400 million in research grants and contracts at Columbia, along with more than $2.6 billion at Harvard. Columbia reached an agreement last month to pay $220 million to resolve the investigation.

    When Harvard filed a lawsuit challenging Trump’s actions, his administration tried to block the school from enrolling international students. The Trump administration has also threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status.

    Northwestern University, Penn, Princeton and Cornell have seen big chunks of funding cut over how they dealt with protests about Israel’s war in Gaza or over the schools’ support for transgender athletes.

    Trump’s decision to target the wealthiest, most prestigious institutions provided some comfort to administrators at the approximately 4,000 other colleges and universities in the country.

    Most higher education students in the United States are educated at regional public universities or community colleges. Such schools have not typically drawn attention from culture warriors.

    Students and professors at UCCS hoped Trump’s crackdown would bypass the school and others like it.

    “You’ve got everyone — liberals, conservatives, middle of the road,” said Jeffrey Scholes, a professor in the philosophy department. “You just don’t see the kind of unrest and polarization that you see at other campuses.”

    The purse strings

    The federal government has lots of leverage over higher education. It provides about $60 billion a year to universities for research. In addition, a majority of students in the U.S. need grants and loans from various federal programs to help pay tuition and living expenses.

    This budget year, UCCS got about $19 million in research funding from a combination of federal, state and private sources. Though that is a relatively small portion of the school’s overall $369 million budget, the college has made a push in recent years to bolster its campus research program by taking advantage of grant money from government agencies such as the U.S. Defense Department and National Institutes for Health. The widespread federal grant cut could derail those efforts.

    School officials were dismayed when the Trump administration terminated research grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Defense Department and the National Science Foundation, emails show. The grants funded programs in civics, cultural preservation and boosting women in technology fields.

    School administrators scrambled to contact federal officials to learn if other grants were on the chopping block, but they struggled to find answers, the records show.

    School officials repeatedly sought out the assistance of federal officials only to learn those officials were not sure what was happening as the Trump administration halted grant payments, fired thousands of employees and shuttered agencies.

    “The sky is falling” at NIH, a university official reported in notes on a call in which the school’s lobbyists were providing reports of what was happening in Washington.

    There are also concerns about other changes in Washington that will affect how students pay for college, according to interviews with faculty and education policy experts.

    While only Congress can fully abolish the U.S. Department of Education, the Trump administration has tried to dramatically cut back its staff and parcel out many of its functions to other agencies. The administration laid off nearly 1,400 employees, and problems have been reported in the systems that handle student loans. Management of student loans is expected to shift to another agency entirely.

    In addition, an early version of a major funding bill in Congress included major cuts to tuition grants. Though that provision did not make it into the law, Congress did cap loans for students seeking graduate degrees. That policy could have ripple effects in the coming years on institutions such as UCCS that rely on tuition dollars for their operating expenses.

    DEI and transgender issues hit campus

    To force change on campus, the Trump administration has begun investigations targeting diversity programs and efforts to combat antisemitism.

    The Education Department, for example, opened an investigation in March targeting a Ph.D. scholarship program that partnered with 45 universities, including UCCS, to expand opportunities to women and nonwhites in graduate education. The administration alleged the program was only open to certain nonwhite students and amounted to racial discrimination.

    “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news UCCS is included on the list” of schools being investigated, wrote Annie Larson, assistant vice president of federal relations and outreach for the entire University of Colorado system.

    “Oh wow, this is surprising,” wrote back Hillary Fouts, dean of the graduate school at UCCS.

    UCCS also struggled with how to handle executive orders, particularly those on transgender issues.

    In response to an order that aimed to revoke funds to schools that allowed transwomen to play women’s sports, UCCS began a review of its athletic programs. It determined it had no transgender athletes, the records show. University officials were also relieved to discover that only one school in their athletic conference was affected by the order, and UCCS rarely if ever had matches or games against that school.

    “We do not have any students impacted by this and don’t compete against any teams that we are aware of that will be impacted by this,” wrote the vice chancellor for student affairs to colleagues.

    Avoiding the spotlight

    The attacks led UCCS to take preemptive actions and to self-censor in the hopes of saving programs and avoiding the Trump administration’s spotlight.

    Emails show that the school’s legal counsel began looking at all the university’s websites and evaluating whether any scholarships might need to be reworded. The university changed the web address of its diversity initiatives from www.diversity.uccs.edu to www.belonging.uccs.edu.

