Article here. Excerpt:

'KATHERINE BYRON, a senior at Brown University and a member of its Sexual Assault Task Force, considers it her duty to make Brown a safe place for rape victims, free from anything that might prompt memories of trauma.
...
Ms. Byron and some fellow task force members secured a meeting with administrators. Not long after, Brown’s president, Christina H. Paxson, announced that the university would hold a simultaneous, competing talk to provide “research and facts” about “the role of culture in sexual assault.” Meanwhile, student volunteers put up posters advertising that a “safe space” would be available for anyone who found the debate too upsetting.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Being a single parent is a tough gig. Hustle the barely conscious kids off to preschool, fret whether your afterschool program is meeting the needs of your children, fidget in rush hour lines at the grocery store -- or feel guilty about getting them a Big Mac and fries. That’s why we have National Single Parent Appreciation Day on March 21, courtesy of President Reagan in 1984.

That’s also the reason National Parents Organization wants to make single parenting a thing of the past. To help, we have a killer app: shared parenting by divorced or never-married parents. Instead of one frenetic single parent and one non-parent called a “visitor” (and relegated to every other weekend), both parents divvy up the work. The other reason for shared parenting is the emerging consensus among child development researchers that children want shared parenting and do much, much better in life if they have it.

Article here. Excerpt:

'There is no dispute that far too many Americans carry the burden of a criminal record — at least 70 million, by recent estimates — or that the easy accessibility of these records in the information age imposes debilitating obstacles, especially when it comes to finding a job.

The harder question is what to do about it.

Employment is, after all, an important factor in keeping people out of the criminal justice system, yet, in a struggling job market, employers are often tempted to turn away anyone who appears to pose even the slightest risk. Thanks to the proliferation of companies offering instant online background checks, a vast majority of employers now run such checks on all job applicants. They can, and do, refuse to hire people on the grounds of an arrest itself — let alone a conviction.

Article here. Excerpt:

'In the attached handouts, I have explained how the Office for Civil Rights, where I used to work, has made punishment of innocent students more likely, and in some cases, inevitable, through its rules on how colleges must handle sexual harassment allegations, which apply both to verbal harassment and sexual assault.

Article here. Excerpt:

'This past June Israel’s highest court ruled that it isn’t appropriate to link a child’s circumcision to a divorce proceeding. It appears the American legal system has no such concerns.

In Palm Beach County, Florida, family court judge Jeffrey Gillen has ordered a young mother arrested and jailed for failing to hand over her healthy four-year-old son so he can be circumcised according to his dad’s wishes.

The situation looks bleak – for Heather Hironomous and for her son’s foreskin – as the initial circumcision order has already been appealed and affirmed. The family is not Jewish or Muslim, so religious concerns are not at issue here.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Excerpt from Is this the generation that rejects circumcision? by Avraham Burg [link added]. Published in Ha'aretz (Israel), Aug. 29, 2014.

YouTube video here. Description:

'If you are a criminal defendant, it is far better to be a woman than a man. For the same crime, and with a similar criminal history, men in the U.S. are imprisoned much more frequently and for much longer sentences. This is one gender gap that we hear very little about. AEI resident scholar Christina Hoff Sommers explains the very real consequences of being a man vs. a woman on trial for the same crime.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'A Boston College graduate accused of sexual assault has filed a lawsuit alleging that the university violated federal anti-discrimination laws and its own policies governing sexual-assault allegations.

The suit, filed Wednesday in federal court, says BC rushed to find the student responsible for sexual assault and deprived him of a fair hearing. The process branded the student as a sexual predator without giving him a chance to tell his side of the story, the complaint alleges.

The suit was filed against the college trustees and five top administrators by Washington, D.C., attorney Charles B. Wayne and Boston attorney Matthew J. Iverson.

BC spokesman Jack Dunn said the suit is baseless and the college intends to fight it vigorously in federal court. The student’s attorneys declined to comment.

Story here. Announcement:

'"Florida State University has no tolerance for sexual harassment of any kind, so being adverse to a former student and alleged sexual assault victim is an unwelcome position for the university. Yet, we have no choice but to respond to her allegations of deliberate indifference in the strongest terms because the facts in the case do not support her account. If the court does not dismiss this complaint, FSU will look forward to setting the record straight by establishing the extensive assistance Erica Kinsman received from the university. The public must have full confidence in our commitment to protect and care for all our students." -- Florida State president John Thrasher'

Motion here. Kinsman is the star (if it can be called that) of "The Hunting Ground".

