Court appeal, clemency petition seek to halt execution of Missouri man who claims innocence

The St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office will appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court a judge’s ruling upholding the conviction and death sentence for Marcellus Williams, whose execution is one week away

Jim Salter
THE INDEPENDENT UK



The St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney's Office will appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court a judge's ruling upholding the conviction and death sentence for Marcellus Williams, whose execution is one week away.

A notice of appeal filed Monday night did not include any details about the basis for the appeal.

Meanwhile, attorneys for Williams have submitted a clemency petition to Gov. Mike Parson that emphasizes how relatives of the murder victim oppose the execution.

Williams, 55, is set to die by injection Sept. 24 for the 1998 stabbing death of Lisha Gayle inside her home in University City, Missouri. It would be the third execution in Missouri this year and the 14th nationwide.

Democratic St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell cited questions about DNA evidence on the murder weapon in requesting a hearing challenging Williams' guilt. Bell said the evidence indicated that someone else’s DNA was on the butcher knife used to kill Gayle, but not that of Williams.

But days before an Aug. 21 hearing, new testing showed that the DNA evidence was spoiled because members of the prosecutor's office touched the knife without gloves before the original trial in 2001.

With the DNA evidence unavailable, Midwest Innocence Project attorneys working on behalf of Williams reached a compromise with the prosecutor’s office: Williams would enter a new, no-contest plea to first-degree murder in exchange for a new sentence of life in prison without parole.

Judge Bruce Hilton signed off on the agreement, as did Gayle’s family. But at Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s urging, the Missouri Supreme Court blocked the agreement and ordered Hilton to proceed with an evidentiary hearing.

Hilton ruled on Sept. 12 that the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence would stand.

“Every claim of error Williams has asserted on direct appeal, post-conviction review, and habeas review has been rejected by Missouri’s courts,” Hilton wrote. “There is no basis for a court to find that Williams is innocent, and no court has made such a finding."


The Midwest Innocence Project provided The Associated Press with a copy of the clemency petition that asks Parson to spare Williams' life. Parson, a Republican and a former county sheriff, has been in office for 11 executions, and he has never granted clemency.

The petition focuses heavily on how Gayle's relatives want the sentence commuted to life without parole.

“The family defines closure as Marcellus being allowed to live,” the petition states. “Marcellus’ execution is not necessary.”

A spokesman for Parson said in an email Tuesday that attorneys for the governor's office have met with Williams' legal team, and Parson will announce a decision later, typically at least a day before the scheduled execution.

At the August hearing, Assistant Attorney General Michael Spillane said that DNA evidence aside, other evidence pointed to his guilt.

“They refer to the evidence in this case as being weak. It was overwhelming,” Spillane said.

Hayley Bedard, a spokesperson for the Death Penalty Information Center, said there have been no verified instance of an innocent person being executed in the U.S. since capital punishment was reintroduced in 1972, but there have been nearly two dozen people executed “despite strong and credible claims of innocence.”

Prosecutors at Williams’ original trial said he broke into Gayle’s home on Aug. 11, 1998, heard water running in the shower, and found a large butcher knife. When Gayle came downstairs, she was stabbed 43 times. Her purse and her husband’s laptop were stolen.

Authorities said Williams stole a jacket to conceal blood on his shirt. Williams’ girlfriend asked him why he would wear a jacket on a hot day. The girlfriend said she later saw the laptop in the car and that Williams sold it a day or two later.

Prosecutors also cited testimony from Henry Cole, who shared a cell with Williams in 1999 while Williams was jailed on unrelated charges. Cole told prosecutors Williams confessed to the killing and offered details about it.

Williams’ attorneys responded that the girlfriend and Cole were both convicted of felonies and wanted a $10,000 reward.

Williams has been close to execution before. In August 2017, just hours before his scheduled death, then-Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, granted a stay after reviewing the same DNA evidence that spurred Bell’s effort to vacate the conviction.

A change.org petition signed by 525,000 people calls for a halt to the execution.

After decades of election boycotts, many in Kashmir appear ready to vote to deny Modi power in region

KASHMIR IS INDIA'S GAZA



By —Aijaz Hussain, Associated Press

Sep 17, 2024 

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — For decades, boycotting elections in Indian-controlled Kashmir was a sign of protest against Indian rule.

