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Civil ‘Rights’ are the rights and privileges guaranteed by law to all citizens of the United States. The Civil Rights movement was an organized and protracted effort to ensure that the rights guaranteed by law were equally extended to all Americans. Civil Rights Organizations were those groups who worked to ensure the fair and equal application of the laws, foremost among them being the 14th amendment to the Constitution which reads in part,

“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

In its truest sense, the struggle over civil rights has never really abated. Because Civil ‘Rights’ are, in essence, matters of law; and the laws from which they derive are dynamic.  Their meanings and applications are subject to change with each interpretation. By Stare Decisis - as courts render new decisions, their precedent becomes the new practice, so a law that you wrote or read yesterday, could be interpreted to mean something completely different next year. When you factor in the role of politics and how federal appointments to District Courts are often made along political and ideological lines, you come to realize that our Civil ‘Rights’ are extremely fragile. We as activists must not only concern ourselves with securing Civil Rights for all Americans, but we must be equally focused upon protecting those Civil Rights that now exist. Because on any given Monday a court decision, a ballot initiative, or a legal appeal could change the law or its application and strip away a right you had previously taken for granted.

Which brings me to Gross vs FBL Financial Services Inc

Jack Gross went to work at FBL Financial Services back in 1987. He worked his way through the ranks, and by 1999 he had been named the Claims Administration Vice President. A couple years later, Jack’s job title and duties began to change. He noticed that the duties and responsibilities that he once had, were being shifted to a younger employee. In 2003 Jack noted that his position as “Claims Project Coordinator” lacked a real job description or clearly defined duties, but his younger co-worker had all but assumed the functional equivalent of his old position.

In 2004 Jack Gross sued FBL Financial Services for Age Discrimination. The trial lasted a mere 5 days and Jack Gross prevailed. The jury found that Jack Gross proved, by a preponderance of the evidence, that he was demoted and his age was a motivating factor in the demotion decision. They awarded him $46,945.00 for lost compensation.

Not surprisingly, FBL appealed… They filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari, informally referred to as a “Cert Petition” with the Supreme Court. A Cert Petition is a formal request for the Supreme Court to review the decision of a lower court. The Supreme Court granted the Writ of Certiorari and on June 18th, Justice Thomas rendered the 5-4 decision of the court which held that: A plaintiff bringing an Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) disparate-treatment claim must prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that age was the “but-for” cause of the challenged adverse employment action. The burden of persuasion does not shift to the employer to show that it would have taken the action regardless of age, even when a plaintiff has produced some evidence that age was one motivating factor in that decision.

In a nutshell, the Supreme Court reversed the lower courts decision in favor of Jack Gross, and also put forward a new legal standard for ruling in Age Discrimination cases. The conservative majority on the court (Thomas, Scalia, Alito, Roberts, and Kennedy) ruled that a plaintiff in an age discrimination case must not only prove that age was “A“ motivating factor in an adverse employment action or decision; they must prove that age was “THE“ motivating factor. And unless or until the plaintiff can present direct evidence of the employer’s primary personal motivations, the employer should not be required to prove anything.

The case was remanded back to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals for retrial. And earlier today, the 8th Circuit Court issued a new ruling in favor of FBL Financial Services… The preponderance of the evidence still shows that FBL Services was considering Jack Gross’ age when deciding to demote him, but as of this morning, that no longer meets the legal standard of an Age Discrimination Claim. You see, protection from discrimination or adverse employment actions on the basis of ones age is still a ‘Civil Right’, but is is now a right guaranteed in a law that is virtually impossible to assert.

I said all of that to say this… Civil Rights are fragile. Like the picture above, these Rights are like a candle in the wind. If we are not vigilant, if we do not safeguard and protect them, they will be lost…The courts have been busy chipping away at them, bit by bit, for a number of years. We must remember that the protections and safeguards that we fought so hard to secure in the 50’s and 60’s are not promised to our children. Whether or not they are passed on to the next generation will depend on what we do today. Because on any given Monday, things can change… just like this morning.

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NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous today, had a conversation with NFL Commissioner Goodell to discuss Rush Limbaugh’s intentions to buy the St. Louis Rams.

“The NAACP was very clear in our conversation with the NFL Commissioner—we will not stand for a potential owner, of any race expressing the kind of hatred that Rush Limbaugh continues to spread,” stated Benjamin Todd Jealous, NAACP President and CEO. “Commissioner Goodell was very supportive of the NAACP’s concerns and we both pledged to work together to expand opportunities throughout the NFL. The NAACP fully supports the NFL and the NFLPA and we were pleased to see the Commissioner standing up for the players and condemning the remarks made by Limbaugh,” added Jealous.

A source has since told ESPN that Rush Limbaugh will in fact be dropped from the bid.

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On Tuesday, the Senate voted 72-22 to confirm Tom Perez as assistant attorney general for civil rights.

Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, said the vote on Perez “gives the nation a leader who is arguably the most well-qualified individual ever nominated for the position and one who is completely dedicated to enforcing the law and protecting all Americans from discrimination.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid released a statement which read, “As a former elected official, former state appointee, esteemed scholar and former trial attorney with the Civil Rights Division itself, Thomas Perez brings a wealth of experience to his new position as Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. In addition, he has been a leading voice on issues ranging from immigration to racial disparities in the health care system.

“As a first generation Dominican-American, Mr. Perez is now the second Hispanic American to lead the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. I applaud President Obama’s appointment of Secretary Perez and look forward to adding his voice and leadership to the Department of Justice.”

President Obama nominated Perez for the position on March 13. Perez will head the Civil Rights Division, the federal agency that enforces the Voting Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act, the Americans With Disabilities Act, and other federal laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, sex, disability, religion, and national origin.

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Why “880″? Because according to the American Journal of Public Health, the deaths of 880,000 black people would have been prevented if the mortality rate of blacks had been the same as that of whites over a 10-year period.

The health care crisis has hit our communities especially hard:

• Children born to black women are more than twice as likely to die within their first year of life than children born to white women
• People of color are more likely to suffer and die from diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other chronic diseases
• Uninsured Americans are more likely to use the Emergency Room for preventative care and routine checkups, forcing longer wait times and costing states and taxpayers more

But this struggle goes beyond statistics. This is about you – everyday American families and children.

With your help, in the coming weeks, we will organize to ensure that our elected representatives support real health care reform with real results that will ensure every American has access to quality, affordable health care coverage… and help solve the health problems that plague our parents, children, friends, and communities.

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Liz Bowles/Sun Journal

A Craven County couple are in the Guinness World Records book. The two did nothing outlandish such as sky-diving upside down, dancing for days, taking the longest lawn mower ride or having the most tattoos. No, Herbert and Zelmyra Fisher of the Brownsville community have been married for more than 84 years. That is a feat in itself. They have the world record of the longest marriage for a living couple.

They can thank their granddaughter Iris Godette for getting the recognition. She submitted the information to the Guinness Book of Records. The information was apparently checked by Guinness and a certificate was given to the couple.

Herbert was born June 10, 1905. His hearing is going but his mind is sharp. Zelmyra was born Dec. 10, 1907. She uses a walker to get around the house and yard. The two of them can still give their reasons for marrying on May 13, 1924.

“He was not mean; he was not a fighter,” Zelmrya said. “He was quiet and kind. He was not much to look at but he was sweet.”

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THE ISSUE:
A “vulture fund” is a private company that buys up the debt of poor countries at a big discount from the original owner with the purpose of suing the indebted country in court once it has some money (often after debt cancellation). This practice comes at the expense of the citizens of these indebted countries — some of the most impoverished people in the world — as well as taxpayers in countries like the United States, who bear part of the cost.

There are a number of countries that continue to face crippling debt in Africa and throughout the world. For example, in Sub-Saharan Africa, the approximate number of people living on less than a dollar a day has actually increased since 1990. If current trends are not reversed, Africa will be the only region in the world where there will be more poor people in 2015 than there were in 1990. Debt cancellation gives impoverished countries a chance to start fresh and spend more money on health, education, and other essential social services. But while countries and international organizations have been giving some countries debt relief, “vulture funds”, which make huge profits at the expense of the citizens of these indebted countries often undermine any benefits that debt relief may have brought.

The actions of several unethical vulture funds are threatening to undo some of the hard-won gains of the international campaign for impoverished country debt cancellation. In 2007 one such vulture fund won $15 million from Zambia, money that was freed up by debt relief and should have been used for the fight against HIV/AIDS and poverty. Zambia was not alone: a 2007 report on vulture funds by the International Monetary Fund showed that 11 out of 24 heavily indebted poor countries (HPIC) were involved in litigation worth a total of about $1 billion on original claims of $427 million. Now Liberia, a country emerging from decades of devastating civil war, faces the possible threat of vulture lawsuits as it tries to clear up its illegitimate debt with the international community. HIPCs are particularly vulnerable to vulture funds which purchase the defaulted debts of HIPC countries at much reduced prices and litigate against the debtor for inflated sums, often in U.S. or English courts, making huge profits on the backs of the world’s poorest citizens.

The United States must work to help the world’s poorest countries eliminate debilitating debt which undermines their ability to provide basic human needs such food, housing, education, health care and infrastructure development for their people. To assist in this struggle, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (CA) and others have introduced H.R. 2932, the “Stop Very Unscrupulous Loan Transfers from Underprivileged Countries to Rich, Exploitive Funds Act” or the “Stop VULTURE Funds Act”. This legislation would prohibit any U.S. person from engaging in debt profiteering at the expense of another nation and would prohibit any U.S. Court from issuing a judgment which would further sovereign debt profiteering.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS IMPORTANT MATTER!!!
If you have any questions, call Hilary Shelton at the Washington Bureau at (202) 463-2940.

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