Category Archives: Black Lives Matter

Protesters carrying a Black Lives Matter flag march inside a fountain at Veterans Memorial Park following a march from the Grand Rapids Police Department.Photo: Daniel Shular (AP)

On Monday, a lawyer for one of two brothers who have been detained since June for felonies they apparently committed during the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol said his clients actions were comparable to those who participated in Black Lives Matter protests.

Adam Jackson, and his brother Brian Scott Jackson, face a slew of charges including: committing an act of physical violence in the Capitol grounds or buildings, disorderly conduct in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, civil disorder, resisting, assaulting or impeding officers using a dangerous weapon and physical violence.

Even though prosecutors allege that Adam Jackson threw an orange traffic cone at police guarding the entry to the building before charging at them while holding a stolen police riot shield, his lawyer Joseph McBride argued that somehow Black Lives Matter protesters were given a pass and seemingly didnt understand the difference.

How do you say youre a white supremacist without saying youre a white supremacist?

McBride stated:

No matter how you feel about Jan. 6, or no matter how anybody feels about George Floyd and that situation, there is some commonality there. Im referring to the fact that lots of people, when it came to the Black Lives Matter protests, participated in acts of violence, but they were largely given a pass. Why were the given a pass? Because society, the court system, the media recognizes that when those people left their front door, they left for political, constitutionally protected reasons.

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US District Judge Rudolph Contreras who is overseeing the case wasnt amused by McBrides comparison. The one violent Black Lives Matter protester that came to me went to prison, so some arguments are going to resonate more than others, he retorted.

However, a comparison simply cannot be made. Those who participated in storming the Capitol on January 6 took an unfathomably violent approach to desperately keep former president Donald Trumpa fascistin office. Because he glorified violence and increased militarization of homeland security agencies. Because he was instrumental in separating immigrant families by placing their children in cages. Because he relished in the belief that people of color are racially inferior.

Because he wasand isthe embodiment of white supremacy.

The people who took to the street in solidarity with BLM brought awareness to how we are the ones being shot and killed by police like clockwork (and were lucky if the officers responsible are punished for their crimes). They used their individual power to come together and try to save lives, not destroy them.

Studies have shown that in more than 93% of protests associated with Black Lives Matter over the course of 2020, those who participated were not violent or destructive. More than 2,400 locations documented peaceful protests, while fewer than 220 locations reported violent demonstrations.

In addition, 900 people have been charged in the January 6 insurrection, while 2020 BLM protests saw only around 300 people arrested. The mob who took it upon themselves to protect a second Trump presidency were heavily armed, stormed government property, attempted to detonate pipe bombs and assaulted nearly 150 officers.

They used sheer terror and quite frankly, whiteness, to be able to execute in such an abrasive and dangerous stunt. No, the insurrection is nothing like Black Lives Matter demonstrations. To entertain such an absurdly false equivalence wouldnt just make someone ignorantbut a bonafide racist as well.

Originally posted here:

Only Racists Would Equate The Capitol Riot To Black Lives Matter Protests - The Root

The period between Barack Obamas inauguration as president and the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S Capitol marked a pivotal time for Black Americans to gain dignity and the ability to fully participate in democracy.

These years were a time of reconstruction marking a struggle between those who support the advancement of Black people and those who dont.

Thats the argument of Peniel E. Joseph, a University of Texas at Austin professor of public affairs and history. His new book, The Third Reconstruction: Americas Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century, comes out in early September.

Josephs book, which combines personal memoir with historical research, is largely influenced by Black feminist thought, which reimagines U.S. democracy in a way that centers Black womens identity, politics and humanity.

In the book, Joseph identifies three periods of reconstruction in U.S. history times of racial violence, political divisions, cultural memories and narrative wars but also major political and racial progress.

The First Reconstruction occurred between 1865 and 1898, he argues. The Second Reconstruction was the civil rights era, which he says started with the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954 and ended with Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination in 1968.

The Third Reconstruction was from the election of Barack Obama to the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, as well as the events that followed, such as the Jan. 6 riot.

In his book, Joseph analyzes the relationship between those he calls redemptionists and those he calls reconstructionists. Redemptionists, according to Joseph, advocate for white supremacy whether they actively voice it or not.

Reconstructionists advocate for a multiracial democracy that looks at society through an intersectional lens. Reconstructionists argue that, regardless of race, gender identity, sexuality or class, one can participate in democracy.

