Tag: blacklists

Today’s blacklisted American: Court clerk fired despite having valid health and religious reasons to refuse jab

11:52 am

Judge Claire Bradley, petty tyrant

They’re coming for you next: Today’s blacklist story is only one of tens of thousands, but it illustrates starkly the cruel and vindictive intolerance of the petty dictators who now run American society. It doesn’t matter if the jab doesn’t work. It doesn’t matter if you have valid health reasons for avoiding it. It doesn’t matter that you have religious beliefs. It doesn’t matter if you offer to be tested frequently to prove you aren’t sick. It doesn’t even matter that no mandate has been imposed by the local government.

The boss demands you to get jabbed, and if you dare to refuse, the boss will fire you.

Less than three years from retirement, Kitsap County court clerk Tammy Duryea was terminated in 2021 from her job because she did not wish to get the COVID shots for both health and religious reasons.

She has now sued, but her chances of victory are quite slim, especially since it was the court judges, led by Judge Claire Bradley, the presiding judge of the District Court, who imposed the shot mandate.
» Read more

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Pushback: Southwest flight attendant demands Southwest be sanctioned for violating the terms of her court victory

12:33 pm

Southwest: Enemy to free speech

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Charlene Carter, a flight attendant who had worked at Southwest Airlines for 20 years, was fired in 2017 because she had publicly opposed for religious reasons the use of her union dues to fund pro-abortion protests, and was then reinstated after winning her lawsuit against the airline, is now demanding the court sanction Southwest for violating the terms of her court victory.

In her victory, Southwest was required to reinstate Carter with full benefits, and also issue a statement to its employees that it “may not” engage in religious discrimination. Instead, the airline sent out two notices. The first simply stated “that the Court ordered the company to notify them that it ‘does not’ discriminate on the basis of religion.” The second notice however was worse, as it once again slandered Carter for her religious beliefs.
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Pushback: Blacklisted Virginia Tech soccer player wins $100K settlement

2:07 pm

Kiersten Hening, blacklisted by Virginia Tech
Kiersten Hening

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Kiersten Hening, a former Virginia Tech student and soccer player, has won a $100k settlement from the university and her former coach, Charles Adair, for blacklisting her from the team because she refused to kneel in support of Black Lives Matter during the National Anthem before a game.

In December Adair had lost in his attempt to obtain qualified immunity, and thus he became personally liable for his improper and discriminatory actions against Hening that violated her first amendment rights. Rather than allow the case to go before a jury, it appears Adair and the university negotiated a settlement. And while the settlement terms have not been made public, and Adair’s comments to the press try to imply that he got off scot free, this comment by one of Hening’s lawyer gives us a hint:

Attorney Adam Mortara tweeted in reply to Adair’s statement: “If by clarity you mean you are paying my client six figures in a settlement then you’re right that’s pretty clear. Honestly, Coach, read the Court’s opinion. You are paying. Defendants don’t pay in cases that have no standing.”

Mortara went on to thank Adair and his “bosses at Tech for paying the equivalent of several years of tuition.”

Whether this is a victory for free speech remains very unclear, however. Even if Adair did pay up, he remains the soccer coach at Virginia Tech, and clearly has the support not only of the administration but the women’s soccer community there:
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The modern American blacklist culture is wide and deep, and will require a lot of dredging to clear

1:43 pm

What some conservatives are going to have to face to bring liberty back to America
What some conservatives are going to have to face
to bring liberty back to America

A wise man once said that to beat your enemy you need to know him better than he knows himself. It is to this purpose I write this essay.

Even now, with blacklisting, censorship, and intolerance against dissent the normal standard held by our leftist elitist intellectual class, conservatives still assume naturally that anyone they meet anywhere, whether on the street, at their job, or among their family, are old-fashioned freedom-loving Americans who — whether they are Republicans or Democrats — will stand together for liberty wherever tyrants strike.

This assumption is 100% wrong, and it is why conservatives have been so steadily losing ground in the battle for freedom for decades. Blacklisting is now acceptable to a large percentage of Americans on the left. Censorship and violence against their opponents is okay, and is actually considered the right thing to do for many ordinary Democrats.

Just yesterday the Democrats themselves in Congress proved this point. When faced with a bill that simply condemned the more than hundred violent attacks against “pro-life facilities, groups, and churches” since the May 2, 2022 leak of the Supreme Court decision striking down Roe v Wade, 208 out of 211 Democrats voted against it.