That may change on Wednesday, when many residents of the Muslim-majority region say they’re willing to use their vote in a local election to deny Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party the power to form an administration in the disputed region.

The vote is the first in a decade, and the first since Modi’s Hindu nationalist government in 2019 scrapped the region’s special status and downgraded the former state to a federally governed territory. The move — which largely resonated in India and among Modi supporters — was mostly opposed in Kashmir as an assault on its identity and autonomy.

“Boycotts will not work in this election,” said Abdul Rashid, a resident in southern Kashmir’s Shangus village. “There is a desperate need to end the onslaught of changes coming from there (India).”

India wants to keep Kashmir under direct rule

The election will allow Kashmir to have its own truncated government and a local assembly, instead of remaining under New Delhi’s direct rule. The region’s last assembly election was held in 2014, after which Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party for the first time ruled in a coalition with the local Peoples Democratic Party.

But the government collapsed in 2018, after BJP withdrew from the coalition. Polls in the past have been marked with violence, boycotts and vote-rigging, even though India called them a victory over separatism.

This time, New Delhi says the polls are ushering in democracy after more than three decades of strife. However, many locals see the vote as an opportunity not only to elect their own representatives but also to register their protest against the 2019 changes.

Polling will be held in three phases. The second and third phases are scheduled for Sept. 25 and Oct. 1. Votes will be counted on Oct. 8, with results expected that day.

Kashmir is divided between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan. Since 1947, the neighbors have fought two wars over its control, after British rule of the subcontinent ended with the creation of the two countries. Both claim the Himalayan territory in its entirety.

In 2019, the Indian-controlled part of the region was divided into two territories, Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir, ruled directly by New Delhi. The region has been on edge since it lost its flag, criminal code, constitution and inherited protections on land and jobs.
Limited power for local assembly

Multiple pro-India Kashmiri parties, many of whose leaders were among thousands jailed in 2019, are contesting the election, promising to reverse those changes. Some lower-rung separatist leaders, who in the past dismissed polls as illegitimate exercises under military occupation, are also running for office as independent candidates.

India’s main opposition Congress party, which favors restoration of the region’s statehood, has formed an alliance with the National Conference, the region’s largest party. Modi’s BJP has a strong political base in Hindu-dominated areas of Jammu that largely favor the 2019 changes but is weak in the Kashmir Valley, the heartland of anti-India rebellion.

“Our main concern is governance through local representatives. It will be good for us if the BJP forms the government here as it’s already in power at the center,” said Chuni Lal, a shopkeeper in Jammu city.

The vote will see a limited transition of power from New Delhi to the local assembly, with a chief minister at the top heading a council of ministers. But Kashmir will continue to be a “Union Territory” — a region directly controlled by the federal government — with India’s Parliament remaining its main legislator.

The elected government will have partial control over areas like education, culture and taxation but not over the police. Kashmir’s statehood must be restored for the new government to have powers similar to other states in India. However, it will not have the special powers it enjoyed before the 2019 changes.

Last year, India’s Supreme Court endorsed the government’s 2019 changes but ordered New Delhi to conduct local polls by the end of September and restore Kashmir’s statehood. Modi’s government has promised to restore statehood after the polls but has not specified a timeline.

Concerns about rigged vote

Elections in Indian-held Kashmir are a sensitive issue. Many believe they have been rigged multiple times in favor of local politicians who subsequently became India’s regional enforcers, used to incrementally dilute laws that offered Kashmir a special status and legitimize New Delhi’s militaristic policies.

In the mid-1980s, the region’s dissident political groups emerged as a formidable force against Kashmir’s pro-India political elite but lost the 1987 election widely believed to have been rigged. A public backlash followed, with some young activists taking up arms and demanding a united Kashmir, either under Pakistani rule or independent of both.

India insists the insurgency is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, a charge Islamabad denies. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the fighting, which most Kashmiri Muslims consider a legitimate freedom struggle.

Noor Ahmed Baba, a political scientist, said the outcome of the polls “is not going to change the dynamics of the Kashmir dispute” since it will end with a largely powerless legislature, but will be crucial for optics.

“If local parties win, it is going to put some pressure on the central government and perhaps delegitimize from a democratic perspective what has been done to Kashmir. But a BJP win can allow the party to consolidate and validate 2019 changes in the local legislature,” Baba said.