The son of Haitian immigrants, Joseph grew up with his single mother and brother in New York City. His childhood inspired his work, he said, and exposed him to the barriers Black people face. He saw Black people killed long before the BLM movement began, he said.

It was being around my mother whos a historian and a writer in her own right [and] a feminist and social justice advocate that I got introduced to all of this, he said.

His book recognizes Black female leaders such as journalist Ida B. Wells, activist Angela Davis and politician Stacey Abrams as pivotal figures in civil rights and social justice movements spanning the three periods of U.S. reconstruction.

Joseph said he was finally able to dig deeper into the influence of Black feminist thought because this was his first project that was a blend of history and memoir and cultural criticism.

Stacie McCormick, an associate professor of English at Texas Christian University, said its long overdue to discuss the role of Black feminism in social justice. They have often been the driving force behind encouraging people to support social justice movements, she said.

Black Lives Matter is one of the first movements where Black women were centered for their leadership, McCormick said. However, despite the advancements the BLM movement made, McCormick said there still needs to be more acknowledgement for Black women and girls who are killed by the police.

Joseph has been studying Black feminist thought and literature for about 30 years. He said with this new book, the Black feminist intersectional lens helped him understand how the BLM movement garnered so much support following the death of George Floyd in 2020.

Three Black women Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullors started the BLM movement. In 2020, a diverse group of people built on what they started, and queer people, Black women, students and the formerly incarcerated helped lead the effort.

Social justice activism was not strictly for Black people Latino, white, indigenous, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders joined in.

I think Black people have always been the canary in the coal mine, Joseph said, but having other non-Black people join in solidarity of protests is important.

Joseph said writing the new book was cathartic and illuminating. Everyone is a student of history, he said, trying to process whats happening in their life and society by telling stories about themselves.

Some people want to run away from what I ran toward, he said. I think people will run away from history and might find it too painful or too angry. But I thought in 2020, what was interesting, is that so many people joined that effort.

Joseph is the founding director of UTs Center for the Study of Race and Democracy in the LBJ School of Public Affairs. He formerly taught at Tufts University. He has also published several other books, including The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. and the award-winning book Waiting Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America.

Lisa B. Thompson, a professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at UT Austin, has known Joseph for about a decade. She described him as an excited and deeply interested intellectual. Thompson said it was admirable for Joseph to publish a book about current events in a way that gives non-historians an opportunity to understand what is happening.

I think his way of framing these things helps us understand certain historic cycles, but also is very adamant about keeping our sense of hope about what can happen, she said. Its very inviting [and] comprehensive, and I dont believe hes talking down to people. Hes calling people in to have a conversation that we need to have.

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BLM movement explored in new book by UT Austin professor - The Dallas Morning News

Mohsin Hamids new book, The Last White Man, questions whiteness at a time when Black Lives Matter is delivering change, but it is surprisingly lightweight

Mohsin Hamids new book, The Last White Man, questions whiteness at a time when Black Lives Matter is delivering change, but it is surprisingly lightweight

One morning, Anders, a white man, woke up to find he had turned a deep and undeniable brown. Thats the opening sentence of Mohsin Hamids tale about race and difference. Anders never discovers how or why he changed colour. But it changes his life utterly.

Anders rings in sick rather than go to his job as a trainer in a fitness gym. His partner, Oona, a yoga teacher, tells him that he looks a different kind of person, utterly different. She is initially deeply uncomfortable at the idea of having sex with a dark man, even one she knows so well. Oonas mother is even more repulsed by the idea of intimacy across racial barriers, even though all that has changed is her daughters boyfriends skin tone.

The book cover

When Anders eventually ventures back to work, he believes other people, other white people, view him differently, less trustingly. He feels unsettled about the most basic of issues: who he is.

But he is not alone. More and more people suddenly, and without explanation, lose their whiteness. Some of the more fantasist websites and message groups promulgate wild conspiracy theories which given the absence of a conventional explanation find a ready audience.

Extremist militia groups take to the streets; law and order collapses; a race war looms. But as the transformation in peoples appearance becomes almost universal, a new normal takes hold. The idea of whiteness becomes little more than nostalgia for a lost era.

Against the odds, Hamids novel ends on an uplifting note pointing to the possibility of overcoming racial differences and relishing our shared humanity. Thats a comforting notion, however implausible it may be.

Author Mohsin Hamid| Photo Credit: Reuters

The novel is also about loss and grief and parenting. Anders terminally ill construction worker father is immediately and instinctively protective of his newly dark son. Oonas mother, in contrast, is caught up in right-wing conspiracy theories, though in time she too makes an accommodation with the new order.