The bill did not support the banning of abortion. All it demanded that Congress:
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Cornell confirms its plan to punish students for disrupting Coulter speech

11:26 am

The modern dark age: Only days after a speech by Ann Coulter on November 9, 2022 at Cornell University was disrupted by protesters, the president of Cornell University, Martha Pollack, apparently confirmed the university’s stated public intention to punish the students involved.

Pollack confirmed during a Nov. 15 assembly meeting that the students, who were warned and escorted from the event for preventing Coulter from speaking, would be referred to the Office of Student Conduct” who would then assign “punishments.”

“I will just be honest, I think this was a really stupid move,” Pollack said of the protest in an audio recording obtained by The Cornell Review. “Ann Coulter’s basically irrelevant at this point… and this is exactly what she wanted.”

If you click on the link to the audio recording and go to 18:22, you can hear the question and Pollack’s answer. It is very clear that both she and the questioner want to support free speech and wish to prevent future such disruptions from silencing speakers at Cornell. As Pollack states:
» Read more

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Backlash against MIT’s blacklisting of teacher forces it to adopt Free Speech Resolution

1:52 pm

MIT: unsure of its support of free speech

Today’s blacklist story is really a follow-up on an earlier story from November 2021. At that time MIT had cowardly bowed to the demands of the intolerant left and cancelled a lecture on planetary science by a planetary scientist, Dorian Abbott, merely because Abbott had also posted videos on line advocating the radical idea of free speech.

This action by MIT however did not go unnoticed, and in fact produced an aggressive backlash from both alumni and faculty members. The alumni withdrew their financial support to the school, while a group of 73 faculty members signed a letter demanding the school support free speech.

The faculty suggest[ed] the adoption of the Chicago Statement, which states, in part: “[T]he University is committed to free and open inquiry in all matters, it guarantees all members of the University community the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn,” and that “it is not the proper role of the University to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive.”

Out of this effort the MIT Free Speech Alliance was formed, aimed at forcing these changes at MIT.

Now, less than two months later, it appears that this effort has borne fruit. » Read more

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Pushback: Court denies school principal immunity from lawsuit for squelching free speech

1:26 pm

Caroline Garrett
Former school principal Caroline Garrett

Pushback: A federal appeals court last week ruled that Caroline Garrett, the former principal of Wy’east Middle School in Portland, Oregon, does not have immunity from a lawsuit by a teacher, Eric Dodge, whom she threatened to punish for bringing a MAGA hat to several training sessions.

At the first training session with 60 participants, “fewer than five people complained, including the first presenter who was not a District employee,” and all trainings were completed without incident, according to the court records. “Clinton, Reagan, and Trump appointees coming together to affirm the First Amendment,” lawyer Gregory Conley tweeted in response to the ruling, referring to the panel of judges.

According to the court’s official ruling [pdf], Garrett threatened to punish Dodge if he brought the hat into school again:
» Read more

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Pushback: University eliminates “bias reporting” option that allowed any student to anonymously squelch dissent

1:00 pm

An afterthought at Southern Utah University
An afterthought at Southern Utah University

Bring a gun to a knife fight: After receiving a threat of legal action [pdf] for violating the first amendment rights of its students, South Utah University (SUU) eliminated a “bias reporting” option on its website that allowed any student to anonymously squelch dissent, simply because he or she did not like what the other person said.

Southern Utah University (SUU) removed a tab from its campus safety website where students and officials could report alleged “bias” or “hate” incidents after the Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF), a non-profit legal group, challenged that it violates students’ rights to free speech, SLF confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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Pushback: Catholics sue Michigan for imposing queers and the queer agenda in religious schools

12:16 pm

Repealed in Michigan
Doesn’t exist any longer in Michigan

Bring a gun to a knife fight: A century-old Catholic parish based in Grand Rapids, the Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, is suing Michigan preemptively, anticipating that the state will soon require it to hire queers as well as teach the queer agenda in its school, based on the state’s very broad Civil Rights Act that forbids any discrimination based on sex.

The Michigan Supreme Court recently reinterpreted the prohibition on sex discrimination in Michigan’s Civil Rights Act and penal code to include sexual orientation and gender identity. That change requires Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish and its school, Sacred Heart Academy, to hire faculty and staff who lead lives in direct opposition to the Catholic faith, speak messages that violate Church doctrine, and refrain from articulating Catholic beliefs in teaching its students and when advertising the school to prospective students or job applicants.

