Article here. Excerpt:

'Given his previous work covering subjects like Islamic extremism and atheism, Desh probably didn’t anticipate that a conversation between two American feminists, both frequent contributors to mainstream publications, would spark one of his career’s messiest episodes, complete with legal threats and prolonged negotiations over whether the event’s video footage would be released. But that’s what happened. And it’s a rather telling, colorful story of what happens when the highest ideals of civil conversation collide with the realities of public-intellectual stardom and a thoroughly tribalized social media ecosystem. The saga shows that working through disagreement in this political era can be a bit more complicated and fraught than merely getting two disagreers onstage together.
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'A workshop at one of Australia's top universities discussed banning white male students who look like Liberal Party voters from speaking in class.

The seminar titled How Privilege Manifests in Tutorials was held last week by the University of Melbourne Student Union.

Attendees discussed ways to make tutorials and lectures more inclusive by encouraging women, transgender, foreign and gay people to speak up more.

One proposal was to ban 'white, male students' and 'students resembling Liberal voters' from speaking.

This caused outrage among members of the student Liberal Club.

Thomas Carlyle-James, 21, said it was unfair to paint this stereotype of Liberal voters.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'A Michigan woman who ran over her 9-year-old son with her car after he refused to go to school was sentenced to 30 days in jail last week.

On Dec. 11, 2018, Tiffany Kosakowski, 36, dropped off her son, Julian, at his elementary school in Belmont, Michigan. Julian followed his mother out of the school and walked beside her car in the school's parking lot. Kosakowski backed up her car and told him to go back inside, MLive.com reported.

However, Julian held onto the passenger side door handle of the car. Kosakowski then accelerated the car, knowing that Julian was right there, she later told investigators.

“Kosakowski admitted to moving the steering wheel from left to right, then accelerating the vehicle knowing [her son] continued to be next to the vehicle,” according to court documents obtained by WZZM13.

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'Nicolas Cage‘s quickie split could end up costing him.

His wife of just four days, Erika Koike, is asking for spousal support in their ongoing divorce, TMZ reports.

Koike, 35, is against Cage’s request for an annulment as well, with the outlet reporting that she claimed that he asked her to start again “in the right way” only 12 days after he filed to end their marriage.

She also claimed in her court papers that she lost opportunities as a makeup artist due to the ordeal and she wants him to pay for her legal fees.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'As the legal industry places more emphasis on diversity, the scrutiny hasn't escaped one of the profession's most exclusive corners: high-stakes mergers and acquisitions.

But for Wall Street firms that rarely hire laterals, ensuring diversity on trusted deal teams can be especially challenging, and efforts to retain and promote diverse lawyers early in the associate cycle are especially critical.

Some firms in that group, including Cravath, Swaine & Moore and Sullivan & Cromwell, say they are making progress on that front.

Diversity is permeating the consciousness of clients, said Joseph Frumkin, managing partner of Sullivan & Cromwell's M&A group. When Frumkin was pitching in a beauty contest for a $40 billion deal and brought a female associate who did much of the preparation work, he said, the firm got hired.'

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'The former politician made the comments on the drive show with Dan Wootton, during a discussion on whether a man or a woman should replace Strictly Come Dancing judge, Darcey Bussell.

"If a woman could replace Len Goodman, why shouldn't a man replace Darcey Bussell? What's the difference?" Ms Widdecombe said.

"Are we going to decide things on merit, or are we always going to decide things according to a gender, a sexual orientation, colour and age, and all these other things."

She added: "There is no argument at all that makes it right to discriminate against someone, which is what you do in positive discrimination."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Some Microsoft employees are openly questioning whether diversity is important, in a lengthy discussion on an internal online messaging board meant for communicating with CEO Satya Nadella.

Two posts on the board criticizing Microsoft diversity initiatives as “discriminatory hiring” and suggesting that women are less suited for engineering roles have elicited more than 800 comments, both affirming and criticizing the viewpoints, multiple Microsoft employees have told Quartz. The posts were written by a female Microsoft program manager. Quartz reached out to her directly for comment, and isn’t making her name public at this point, pending her response.

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'What a surprise that a former Obama administration official has expressed such contempt for the rule of law – again.