The story is not dated or located, but it is clearly about the United States today shaped by Black Lives Matter and Americas continuing failure, even after electing a black president, to overcome racial fault lines. Mohsin Hamid divides his time between the US, the UK and Pakistan and is best known for the widely-acclaimed The Reluctant Fundamentalist, a novel set in Lahore and published 15 years ago.

Also read |Yes, well, Im terrified: Mohsin Hamid in conversation with Tishani Doshi

Once again, Hamid addresses in this novel one of the commanding global issues of our times demonstrating the ability of creative writing to encourage us to look afresh at ourselves. He talked in a recent interview with The Observer about how his new novel is rooted in his experience of being a Pakistani man in America in the aftermath of 9/11: This experience of loss, which the main character, Anders, has in my book, was something I felt very strongly at that moment. I went to elite universities, I lived in cosmopolitan cities. I wasnt white, but I was, you could say, white enough. And then after 9/11 all that changed. When things didnt go back to how they were it got me thinking: what is this thing white America that I used to have a probationary membership to?

Hamid addresses in this novel one of the commanding global issues of our times demonstrating the ability of creative writing to encourage us to look afresh at ourselves| Photo Credit: AFP

But The Last White Man is not of the same calibre as Hamids earlier work. It is topical but surprisingly lightweight. It is slender in all sorts of ways: not so much a novel as a novella, barely 40,000 words in length; short on the development of character; and all round, just a touch insipid.

Hamid purposefully avoids the word black. Those who change colour turn from white to dark. It seems they adopt new facial characteristics too, so this is not simply a darkening of skin colour but a racial transformation. However, that is not fully spelled out.

The Last White Man

Mohsin Hamid

Penguin Random House

599

The Last White Man has been written in the style of a fable, with a deliberately nave writing style, and an almost complete avoidance of speech marks. It speaks to centuries of white privilege; of building social status and identity on not being the other; of the deeply ingrained racism that continues to blight even the most economically advanced democracies. But it is a fable which is a reflection rather than offering a clear lesson.

The Black Lives Matter movement has achieved global resonance and has helped to deliver change. It has prompted a spate of books about race, most of them non-fiction, and many of more substance than this slim volume.

Andrew Whitehead is a former BBC India correspondent and a visiting professor at the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai.

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Review: Mohsin Hamids new book The Last White Man is just a touch insipid - The Hindu

OVER the past few years, the powerful Black Lives Matter movement has sprung up to protest police brutality against black people.

Thousands of Black Lives Matter protesters are set to take to the streets this week in response to the shocking death of George Floyd, who died in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota in May 2020.

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The civil rights group came about in response to extreme police brutality which culminated in the shooting dead of three African-American men in 2013.

Organisers say the movement's mission is to "eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities".

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Black Lives Matter regularly campaigns against institutional racism and violence towards black people, and speaks out against police brutality and racial inequality.

More than 1000 people were killed by police in the US in 2015, nearly a third of them black.

This is despite the fact that black people represent just 13 per cent of the population.

Against this background there was the fatal shootings of Philando Castile in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Louisiana.

This sparked the Twitter slogan #blacklivesmatter.

Black Lives Matter was started seven years years ago in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

It began with a simple hashtag - #BlackLivesMatter - before people began taking to the streets to protest against inequality and violence.

The phrase had first been used in a Facebook post by Alicia Garza called 'A Love Letter to Black People' following Zimmerman's acquittal in 2013, before it was shared with the hashtag and a movement was borne online.

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The movement was founded by three community organisers and civil rights activists - Alica Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi.

The three women had first met through an organisation which trains community organisers.

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The Facebook post by Garza was picked up by Cullors, who shared the blog post online with the BLM hashtag, and supported by Tometi.

There are a number of different pages where people can donate and support Black Lives Matter.

AGoFundMe page for Floyd has already raised millions of dollars, while there is also the Minnesota Freedom Fund.

TheBail Project helps people post bail who cannot afford it, and all Black Lives Matter petitions can be found on the movement's website.

A Change.org petition isdemanding justice for Floyd.

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What is Black Lives Matter and how did it start? - The US Sun

In the days since the FBI raided former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, many Trump supporters have pushed for the federal agency to be defunded. Black Lives Matter (BLM) has responded by insinuating such messaging is hypocritical given conservative backlash against calls made by progressive groups to defund the police.