Additionally, by preventing Sacred Heart from operating its school consistent with its beliefs, state officials are violating the rights of parents—including the three families who have joined the lawsuit—who specifically chose to send their children to Sacred Heart Academy because the school aligns with their values and religious beliefs.

You can read the lawsuit here [pdf]. It notes in detail the hostility to the Catholic Church by the Attorney General of Michigan, Democrat Dana Nessel, who appears eager to use the law to deny all Catholics their first amendment rights.
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Today’s blacklisted American: Computer maker Raspberry Pi boycotted because it hired a former policeman

2:02 pm

Toby Roberts: Targeted for blacklisting
Toby Roberts: blacklisted because he once was
a policeman

They’re coming for you next: The mini-computer maker Raspberry Pi has found itself being boycotted because it hired a former policeman.

Toby Roberts, the former policeman, had spent years using Raspberry Pi’s in his policework building covert surveillance devices. As he wrote about his new job, “While I enjoyed my time in the police, it was tough at times, so it’s really pleasant now to be in such a joyful environment.”

The Buzzfeed article at the first link above quotes a small handful of people outraged at this hire. These two comments are typical:

Matt Lewis, a Denver-based site reliability engineer, echoed those sentiments. “I am disgusted that [Raspberry Pi’s] official post on Toby Roberts’ hiring promotes his use of their products to surveil individuals without their consent,” he wrote via Twitter DM. “In my eyes, this behavior is completely unethical and the work Toby has done for 15 years is indefensible. I’m also upset that they have chosen to double down on this position against the community outrage.”

Wikipedia consultant Pete Forsyth, who is from Oregon, also had strong words for Raspberry Pi. “I think this event will mark a turning point in the organization’s reputation,” he wrote via Twitter DM. “It’s hard to see how they can recover the trust they seem to have almost willfully dismantled today.”

» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Black scientist blacklisted for doing good research

1:57 pm

Oluseyi Hakeem, blacklisted
Hakeem Oluseyi, Space Science Education Lead
for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate

They’re coming for you next: Today’s blacklist column describes an effort to not only cancel from history the man who led NASA for almost the entire 1960s space race, but to also blackball a scientist for doing good research that proved the campaign was not based on any facts.

Shortly before the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope last year, a petition was instigated to get it renamed because of accusations that Webb had persecuted homosexuals during his term as NASA administrator in the 1960s. As is now typical of our modern bankrupt intellectual class, as soon as this petition was issued more than 1,700 people signed it, all accepting at face value its accusations against Webb without any further research.

One scientist, who happened to be black, took a more detailed look at those accusations however and found them to be spurious. As Hakeem Oluseyi wrote:
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Violence against churches and religious institutions skyrockets since 2018

11:44 am

The increase in violence against churches since 2018

The modern dark age: According to a recently published 84-page report [pdf] by the Family Research Council, vandalism, violence, and arson against churches and religious institutions has nearly tripled since 2018.

From the report:

Family Research Council identified a total of 420 documented acts of hostility that targeted 397
individual churches. These incidents occurred between January 2018 and September 2022 across 45 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. To conduct this research, we analyzed open-source documents, reports, and media outlets to assess the number of acts of hostility against churches over a five-year span.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Professor fired by a North Carolina school for having opinions

2:46 pm

David Phillips
Dr. David Phillips

They’re coming for you next: Officials at the North Carolina Governor’s School (“a residential summer program for the state’s most talented rising high-school seniors.”) fired David Phillips, a professor there for eight summers, because they did not like the content of the optional three session seminar he held critiquing critical race theory.

In other words, they decided to blackball him simply because they did not agree with his opinions.

Phillips has now sued, with the Alliance Defending Freedom acting as his legal firm. The preamble of his lawsuit [pdf] describes what happened.

At the conclusion of each lecture, members of the audience — including staff members — reacted with open hostility to the ideas and viewpoints discussed. And they attacked whiteness, maleness, heterosexuality, and Christianity — none of which should have been relevant — in their comments and questions. Despite the hostility, Dr. Phillips stayed long after the published end time for each lecture to respond calmly to each question, and he even offered to meet with students and staff members later for further discussion.
» Read more

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Pushback: Blacklisting Virginia Tech soccer coach loses effort to get lawsuit dismissed

2:10 pm

Kiersten Hening, blacklisted by Virginia Tech
Kiersten Hening

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Charles Adair, the soccer coach for the woman’s team at Virginia Tech, has lost in his effort to dismiss a lawsuit against him by former player, Kiersten Hening, who he blacklisted from playing because she refused to kneel in support of Black Lives Matter during the National Anthem before a game.