India’s ruling BJP is not officially aligned with any local party, but many politicians believe it is tacitly supporting some parties and independent candidates who privately agree with it.

The National Conference party says Modi’s BJP is trying to manipulate the election through independents. “Their (BJP’s) concerted effort is to divide the vote in Kashmir,” said Tanvir Sadiq, a candidate from the National Conference.

The BJP’s national secretary, meanwhile, says his party’s former ally, the Peoples Democratic Party, and the National Conference are being supported by former militants. Ram Madhav said at a recent rally that they want to return the region to its “trouble-filled days.”

For residents whose civil liberties have been curbed, the election is also a chance to choose representatives they hope will address their main issues.

Many say that while the election won’t solve the dispute over Kashmir, it will give them a rare window to express their frustration with Indian control.

“We need some relief and end of bureaucratic rule here,” said Rafiq Ahmed, a taxi driver in the region’s main city of Srinagar.

VIDEO: Irish people raise Palestine flag in historic castle

Hundreds converge on European Parliament to protest over subcontracted workers

September 17, 2024
By Guest Contributor - Opinion

More than 700 workers “united” on Tuesday (17 September) in front of the European Parliament, Strasbourg, France, to call upon the EU institutions for urgent action to stop exploitation in subcontracting chains and labour intermediation, writes Martin Banks.

The European action was organised by the EFBWW (European Federation of Building and Woodworkers), EFFAT (the European Federation of Food, Agriculture and Tourism Trade Unions), and ETF (European Transport Workers’ Federation).

They said the aim was to demand an EU-binding initiative to limit subcontracting and regulate labour intermediation, including a ban of agencies in posting, and to bolster the frequency and effectiveness of labour inspections.

Following the demonstration, a hearing inside the European Parliament took place.

The event focused on testimonies from workers affected by exploitative subcontracting practices and unscrupulous intermediaries and had the participation of MEPs from the S&D, the Left, the EPP, RE, and Greens/EFA.

EFBWW General Secretary, Tom Deleu: “On the day in which the president of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, unveils the portfolios of the new commissioners, workers from all over Europe gathered to put workers’ rights at the top of the European agenda.

“The EU cannot ignore what is happening with posted, migrant and third country nationals. In construction, we witness high levels of exploitation, fraud, and other labour abuses, especially in a cross-border context. Subcontracting is always a major risk factor.

“We need to break the chain of exploitation. The new European Commission and the new European Parliament must act urgently, limit subcontracting and ban intermediaries in posting.”

ETF General Secretary Livia Spera said: “Subcontracting takes different forms in transport, with similar patterns observed across Europe.

“Today, subcontracted workers are often second-class citizens with lower working conditions and rights. We are asking EU rules to regulate subcontracting to reestablish fairness.”

EFFAT General Secretary Kristjan Bragason said: “Abusive subcontracting practices and unregulated labour intermediation are two structural issues of an exploitative business model which is increasingly dominating many sectors of the economy. Migrant and mobile workers are the main victims. Today a strong message goes to the EU institutions. It is time for urgent EU action to ensure real equal treatment at the workplace.”

The European Federation of Building and Woodworkers (EFBWW) is the European Workers’ Industry Federation for the building sector, woodworking, forestry and allied industries and trades.

The EFBWW has 80 affiliated unions in 36 countries and represents a total of 1.5 million members. The EFBWW is a member organisation of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC).

Myanmar’s military intensifying killing and torture of civilians, UN says

UN report finds 5,350 civilians had been killed by the military since the coup in February 2021.

Members of the Myanmar military march at a parade ground to mark Independence Day in Naypyidaw [File: AFP]

Published On 17 Sep 2024

Myanmar’s military government has ramped up killings and arrests in an apparent bid to silence opponents with tens of thousands of people arrested since a 2021 coup, a United Nations report finds.

The military seized power in February that year, deposing the elected civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi and triggering nationwide street protests that it violently crushed.

The protest movement has since turned into a widening armed rebellion, and fighting has flared on multiple fronts, prompting authorities to introduce conscription in February.

On Tuesday, a report issued by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk, said 5,350 civilians had been killed by the military since the coup. The report was based partly on remote interviews with hundreds of victims and witnesses because investigators are denied access.

Of those deaths, 2,414 people died in the latest reporting period from April 2023 to June 2024, an increase of 50 percent compared with the previous reporting period. Hundreds were killed in air and artillery attacks.