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    The Associated Press

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  • In Kenya’s capital, a new Rastafari temple shows the movement’s endurance

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    NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — At a recent opening of the newest Rastafari place of worship just outside Kenya’s capital, some of the faithful gathered to sing rhythmic songs, read Scripture and exchange teachings on the appropriate way to live.

    The rare event — opening a tabernacle made of wooden poles and roofed with iron sheets — illustrated the community’s expanding ranks in a country where until recently Rastafari was not considered a legitimate religion.

    Things changed in 2019 with a court ruling in favor of a petitioner who cited discrimination when her school demanded that she cut her dreadlocks, often preferred by those who follow the Rastafari religion.

    The student’s refusal to cut her locks had resulted in her expulsion from school, but the High Court ruled Rastafari was a legitimate religion that should be protected, a ruling later affirmed by the Supreme Court.

    A history of the religion

    Across the world, the faithful are known as Rastafarians, members of the movement launched in 1930 with the coronation in Ethiopia of Ras Tafari Mekonnen as Emperor Haile Selassie I. Rastafarians believe Selassie was the final incarnation of the biblical Jesus, and during his reign many Rastafarians made pilgrimage to the Horn of Africa nation. For Rastafarians, Ethiopia was a symbol of pride for its unbroken resistance to colonizers and Selassie was Jah, the deity.

    Selassie was removed from power in a 1974 coup by a military junta. He died a year later. But the movement inspired by his rise to power in Ethiopia survives in countries ranging from the United States to Ghana.

    A religious minority in Kenya

    It is unclear how many people identify as Rastafari in Kenya, a country dominated by Christians and Muslims. At least 30 Rastafarians came to the tabernacle opening in Ruai, some 25 kilometers (15 miles) east of Nairobi, last month.

    In Kenya, the movement is set up under three “mansions” or branches: Nyabinghi, Bobo Ashanti and The Twelve tribes of Israel. The “mansions” represent small groups of Rastafarians who meet to worship together. Unlike traditional places of worship that are housed in architect-designed permanent structures, a Rastafari tabernacle is built with wooden poles, roofed with iron sheets and decorated in the unmistakable Rastafari colors of red, yellow and green.

    Rastafarians around the world have a reputation for their unique Afrocentric spirituality, and they are generally known to be peace advocates. They oppose oppression and gravitate to music and art. The Jamaican reggae singer Bob Marley was a famous Rastafari.

    There are challenges, including those that stem from misunderstandings about the religion. Across East Africa, Rastafarians are often stereotyped as lazy and indulging in prohibited substances like marijuana. Known to Rastafarians as ganja, marijuana is an important item in religious ceremonies.

    Rastafarians share their experience practicing the faith

    The community has been growing in Kenya, attracting mostly young people.

    Ng’ang’a Njuguna, a Rastafari elder in the Nyabinghi mansion of Kenya, describes Rastafari as not just a religion but a way of life.

    “It is a spiritual way of life,” he said. “That is why we connect with nature, we connect with animals, we connect with every living being because Rastafari is all about the spiritual world.”

    Fedrick Wangai, 26, is one of the newest members. He converted six years ago in what he described as his emancipation from Western religion.

    “I grew up in a Christian setup and I ended up questioning the faith because it was made by the white man who was the colonial master of my forefathers,” he said. “Growing up for me in that religion was very difficult for me because I believe it brought division to the Black people.”

    Christine Wanjiru, a 58-year-old who became a Rastafarian in 1994, making her one of the oldest members of her community, recalled that being one once was difficult as it often attracted discrimination and stigma.

    “Back then, there was a lot of stigma and discrimination against Rastafari,” she said. “Most people never saw Rastafari as a good thing or a spiritual thing, from family members to the government, the police, all round. But we endured and we are here today.”

    She added, however, that since then “more brethren have received this light and have come to Rastafari.”

    Ng’ang’a Njuguna, an elder in the Nyabinghi mansion, says the movement has been growing largely because of interest from young Kenyans.

    “They have that fire, they like how Rasta people carry themselves, how Rasta people live,” he said. “Our diet, art and skills.”

    ___

    Associated Press writer Rodney Muhumuza in Kampala, Uganda, contributed to this report.

    ___

    Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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  • Hallmark exec says actors Lacey Chabert, Holly Robinson Peete ‘aging out’: lawsuit

    Hallmark exec says actors Lacey Chabert, Holly Robinson Peete ‘aging out’: lawsuit

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    Hallmark Media executive vice president of programming Lisa Hamilton Daly instructed a former employee not to cast “old people” for Hallmark roles, saying that “our leading ladies are aging out,” according to a lawsuit filed against the network this month and obtained by The Associated Press.