Suzanne Taylor, the interim systemwide Title IX coordinator for the University of California, has again dared the judicial system to force UC to abide by court rulings that found its sexual misconduct proceedings lacking in fairness to accused students.

She writes in a Daily Californian op-ed that the UC will pick and choose what it wants to follow in court rulings “unless and until we are absolutely legally required” to follow the full rulings. As noted by Brooklyn College Prof. KC Johnson, who chronicles Title IX litigation, UC has been on the losing end of 11 lawsuits by accused students.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The backlash against the tech industry-wide push to hire more women and minorities has flared again — this time at Microsoft.

Some employees on an internal message board questioned the tech giant's efforts to shift the demographics of its largely white and Asian male workforce, asking for evidence that a diverse workforce benefits Microsoft. Eighty-seven percent of Microsoft employees are white or Asian and more than 73 percent are men, according to the company's most recent diversity report.

"Does Microsoft have any plans to end the current policy that financially incentivizes discriminatory hiring practices?" asks one post written by a female engineer on Yammer, the internal message board. "To be clear, I am referring to the fact that senior leadership is awarded more money if they discriminate against Asians and white men."

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'Nelson also has rules for communication at The Riveter designed to keep conversation open and civil. When she worked as a lawyer, Nelson says men would sometimes talk over her in meetings or repeat an idea she had just put forth. She makes it a policy now to call out those men, to make them aware of their behavior and how it affects others in the workplace. “It might embarrass him the first time it happens,” Nelson says. “We all get embarrassed at work. I think we have to accept that and embrace that as part of the learning process.”'

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'Depending on the week and whether employment equity (or EE) targets are being met, the Canadian Forces periodically closes some of its approximately 100 occupations or trades to any applicants but women.

The information is contained in so-called weekly “processing cheat sheets” used by recruiting staff — some of which were obtained by the National Post — and was confirmed by a military source.

The Post isn’t identifying that source, at the source’s request, for fear of repercussions.

But the commander of the recruiting group, Colonel Luc Sabourin, also confirmed in a telephone interview Thursday that the forms “are a weekly tool to allow us to meet our designated EE (employment equity) targets.”

Sabourin agreed that in practice, it means that if a white male was applying for a job that was temporarily open only to EE candidates, he would be informed the occupation was full and other job possibilities discussed.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Avital Ronell, a professor of German and Comparative Literature in the College of Arts and Sciences, who was found responsible for sexually harassing a former graduate student will return to teaching this fall.

An internal Title IX investigation, first reported by the New York Times, found Ronell responsible for physical and verbal harassment of graduate student Nimrod Reitman but later cleared her of other charges including sexual assault and stalking.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The real problem with current divorce law is that already does precisely what Mr Gauke will allow it to do more: excises justice from the legal system and turns the law into an instrument of plunder. One spouse can unilaterally abrogate the marriage contract without having to show any legally recognized transgression by the other, and without having to incur the consequences, and then collude with divorce practitioners against an innocent spouse, confiscate his children, loot everything he has, and even threaten him with jail if he fails to cooperate.

The very concept of "no-fault" justice is an oxymoron. It is no justice at all, and when the judiciary stops dispensing justice it starts dispensing injustice. There is no third alternative.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The “White male titans” of classical music are putting young people off the art form, the Royal Albert Hall director has claimed.

While Mozart, Beethoven and Bach are all household names, female composers and those from ethnic minority backgrounds are much less celebrated, according to a new survey.

Young people are also suffering from a lack of access to the genre because of the poor levels of music education in the UK, says Lucy Noble, artistic and commercial director at the Royal Albert Hall.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'If you can think of a problem, there’s likely a researcher somewhere trying to develop an artificial intelligence to solve it. But while AIs themselves have grown more diverse in recent years, the researchers creating the systems haven’t.

According to a new report out of New York University’s AI Now Institute, the AI industry is still dominated by white men — and this “diversity crisis” is partially to blame for the biased AIs we’re seeing crop up around the globe.

“To date, the diversity problems of the AI industry and the issues of bias in the systems it builds have tended to be considered separately,” the researchers wrote. “But we suggest that these are two versions of the same problem: issues of discrimination in the workforce and in system building are deeply intertwined.”'

Also see https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ai-bias-problem-techs-white-male-workforce/.