One such instance came soon after Republican Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida threatened to give "not one more damn penny" to the FBI and other such agencies. BLM responded in a tweet to Gaetz that "you are corny AF. But we'll work with you to defund and dismantle the FBI. Welcome to #DefundThePolice."

For many people, BLM has become linked to the "defund the police" efforts. This happened after the groupwhich began as a grassroots, social justice movement but has also expanded into the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundationled protests around the world against police brutality. These protests grew in size and frequency in the wake of George Floyd's death in 2020, which is also when "defund the police" became a movement of its own.

On Thursday evening, BLM noted how Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Florida had also criticized the FBI. BLM tweeted out an illustration of a Black arm (labeled "abolitionists") joining hands with a white arm (with the phrase "Marjorie Taylor Greene's unhinged Twitter account" on it). "Defund the FBI" was written at the top.

"Y'all know that this is satire and we are WILDLY uninterested in partnering with her, right?" BLM wrote in a followup message. "We just thought it was funny how quickly they went from 'back the blue' to #DefundThePolice ..."

The BLM Twitter account also shared a tweet from conservative columnist Todd Starnes that read, "The FBI had been weaponized. Defund and Dismantle."

"Love this for us. Join us in our mission to divest federal resources from agencies like the FBI," the progressive group wrote in its caption above Starnes' message.

Similarly, after right-wing podcast host Liz Wheeler tweeted "Abolish the FBI," BLM shared her post with the comment: "Liz is an abolitionist girlie now."

BLM also retweeted various messages concerning the FBI's raid of Trump's estate, making it clear the group is by no means an ally of the former president.

Not everyone saw the same correlation between calls to defund the FBI and the movement to do the same with police departments. Investigative journalist Alex Rubinstein was among those who made the differentiation.

"Amazing to see so many braindead blue checks tweeting gotchas at Republicans for calling to defund the FBI, drawing false equivalencies between a federal domestic intelligence & law enforcement agency & local police departments," Rubinstein tweeted. "Yes, Republicans are hypocrites but this is dumb."

Newsweek has reached out to BLM for comment.

Read more here:

Black Lives Matter Calls Conservative Cry of 'Defund the FBI' Hypocritical - Newsweek

If you called yourself an anti-racist two years ago, show up, speak out, and keep pushing for change, now and in the future (Picture:Getty)

Living through a pandemic has done something strange to our perception of time. The summer of 2020 feels like it just happened, and it also feels like a lifetime ago.

It was a time of seismic change, as people took to the streets in their thousands to demand justice for the murder of George Floyd, and to protest against racial injustice in all its forms.

We may have been galvanised by the pressure cooker of nationwide lockdowns, but it was collective action on a scale that many of us have never seen in our lifetimes, and it felt transformational.

Racism was headline news for months, with every kind of institution as well as public and private companies facing unprecedented scrutiny over equality being forced to apologise for past racist behaviour, and pledging to make positive changes going forward.

Social media was awash with reading lists, graphics with information on how to do your part, and long, emotional captions about the importance of allyship.

Despite my skepticism about the flimsiness of social media activism and disdain for performative solidarity (shout out to the black squares on Instagram), I was hopeful. It really did feel as though this was a movement, not a moment as Keir Starmer was lambasted for saying and it was the focus on active anti-racism that made it feel genuinely sustainable.

For the first time, white people werent being allowed to simply hide behind a defence of not being racist more was being asked of them.

To be anti-racist is to oppose racism and promote racial tolerance, and that requires action.

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From speaking up when you encounter racism in public, to setting up initiatives to empower ethnic minority members of your workplace, or interacting with news, literature and campaigns that oppose racist ideologies, it was heartening to see colleagues, my wider friendship groups, and even high school friends on Facebook, engaging with this kind of behaviour.

But two years on, I can feel us hurtling backwards. Progress that was seemingly being made in the immediate aftermath of the BLM protests is now being undone, and I fear we will end up in an even worse position than where we started.

As the new season of the Premier League kicked off last week, it was announced that players would no longer take the knee in solidarity with Black Lives Matter before every game.

In July, the UKs first journalism prize for Black reporters, which was only launched in summer 2020, was scrapped in a push to improve overall diversity.

After sales of Black-authored titles soared up the charts in 2020, Black writers are still vastly underrepresented in publishing and there has been a23% drop in Black charactersin childrens bestsellers since 2020.

Admittedly, awards, book sales and anti-racist gestures like taking the knee, arent necessarily the most impactful elements of the movement, but there have been more significant examples of backwards steps too.