    Penny Perry, a 79-year old casting director who filed the lawsuit Oct. 9 in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges that she was wrongfully fired from the network known its feel-good movies because of her age, and despite stellar performance reviews. “Hallmark’s happy endings are stories made for TV only,” the complaint says. “In Ms. Perry’s case, there was no happy ending, and no feel-good episode to wrap up her career with Hallmark. Instead, her finale episode was marred by ageist and ableist harassment, and a callous termination which robbed her of her illustrious career, her pride, and her well-being.”

    In a statement, Hallmark denied the allegations, adding: “Hallmark continues to consistently cast and maintain positive, productive relationships with talented actors representing a broad spectrum of diversity, including actors who span many age groups and cross generations.”

    According to the lawsuit, Hamilton Daly told Perry that they needed to “replace” the “old talent” including 42-year-old actress Lacey Chabert, who has starred in dozens of Hallmark movies, many of them Christmas-themed, and portrayed Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls (2004), saying Chabert is “getting older and we have to find someone like her to replace her as she gets older.”

    The lawsuit adds that Hamilton Daly said of 60-year-old actress and “Our Christmas Journey” star Holly Robinson Peete: “No one wants her because she’s too expensive and getting too old. She can’t play leading roles anymore.”

    Hallmark countered: “Lacey and Holly have a home at Hallmark. We do not generally comment on pending litigation. And while we deny these outrageous allegations, we are not going to discuss an employment relationship in the media,” a company representative told AP in an emailed statement.

    Chabert stars in a new Hallmark movie, The Christmas Quest, slated for release Dec. 1, and hosts the reality series “Celebrations with Lacey Chabert,” according to Hallmark’s website. Representatives for Chabert and Robinson Peete did not immediately respond to request for comment.

    Perry herself endured ageist and ableist harassment at the company, and Hamilton Daly — who apparently repeatedly made reference to age as a negative attribute that did not fit the network’s image — “told Ms. Perry she was too ‘long in the tooth” to keep her job at Hallmark,” the lawsuit says. It also alleges that senior vice president of programming and development Randy Pope ridiculed Perry for her relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis by mocking her when she mispronounced words or names — a symptom of the condition.

    “Unfortunately, Hallmark treated a venerable Hollywood veteran this way and we hope this action will lead to change in Hollywood and all work environments,” said a statement from Perry’s attorneys Lisa Sherman and Josh Schein.

    The allegations arrive amid a period of turmoil for Hollywood, punctuated by historic labor strikes, the pandemic, and the streaming revolution.

    ___

    The Associated Press’ women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • US fines Lufthansa $4 million for treatment of Orthodox Jewish passengers on a 2022 flight

    US fines Lufthansa $4 million for treatment of Orthodox Jewish passengers on a 2022 flight

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    WASHINGTON — The United States fined German airline Lufthansa $4 million for its treatment of a group of Jewish passengers who were denied boarding a 2022 flight in Frankfurt after they had flown to Germany from New York.

    The U.S. Transportation Department said Tuesday that the fine is the largest the agency has issued against an airline for civil-rights violations, although Lufthansa was given credit for $2 million for compensation it gave the passengers, cutting the fine in half.

    The department said most of the 128 passengers who were denied boarding “wore distinctive garb typically worn by Orthodox Jewish men.” Although many did not know each other and were not traveling together, they told investigators that Lufthansa treated them as if they were a group and denied boarding to all over alleged misbehavior by a few passengers.

    They were among 131 passengers who were flying from New York through Frankfurt to Budapest to attend an annual memorial event to honor an Orthodox rabbi.

    Some said flight attendants told them on the first flight about the requirement to wear a face mask and not to gather in aisles or near emergency exits. The Lufthansa crew members did not identify any passengers who failed to obey their instructions, which the airline said was due to the sheer number of violations and because many traded seats during the flight.

    The captain alerted Lufthansa security about misbehavior among the passengers, which set in motion the steps that led to their being denied boarding on the connecting flight, according to a consent order in the case.

    Lufthansa rejected “any allegation by the Department that the events in this matter resulted from any form of discrimination” and disputes that any employee acted on bias, but it acknowledged “errors in company procedure and communications.”

    Lufthansa reached a settlement with most of the passengers in 2022.

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  • Members of Congress call on companies to retain DEI programs as court cases grind on

    Members of Congress call on companies to retain DEI programs as court cases grind on

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    NEW YORK (AP) — A group of Democrats in Congress appealed to the largest U.S. companies Tuesday to hold onto their diversity, equity and inclusion programs, saying such efforts give everyone a fair chance at achieving the American dream.