“Myanmar is plumbing the depths of the human rights abyss,” said James Rodehaver, head of the UN rights office’s Myanmar team.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Rodehaver noted: “Myanmar’s military has created the crisis by instrumentalising the legal system, criminalising nearly all forms of dissent against its attempts to rule the country.”

The UN report also revealed that nearly 27,400 people have been arrested since the coup and are thought to be in military training centres.

Among those seized by authorities are children who were taken when the parents could not be located “as a form of punishment for political opposition”, the report said.

UN rights office spokesperson Liz Throssell told a news conference that at least 1,853 people have also died in custody since the coup, including 88 children.

“Many of these individuals have been verified as dying after being subjected to abusive interrogation, other ill-treatment in detention or denial of access to adequate healthcare,” she said.

Rodehaver added: “Detainees interviewed by our office describe methods such as being suspended from the ceiling without food or water, being forced to kneel or crawl on hard or sharp objects, the introduction of animals such as snakes or insects or other wild animals in order to provoke fear and terror in individuals.”

Others, he said, described beatings with iron poles, bamboo sticks, batons, rifle butts, leather strips, electric wires and motorcycle chains.

Myanmar’s military has not yet responded to the UN report.

Turk repeated a recommendation that the rights violations in Myanmar be referred to the International Criminal Court.

 

Titan sub: Former employee says company only wanted to make money

Tuesday 17 September 2024

First image of the Titan wreckage at the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean

.Credit: Pelagic Research Services/US Coast Guard

A top OceanGate employee who called the doomed Titan submersible "unsafe" before its fatal voyage said the company was only committed to making money.

David Lochridge, OceanGate’s former operations director, testified on Tuesday at the Marine Board of Investigation, the highest level of marine casualty inquiry by the US Coast Guard.

His testimony echoed statements from former employees on Monday, one of whom described OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush as volatile and difficult to work with.
'All good here': One of the last texts sent from doomed Titan sub

“The whole idea behind the company was to make money,” Lochridge said.

“There was very little in the way of science.”

Rush was one of the five people killed when the Titan imploded in the North Atlantic Ocean in June 2023. The company suspended business after the incident.

British adventurer Hamish Harding and father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood were also killed, alongside French national Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

The deep-sea vessel was on an expedition to the Titanic wreckage around 435 miles south of St John’s, Newfoundland

Credit: OceanGate Expeditions/PA

Lochridge, who joined the company that owned the Titan sub in the mid-2010s, said he felt the firm was using him as a selling point “for people to come up and pay money,” and that did not sit well with him.

He said: “I was, I felt, a show pony.

“I was made by the company to stand up there and do talks. It was difficult. I had to go up and do presentations. All of it.”

He referenced a 2018 report which raised safety issues about OceanGate operation and said that given all the safety issues he saw “there was no way I was signing off on this".

When asked if he had confidence in the construction of the Titan sub, he replied, "No confidence whatsoever".

Lochridge explained that employee turnover was very high at the time, and leadership dismissed his concerns, prioritising "bad engineering decisions" and a rush to reach the Titanic to start making money.

He said he was eventually fired after raising the safety concerns.


OceanGate suspends commercial operations after Titan submersible deaths


Titan submersible: First image of wreckage revealed at hearing into tragedy

“I didn’t want to lose my job. I wanted to do the Titanic. But to dive it safely. It was on my bucket list, too,” he said.

The hearing's first witness, OceanGate's former engineering director, Tony Nissen, said on Monday he felt pressured to get the vessel ready for diving and refused to pilot it on a trip several years before Titan’s final journey.

He had worked on a prototype hull predating the Titanic missions.

“I’m not getting in it,” Nissen recalled telling Stockton Rush.

When asked if there was pressure to launch the Titan, he responded, “100%".

Tony Nissen, head engineer for OceanGate at the hearing.Credit: AP

In other testimonies, Coast Guard officials said the Titan was left exposed to the weather for seven months in 2022 and 2023 before its fatal dive.

They also revealed that the sub’s hull was never inspected by third parties, as is standard procedure.

The investigation will hear from 24 witnesses before it is expected to conclude on September 27, and recommendations will be submitted to the Coast Guard's commandant.

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The National Transportation Safety Board is also conducting its own investigation.

