Article here. Excerpt:

'No women, no deal.

That's the vow that angel investor and entrepreneur Jonathan Sposato has taken.

Sposato, who is based in Seattle, made a bold claim: He will only back businesses that have at least one woman on the founding team.

"I am no longer going to invest unless you have at least one female founder," Sposato told CNNMoney. "I won't say yes."
...
Spasato sees nearly 100 startups per year looking for funding -- and the vast majority don't have any female founders.

"There is a marked difference in the traction companies get depending on the gender of its founders," Sposato said.

Male entrepreneurs can help change that.

"We have to change the balance of how people think about starting companies," he said.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Ellen Pao, interim chief executive of Reddit, announced last month a ban on salary negotiations at the social media company. Her stated goal: to eliminate the persistent disadvantage that women have at the bargaining table.

Her pronouncement came just days after Pao lost a high-profile sex-discrimination lawsuit against one of Silicon Valley’s biggest venture-capital firms. Since then, she has insisted that companies “can’t just hide” from sexism in their workplaces and must be proactive in counteracting discrimination. Still, while it is true thatwomen earn about 78 cents, on average, for every dollar a man makes for comparable work, Pao’s no-negotiating policy has struck many as absurd.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Washington and Lee University urged a federal judge in Lynchburg on Friday to toss out a lawsuit filed by a student who was expelled last year on grounds of sexual misconduct.

The student, referred to only as John Doe in court, is claiming the school’s disciplinary process violated federal law by discriminating against him because he’s male.

His lawsuit also argues he was deprived of due process and claims the decision against him was influenced by the now-discredited Rolling Stone article on an alleged assault at the University of Virginia. The article came out one day before the student’s hearing at W&L.

W&L maintained its process was reasonable. The process is sensitive to students who file complaints of sexual assault, it argued, but that alone is not gender bias.

Article here. Excerpt:

'There’s a storm forming on the Ohio horizon. Two pieces of legislation will be introduced soon that directly affect child support. You will need to help us kill the bad parts of these bills. Both will be recycled versions of earlier bills that National Parents Organization helped kill in previous years. We were kindly notified of these bills by the Ohio Child Support Directors Association because they are aware of our record of activism.

The first bill will almost certainly be passed in some form, because federal law requires parts of it. So we must unite to eliminate other parts of the bill that are not mandated. It would shorten the time period for the alleged father to object to an administrative determination of paternity from 30 days to 14 days. Worse, it would start the clock with the issuance of the order, not the receipt of it, or even the date of mailing.

Article here. Excerpt:

'This week's graduation at Columbia University caps the bizarre, often sordid saga involving the two most famous members of the Class of 2015: Emma Sulkowicz, the activist who protested the school's alleged mishandling of her alleged rape by carrying a mattress around campus, and Jean-Paul Nungesser, the German scholarship student she accuses of raping her. On Tuesday, Sulkowicz carried her mattress across the stage at Class Day, despite half-hearted attempts by Columbia officials to enforce a regulation against bringing "large objects" into the ceremonial area—and despite the fact that the "mattress performance" was for a senior visual arts thesis she had already completed. Her activism was also lauded (with no mention of her name) by two commencement speakers, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power.

This isn't quite the end of the story: Nungesser is suingColumbia, university president Lee Bollinger, and Sulkowicz's thesis supervisor for allowing him to be subjected to "gender-based harassment" which severely damaged his educational experience and future prospects, even though a campus panel found him not culpable on the sexual assault charge. Meanwhile, there is new information related to one of this story's many strange twists: another sexual assault complaint brought against Nungesser late last year by a male classmate. The charge was made public in February, on the heels of my article in The Daily Beast questioning the pro-Sulkowicz narrative.

Press release here. Excerpt:

'Recent lawsuits arising from alleged incidents of campus sexual assault are renewing long-standing concerns about the problem of false accusations. In recent weeks, three high-profile lawsuits have been filed involving students or administrators at major universities.

In late April, student Paul Nungesser charged in a lawsuit that Columbia University collaborated in a campaign of harassment against him when accuser Emma Sulkowicz launched her nationally publicized “mattress” campaign, even though the Columbia U. disciplinary committee found no wrong-doing and local police declined to pursue the case.

On May 8, former Florida State University student Jameis Winston filed a lawsuit against accuser Erica Kinsman, saying her allegations of sexual assault were “false, defamatory … and have maliciously and impermissibly interfered with Mr. Winston’s business and personal relationships.” Winston had been cleared of the assault charges in three separate investigations.'

Press release here. Excerpt:

'Notim Press is pleased to announce the publication of Celebrating Brit Shalom, the first book written specifically for Jewish families opting out of circumcision. The book includes a choice of three bris-without-circumcision ceremonies, designed to be either family-led or rabbi-led. It also features sheet music to four original songs written to accompany the ceremonies (recorded versions available separately). The volume is already receiving praise from rabbis and other Jewish thinkers.