    The 49 House members, led by U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia of California, shared their views in a letter emailed to the leaders of the Fortune 1000. The move follows several major corporations saying in recent months that they would end or curtail their DEI initiatives.

    “Inclusion is a core American value, and a great business practice,” the lawmakers wrote. “By embracing this value, you create safer and fairer workplaces without sacrificing quality or financial success.”

    A handful of U.S. companies, including Ford, Harley-Davidson, John Deere, Lowes and Molson Coors, dialed back their DEI initiatives over the summer. The retreats came in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court outlawing affirmative action in college admissions and after conservative activists targeted the prominent American brands over their diversity policies and programs.

    DEI policies typically are intended as a counterweight to discriminatory practices. Critics argue that education, government and business programs which single out participants based on factors such as race, gender and sexual orientation are unfair and the same opportunities should be afforded to everyone.

    “They create toxic environments. They divide people,” Ilya Shapiro, director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, said of diversity, inclusion and equity initiatives.

    The opponents have had several legislative and legal victories, and dozens more cases are working their way through the courts.

    “These efforts to roll back rights are happening everywhere. They’re happening at the workplace. They’re happening in state legislatures,” Garcia told The Associated Press. “And it needs to stop. And we’ve got to push back and be vocal. We can’t just sit by and allow this to happen.”

    The lawmakers’ letter states that growing numbers of American consumers spend their money with businesses that champion inclusion and are unlikely to continue supporting companies that they see backing down on commitments to bring people together.

    “Continual progress towards more equal policies and benefits decreases the risk that anyone – employees and consumers – will experience discrimination, bias, and other threats to their safety and well-being,” the letter says.

    The letter comes on the heels of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announcing that it filed 110 lawsuits in the past year alleging that employers sexually harassed teenagers, discriminated against workers based on sexual orientation and gender identity, engaged in patterns of discrimination and violated the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, among other violations.

    The lawsuits represent a small fraction of the complaints lodged with the EEOC. The agency received more than 81,000 charges of workplace discrimination in fiscal year 2023, which was a 10% increase over 2022, EEOC Chair Charlotte Burrows said.

    For every complaint, the EEOC notified the employer and launched an investigation. Many involved allegations of racial harassment or religious discrimination, Burrows said.

    “Most people don’t even report internally, much less to the federal government, when they experience discrimination, so unfortunately, it’s the tip of the iceberg,” Burrows told the AP.

    She and other commissioners strongly support diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs “because it is in so many ways an antidote to the kinds of practices that lead us to have to go to court,” Burrows said.

    The Manhattan Institute’s Shapiro counters that DEI programs have little to do with civil rights law.

    “The pushback against it is not a pushback against anti-discrimination laws or anything that existed really before 10 years ago or so,” he said. “DEI is divisive. It views people and issues through lenses of identity, classifies people based on privilege hierarchies and intersectional matrices, and is antithetical to a productive working environment.”

    Meanwhile, lawsuits claiming reverse discrimination may be gaining momentum. The U.S. Supreme Court recently decided it would hear a lawsuit filed by Marlean Ames, who claims she was discriminated against in her job at the Ohio Department of Youth Services because she was straight.

    “It’s a case that people are expecting will open the courthouse doors to more reverse discrimination suits,” said Jason Schwartz, co-chairman of the labor & employment practice group at Gibson Dunn.

    Circuit courts have disagreed over whether to hold reverse discrimination cases to a higher standard. Some have ruled that if a person from a majority group brings a discrimination case, they have to show more evidence of discrimination than a person from a minority group who files a similar case.

    “The Supreme Court’s interest in that case signals some potential that they’re going to lower the bar,” Schwartz said. “We already see a really massive uptick in these reverse discrimination cases.”

    Groups such as the American Alliance for Equal Rights have pushed back on affirmative action policies at universities and diversity, equity and inclusion policies run by corporations.

    Recently, the Atlanta-based Fearless Fund had to shut down a grant contest for Black women business owners as part of a settlement with the American Alliance for Equal Rights, which argued that race-based programs should be open to everyone, regardless of race.

    “There’s been such an intense focus on all of the risk emanating from the anti-DEI side,” said David Glasgow, executive director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at the NYU School of Law. “But I do worry sometimes that organizations may be over-correcting for that or worrying a little bit too much about that at the expense of the other side of the equation.”

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