The deep-sea vessel was on an expedition to the Titanic wreckage about 435 miles south of St John’s, Newfoundland, when it lost contact with the tour operator an hour and 45 minutes into the two-hour descent. The vessel was reported missing eight hours after communication was lost.

After days of searching, wreckage from the submersible was recovered from the ocean floor near the Titanic.

NORWAY

Jehovah’s Witnesses arbitrarily deregistered but not the Russian Orthodox Church. Why?


 September 17, 2024
By Guest Contributor - Opinion


On 4 March 2024, the Oslo District Court ruled against the Jehovah’s Witnesses and upheld previous decisions of the government and the State Administrator of Oslo and Viken who arbitrarily revoked the registration of Jehovah’s Witnesses present in Norway for over 130 years and put an end to their eligibility for state grants they had received for 30 years, writes Willy Fautre, Human Rights Without Frontiers.

The reason was the shunning policy of the movement, a teaching recommending that its members do not associate with those who have been excluded from the community as unrepentant of serious sins, or have publicly left it and act against it out of disgruntlement. In this matter, Norway’s judgment runs counter to dozens of decisions on shunning by jurisdictions in other countries, including supreme courts. Legal experts and scholars in religious studies in Norway and abroad agree that their deregistration is arbitrary and is based on ill-founded grounds. They also stress that the decision will have a “stigmatizing effect” on the association and its members while the community will lose inter alia its right to celebrate legal marriages with civil effects, which may be considered discriminatory.
Jehovah’s Witnesses have been state-recognized as a religious organization in Norway since 1985 and no criminal case could be invoked to take such a radical decision as their sudden deregistration leading to the loss of approximately 1.6 million EUR every year. An appeal has been lodged.

The legal dimension of the court decision has been extensively analyzed and criticized by Massimo Introvigne and the undersigned in “Bitter Winter” and “Religion News Service”.
State subsidies in Norway are not a gift. The Lutheran Church of Norway, which is a state church, is supported by the government with transfers of money proportional to the number of its members. For the sake of coherence and non-discrimination, the Constitution mandates that to respect the principle of equality other religions should receive the same proportional subsidies. More than 700 religious communities receive state grants in Norway, including Orthodox parishes subordinated to Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all Rus’ who blessed Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Are Jehovah’s Witnesses more dangerous than another religious entity of foreign origin registered in Norway since 1996 and eligible to state subsidies, the Russian Orthodox Church?

In recent years, the Orthodox Church of Russia has acquired properties in Norway next to military bases, which has been a source of concern since the beginning of Putin’s war on Ukraine. In 2017–2021, some properties were acquired by the Russian Orthodox Church in the coastal area of Rogalan.

According to cadastral data, the Orthodox Church of Russia purchased in 2017 a building in the town of Sherrey (Bergen community), located on a hill three kilometers from Haakonsvern, which offers a view onto the main base of the Royal Norwegian Navy and the largest naval base in the Nordic area. Before the acquisition of this house, the religious community was located in the city center. The Orthodox priest in Bergen, Dimitry Ostanin, is Ukrainian and was appointed by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus’ in 2008 when the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) was fully subordinated to him. Before that, he had served in Kaliningrad and Smolensk.

In the town of Stavanger, the former priest of the local community of the Russian Orthodox Church has a property near the NATO Joint Warfare Centre (JWC) in Jatta, according to Dagbladet. It is located just one kilometer from an important military building, about fifteen minutes walk. That NATO Centre celebrated its 20th anniversary during a formal ceremony on 26 October 2023. Over the last two decades, the JWC has planned and delivered more than 100 exercises and training events and ensure that NATO’s commanders and their staffs are well-prepared and ready to respond to any mission, whenever and wherever the call may come.

The Russian Orthodox Church also has a parish in Trondheim. On 21 March 2021, the first Orthodox service in the city was celebrated for almost a thousand years as part of the celebrations of the feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy at the parish of the Holy Princess Anna of Novgorod, in Russia. News of this important event in the life of Orthodox Christians in Norway was shown on the Russian The Saviour and Unity TV channels.
In 2015, the Russian Orthodox Church also bought a property in Kirkenes (Finnmark county) in the far north-east of Norway, on the border with Russia.