This week, new figures revealed that Black boys have been disproportionately targeted for strip searches by the Met Police. The Tory party leadership race has been riddled with dog-whistle language, including Rishi Sunak vowing to end woke nonsense, and both Sunak and Liz Truss ploughing ahead with plans to deport immigrants to Rwanda. The Forde Report revealed a hierarchy of racism, and discrimination against Black members of the Labour Party.

Its scary to think that in just two years after all the statue toppling, diversity initiatives, and fervent sharing of reading lists this is where we are now. Where are all the allies who pledged to push for change? Where are all the people who read the books, listened to the podcasts, and vowed to do the work? Where are all the anti-racistsprotesting these backpedals?

It could be argued that as other global crises unfold the rippling aftershocks of the pandemic, the cost of living, the growing impact of extreme weather now is not the time to focus on racial inequality. But now is exactly the time.

These crises are not single issues that exist in a vacuum, they intersect and overlap, and as each issue tightens its grip on society, it will be racially minoritised people who feel the compounded effects.

We need to acknowledge how the cost of living crisis and the climate emergency will disproportionately impact Black and brown people in this country, and we need people in power to take action to mitigate the looming catastrophesby recognising that we will not all be impacted equally, and providing funding and tangible support for the communities that will need it the most.

It simply isnt valid to suggest that we no longer need to push for racial equality, we need anti-racism more now than ever before.

As a Black mixed woman, it was painful to watch white people wake up to the realities of racism in 2020. But it is even more painful to watch them lose interest, to watch the plight of racial injustice fall off the agenda altogether.

We cant let the summer of 2020 be a moment, a fleeting trend that disappears into the archives when it is no longer headline-worthy. Now is not the time to revert to passive non-racism.

You dont get to pick up the anti-racist backpack and simply take it off because the load got too heavy.

If you called yourself an anti-racist two years ago, show up, speak out, and keep pushing for change, now and in the future. Being anti-racist has to be a lifelong philosophy, not just a hashtag.

Do you have a story youd like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk.

Share your views in the comments below.

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What happened to all the anti-racists after Black Lives Matter? - Metro.co.uk

Defense attorney Shane Johnson said Provo police took only 26 minutes to look at evidence inside a car driven by Ken Dudley, a man who was shot during a Black Lives Matter protest on June 19, 2020, before giving the keys back.

Johnson, an attorney who represents the Salt Lake man accused of taking the shot, Jesse Taggart, said there is a chance that evidence in Dudleys Ford Excursion could have shown his client was justified in using deadly force during the Provo protest. Now, he said, they don't have that evidence to be able to show it to a jury.

"The investigators went in with a particular mindset. They were not going to entertain any evidence that would contravene that idea. But I think the evidence is actually more clear that it was an inherent bias on the part of the officers to essentially pick a winner between Mr. Dudley and Mr. Taggart," Johnson said Tuesday during a hearing on a motion to dismiss the charges against Taggart.

Taggart, 35, is charged with attempted aggravated murder, a first-degree felony, aggravated assault and discharge of a firearm with injury, second-degree felonies; and riot, a third-degree felony. Taggart pleaded not guilty to those charges and filed a motion in December to dismiss the case against him.

Fourth District Judge James Brady did not issue a decision Tuesday, but said he expects to make a ruling within the next two weeks after taking time to consider the arguments.

Johnson claimed that Dudley could have been charged with multiple crimes, according to an officer's testimony at a preliminary hearing in Taggart's case, but police or prosecutors chose not to file any charges against him.

Jesse Taggart, who is charged with shooting a man during a Black Lives Matter protest in Provo in 2020, is trying to get the charges against him dismissed.

Utah County Sheriffs Office

Taggart and others who were at the protest or viewed video of the incident have argued that he was attempting to use his car to force protesters to move by driving through them. Other reports say he simply was trying to get past the crowd and then hit the gas pedal to try to leave after being shot.

Johnson said he thinks there is "undeniable prejudice" in the case and says police acted more than negligently in not processing the crime scene inside Dudley's SUV thoroughly.

He listed multiple things that police said in previous court hearings that could be interpreted as bias, including one officer who said they had nightmares about Black Lives Matter protests coming to Provo, another officer who said Black Lives Matter protesters came to the community with "ill intent," and another who said Dudley was "shot and victimized."

Deputy Utah County attorney David Sturgill said he thinks Johnson is mischaracterizing the evidence and argued that there is no evidence that the items Johnson says he would like to investigate further would have helped Taggart's case.

"Whether it's exculpatory or even helpful or relevant is entirely based on speculation," the prosecutor said.

