News & Commentary

This post originally appeared in The Tennessean. This week’s news of another suicide by a young student—brought about after years of anti-gay bullying at his school—reminds me of my own experiences attending schools in Tennessee twenty years ago. Unfortunately, it seems little has changed.

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Chaz Bono doing the samba on Dancing with the Stars and Isis King posing fiercely on the All Stars cycle of America’s Next Top Model may mark the first time two positive transgender role models have broken through to the mainstream at the same time. That’s real progress for the widespread acceptance of the trans community, but not all trans people have the support that Chaz and Isis enjoy.

via Jordon Cooper "What are we talkin' bout? Practice? We talkin' bout practice, man. We not even talking about the game," said former NBA superstar Allen Iverson almost ten years ago. His now memorable words came to mind when I read that Los Angeles officials are negotiating with Occupy protesters to break down the camp at City Hall Park and relocate it. Why will the many weeks' long peaceful protest and encampment be closed down, you may ask? Is it concern over public health? Nope. Is it a threat to public safety? Think again. It's the lawn.

Most school districts are failing to provide students, teachers and staff with clear policies that balance students’ legal right to privacy with the need for safety and order, warns a new ACLU of California report,“H-E-L-L-O: Students have a right to privacy in their cell phones.” As cell phones become more and more indispensable to young people, confiscation and searches of students’ phones by school authorities has become widespread. Because such searches provide a window into every aspect of a students’ private life, they violate the laws that protect students’ privacy rights.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) today withdrew a proposed regulation that would allow government agencies to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests with false statements that the documents sought do not exist, when, in fact, they do. Providing such false denials has apparently been a practice at DOJ for decades, which was most recently revealed in a FOIA lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California (ACLU/SC) on behalf of a number of Southern California Muslim individuals and organizations.