In addition, the Moscow Patriarchate sponsors work in Tromsø in northern Norway and in the Svalbard islands, also known as Spitzbergen. In 1996, the Moscow Patriarchate established a parish in Oslo. Among all Orthodox Churches in Norway, the parish of St. Olga in Oslo, is currently the largest one; another parish under the Moscow Patriarchate in the capital city is Saint Hallvard.

The presence of Orthodox Churches subordinated to the Russian Orthodox Church/ Moscow Patriarchate in EU countries has raised national security concerns because in a number of cases they were suspected or accused of serving as relays for Putin’s propaganda or Russia’s spying activities.

Czechia, Estonia, Lithuania, Sweden and Ukraine have taken various measures to anticipate or tackle security risks, including with the assistance of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.In Norway, a historical Orthodox parish dedicated to St. Nicholas under the Patriarchate of Constantinople was founded in Oslo in 1931 by a small group of Russian refugees who fled the Bolshevik Revolution.In the light of security threats attributed to the Russian Orthodox Church/ Moscow Patriarchate in several European countries, the deregistration in Norway of the peaceful and law-abiding movement of Jehovah’s Witnesses as a state-recognized religious association appears as discriminatory. It is even more ununderstandable with regard to Oslo’s inaction towards the Russian Orthodox Church, which remains registered and goes on receiving state grants. Certainly the Jehovah’s Witnesses do not deserve less than that.

Further reading about FORB in this country on HRWF website.

Companies abandon LGBTQ+ rights report card system after backlash

Experts say the index has helped improve workplace benefits for LGBTQ+ people

Critics lament the rollback, saying it reverses years of hard-won progress.

Cathy Bussewitz
THE INDEPENDENT

09/17/2024

A Pride parade in Miami Beach, Florida, in September 2021

 (EPA-EFE/CRISTOBAL HERRERA-ULASHKEVICH)

More than two decades ago, when gay men and lesbians were prohibited from serving openly in the US military and no state had legalized same-sex marriages, a national LGBTQ+ rights group decided to promote change by grading corporations on their workplace policies.

The Human Rights Campaign initially focused its report card, named the Corporate Equality Index, on ensuring that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer employees did not face discrimination in hiring and on the job. Just 13 companies received a perfect score in 2002. By last year, 545 businesses did even though the requirements have expanded.

But the scorecard itself has come under attack in recent months by conservative activists who targeted businesses as part of a broader pushback against diversity initiatives. Ford, Harley Davidson and Lowe’s are among the companies that announced they would no longer participate in the Corporate Equality Index.

Emboldened by a Supreme Court decision last year that declared race-based affirmative action programs in college admissions unconstitutional, conservative groups have won lawsuits making similar arguments about corporations. They’re now targeting workplace initiatives such as diversity programs and hiring practices that prioritize historically marginalized groups, and widening their objections to include programs focused on gender identity and sexual orientation.

“We don’t believe that people should be identified as groups and that you should right past wrongs by advantaging one group and disadvantaging another group,” said Dan Lennington, deputy counsel for the Equality Under the Law Project at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty. His firm has represented dozens of clients in challenges to diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs.

Critics lament the rollback, saying it reverses years of hard-won progress.

“Almost all LGBT community members have been bullied when they were young, and the concept of being bullied is something that hits us really hard. ... It feels like you’re you’re letting the bullies win,” said David Paisley, senior research director at Community Marketing & Insights, which helps companies market to LGBTQ+ consumers.

Bikers, center, ride a Harley Davidson motorcycle in the annual Pride Parade in San Francisco June 30, 2024 (**MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/NO SALES/MAGS OUT/TV)

While many challenges to DEI programs have been about race, activists working to change corporate policies they deride as “woke” have made a point of demanding that companies end their participation in HRC’s Corporate Equality Index. Most of the companies that recently announced changes to their DEI approaches did.

Like LGBTQ+ rights in the U.S., the requirements corporations need to meet to receive a high score on the annual index have expanded over the years.

In 2004, the index placed more emphasis on providing comprehensive benefits to domestic partners and improving health care coverage for transgender workers. Later it added categories that gave employers points for promoting equality in the broader LGBTQ+ community.

In 2019, it specified that supplier diversity programs, which encourage companies to work with minority-owned or veteran-owned businesses, must include LGBTQ+ suppliers. By 2022, the index said employers should offer same-sex spouses and domestic partners the same benefits as other couples for in-vitro fertilization and adoption, and that employers must create gender-transition guidelines, among other changes.

