Story here. Excerpt:

'Montana will pay a former University of Montana quarterback $245,000 to drop his claims that school officials mishandled a rape investigation against him that drew national attention, according to a settlement agreement approved Tuesday.

Jordan Johnson said that university officials predetermined his guilt after a female acquaintance accused him of raping her in 2012, then led a biased investigation against him, according to a statement released by his attorney, David Paoli.

A jury acquitted him in 2013.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Two men who University of Texas officials have recommended be disciplined after being accused of sexual assault are suing the school to prevent the punishment. They say the school is using them as scapegoats to build a reputation for being tough on sexual assault.

Neither of the men faces criminal charges, and they have denied committing sexual assaults. The men — each called “John Doe” in the lawsuits filed this month — are seeking an undetermined amount of money and list the university, UT President Gregory L. Fenves and two UT employees who investigated the allegations as defendants.

Their attorney, Brian Roark, also represented former Longhorn football player Kendall Sanders, who wasacquitted last fall of sexual assault but was expelled by UT before the trial. Sanders had sex with a female UT student; jurors said it was unclear whether the woman had given her consent.'

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) says babies shouldn’t be subjected to unnecessary pain. But the AAP continues to promote “routine” infant circumcision, a painful, medically unnecessary surgery that removes a normal part of a baby’s penis.

Help Intact America help baby boys – Sign the Petition!

Last month, the AAP published research showing that common medical procedures carried out on newborn babies are very painful, and that the effects of the pain can last many years. The procedures mentioned included heel sticks, insertion of IV needles, and circumcision. The AAP report also found that commonly used pain relievers are neither effective nor safe.

Infant circumcision differs from the other procedures discussed in the report in that it is an invasive surgery

that neither tests for nor treats any illness, and permanently removes a natural and valuable part of a boy’s sexual anatomy — the foreskin. The pain from circumcision is intense and continues for days or weeks after the surgery.

Circumcision, originally promoted in the 19th century as a way to prevent masturbation, has become part of American medical culture. Every year, a million baby boys in the United States are subjected to this surgery, although no medical association in the world recommends it.

Some of the falsehoods currently used to support circumcision include hygiene, disease prevention, and aesthetics.

The truth is:
The intact penis is easily cleaned throughout a boy’s and man’s lifetime.

Circumcision does NOT prevent sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV. European countries where fewer than ten percent of all men are circumcised have about the same STD rates as the United States, where circumcision is common.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Profootballtalk outlined a Sports Illustrated article today that debunks many of the myths in the original Shaun King article. Mr. King took liberties with the facts he was given and stretched them to fit his narrative. Basically as we stated a few days ago, the article was extremely biased and one-sided.

However, we have since discovered that Jamie Naughright, Peyton Manning’s accuser has had a history of filing lawsuits against A-listers and as one defense lawyer cited “(1) the litigant’s history of litigation and in particular whether it entailed vexatious, harassing or duplicative lawsuits”.

In 2010 Ms. Naughright filed a lawsuit against fashion designer Donna Karan and “Urban Zen” after allegedly receiving injury during a physical therapy session with a trainer Karan had suggested. The Urban Zen Website states affiliation with Naughright and that she even “introduced 35 students to the Urban Zen Integrative”.

The lawsuit against Karan was eventually dismissed but has several nuggets worth mentioning. The court justified their decision via the defense’s argument that

“a history of litigation entailing vexation, harassment and needless expense to other parties and an unnecessary burden on the courts and their supporting personnel is enough” to warrant such a remedy.”

Article here. Excerpt:

'The Hawaii Legislature is considering a pair of bills based on California’s affirmative-consent standard that would make it nearly impossible for accused University of Hawaii System students to prove they received consent in a sexual encounter.

Ka Leo, the student paper at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, reports that the House and Senate bills were introduced more than a year ago and are back up for consideration in the new session:

`“HB 1249 attempts to establish a clear policy of ‘yes means yes.’ This policy ensures that predators cannot take advantage of a victim’s incapacitated state,” said Rep. Sharon Har, co-author of House Bill (HB) 1249, in an email. …

“The existing policy of ‘no means no’ has not brought an end to sexual assault on and off campus, it has only made sexual predators more clever to cover their tracks and avoid prosecution,” Har said.`'

Article here. Excerpt:

'In light of all the available and alarming statistics on sexual assault in our state, it is frustrating to read articles such as the account of a Legislature committee meeting in Juneau as covered in Matt Buxton’s article, “Legislators discuss UAF’s policies on harassment, sexual assault.” As reported, legislators spent the majority of their time discussing how to protect men who are falsely accused, despite the fact that research shows only 5 percent of reports are false.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Much as there are people who deny the existence of climate change, or the public health value of vaccines, there are those who have tried to cast doubt on the incontrovertible: sexual assaults are rampant on our college campuses.

Deniers insist that key statistics on campus sexual assault are inflated or indeterminate – and some journalists who should know better are buying into this myth. We saw this most recently in Alia Wong’s article last month in the Atlantic, which claimed: “Every statistic about campus sexual assault seems to be contradicted or challenged by another one” as well as in a 2014 article by Emily Yoffe in Slate which alleged that “studies suggesting this [is an] epidemic don’t hold up to scrutiny.”