Letter here.

'Regarding Robert Doar’s “Making It Easier to Skip Paying Child Support” (op-ed, March 10): The most consequential problem with child support isn’t the back-end collection of child support but rather the front-end calculation of child support. As calculated in most states today, mothers are enriched, fathers are impoverished and there is no accountability mechanism to be sure that the money is being spent on the children of divorce.

Mr. Doar keeps referring to “absent parents” as if all fathers are fleeing from their children in unprecedented droves. Fathers are absent visitors because the family courts order them to be absent. Involved fathers are much more likely to remain current even on absurdly calculated child-support awards if they are deeply involved in their children’s lives.

Most important for any man contemplating marriage and fatherhood, the draconian enforcement types like Mr. Doar love “debtors prison laws.” In the U.S. today, the only citizens who can be imprisoned for debt are fathers in arrears for child support. The parent-to-prison pathway generally goes something like this: Fall behind in child support, and the state takes away all professional and drivers’ licenses. This makes it impossible for fathers to generate income, and so the arrears increase, the father goes to debtors prison, and with a prison record it becomes exceedingly difficult to impossible to ever get a job in the aboveground economy. The future prospects of the children of imprisoned fathers are uniformly bleak, especially when compounded with the well-established findings that children from single-mother families have the worst developmental outcomes of all family forms.

YouTube video here. Held at the National Press Club, Washington, DC on 3/13/15. Panelists: Cathy Young, John Banzhaf, Susan Kaplan, Hans Bader, Cynthia Garrett and Joshua Strange

Edited transcript here. Excerpt:

'HOWARD HUSOCK: We have been told that a crisis of sexual violence grips college and university life. By some accounts, including that of President Obama himself, one in five female undergraduates is said to be likely to experience a sexual assault over the course of their college years. Prominent feminist and Guardian columnist, Jessica Valenti, has referred to the epidemic levels of rape on university campuses. Others, however, see the cry of crisis as exaggerated, and point to the debunking of such stories as that which appeared in Rolling Stone alleging that the University of Virginia had failed to act on a woman student’s charges of fraternity gang rape.

I’m going to turn first to Heather Mac Donald. Put this in context for us, Heather.

HEATHER MAC DONALD: Let’s look at these numbers, Howard. The most common statistic thrown out these days by President Obama, Vice President Biden, on down is that one in five women will be the victims of sexual assault during their college careers.

Story here. Excerpt:

'A Florida mother waived her right to attend a first court hearing on Sunday to face charges of murdering two of her young children and attempting to murder her five-month-old baby, an official at Brevard County Detention Center said.

Jessica Lacey McCarty, 33, of Palm Bay was represented by a public defender, with a judge setting arraignment for April 21, the official said.

It was unclear how she intended to plead.

McCarty was ordered held without bond and remains under medical watch at Brevard County Detention Center, the official said.

The medical examiner's office on Sunday will perform autopsies on McCarty's two older children, ages 7 and 6, to determine how they died.

Police have not said how they believe the children were killed except to say they were not stabbed, sliced or shot.

McCarty's five-month-old baby remains in critical condition in an Orlando hospital, officials said.

Article here. Excerpt:

'About a third of U.S. college presidents believe sexual assault is a problem on American college campuses, but only 6 percent believe it’s a problem on their own campuses. That’s according to Inside Higher Ed’s fifth annual Survey of College and University Presidents, which was released Friday. The survey covered a range of topics, including the Obama administration’s college ratings proposal and the sustainability of college financial models, but the most significant (and alarming) finding was about the presidents’ thoughts on the prevalence of sexual assault on campus.

College presidents appear to be out of touch.

Story here.

'This might be the one time pay inequality worked out well for the women.

A group of Utah high school students hosted a bake sale earlier this week selling cookies to men for $1, while the same cookies were sold to women for 77 cents.

"Because in America, for every dollar a man makes, a woman only makes 77 cents," Kari Schott, a member of the Young Democrats Club at Jordan High School in Sandy, Utah, told Good4Utah.com. "So we're raising awareness for this. So boys will pay a dollar and girls only pay 77 cents."

Not everyone at the school appreciated the price difference, with some calling into question the accuracy of the statistic.

"On social media, on Facebook people got really mad, like they came up and talked to me," Schott said.

"They didn't think it was fair and I said yeah, it's not fair. That's why we're doing it," she concluded.'