Article here. Excerpt:

'David Cameron has now pledged to take in 20,000 refugees from Syria over the next five years, and singled out vulnerable children and orphans. This wasn't limited to one side of the political spectrum. Before his announcement, the former Labour Home Secretary David Blunkett called on the Government to take 25,000 refugees over the next sixth months, and said that Syrian women and children should be given priority.

So far this hasn't proved controversial – everyone seems to agree that young people and women require the most attention. But we must be careful not to forget that this is a humanitarian issue, and one that affects an entire population. Otherwise, the message we're sending is that the lives of Arab men do not matter.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Last summer, the Harvard law professor Janet Halley sat down at her dining-room table to look through a set of policies that her university created for handling complaints of sexual assault and harassment. Halley had taught this area for years, and she was interested to see what the university came up with. The new rules were released amid pressure from student-led groups of rape survivors and their advocates, who demanded that schools across the country do more on behalf of victims. Harvard was also responding to years of calls for change by the Obama administration. Just eight months earlier, Valerie Jarrett, a senior presidential adviser, called for a ‘‘more victim-centered’’ campus approach to dealing with the problem of sexual assault.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The Senate committee that handles education issues held a hearing this summer on campus sexual assault that didn’t feature any advocates for due process or rights for accused students.

Those advocates had to submit testimony for the record, rather than have the opportunity before a national TV audience to explain the plight of students falsely accused of assault.

Its House counterpart’s higher education subcommittee is holding a hearing tomorrow on campus sexual assault that at least features one advocate of due process, Joe Cohn of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

But the rest of the witness list suggests he’ll be in the minority.'

Link here. Excerpt:

'Dad’s Business operates in the Playford Council area and has a strong community development focus. It aims to foster environments where all young children can have optimal developmental opportunities for their physical, social and emotional growth.

The support offered includes ante and postnatal sessions for young parents and fathers, parenting and activity groups for fathers only, and with their children, and some community event participation and facilitation with a focus on wellbeing messages for fathers and families.

The role involves liaising with community, including Aboriginal community, to ensure that the program meets the needs of the Playford population.

The successful applicant will have strong child development knowledge, including an understanding of the importance of play. Proven experience in engaging vulnerable families, group facilitation and a community development background would be desirable.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The Education Department, where I used to work, is becoming more and more extreme in how it interprets and applies federal law. Sometimes this comes at the expense of colleges: as a task force of college presidents recently noted in a report to the U.S. Senate, the Education Department frequently makes up new legal mandates out of thin air under the bogus pretense that they are required by some statute, and then imposes them on colleges, without even going through the notice and comment required by the Administrative Procedure Act.

Sometimes, its overreaching comes at the expense of individual people. The Education Department has thumbed its nose at court rulings by creating entitlements for people who make false discrimination and harassment complaints—even though such baseless complaints can make life miserable for the victims of such false allegations (and cause serious problems for the institution they work for or attend).'

Press release here. Excerpt:

'A growing number of legal scholars are expressing concerns over affirmative consent policies that some universities are considering for implementation. The concerns follow recent passage of laws in California and New York mandating such policies on college campuses.

This past week, Tamara Rice Lave of the University of Miami law school wrote on her blog, “I have a problem with legally requiring affirmative consent. I don’t see how making a person prove that her partner consented doesn’t switch the burden of proof to the accused…I find this trend to be extremely troubling.” http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2015/09/affirmative-consent-and-switching-the-burden-of-proof.html

Story here. Excerpt:

'Photos have emerged of the cage installed in an Australian classroom to hold a 10-year-old boy with autism.

The two-metre by two-metre cage made out of blue fencing, which has a self-closing door and latch, was built in a Canberra classroom on March 10 and removed 17 days later. It was dismantled after the education department was made aware of the "inappropriate structure."

The installation of the cage made national headlines at the time, and an investigation was launched by the Australian Capital Territory's (ACT) Education Directorate. This led a to a report, released Tuesday, which stated the construction was an isolated incident and it was decided by one individual, the principal of the school, who hired an external party to carry out the work.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'A 57-year-old lawyer was accused of “unacceptable and misogynistic behaviour” after he sent a barrister half his age a LinkedIn message complimenting her on her “stunning picture”.

