All posts tagged: Civil

California’s Civil Rights Mafia

California’s Civil Rights Mafia

Published by Jenni Sidey

Authored by Christopher F. Rufo and Kenneth Schrupp via City Journal, In 2018, two women filed a class-action suit against Riot Games, the video-game colossus responsible for League of Legends, Valorant, and other popular titles. They claimed that the company had denied them and other female employees “equal pay,” favored men for promotions, and created a “hostile work environment.” The women wanted Riot Games to pay out and to “cause social change.” One year later, the parties agreed to a $10 million settlement. It was a massive sum, but not enough for California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing, which intervened to block the agreement and claim that Riot Games could be on the hook for a staggering $400 million. Facing a court battle against a deep-pocketed state agency, Riot Games later agreed to a $100 million settlement, about ten times the original amount. California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing, now called the Civil Rights Department, has turned the Riot Games strategy into an entire playbook. For years, the state’s civil rights apparatus has …

The civil servant trying to regulate Google

The civil servant trying to regulate Google

Published by Sam Flores

New UK regulation has prompted Google to roll out global changes to the way it uses publisher content in AI-written answers. But do the new rules go far enough? Publishers and press groups have already warned that the new Competition and Markets Authority regime will be too slow and may offer ways for Google to wriggle out of its obligations. Press Gazette put publishers’ concerns to the UK civil servant in charge of regulating Google: Will Hayter, executive director for digital markets at the CMA. He has 20 years experience working in competition policy, first at Ofcom and then at the Competition and Markets Authority. He has been working at the Digital Markets Unit since its inception in 2021. Under legislation passed by Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government, the DMU is empowered to ensure that the giant tech platforms “trade on fair and reasonable terms” in the UK. PG: The Professional Publishers Association is among those voicing concerns that the new regime offers publishers a binary choice over whether or not their content will feature in …

Christians will (and do) oppose civil authorities no matter what Romans 13 says

Christians will (and do) oppose civil authorities no matter what Romans 13 says

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — Al Mohler, the Never-Trumper-turned-Trumpist who runs the largest Southern Baptist seminary in the United States, responded to the anti-ICE protests in Minnesota last week by urging Christians to submit to government authorities in obedience to what the Apostle Paul said in his Letter to the Romans. “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established,” Paul wrote in Romans’ Chapter 13. “The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.”  Mohler applied the passage to Minneapolis, writing: “I do think we need to underline as Christians that Romans 13 principle about lawful authority and anyone who goes on the streets to interfere with a lawful exercise of law enforcement authority, I think that’s inherently problematic.” “Inherently problematic” understates the force of Paul’s injunction.  Paul was exhorting the small communities of Jesus followers of his time to pacifically await the end …

Conservatives are flipping civil rights principles on their head

Conservatives are flipping civil rights principles on their head

Published by Sam Flores

A year into President Donald Trump’s second term, the federal government is flipping the logic of civil rights on its head, using the language of nondiscrimination to destroy the legal structures that themselves aim to prevent discrimination. Early in Trump’s second term, he moved to end federal diversity, equity and inclusion measures, popularly referred to as “DEI” programs. While DEI programs found themselves the topic of conservative ire in the 2020s, especially after the summer of 2020, the programs go back decades. For example, President Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 Executive Order No. 11246 mandated nondiscrimination in federal government employment and the employment practices of federal contractors. This required government agencies to establish a “positive program of equal employment opportunity” and required private contractors to file compliance reports with the federal government, demonstrating their nondiscrimination practices. While diversity programs have gone by a variety of names over the decades — nondiscrimination, affirmative action, DEI — they all trace their roots to the Civil Rights Movement, which lasted from 1954 to 1968. Now the Trump administration is ending …

Claudette Colvin, pioneering civil rights activist, dies at 86

Claudette Colvin, pioneering civil rights activist, dies at 86

Published by Sam Flores

Civil rights pioneer Claudette Colvin has died at 86. Very nearly forgotten by history, Colvin was 15 years old in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. The act of bravery predated Rosa Park’s famous refusal by nine months. Black riders were  forced to sit in the back rows of the bus at the time. If the white section filled up, Black riders were made to move further back and clear rows so white passengers wouldn’t have to sit next to them. Colvin was asked to clear her row when a white woman came aboard. After she refused, police came to the scene and pulled her off the bus. “History had me glued to the seat,” she said in 2021 to the New York Times. At the end of 1955, Rosa Parks, the secretary of the NAACP, staged a similar protest and entered history. Parks’ was also arrested and her protest launched the Montgomery bus boycott led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Colvin said later in life …