Experts say the index has helped improve workplace benefits for LGBTQ+ people. The index also prompted many companies to create employee resource groups, which are voluntary, employee-led diversity and inclusion groups for people with shared backgrounds or identities, said Fabrice Houdart, a consultant on LGBTQ+ issues.

The index is also a resource for LGBTQ+ workers to consult before deciding whether to accept a job, Paisley said.

“A company that’s getting 100% versus a company getting 25% is an indication to our community about which companies are treating their employees more fairly and equitably,” he said.

Jim Farley, Ford president and CEO, speaks during a presentation on Sept. 28, 2021 (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Several big companies announced they would end their participation in the index amid pressure from conservative activists who have threatened boycotts and firms such as the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty that have challenged DEI programs.

“We have no problem with nondiscrimination, but we’re worried about these policies going too far and harming innocent third parties who have either religious objections or they’re being excluded because they’re not LGBTQ or a certain race,” Lennington said.

Ford Motor Co. CEO Jim Farley told employees that the company stopped participating in external culture surveys, citing the wide range of beliefs held by employees and customers and the evolving legal environment. He said Ford does not use hiring quotas or tie compensation to diversity goals.

Harley-Davidson posted a statement on X about withdrawing from the index, adding that the company does not have hiring quotas or supplier diversity spending goals, and that employee resource groups would focus exclusively on professional development, networking and mentoring.

When Lowe's announced its departure from the index, the company said it was combining resource groups into one umbrella organization. It also planned to stop sponsoring and participating in some festivals and parades to ensure that company policies are lawful and aligned with its commitment to include everyone.

Brown-Forman, the company that makes Jack Daniel's whiskey, and beer and beverage maker Molson Coors, highlighted no longer taking part in HRC's corporate survey in their announcements about scaling back their diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

LEGAL THREATS

Dozens of legal cases have been filed against employers for DEI initiatives, including complaints that target hiring practices, employee resource groups or mentorship programs that plaintiffs say prioritize people of certain races or sexual identities while excluding others.

Most American companies launched a review of their DEI programs last summer in the wake of the Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard, said Jason Schwartz, co-chair of the labor and employment practice group at Gibson Dunn, a law firm that has helped more than 50 major corporations audit their DEI programs.

“The opponents to these efforts are winning the war of words, and they’ve got a lot of momentum in the courtroom, so I do think it’s a serious threat that needs to be responded to in a thoughtful way,” Schwartz said.

But there's also a flip side. Companies built DEI anti-harassment programs in part to mitigate potential legal risks that come with a toxic workplace, and "abandoning these programs in fact opens them up to risk down the road if employees feel discrimination or harassment,” said Eric Bloem, vice president at the Human Rights Campaign.

DEI Shoppers exit a Lowe’s in Warrington, Pa., Feb. 4, 2022

 (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Companies that distance themselves from the Corporate Equality Index also risk driving away a growing customer group. A Gallup poll conducted in March found that 7.6% of adults in the U.S. identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or some other sexual orientation besides heterosexual, up from 3.5% in 2012. Among Generation Z, that number climbed sharply to 22.3%.

In a survey conducted in August, 80% of LGBTQ+ customers said they would boycott companies that are rolling back inclusion initiatives, and more than half said they would take concerns to social media or share negative reviews online, according to the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.

“I think they will lose, in the end, LGBT talent and LGBT consumers,” Houdart said. “And the parents of trans kids, which are an increasing population in the United States, they’re probably going to remember that those were companies who went out of their way to side with the bullies.”

Scientific American makes presidential endorsement for only the second time in its 179-year history


‘The US faces two futures,’ according to editors at top science magazine

Myriam Page
The Independent

09/17/2024

A top science magazine has waded into the political sphere after making a presidential endorsement, only the second in its 179-year history.

“Vote for Kamala Harris to Support Science, Health and the Environment,” read the headline in Scientific American on Monday, announcing the publication’s official support for the Democratic presidential candidate.

Harris is Scientific American’s second presidential endorsement in its history, after the magazine backed President Joe Biden during the 2020 election.

“The US faces two futures,” the editors wrote, pushing one candidate who “offers the country better prospects, relying on science, solid evidence and the willingness to learn from experience.”