Alexander Carter-Silk was named and shamed on Twitter by 27-year-old human rights lawyer Charlotte Proudman who posted her reply to the message online.

He has since apologised for the message, in which he told Ms Proudman he was “delighted to connect”, adding “I appreciate that this is probably horrendously politically incorrect but that is a stunning picture !!!”

The lawyer, a partner at international firm Brown Rudnick continued: “You definitely win the prize for the best Linked in picture I have ever seen.
...
Her response, which prompted praise on social media, read: “I am on linked-in for business purposes not to be approached about my physical appearance or to be objectified by sexist men.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Dear Gap,

I’d like to take a minute to introduce you to my son. He’s a bright 11-year-old who wants to go to MIT when he grows up. He plays guitar and piano. He has a kind heart and sometimes gives up his birthday presents in lieu of dog and cat food for our local animal shelter.

This year, when we were school shopping at your store, he said something that made me want to write to you. After much shrugging and dragging his feet, he picked a few things out to buy. This is not usual behavior for my son. He enjoys buying things whether they are clothes, a remote helicopter, or a new graphic novel.

But when we finally reached the cashier, my son quietly said to me, “I guess boys are insignificant.”

Article here. Excerpt:

'Even though women now make up the majority (60%) of higher education graduates in the EU, they are still less paid for their qualifications than men and are underrepresented in management positions, science and engineering. To encourage more women to take up science, technology, engineering and mathematics, MEPs call for equal access measures and the use of information and communication technologies from pre-school education onwards.
...
Members call on EU member states to encourage girls and boys to take an equal interest in all subjects beyond gendered stereotypes, stressing the role of positive female role models in schools, universities and science.
...
Furthermore, Member states could consider making age-appropriate sex and relationship education compulsory in all primary and secondary school curricula, to teach girls and boys about relationships based on consent, respect and reciprocity, MEPs suggest.

Article and video here. "Women are naturally more compassionate than men," saith the feminist. Ugh.

'A Hungarian camerawoman has been sacked after apparently tripping up migrants.

They were trying to escape from a collection point in the village of Roszke near the Serbian border, in Hungary.

Hungary's N1TV, who she worked for, said in a statement that an employee had shown "unacceptable behaviour".'

Article here. Seems anything can be turned into an opportunity to bash on men. Excerpt:

'Dating is getting a whole lot harder in suburban frog ponds.

Article here. Excerpt:

'As classes begin at colleges and universities across the country, incoming and returning students need to be keenly aware of the current culture surrounding sex on and off campus.

First and foremost, students can assume that they have no constitutional due process rights on their college campus, even in public institutions. One might think that they do, as those rights are guaranteed under the Constitution, but the truth today is that when you step foot on that campus you live by their rules.

That is because college campuses are now responsible for their own criminal justice system, thanks to an interpretation of a federal law. While colleges would never be expected to adjudicate a murder, they are now expected to adjudicate accusations of sexual assault. And the marching orders from Washington suggest that the goal of such adjudications should be to punish accused students, truth be damned.

Story here. Excerpt:

'A iberal arts college in North Carolina is pledging to identify and potentially punish students who heckled a play about sexual assault the college forced them to attend.

"It Stops Here,” an original play produced by students at Greensboro College, was first performed last Wednesday before a crowd of students, but the performance didn’t go as planned. According to people at the play, members of the audience frequently heckled the cast and shouted sexually explicit remarks.

"Many of the boys started calling out ‘She wanted it, it’s not rape,’ and making masturbation noises,” stage manager Claire Sellers told a local news station. Sellers said the remarks were so excessive that cast members “became physically ill and vomited after the show because they were so vulgar.”

Article here. Excerpt:

'It doesn't seem to matter what a college does when responding to a sexual assault accusation — they are always wrong. That's according to the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, which investigates colleges and universities for alleged Title IX violations.

In a recent ruling against Michigan State University, OCR determined the school had violated Title IX because it took too long — four days — to remove accused students from their dorms. The fact that the students weren't immediately evicted from campus, even though an investigation hadn't even started, was also evidence of a violation.

OCR looked at two complaints, from students identified as Student A and Student B, to determine MSU was in violation of Title IX. While OCR mostly found "insufficient evidence" to support the complaints of the two students, what the agency found the university in violation of seemed like nitpicking.'