Hening filed a lawsuit against Virginia Tech and Coach Adair in 2021 but Virginia Tech immediately attempted to file a motion to have the suit tossed. The athlete stated that when she refused to take part in the kneeling, which at the time was a virtue signal statement indicating public support for the Black Lives Matter movement, Adair began to insult and demean her as well as limiting her time to play during matches.

According to [U.S. District Judge Thomas T. Cullen], “Hening, who had been a major on-field contributor for two years prior to the 2020 season, also asserts that Adair removed her from the starting lineup or the next two games and drastically reduced her playing time in those games because she had engaged in this protected First Amendment activity. As a result, Hening resigned from the team after the third game of the season.” [emphasis mine]

You can read Cullen’s full decision here [pdf].

Cullen’s decision is intriguing not only because he not only threw out Adair’s effort to get the lawsuit dismissed, he also threw out Adair’s claim that he deserves “qualified immunity” as a public official. » Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Law firm fires lawyer of 44 years for expressing the wrong opinion

1:23 pm

Hogan Lovells: blacklister

They’re coming for you next: The law firm Hogan Lovells recently fired a partner lawyer with 44 years of experience, Robin Keller, simply because she dared at a company meeting to express some rational reasons why Roe v Wade should have been overturned.

As Keller wrote, “I was invited to participate in what was billed as a ‘safe space’ for women at the firm to discuss the decision. It might have been a safe space for some, but it wasn’t safe for me.”

She recounts how “Three weeks later I received a letter stating that the firm had concluded that my reference to comments labeling black abortion rates genocide was a violation of the antiharassment policy.”

Apparently, “a participant complained that she could not breathe and others called her a racist.” These crybabies then demanded she be fired, and the company quickly acquiesced.

The company’s blackballing of Keller should surprise no one. A quick review of Hogan Lovells’ website shows us that this is a very politically correct leftist law firm. On its Diversity, Equity & Inclusion website, the company proudly tells us that:
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Today’s blacklisted American: Conservative students and pro-speech law firm slandered and threatened at University of Kansas

11:30 am

The University of Kansas Law School: Eager to blacklist

Today’s blacklisted American: When a chapter of the Federalist Society at the University of Kansas Law School scheduled an event featuring a speaker from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a pro-speech legal firm that has won many cases at the Supreme Court, the school’s “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Committee” falsely claimed ADF promoted “hate speech”, and two members of the school’s faculty then tried to get the chapter to cancel the event.

The story of what happened are outlined in detail by a justice of the Kansas Supreme Court, Caleb Stegall, in his resignation letter [pdf] in protest of the college’s unwillingness to defend the principle of free speech and open debate. As he wrote, first the law school administrator called a meeting with chapter’s board of students:
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Book touting Judeo-Christian values blacklisted from libraries

1:03 pm

Kirk Cameron, blacklisted

They’re coming for you next: Librarians across America — the same ones running drag queen storybook hours with little kids — are routinely blacklisting television actor Kirk Cameron from doing his own library event reading his own book, As You Grow, because it tries to teach children traditional Judeo-Christian values.

It is common for community libraries to run story-hour programs for kids and parents that correspond with the release of a new book. In recent years, libraries have come under fire for promoting drag queens and other LGBTQ+ centric story hours for young children. It now appears to be the case that those same libraries, which are largely funded by taxpayers, have decided there is no space in their programming lineups for more traditional and faith-based titles.

Cameron’s book, As You Grow, ‘teaches biblical wisdom and the value of producing the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control,’ according to the author.

You can buy Cameron’s book here.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted Americans: Archaeologists go underground to practice their research

11:44 am

What modern academia demands from teachers, researchers, and students
Mindless conforming robots: What today’s leftist academia demands

The modern dark age: In order to do their archaeological research free from the Marxist and bigotry tropes now required in academia — or else be blacklisted — many young archaeologists are now going underground, forming anonymous chat groups to discuss their work safe from blacklisting.