In his response to the motion to dismiss the case, Sturgill said Dudley was turning right onto Center Street in Provo when someone shot into his car, hitting his elbow and a second bullet hitting his steering wheel. Dudley then drove to the hospital where he was questioned by police.

Sturgill said the car was photographed thoroughly at that point. He argued that the motion to dismiss should not be granted and that the items sought by Taggart would not add significant evidentiary value to the case.

He also claimed that it is wrong for Johnson to say police were acting with bias and said officers could not have anticipated at the time each of the defenses that Taggart would bring to court, and should not be expected to.

"The issue, I believe, that has been raised by the defendant is without merit. It fails at the very beginning," he said.

The specific items Johnson said he thinks should have been documented by police more closely include:

Johnson argued that the police not collecting complete evidence should be grounds for Taggart's case to be dismissed and asked for the charges against his client to be dropped.

A man drives an SUV through a Black Lives Matter protest in Provo on June 19, 2020. The attorney for Jesse Taggart, who is charged with shooting a man in this vehicle, claimed Tuesday that the charges should be dismissed because police did not take sufficient evidence from the vehicle at the time.

"It was not for lack of resources that we did not collect and process this evidence forensically, it was lack of want," Johnson argued.

He said police not only had the vehicle in their possession, they had permission from Dudley to analyze the vehicle, but they returned the phone and the keys quickly.

Without evidence to show that Dudley brandished a gun or was not completely honest about where he was driving, Johnson said the only way to get that evidence before a jury would be to have his client testify on the stand making it almost necessary for Taggart to testify in his own trial and creating a "battle of believability." However, he said if the evidence were processed correctly they could simply rely on the evidence.

"Those investigators spent 26 minutes processing the crime scene that will play a heavy part in determining whether or not Mr. Taggart goes to prison for the rest of his life," Johnson said.

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Did Provo police show bias in their response to a shooting at a Black Lives Matter protest? - Deseret News

Plaintiff's poster was pasted on his office door for approximately two weeks without incident. On August 29, 2020, Brock Spack , Head Football Coach, asked Plaintiff to remove the poster from his door. Plaintiff removed the poster and Spack thanked him..

During this time, many players and students at ISU demanded that the Athletic Department publicly support the BLM Movement. This demand resulted in missed practices, and a boycott against ISU Athletics after Athletic Director Larry Lyons stated "All Redbird Lives Matter," to much public backlash from both players and students. On August 30, 2020, an image of the replacement poster on Plaintiff's door was shared with ISU football players. Players continued to boycott practices, and Plaintiff was informed by Spack that he was in trouble for his replacement poster. On September 2, 2020, Plaintiff was terminated from his position as the offensive coordinator because Spack didn't "like the direction of the offense." The decision to terminate Plaintiff was supported by AD Lyons. Plaintiff was placed in a different position where he received the single assignment of researching how other football coaches handled COVID-19. Plaintiff was replaced by two new coaches.

Plaintiff asserts that his termination by Spack and Lyons was direct retaliation for his expressing his viewpoint on the BLM Movement.

As both parties point out, the main issue in this case is whether Plaintiff was acting pursuant to his official duties when he put the replacement poster on his door, and thus, whether his speech was private speech or government speech. When a public employee makes a statement pursuant to their official job duties, he is not protected by the First Amendment, as he would if speaking as a private citizen. Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006). As pointed out by Plaintiff, speech can be considered part of one's official duties if it "owes its existence to a public employee's professional responsibilities"; is "commissioned or created" by the employer; "is part of what [the employee] was employed to do; is a task the employee "was paid to perform"; and "[has] no relevant analogue to speech by citizens who are not government employees." Coaches, like teachers or students, do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." Defendants argue that this District has specified that one's job duties are not limited to their formal job description, and the Court must evaluate "whether the speech is intimately connected with the speaker's job and to whom the speaker directed the speech."

The recent Supreme Court decision Kennedy v. Bremerton Sch. District further discusses this issue. Kennedy makes it clear that when a high school football coach engages in prayer after a high school football game, he is not engaged in speech that falls within his ordinary job duties. Just because a student or other staff members can see one exercising their freedom of speech does not transform private speech into government speech. During the football game, the coach's "prayers did not 'ow[e their] existence' to Mr. Kennedy's responsibilities as a public employee." The Court explained that while not everything a coach says in the workplace is considered government speech, one must evaluate the substance of the speech as well as the circumstances around the speech to determine whether or not the speech was within one's job duties. After such an evaluation, the Court held Mr. Kennedy's speech to be private speech outside of his official job duties, and concluded the school violated his rights under the First Amendment by terminating him.

