Civil Rights – Page 2 – When The Abuser Goes To Work…

Researchers Show Role Of Overtime In Gender Pay Gap

When all things appear to be equal, why do female workers still make less than their male counterparts?

A study scheduled to be published in the April issue of the Journal of Labor Economics examined the 11% wage gap between female and male transit workers who make the same wages and concluded that overtime plays a key role.

The researchers studied time cards filed from 2011 to 2017 by 3,011 full-time bus and train operators at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, where about 30% of public transit operators are women.

The researchers found that female operators took home $0.89 for every dollar earned by a male operator, an 11% wage gap that carries over into retirement.

“We demonstrate that even when men and women work at precisely the same job with exactly the same incentives, women earn less,” they write.

Upon inspection, they found male transit operators took 1.3 fewer unpaid hours off work per week 49%), and worked 1.5 more overtime hours than women (83%).

Is Anyone Else Sick of America’s Class System?

Surprise, another Harvard grad has been nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The clearest evidence of America’s unacknowledged class system is undoubtedly the U.S. Supreme Court, which continues year-after- year to be populated almost exclusively by law school graduates from two elite private universities on the East coast, Harvard and Yale.

This is the Court of last resort in America. The third branch of government. It should not be dominated by two elite private schools over which taxpayers have no control. Harvard and Yale are the equivalent of private clubs.

President Joe Biden on Friday nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School to replace retiring Justice Stephen G. Breyer, also a Harvard JD. She is currently a justice on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Washington, DC.

If Judge Jackson’s nomination is approved, she will contribute to the racial diversity of the court as the first African-American woman on the Court. But she will continue the lack of intellectual diversity on the Court.

Wimpy Women Of The Ivy League

Lia Thomas, a 6-foot-4 transgender woman from the University of Pennsylvania, has become the Ivy League’s 2022 Champion for female swimming, smashing records previously set by biological women.

Thomas previously competed on UP’s men’s team but failed to distinguish himself. Now, as a trans woman who has yet to have gender reassignment surgery, she has risen to the pinnacle of women’s swimming. Onward to the NCAA championships!

How can this be? It might have something to do with Thomas’ pathetic, wimpy female teammates.

Too Fearful To Sign

Sixteen out of 40 female UP swimmers wrote an anonymous letter earlier this month complaining about Thomas’ obvious “unfair advantage over competition” but not a single one of these privileged young women had the guts to sign it.

No Immunity For Officials Who Retaliated Against Police Capt’s Free Speech

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has ruled that a trio of Wood County, TX, officials must answer charges they conspired to retaliate against a police captain because he exercised his First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

The three-judge panel ruled 2-1 to deny qualified immunity to the defendants, local Judge Jeff Fletcher, Sheriff Tom Castloo and former District Attorney James Wheeler.

Quitman Police Department Captain Terry Bevill has charged the trio with conspiring to have him fired and arrested for agreeing to a lawyer’s request to sign an affidavit for a friend

Bevill signed the affidavit in his personal capacity to support a venue transfer for the criminal trial of former Wood County Jail Administrator David McGee. Bevill said McGee would not get a fair trial in the county for facilitating the escape of an inmate and tampering with government documents because of the close personal relationship between Castloo, Wheeler and Fletcher.

The affidavit described Belvill “[a]s a longtime resident and law enforcement officer” who was “familiar with the local players and political climate.”

Castloo, Wheeler and Fletcher subsequently demanded Quitman Mayor David Dobbs fire Bevill, allegedly threatening to refuse to take future cases and to deny support for the police department. After pressure from Dobbs, Police Chief Kelly Cole fired Belvill on the grounds he violated a policy that bars police from interfering with courts.

Meanwhile, McGee’s case was not transferred and a jury found him guilty.

What Does The Palin Verdict Really Mean?

Sarah Palin lost her libel trial against The New York Times on Tuesday but a question lingers about whether she was treated fairly.

Palin, a 2008 GOP candidate for vice president, is not beloved by the powers that be. She is a gun-toting hick from Alaska who is not well read and who makes hokie references to “hockey moms” and “lipstick on a pig.” Palin, a former Alaska governor, is especially loathed by Harvard grads and urban elites.

Still, the beauty of the American justice system is that even the most despised are entitled to basic fairness and justice under the law.

It rankles that U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff, 78, the semi-retired judge who presided over the trial, announced Monday that Palin had not met the high standard for malice to prevail in the case. He said he would dismiss the case regardless of the jury’s verdict.

The jury was deliberating at the time. Reuters reported Wednesday that jurors received phone notifications that the judge had decided to dismiss the case regardless of their verdict. Clearly Judge Rakoff’s pronouncement could have prejudiced the jury.

Timing Is Everything

It was Judge Rakoff’s job to tell the jury what the law is and the jury’s job to apply the law to the facts in the case.

The jury was in the process of deciding whether the NYT showed actual malice in 2017 when it published a preposterous allegation that a political ad by Palin’s political action committee incited the 2011 shooting of former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords and 18 others at a constituent meeting in Tucson. Indeed, the editorial said “the link to political incitement was clear.” The editorial was written by two NYT editorial writers and cleared by a NYT fact checker.