The essay at the link first outlines in detail the oppressive leftist culture that now makes honest and open scientific research difficult if not impossible among our intellectual class. Dare to say or write anything that even suggests some cultures are different or better than others and you will be ostracized so quickly you won’t know what happened to you.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Judge orders Philadelphia to stop blacklisting Christopher Columbus

12:48 pm

What Philadelphia thinks of Columbus
How Philadelphia wants Christopher Columbus honored

The modern dark age: A state judge has now ordered the city of Philadelphia to remove the plywood box that has covered its statue of Christopher Columbus for the past two years.

In her ruling, Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt said that if the city disagrees with the “message” the statue sends, it can add its own plaque with what it wants to convey. “More to the point, the City accepted the donation of the Columbus statue in 1876. It has a fiduciary duty to preserve that statue, which it designated an historic object in 2017. The Columbus statue is not City property as is, for example, a City snowblower,” the judge wrote.

On orders by the city’s Democratic Party mayor, Jim Kenny, the statue had been covered during the worst of the riots in 2020, with Kenny’s stated intention to remove it entirely at some point.
» Read more

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Pushback: Professor wins big against Auburn for punishing him for his opinions

12:08 pm

No free speech at Auburn University
Freedom of speech considered bad at Auburn University!

Bring a gun to a knife fight: After his superiors fired him as chair of the economics department at Auburn University because he had criticized the university’s policy of passing scholarship athletes for doing no work, professor Michael Stern sued, and has now won a $645K court case.

You can read his complaint here [pdf], and the jury verdict here [pdf]. The case hinged on the decision of Joseph Aistrup, the former dean at the College of the Liberal Arts, to fire him as department chair in May 2018 because Stern had publicly raised questions about the high numbers of athletics majoring in “Public Administration,” a program that seemed designed to give them a free ride. This conflict began on February 4, 2014:

Auburn University’s Faculty Athletics Representative (“FAR”), Dr. Mary Boudreaux, put on a presentation in the University Senate wherein she claimed that there was no clustering of athletes by any major at Auburn. Plaintiff [Stern] questioned her in relation to the Public Administration program and football, given the contrasting information Plaintiff was told by a colleague. (During the 2013 Iron Bowl, Dr. Randy Beard (Economics professor and Plaintiffs colleague) noticed that almost all of the star players on the football team had Public Administration as a major).

Dr. Joseph Aistrup (new College of Liberal Arts Dean at the time) ran up to Plaintiff on the way out of the Faculty Senate. He looked green and like he was going to cry. He said, “Oh my God, Mike, I can’t believe you mentioned our program. I’m going to hear about this.”

» Read more

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Pushback: Judge rules flight attendant must be rehired by Southwest, but reduces her award significantly

1:52 pm

Southwest Airlines: Enemy to free speech

Blacklists are back and the business community loves ’em: Though Charlene Carter, the Southwest flight attendant who was fired because she expressed opinions the company and her union did not like, had won her lawsuit against the company, federal district Judge Brantley Starr has reduced the jury award to her from $5.1 million to $810,000 in order “to comply with federal limits on punitive damages.”

The judge this week reduced that award to $300,000 in compensatory and punitive damages from Southwest and $300,000 from the union, $150,000 in back pay and about $60,000 in interest.

In ordering Southwest to reinstate Carter this week, the judge made a reference to a line in Southwest advertising campaigns. “Bags fly free with Southwest. But free speech didn’t fly at all with Southwest in this case,” Starr wrote.

This story is an update on two previous blacklist columns, the second of which described the ugly email correspondence between company and union officials prior to Carter’s firing. Brian Talburt, an official with the Transit Workers Union (TWU), had written to both his boss, union head Audrey Stone, as well as one Southwest manager as follows about Carter:
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Richmond restaurant to the Family Foundation: “No Christians served here!”

2:14 pm

Metzger's: in favor of discrimination

They’re coming for you next: The restaurant, Metzger’s Bar and Butchery in Richmond, Virginia, has now decided that it will no longer serve Christian-affiliated organizations.

Last week The Family Foundation, which is affiliated with the Christian ministry Focus on the Family, had scheduled a gathering at Metzger’s. However, ninety minutes before the event was to take place, Metzger’s told the foundation that it would not serve them, and the event was cancelled. In the restaurant’s own words:

“We refused service to a group that had booked an event with us after the owners of Metzger found out it was a group of donors to a political organization that seeks to deprive women and LGBTQ+ person of their basic human rights in Virginia,” they wrote. “We have always refused service to anyone for making our staff uncomfortable or unsafe and this was the driving force behind our decision.