The Court does not find that Plaintiff's actions were taken in furtherance of his official job duties. In putting up the replacement poster, Plaintiff was expressing his personal views, which in no way "owed their existence" to his responsibilities as a public employee. was not paid by the University to decorate his door or to use is to promote a particular viewpoint, he was employed to coach football. Further, ISU holds an Anti-Harassment and Non-Discrimination Policy, which states:

"Illinois State University is strongly committed to the ethical and legal principal that each member of the University Community enjoys the right to free speech. The right of free expression and the open exchange of ideas stimulates debate, promotes creativity, and is essential to a rich learning environment As members of the University Community, students and staff have a responsibility to respect others and show tolerance for opinions that differ from their own"

Under such a policy, Plaintiff should enjoy the right to express his personal viewpoint, within reason. While the opinion Plaintiff posted on his door may have been different than that of the majority, the BLM Movement was not a sanctioned school movement. Just as the ISU Athletic Department and staff were able to hang posters supporting the BLM Movement, Plaintiff had the protected right to create and hang his own poster, supporting his own message. There was no school policy prohibiting Plaintiff decorating his door in whichever fashion he might choose. Further, Plaintiff was not required, as a term of his employment, to either refrain from decorating his door or to decorate it in a certain way. Here, Plaintiff was not acting in his official job duties when he placed the poster on his door, and therefore, his was private speech protected by the First Amendment, satisfying the first of the two elements of a prima facie case of retaliation.

The second step in the [First Amendment retaliation test] is to evaluate [whether] " the protected speech caused, or at least played a substantial part in, the employer's decision to take adverse employment action against" [the employee]. The employer's stated reason for the termination was that Spack "didn't like the direction of the offense." However, in their Memorandum in Support of Motion to Dismiss, Defendants assert that the University was responding to the students' reactions to Plaintiff's speech, and not the speech itself. This termination is a motivating factor, as his speech "played a substantial part in" the decision to terminate him, thus satisfying the second element.

Both parties correctly state that if a public employee's speech is on a matter of public concern, and that employee is terminated because of that speech, that termination may be justified by the employer. Pickering v. Board of Education (1968). Pickering requires the Court to "balance between the interests of the teacher, as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees." [But]

Pickering contemplates a highly fact-specific inquiry into a number of interrelated factors Pickering balancing is not an exercise in judicial speculation. While it is true that in some cases the undisputed facts on summary judgment permit the resolution of a claim without a trial, that means only that the Pickering elements are assessed in light of a record free from material factual disputes This is precisely what the Supreme Court did in Connick, where its Pickering analysis looked to the actual testimony of the employee's supervisor regarding the potential impact of the employee's speech and then evaluated the other evidence in the record to determine whether it supported the employer's fears. We are not entitled to speculate as to what the employer might have considered the facts to be and what concerns about operational efficiencies it might have had, once the record shows what those concerns really were.

Because the parties have not yet had the opportunity to conduct discovery at this stage of the litigation, this Court cannot evaluate the facts under Pickering without engaging in speculation.

Congratulations toAdam W Ghrist (Finegan Rinker & Ghrist) andDouglas A. Churdar, who represent plaintiff.

Original post:

Football Coach's Display of "All Lives Matter" Poster May Have Been Protected by First Amendment - Reason

The March 2020 killing of Breonna Taylor, which caused widespread protest around the country, was the result of police lies to obtain a warrant and racist police violence after officers forced their way into her apartment.

On August 4, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the federal grand jury indictments of four Louisville Metro Police officers involved in the raid that resulted in Taylors death.

Three of the officers were accused of violating Taylors Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure by lying to secure a no-knock warrant. The officers who sought the warrant knew that the affidavit used to obtain the warrant to search Taylors home contained information that was false, misleading, and out-of-date; that the affidavit omitted material information; and that the officers lacked probable cause for the search, the indictment reads.

One of the defendants tried to get another officer to lie and say he had previously told him that a drug dealer (Taylors ex-boyfriend) had used her apartment to receive packages. An officer apparently broke the ubiquitous police code of silence and revealed to prosecutors that his fellow officer asked him to lie.

A judge issued a no-knock warrant based on the officers misrepresentations. The warrant specified that they did not have to knock and identify themselves as police before entering the apartment.