"Without asking anyone's permission, [Lisa] Braver Moss and [Rebecca] Wald have crafted a beautiful series of alternative welcoming ceremonies that are in deep conversation with the Jewish tradition. The fact that Celebrating Brit Shalom exists is a testament to both the ingenuity of its creators and the vitality of the Jewish tradition," says Tikkun Magazine.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Two years ago, the National Parents Organization’s Ned Holstein reported the shocking news that, in Massachusetts, non-custodial fathers who are behind on their child support payments are eight times as likely to be sent to jail as non-custodial mothers in arrears. That information came to NPO courtesy of the yeoman work of Terry Brennan who dogged the sheriff’s departments of all Bay State counties for their data on child support enforcement. The results were astonishing: between 95% and 98.5% of those incarcerated in every county were fathers.

Article here. Excerpt:

'College campuses are placing a stronger emphasis on reducing sexual assault. Unfortunately, universities and colleges often adopt heavy-handed policies to punish alleged offenders based on abstractions or simplistic understandings of college student attitudes and behavior. One of the more problematic over generalizations is the concept of the “rape culture” and the pervasive use of the term interferes with our understanding of the nature of campus sexual assault and identifying practical solutions that are more consistent with individual liberty.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Police and prosecutors declined to provide details about the case because it involved both juveniles and allegations of sex crimes. Legal experts acknowledged the difficulty in prosecuting those types of cases, but said the LAPD may have moved too quickly.

“This is a very embarrassing episode for the investigators,” said Dmitry Gorin, a defense attorney who once prosecuted sex crimes. “In high-profile cases like this, it is best for the police to coordinate with prosecutors and get them to review the allegations before making any arrests.”

LAPD Cmdr. Andrew Smith said the department “stands by our decision to make arrests based on the information we had and circumstances at that time.”'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The family of Paul Nungesser, the student who was accused of rape by mattress-toting Columbia University student Emma Sulkowicz, have released a statement about their son's graduation, calling their experience with the university "deeply humiliating."

"Our son's graduation should have been a joyous moment for our whole family. We are extremely proud of Paul for graduating, even more so because of the harassment campaign he was subjected to. For over two years, he had to fight false accusations and a public witch-hunt, even though Columbia and the NYPD exonerated him," Karin Nungesser and Andreas Probosch wrote in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner.

Nungesser's parents blasted Columbia for continuing to allow Sulkowicz to harass their son, as evidenced by her graduation stunt of carrying the mattress across stage and displaying drawings of their son at a public art exhibit the week before.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Emma Sulkowicz. Lena Dunham. UVA’s “Jackie.” These days you can’t turn around without running into somebody who’s making a false claim of rape to get attention. And our moral, ethical, and intellectual betters applaud them. The truth doesn’t matter. The lives of the falsely accused don’t matter. Only the agenda matters.

If you’re as sick of these liars as I am, this will be a welcome sight:'

---
Also see: ‘Mattress Girl’ Is a Perfect Icon for the Feminist Left

Story here. Excerpt:

'A pensioner has been cleared of raping a girl on a farm 40 years after a jury were told the alleged victim may have been affected by false memory syndrome.

Roger Mennell, aged 67, has never been in trouble in his life but has spent two years fighting the allegations which the woman made during psychotherapy sessions.

She alleged he had raped and sexually assaulted her while visiting her family at a farm near Tiverton in the 1970s when she was seven or eight.

She told Exeter Crown Court how Mennell had used a knife to stab, cut open and kill a farm cat as a means of terrifying her into silence. She allegedly he said he would do the same to her family if she revealed his abuse.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Women are notoriously bad at asking for bonuses. Which is why I did my homework and created - as BusinessInsider.com suggested - a "master plan".

I waited "the appropriate amount of time" (in my case, five years), made sure the big boss was in a good mood and took him out to lunch ("somewhere intimate, where there will be no interruptions"). I eschewed any usage of the word "need" (stinking, as it does, of desperation) in my pitch - which was "backed up with reports, charts and documentation of my positive performance" - and I tried to "remain respectful" as he stared slack-jawed back at me, before throwing his head back and roaring with laughter.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Accused parties, too, have begun fighting back. Several students who had been accused of sexual assault this year have filed lawsuits against their colleges and universities over what they say are flawed investigations and a failure of the schools to protect their rights. Paul Nungesser, who was accused of raping fellow Columbia University student Emma Sulkowicz and later found not responsible, last month filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against the university, claiming his Title IX rights were violated. Drew Sterrett, a former University of Michigan student, last May also sued his school, saying he was denied due process during the sexual assault investigation. And Kevin Parisi, a student at Drew University, filed a lawsuit against the university in which he alleges that the school's investigation hurt his academic career, although he was not found responsible for the alleged assault.