“Many of our staff are women and/or members of the LGBTQ+ community,” the community wrote. ‘All of our staff are people with rights who deserve dignity and a safe work environment.” [emphasis mine]

So in other words, Metzger’s has now posted a sign on its door, stating bluntly “No religious individuals served here!”
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Pernicious anti-white bigotry controls the government in Seattle

1:15 pm

Seattle: dedicated to segregation!
Seattle, controlled by Democrats and dedicated to the new segregation!

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” Because of the continuous and never-ending racial bigotry that is now normal in Seattle and which eventually forced him from his city job, Joshua Diemert has sued for $300,000 in compensatory and punitive damages.

You can read the lawsuit here [pdf].

The list of abuses against Diemert is beyond horrible. Simply because he is white he was forced to resign a supervisor position so that two unqualified minorities could replace him, was then denied later promotions, then investigated for no reason, and was later accused of being a genocidal Nazi while being forced to attend critical race theory classes that routinely labeled all whites as bigots. As only one small example, consider these details from his complaint:
» Read more

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Pushback: Kroger must pay $180K to two Arkansas workers, fired for refusing to support the queer agenda

1:14 pm

Kroger's rainbow heart apron

Bring a gun to a knife fight: To settle a lawsuit Kroeger has agreed to pay $180K to two Arkansas workers whom the company had fired when both asked to be excused from wearing company aprons that included a rainbow heart that they believed endorsed the queer agenda.

Workers at the store got the new uniforms in April 2019 that included a rainbow heart embroidered on the top left portion of the bib, according to court documents. Both of the workers believe the “literal interpretation of the Bible,” held “religious belief that homosexuality is a sin” and “sincerely believed the apron violated (their) religious beliefs,” according to the lawsuit.

One employee asked to wear their nametag over the logo. Another asked for a different apron. Both employees were fired within two months.

The image to the right shows an apron with this rainbow heart. While some suggest this heart has nothing to do with promoting homosexual rights, the company’s strong advocacy of the queer agenda says otherwise. From Kroger’s own website:
» Read more

15 comments

Today’s blacklisted American: Princeton considering blacklisting John Witherspoon, Founding Father and signer of the Declaration of Independence

1:41 pm

John Witherspoon: Target for cancellation
John Witherspoon: a target for cancellation

The modern dark age: Princeton University is now considering removing from its campus a statue of John Witherspoon, Founding Father, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and the college’s sixth president, because some students have whined about the fact that in his life he also at one time owned two slaves.

A petition, started by three graduate students in the Philosophy Department, states that the “prominent place on campus of the John Witherspoon statue is inappropriate” and calls on the university to “remove it from its pedestal in Firestone Plaza.”

The petition asks that officials replace the statue with an informational plaque that reflects both the “positive and negative aspects of Witherspoon’s legacy.”

» Read more

9 comments

Today’s blacklisted American: Massachusetts hospital network to deny healthcare to those who say things it doesn’t like

12:33 pm

Mass General Brigham: hostile to free speech

They’re coming for you next: The Mass General Brigham (MGB) hospital network in Massachusetts has now established a policy that will deny healthcare to anyone who says something it doesn’t like.

The code covers not only “physical or verbal threats and assaults” and “sexual or vulgar words or actions,” but also “offensive comments about others’ race, accent, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or other personal traits” or refusal to see staff based on those traits. It frowns on “unwelcome words or actions” as well.

While patients can give their side when accused of violating the code, MGB warns that it may ask them to “make other plans for their care” in response to some violations. They might also be banned from “future non-emergency care … though we expect this to be rare.”

The code of conduct can be read here. Moreover, a scan of MGB’s website shows it to be totally invested in the agendas of critical race theory as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion. The top of its About page includes a link to a description of its “Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion,” which describes in careful terms the quota policies the hospital now follows, designed to choose minorities in hiring rather than those with better medical qualifications.

Apparently, if you go for treatment at MGB, you might not get the best or smartest care, but dammit! your doctors and nurses will be the right race or ethnicity!
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Professor fired by University of Louisville for expressing his opinion

12:34 pm

Allen Josephson, fired for expressing an opinion
Allen Josephson, fired for expressing an opinion

They’re coming for you next: After publicly expressing his professional opinion at a 2017 Heritage Foundation conference, where he opposed the abuse of children by the queer movement that now dominates the medical community, Professor Allen Josephson was fired by University of Louisville, specifically because queer activists at the university demanded it.

