discrimination

The Alaska Supreme Court ruled that tax exemptions available to married couples must be provided to same-sex spouses even though the state bans gay marriage, Reuters reports. The tax exemption is for senior citizens and disabled veterans that sometimes take martial status into account, Reuters further reports.

'"For purposes of analyzing the effects of the exemption program, we hold that committed same-sex domestic partners who would enter into marriages recognized in Alaska if they could are similarly situated to those opposite-sex couples who, by marrying, have entered into domestic partnerships formally recognized in Alaska,' the Alaska Supreme Court's written opinion stated," Reuters reports.

Oregon has passed a law to allow school districts to enter into agreements with American Indian tribes to use American Indian mascots and names. But the law is already being threatened by possible litigiation: "Sam Sachs, a racial-justice activist who also is a Portland Human Rights Commissioner, said the state Board of Education is obligated to create a safe environment for all Oregon children to learn free of discrimination and bullying. 'But this new law does not get there,' Sachs said of the bill, which will allow a district school board to enter into an approved written agreement with federally recognized American Indian tribes in Oregon to use a mascot that represents, is associated with, or is significant to the tribe," the Statesman Journal reports.

The Associated Press reports that Wisconsin has enacted a law to make it harder for public schools to be forced to drop American Indian mascots and nicknames. A 2010 law required " Wisconsin's Department of Public Instruction to hold a hearing on a school's race-based nickname if it received even one complaint," according to the AP. Now complainants must submit a petition with signatures equal to 10 percent of the school district's student body in order to trigger a departmental review.

Republican Governor Scott Walker said in a statement that he supported moving away from offensive nicknames and mascots, but that he signed the law because "I am very concerned about the principle of free speech enshrined in our U.S. Constitution. If the state bans speech that is offensive to some, where does it stop?" 

Ho Chunk Nation heritage preservation executive director Robert Mann, however, asked in an interview with the AP: "It'd be freedom of speech for who? I guess that's what you'd want to ask."

Click on over to Page 29 of b, a publication of the Baltimore Sun, on how the next frontier for LGBT rights in Maryland (after establishing same-sex marriage) is the fight for trans rights. b reports: "Maryland, like 34 other states, lacks laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity--laws that would protect transgender people ... and others who transgress traditional notions of male and female."

One positive development: the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that transgender people were protected from job discrimination by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, b also reports.

A federal judge has ruled that people with disabilities were discriminated against by New York City during Superstorm Sandy. The New York Law Journal reports that "Southern District Judge Jesse Furman ruled Thursday that the city violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act and the New York City Human Rights Law in how it plans to respond to severe storms and power outages." While the judge said the discrimination against people with disabilities in getting them evacuated and housed during the storm and its aftermath was not intentional, "more needs to be done to meet the needs of the disabled in the future, especially in the evacuation of people stuck in high-rise buildings after a storm," the NYLJ further reports.

After Missouri State Trooper Dennis Engelhard was killed while investigating a traffic accident, his same-sex partner sought survivor benefits. Missouri pays benefits to the surivors of highway patrol officers killed in the line of duty, the Associated Press reported. The Missouri Supreme Court has ruled that because the couple were not married that no benefits are owed, according to the AP.

While Missouri prohibits same-sex marriage in its state constitution and a state law, “the result cannot be any different here simply because [Kelly] Glossip and the patrolman were of the same sex. The statute discriminates solely on the basis of marital status, not sexual orientation,” the majority of five justices said according to AP. 

The two-member dissent, however, said the statute should be struck down because it "specifically discriminate against gay men and lesbians by categorically denying them crucial state benefits when their partner dies in the line of duty," according to AP.
 

Employees who are lesbian, bisexual, gay or transgendered do not have any federal protection from being discriminated against by their employers. The Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate is going to take up a bill that would bar employment discrimination against Americans who are LGBT. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act "would prohibit discrimination by nonreligious entities against employees on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity," The Washington Post reported. The bill, however, has been introduced several times in past legislative sessions and not gotten anywhere.

A British study found 1/3 of "British people in their 50s and above said they had experienced age discrimination, researchers reported in the journal Age and Ageing. That included being treated with less courtesy or getting poorer service at restaurants and hospitals," Reuters Health reported. The impact? One researcher said "frequent perceived discrimination may be a chronic source of stress and build up over time, leading to social withdrawal and reluctance to go to the doctor," Reuters Health also reported.

A plaintiff's lawyer argues that there was no protection for his client, who worked for an American Indian casino, from allegedly being "repeatedly subjected to offensive and explicit conduct based on race, sex and national origin, including being  'dry humped' by his supervisor, having KKK photos emailed to him, being called a Nazi, being given the 'Heil Hitler' salute, having to hear about his supervisor’s sexual acts and hearing customers being racially denigrated," according to this piece in the San Francisco Examiner. Any sovereign nation sets its own rules on what protection should be given from discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability and other characteristics, and the attorney argues against "using the concept of national sovereignty to deny people their basic rights to safety and fair treatment. Ironically, Native Americans, themselves the subject of genocide and centuries of state-sponsored discrimination and civil-rights abuse, exempt themselves from adhering to any legal protections against discrimination and harassment on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, age, disability, etc."