EEOC Sues Bojangles For Sex Harassment and Retaliation

Restaurant Chain Subjected Transgender Employee to Sex Harassment, Then Fired Her for Complaining, Federal Agency Charges

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - Bojangles Restaurants, Inc., a North Carolina corporation operating a chain of fast food restaurants in the Southeast, violated federal law by subjecting a transgender employee to a hostile work environment because of her gender identity, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit filed today. The lawsuit also alleges that Bojangles illegally fired the employee in retaliation for reporting the sexual harassment.

Read more here.

Big companies back DOJ suit against NC bathroom law

Leading airlines, hotel chains, retailers and tech companies are backing the Department of Justice in its lawsuit against North Carolina over the state’s controversial bathroom law.

American and United airlines, the Hilton and Marriott hotel chains, as well as Apple, Dropbox, eBay, IBM, Microsoft, PayPal, and Ikea, are among 68 companies signing on to a "friend of the court" brief asking a federal judge to issue an order that stops the law, known as HB2, from being enforced until a court has ruled on the discrimination case.

HB2 requires people to use the public bathroom matching their gender at birth.

Read the complete story by The Hill here.

View the brief filed by the 68 companies here.

Lynch: States Can't 'Insist' a Man is a Man and a Woman is a Woman, If Person Feels Otherwise

By Susan Jones | May 10, 2016 | 6:20 AM EDT

Attorney General Loretta Lynch speaks at the Justice Department on Monday, May 9, 2016, after North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory's administration sued the federal government in defense of a state law that says people in public facilities must use the restroom that corresponds with their biological sex.

(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. Justice Department is putting the feelings of transgenders -- men who think they are women and women who think they are men -- above the privacy rights of the vast majority of people who don't contest the biological facts of who they actually are.

For a video and the story, continue reading here.

Arrests highlight education busing issues

CNN US

By Liane Membis, Special to CNN
July 21, 2010 2:30 p.m. EDT

(CNN) -- The arrest of 19 protesters at a rancorous school board meeting Tuesday brings the issue of busing and diversity in education into the national spotlight.
The North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP and local African Methodist Episcopal Zion Churches held a mass mobilization march Tuesday in Raleigh, North Carolina, to protest the recent decision by the Wake County Board of Education to end a 10-year-old socioeconomic diversity plan for public schools. The school board voted 5-4 on March 23 to end "forced busing," a method initiated in the 1970s to promote diversity in public schools.

Full Story: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/07/19/ncschools.resegregation.rally/index.html

Scholar Renders Deft History of Civil Rights Era

Diverse Issues in Higher Education
by Kendal Weaver, Associated Press Writer , December 21, 2009

Even after nearly 50 years, the names bear repeating: Franklin McCain, David Richmond, Ezell Blair and Joseph McNeil.
They were freshmen at North Carolina A&T State University on Feb. 1, 1960, when they took their seats at the Whites-only lunch counter at Woolworth's in downtown Greensboro. Four young Blacks tired of segregation laws, they were refused service and asked to leave. But they remained until the counter closed, and when they walked back to their dorm exhilarated, they had set in motion an act of civil disobedience - the sit-in - that took the civil rights movement by storm.
The next day, 25 sit-in protesters showed up. Then 63 filled all but two seats at Woolworth's. The protest spilled over to the nearby Kress department store, and as word spread across North Carolina and across the South, so did the sit-in: By mid-April, more than 50,000 protesters - ordinary Americans, most of them young - had attacked Jim Crow at the counter.

Full Story: http://diverseeducation.com/article/13282/scholar-renders-deft-history-of-civil-rights-era.html

Purchase The Shadows of Youth from the AAAA Bookstore

Click on: http://www.affirmativeaction.org/bookstore.html

North Carolina Officials Struggle Over Educating Undocumented Immigrants

Diverse Issues in Higher Education
by Associated Press
Aug 15, 2008, 13:37
RALEIGH, N.C.
In a state where the commitment to higher education extends all the way back to the founding of the nation's first public university in 1789, North Carolina's community colleges just can't seem to get past the politics of illegal immigration.
North Carolina's Board of Community Colleges recently approved an independent study on the issues surrounding the admission of undocumented students into the North Carolina Community College System.
Four times since 2000, the nation's third-largest system of community colleges has changed its policy on students who are undocumented immigrants. Most recently, the system in May adopted the most restrictive policy in the country and barred undocumented immigrants from admission to its degree programs.
During an official hearing, System President Scott Ralls voiced his belief in the open door policy that has been the basis of student admissions for decades in North Carolina. Recognizing the complexity of current admission debate, Ralls said, ¡° ¡­ it is possible to craft policies to support our open door philosophy while also addressing many of the concerns expressed by North Carolinians regarding the admission of illegal immigrants.¡± He added that while future Federal or State action is unknown, ¡°enacting any policies regarding the issue of admission of illegal immigrants clearly lies within your authority.
North Carolina's system of 58 community colleges serves roughly 800,000 students, or about one out of every 11 of the state's residents. Only Texas and California, states with populations more than twice the size, run larger systems.
Only a tiny fraction of the North Carolina students ¨D 112 at last count ¨D are undocumented immigrants. Former system president Martin Lancaster has staunchly defended the decision to admit such students, arguing they are unlikely to leave the state and therefore will be part of its work force. [To read the entire story, go to: http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_11565.shtml ]

North Carolina's Community Colleges Are Told to Admit Illegal Immigrants

Chronicle of Higher Education
News Blog
November 27, 2007
North Carolina's Community Colleges Are Told to Admit Illegal Immigrants

All 58 campuses of North Carolina’s community-college system must admit illegal immigrants, a lawyer for the system has said, overturning a policy of allowing the campuses to decide individually whether to consider applicants’ immigration status, according to reports by the Associated Press, The Charlotte Observer, and other news outlets.
David Sullivan, the system’s general counsel, wrote in a memorandum this month that “colleges should immediately begin admitting undocumented individuals,” highlighting the phrase in bold type. State regulations require the colleges to admit undocumented applicants who meet the basic requirements of either having graduated from high school or being at least 18 years old, he said. More than 20 of the colleges now have written or unwritten policies barring admission to illegal immigrants.
Mr. Sullivan said his directive was based on a 1997 opinion by the state’s attorney general at the time — Michael F. Easley, a Democrat who is now governor — which said that the colleges could not impose nonacademic criteria for admission.
[To read the entire article, go to: http://chronicle.com/news/article/3503/north-carolinas-community-colleges-are-told-to-admit-illegal-immigrants?at ]