From Josephson’s lawsuit [pdf], filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom:

[T]he officials at the University’s LGBT Center who became aware of and troubled at Dr. Josephson’s Heritage Foundation presentation included Ms. Stacie Steinbock (the director of the LGBT Center at the University’s Health Science Center) and Mr. Brian W. Buford (then the Executive Director of the LGBT Center). Ms. Steinbock and Mr. Buford opposed and objected to the viewpoints Dr. Josephson expressed at the Heritage Foundation.

…Ms. Steinbock and Mr. Buford (or other officials at the LGBT Center acting at their direction) contacted Dr. Christine Brady (an assistant professor in the Division) regarding Dr. Josephson’s Heritage Foundation presentation. Like Ms. Steinbock and Mr. Buford, Dr. Brady opposed and objected to the viewpoints Dr. Josephson expressed at the Heritage Foundation.

Upon information and belief, Ms. Steinbock and Mr. Buford (or other officials at the LGBT Center acting at their direction) discussed with Dr. Brady the need to ensure that some disciplinary or punitive actions were taken against Dr. Josephson due to the views he expressed at the Heritage Foundation. Ms. Steinbock and Mr. Buford (or other officials at the LGBT Center acting at their direction) repeatedly asked Dr. Brady what would be done about Dr. Josephson’s Heritage Foundation remarks. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words illustrate the storm-trooper attitude of these queer activists. » Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American includes anyone at a Vermont high school who dares say a boy is a boy

2:16 pm

Blake Allen, punished for being a normal high school girl
Blake Allen, punished for being a normal high school girl

We now return for the third time to the saga of Randolph Union High School in Vermont, a place where apparently you are not allowed to state the simple biological fact that a boy is a boy and a girl is a girl. Worse, you must allow boys to enter a girls’ dressing room and ogle them freely, and if you dare challenge this absurdity, you will be fired or suspended.

This craziness began in late September, when a boy claiming to be a girl (because he wanted to play on the girls volleyball team) entered the girls dressing room and watched the girls change, much to their discomfort. When the girls complained to school officials, the officials immediately banned those girls from using their own dressing room, reserving it now solely to this one boy.

The story became even more insane when the local television station, WCAX, decided to censor itself. It had covered this story with reasonable accuracy when the story broke. In mid-October however it decided that its job was publishing the agenda of the queer community, not reporting the news, and it censored its own story, removing it from the internet. (You can still watch it here however.)

Meanwhile, school officials have continued their track record of insanity. These officials not only locked the girls from their own locker room, they suspended one girl, Blake Allen, because she had been the most outspoken of all, appearing in that censored WCAX story. As part of her punishment, school officials demanded she admit 2+2=5 in a “reflective essay.”
» Read more

10 comments

Pushback: Court rules against college’s attempt to censor students

1:33 pm

One poster that Clovis Community College tried to censor
One of the posters that Clovis Community College officials agreed to
“gladly” remove because it made some students “very uncomfortable.”

Bring a gun to a knife fight: A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction against Clovis Community College in California, ruling that it violated the free speech rights of its students when college officials removed posters put up by students from the college’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter that condemned communism and socialism.

The lawsuit [pdf] was filed for the students by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).

The college insists that it reserves the right to remove flyers over “inappropriate or [offensive] language or themes.” The lack of any definition for those vague terms would weigh heavily with the court in granting the preliminary injunction.

FIRE produced emails showing that a college administrator offered to “gladly take down” the flyers after “several people” said that they were “very uncomfortable” with the flyers, including a person who allegedly threatened a “harassment claim” if the posters were not taken down.

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Pushback: Court orders school board to stop censoring and banning parents

1:26 pm

The Forsyth County School Board

Bring a gun to a knife fight: In a victory for free speech, a federal judge has ruled that the censorship and banning of some parents by the Forsyth County Board of Education in Georgia was unconstitutional, and must cease immediately.

This is a follow-up of a previous blacklist story from back in August, when those parents sued the board because it would not permit them to speak at board meetings during public comment about the pornography the board was allowing in schools.

Multiple district residents, including Mama Bears members and plaintiffs in the lawsuit Alison Hair and Cindy Martin, have used their time to read aloud from school library books they consider pornographic. Yet while these materials are available to kids in school, the Chair has cut off and banned speakers who read from them at Board meetings when he deems the language inappropriate or profane.
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