The truth is that studies over several decades have repeatedly confirmed that, though exact percentages may vary, there are extremely high rates of sexual assault on US campuses.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The United Nations warned Monday that millions of girls remain at risk of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

The practice, which involves removing all or part of a girl’s external genitalia, has no health benefit and can cause severe bleeding, infection, pain, and later, complications in childbirth. It is often performed in unsanitary conditions with unsterilized instruments.'

---

UN launches plan to accelerate male circumcision for AIDS prevention in Africa

Article here. Excerpt:

'United States of America Ambassador to Namibia Thomas Daughton says there is a need to promote, expand and sustain voluntary medical male circumcision services.

There is compelling medical evidence that male circumcision reduces the risk of HIV-infection by approximately 60 percent.

"The reason seems pretty straightforward, even to someone like me who's not a medical professional. Voluntary medical male circumcision has proven to be one of the most economical and effective methods of reducing HIV-transmission," said Daughton, who stressed that reducing transmission is a key component in controlling the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

"That's why it is so encouraging to see the government's proactive effort to scale up voluntary medical male circumcision here in Namibia," Ambassador Daughton said on Thursday.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'If you’re a white male looking for a job, your search just got harder.

Claiming women aren’t getting paid enough, President Obama wants to make it easier to accuse employers of gender discrimination and hit them with class-action lawsuits. A new regulation proposed on Friday will require all employers with 100 or more workers to report how much their workforce is paid, broken down by race and gender.

The rule, slated to go into effect in September 2017, will cause headaches for employers and anyone — man or woman — who works hard and expects to get ahead based on merit. The winners are federal bean counters, class-action lawyers and the Democratic Party, which is playing up the gender “wage gap” as usual during this election year.

Never mind that the gap is largely fiction. Or that Uncle Sam’s social engineers are foisting their cookie-cutter vision of a politically correct workplace on employers, denying them the freedom to hire and promote based on merit.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'In hopes of bringing attention to the stereotypes of masculinity and its negative effects, the next Brown Bag event from the Women’s Center will address the negative stereotypes of men and combat them through a discussion session.

The event titled “Healthy Masculinities” will be held Thursday in the Women’s Center.

The idea of society’s stereotype of masculinity and how it affects young boys and men is often a problem that goes unaddressed in the spectrum of gendered issues, Sarah Jenkins, the program coordinator of the Women’s Center, said.

“There’s been a lot of discussion about the ways that we raise boys and men that really could lead to a lot of emotional regression or stunting of emotion,” she said.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The gender pay gap hit the headlines yet again last week. Government ministers announced plans for national league tables to show the difference in wages earned by male and female employees in any company with over 250 workers. Coverage of this latest attempt to crack down on the apparently blatant gender discrimination that blights the nation’s labour market has been sympathetic. Articles have been accompanied by helpful infographics showing a blue figure atop a substantially larger pile of money than an equivalent pink figure. The intention is to illustrate the frequently referenced statistic that men earn roughly 20 per cent more than women.

Despite the simplicity of this stark inequality, such figures are misleading. The much-heralded 20 per cent pay gap is an ‘on average’ figure that is reached through combining part-time and full-time earnings, and takes no account of age or employment sector. As I have argued before on spiked, when we compare how much women and men are paid for doing the same job for the same number of hours each week, there is no pay gap. Not only is it illegal to pay men more, such a pay gap makes no economic sense. If bosses could really get away with paying women so much less, why would anyone ever employ a man?

Article here. Excerpt:

'Two state legislators announced the proposal of a new affirmative consent bill at the University of Connecticut Women’s Center Friday.

The bill, co-sponsored by state Sen. Mae Flexer, D-Killingly, and state Rep. Gregory Haddad, D-Mansfield, would require university disciplinary boards in Connecticut to determine if there was “unambiguous and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity” when trying sexual assault cases, according to a Feb. 12 press release. This would apply to both public and private institutions of higher learning.

Flexer said the new legislation is intended to build on the sexual assault awareness programs signed into law by Gov. Dannel Malloy in 2014 by standardizing colleges’ definitions of consent.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The arrival of sex robots will soon see men spurning real life partners and snuggling up to silicon instead.

But feminists fear the arrival of bonk bots could spark an explosion of sexism which will see men adopt dark age attitudes to real life ladies.

An activist from The Campaign Against Sex Robots has issued an urgent warning about the "brutal dehumanisation of women" which could take place when men begin to have sex with artificial love machines.

Researcher Lydia Kaye said sex robots will encourage men to think women are nothing more than objects designed exclusively for masculine sexual gratification.

"Sex robots will create another means through which women will be presented as objects to be used for sexual gratification and mistreatment," she wrote.'

Press release here. Excerpt:

'Title IX is the law that bans sex discrimination in schools. The Department of Education Office for Civil Rights requires all colleges to have a Title IX coordinator to establish policies and investigate complaints. Well and good.

But in recent years, the Office for Civil Rights has published a series of controversial Dear Colleague Letters that have expanded the definition of sexual harassment to include bawdy speech, unwanted flirting, off-color jokes, and the like. Expanded definitions translate in more complaints and eventually larger budgets for Title IX offices.

This has given rise to a shadow campus-based adjudication system that lacks transparency, accountability, or due process protections for the accused. This raises the specter of a Kangaroo Court, which the dictionary defines as a “mock court in which the principles of law and justice are disregarded or perverted.”'