This case has widely been characterized as a no-knock warrant incident. But before police actually conducted the search, the court issued another warrant that required them to knock and announce their presence. The issue that led to their indictment is that the police officers lied to get the warrant.

Taylor and her boyfriend Kenneth Walker were in bed when they heard a loud banging on the door. They asked who was there, fearing it was Taylors ex trying to break in. But they never heard the police identify themselves. The officers claim that they knocked several times and identified themselves as police officers before entering.

The police used a battering ram to break down the door and Walker fired a gun (which he lawfully possessed) once, striking an officer in the thigh. Officers then fired several shots, hitting Taylor five times. Officer Brett Hankison shot 10 rounds into a bedroom and living room covered with blinds and a blackout curtain. No drugs were found in Taylors apartment.

Louisville Sgt. Kyle Meany and Detectives Joshua Jaynes and Kelly Hanna Goodlett were charged with making or adopting false statements in the affidavit to obtain the search warrant. Jaynes and Goodlett were accused of conspiring to falsify the affidavit. Hankison was charged with depriving Taylor, her boyfriend and neighbors of their Fourth Amendment rights by firing 10 bullets into a bedroom and living room. The only officer to be charged in state court, Hankison was acquitted of wanton endangerment of neighbors.

Tamika Palmer, Taylors mother, applauded the federal indictment of the officers, saying, Ive waited 874 days for today.

But those working to abolish the prison system did not celebrate the indictment. Chanelle Helm, co-founder of Louisville Black Lives Matter, said that she understands why people are calling for arresting the officers. But, she added, If were asking for the officers to be arrested thats contrary to abolition work.

Abolitionist group Critical Resistance points out that prosecuting police who have killed and abused civilians fails to reduce the scale of policing, and instead reinforces the prison industrial complex by portraying killer/corrupt cops as bad apples rather than part of a regular system of violence, and reinforces the idea that prosecution and prison serve real justice.

The bottom line is that real justice cannot come without a full reckoning with the system itself, which is grounded in centuries of oppression.

In March 2021, the International Commission of Inquiry on Systemic Racist Police Violence Against People of African Descent in the United States (for which I served as a rapporteur) found a pattern and practice of racist police violence in the U.S. in the context of a history of oppression dating back to the extermination of First Nations peoples, the enslavement of Africans, the militarization of U.S. society, and the continued perpetuation of structural racism.

The 188-page commission report details how Black people are targeted, surveilled, brutalized, maimed and killed by law enforcement officers, and concludes that the brutalization of Black people is compounded by the impunity afforded to offending police officers, most of whom are never charged with a crime. The overarching problem is structural racism embedded in the U.S. legal and policing systems.

If police knowingly or recklessly include false statements in an affidavit to obtain a search warrant, any evidence seized pursuant to the warrant will be suppressed. But that remedy provides no solace to people like Breonna Taylor who are killed as a result of systemic racist police violence.

Read the original:

Police Lied to Get the Warrant to Search Breonna Taylors Home - Truthout

Terryl Calloway runs a small, Black-ownedgraphics and printing firmon Newbury Street in the heart of Boston a short distance from about a dozen colleges.

We print anything from business cards, flyers, banners, signs anything print, he said.

Though his business is surrounded by colleges, Calloway said its hard to arrange contract work with them. Colleges have been pretty challenging. I call it the good old boy system. Its the easy way out, he said.

The murder of George Floyd two years ago prodded colleges across the country topledge theyd increase contracting with businesses owned by people of color, in keeping with the value they place on diversity.

But supplier diversity appears to still be more of an aspiration than a reality in higher education a nationwide industry that spends more than $630 billion each year.

Most of that money is going to the big companies, said policy researcher Youngbok Ryu, who teaches at Northeastern University.

Ryu co-authored a report released this year that found large vendors account for most college expenses, including for construction, food service and legal work. But diverse businesses tend to be small. Of the 359 Ryus team surveyed, 58% had 10 employees or fewer.

Most of them mentioned that there is a huge barrier to entry to higher education [in] the procurement market, he said.

The National Association of College and University Business Officers called increasing diversity in contracting a priority for its members, but added that few colleges are tracking the diversity of the companies they do business with.

While colleges tinker around the edges, Calloway said hes noticed a few more schools expressing interest in his printing services.

Since Black Lives Matter, it has mattered who you give your business to and how you do your business does matter, he said.

This spring, he landed a small contract with nearby Northeastern University to print banners for an alumni weekend. A classic example of how opportunity meets a need, he said.

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People of color who own small businesses in college towns say its hard to sell to schools - Marketplace