They continued: “In the other future, the new president endangers public health and safety and rejects evidence, preferring instead nonsensical conspiracy fantasies.”

Scientific American, which has a global readership of six million, cited Harris’s record as vice president, senator and presidential candidate as reasons for endorsing her.

They acknowledged that Trump, “also has a record - a disastrous one,” during his time in the White House.

The magazine firstly focused on the candidates’ healthcare policies and proposals, in particular, health insurance in its comparison.

Praising the Biden-Harris administration for bolstering the Affordable Care Act (ACA) - which expanded the number of adults eligible for health insurance - the editors noted that while Harris has said she would expand the program, Trump has pledged to repeal it but failed to clarify what he would replace it with.

“I have concepts of a plan,” he said while facing off against Harris during the September 10 presidential debate.

Kamala Harris shakes hands with Donald Trump before the debate on September 10 in Philadelphia (AFP via Getty Images)

The article refers to the debate multiple times, seemingly agreeing with many across the political spectrum (including some of Trump’s closest allies) that Harris won.


The article highlights Trump’s baseless claim during the debate that some states allow a person to obtain an abortion in the ninth month of pregnancy, and calling it “execution after birth.”

“No state allows this,” Scientific American clarified. The magazine also emphasized that Trump refused to answer whether he would veto a national abortion ban.

Meanwhile, Harris was hailed as a “staunch supporter of reproductive rights” for vowing to improve access to abortion care and for co-sponsoring a package of bills to reduce rising maternal mortality rates when she was a senator.

Turning to technology, the editors highlighted the CHIPS and Science Act, signed into law by Biden in 2022, which brought more funding to the chip-making industry to boost homegrown production and research.

They said the legislation “invigorates the chipmaking industry and semiconductor research while growing the workforce.”

The magazine claimed that a second Trump administration would “quickly” undo this progress under a conservative framework, Project 2025, that has been set out to guide his potential second term.

“Under the devious and divisive Project 2025 framework, technology safeguards on AI would be overturned,” the editors wrote. “AI influences our criminal justice, labor and health-care systems.

“As is the rightful complaint now, there would be no knowing how these programs are developed, how they are tested or whether they even work.”

The article concludes: “One of two futures will materialize according to our choices in this election.”

The editors closed by underlining their point. “We urge you to vote for Kamala Harris.”

Scientific American is not the only endoresment Harris has won following the debate, with Taylor Swift posting her endorsement on Instagram almost immediately after the showdown.

Polls currently place Harris with a 2.6 point the lead over Trump.

EssilorLuxottica extends smart glasses agreement with Meta by 10 years

This collaboration was first established in 2019

By Dwaipayan Roy
Sep 17, 2024

What's the story

EssilorLuxottica, a global leader in eyewear, has announced the extension of its partnership with Meta for another 10 years.The renewed long-term agreement aims to continue the development of smart eyewear together, into the next decade.This collaboration was first established in 2019, and has since produced two generations of Ray-Ban branded smart glasses.

Strategic alliance
CEO's view on partnership with Meta

Francesco Milleri, CEO of EssilorLuxottica, expressed his satisfaction with the partnership's progress.He stated, "The incredible work we've done with Meta, still in its early stages, has already proven to be an important milestone in our journey to making glasses the gateway to the connected world."This statement underscores the strategic significance of this alliance for both companies.


Market response
Ray-Ban glasses gain traction among consumers

Despite initial challenges in attracting consumer interest, the latest version of the smart glasses introduced in late 2023, has seen significant success.It has sold more units within a few months than its predecessors did over two years.This indicates a growing market acceptance and demand for such innovative products.


Product capabilities
Features and functionality of smart glasses

The Ray-Ban Meta's smart eyewear offers users the ability to make phone calls, listen to music, and take photos with a simple button press on the right-side temple of the glasses.In May, a multimodal artificial intelligence (AI) function was introduced for US and Canadian customers.This feature further enhances the user experience by providing additional capabilities through AI integration.

Future outlook
Meta CEO's vision for smart glasses

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed his enthusiasm about the extended partnership, and shared his vision for the future of smart eyewear.He said, "I'm proud of the work we've done with EssilorLuxottica so far, and I'm excited about our long-term roadmap ahead."Zuckerberg believes that they have an opportunity to transform glasses into a major technology platform, while also making it fashionable.


Done!