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LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A lawsuit filed by a former server at a trendy Melrose Avenue restaurant alleges a new owner sought to replace female servers with “handsome men.” The lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court against The Larchmont includes allegations of wrongful termination, discrimination based on gender, retaliation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. According to the suit, Lauren Costa was hired as a server in 2008 at the eatery located at 5750 Melrose Ave. when it was known as the Larchmont Grill, which was sold in January to a group that changed the name to The Larchmont....

On Monday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that Obamacare will place a special focus on members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community because "for too long...[they] were pushed to the side," Paul Bedard reported at the Washington Examiner. "LGBT individuals have faced limited access to health care and insurance. They have been less likely to get the preventive care they need to stay healthy, they have higher rates of tobacco use, and they are often at increased risk for mental health illness," she said. To counter this, the administration is drawing attention to new benefits...

Lady Gaga reportedly spent $25 million on pop art to jazz up her new and apparently underwhelming album. In contrast, Miley Cyrus’ sexual twerking at the MTV video awards earned her more millions by exposing her rather unimpressive anatomy. Both make the once vulgar Madonna seem like June Cleaver, but at least raise an existential question: ~snip~ Meanwhile hip-hop artist Kanye West is promoting his own new music video. He seems to be having sex with his girlfriend Kim Kardashian while riding a motorcycle. If you did not know that Kanye West was the singer of the background music, by...

I'm probably too young to have so many pet peeves. The list seems to get longer every year. So, naturally, the longer I teach, the longer my list of class rules seems to get. In addition to rules of class conduct, I also have to develop rules concerning over-disclosure of information in emails and office visits. Such over-disclosure is always geared towards one goal for the student: transforming personal deficiencies into legitimate disabilities in an effort to attenuate workload expectations. Whenever I'm feeling overwhelmed by these excuses, I take time out in class to reiterate the rules concerning over-disclosure. Note...

A controversial 600-plus page manual used by the military to train its Equal Opportunity officers teaches that "healthy, white, heterosexual, Christian" men hold an unfair advantage over other races, and warns in great detail about a so-called "White Male Club." “Simply put, a healthy, white, heterosexual, Christian male receives many unearned advantages of social privilege, whereas a black, homosexual, atheist female in poor health receives many unearned disadvantages of social privilege,” reads a statement in the manual created by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI).-snip- “I’m participating in teaching things that are not true,” the instructor told me. He...

A black actor on the HBO drama series “Treme” said in a lawsuit on Friday that he wasstopped because of his race while buying sunglasses at Macy’s — the third discrimination allegation made this week by a black shopper against a department store. Robert Brown, who filed the lawsuit in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, said he was detained by police at the flagship Herald Square store on June 8 after employees contacted authorities about possible credit card fraud. He said he was “paraded while handcuffed” through the store to a holding cell, where he was kept for nearly an...

A discrimination lawsuit filed against liberal Congresswoman Shelia Jackson Lee (D-TX) has been allowed to proceed, granted by a federal judge, despite Lee’s attempts to halt the proceedings according to the Washington Times on Tuesday. The lawsuit was filed by former legislative director Mona Floyd and said in court papers that Mrs. Jackson Lee, a 10-term congressional representative from Houston had refused to accommodate her debilitating eye condition called monocular vision. Floyd’s lawsuit complaint was based on Lee saying to her, “I don’t care anything about your disability.” The Washington Times reported that Lee’s legal team wanted to have the...

Gregg Woodworth may not look like who you would expect to file a lawsuit claiming racial discrimination. He’s a 55-year-old white man who likes to ride his Harley. But he says the color of his skin is ultimately why he ended up losing his job as a Mascotte Police officer. Rolando Banasco was promoted to police chief in early 2012. Woodworth was second-in-command, as his lieutenant. “He flexed his arms in front of me and told me he could now start making room for Spanish speaking officers, and he immediately started going after Caucasian officers,” Woodworth said. Attorney Eric Frommer...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court seemed prepared Tuesday to uphold a voter-approved ban on taking account of race in college admissions. The court heard arguments over a 2006 change to the state constitution to prohibit the University of Michigan and other state schools from any consideration of race when they decide whom to admit. The justices' focus was more on whether they could craft a narrow ruling to uphold Michigan Proposal 2 or would have to overrule earlier cases that protect minorities' rights to participate in the political process. Affirmative action supporters say the amendment itself is a form of...

The National Park Service is allowing an Oct. 8 pro-immigration rally on the national mall, even as it posts pickets and barriers to bar Americans from visiting their open-air memorials. “They’re going to be allowed to go [ahead] because it is a First Amendment activity,” Shannon Maurer, a spokeswoman for the “March for Immigrant Dignity and Respect,” told The Daily Caller. “They allowed us to have it because it is part of the First Amendment of the constitution,” said Susana Flores, a spokeswoman for CASA in Action, which is organizing the rally. ”We’re going to have a stage and microphones,”...

A Spanish judge has got himself into hot water after he said a driving school was within its rights to charge female learners more than their male counterparts. … Back in 2011, Autoescuela Zaragoza advertised a deal where, for €665 ($900), prospective male drivers aged 18 to 22 could get as many classes as they needed to obtain their driving license. The price for female learners was €850 ($1,155). …

During recent comments to members of the Boston Bar Association, officials from the Department of Children and Families indicated that Massachusetts will no longer allow individuals with conservative social values to raise foster children. In a video of the address, recruitment officer Michelle Gordon described “new expectations” of foster parents, explaining that the DCF is in the process of “weeding out some of this passiveness and sort of destructive behaviors that are occurring.” Gay rights activist Erika Rickard, who serves on the Commission on LGBT Youth, claimed that two in every 10 foster children are gay. As a result, she...

Tamara Miyanaga’s husband went to school in Taber’s Horizon School Division when he was a boy. The couple’s three children later enrolled with the same public board. Miyanaga, herself, works for the school division, at Ace Place Learning Centre. So the Taber mother was surprised to learn she is not allowed to become a trustee with the public board. Miyanaga found out last week she wasn’t eligible to run for one of the trustee positions at Horizon School Division in the upcoming election — because she is Catholic. “All of a sudden my voice was restricted because of my faith,”...

2. “That just isn’t possible.” Always speak to your boss in terms of what can be done. For instance, rather than saying “We can’t get this done by Friday,” say “We could definitely get this done by Monday, or if we brought in some freelance help, we could meet the Friday deadline.” When you talk to your boss, think in terms of solving problems for her, not in terms of putting problems on her plate. 6. “It’s not my fault.” Are you a whiny 8-year-old or a take-charge professional? Assume responsibility and take steps to fix a problem that you...

As American Idol begins its 13th season with a new judges' panel, new producers and a whole new slew of hopefuls, the show's business practices are under scrutiny as a discrimination lawsuit filed by 10 black former contestants continues to wind its way to court. The plaintiffs, all of whom were disqualified from the show over six seasons for reasons other than singing -- including criminal history -- were recently issued notices of "right to sue" by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, allowing the 429-page lawsuit they filed in July to move forward. In response, American Idol, FOX and the...

Tourists visiting the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City can read its brochures in 10 different languages – but Arabic is not one of them. Nor will it be any time soon. “Nine languages are spoken by over 97 percent of our visitors: English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Mandarin, Italian, Japanese and Russian,” a representative from the memorial told the New York Post. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, claiming Arabic is the world’s fourth-most-spoken language, is sending letters to memorial coordinators demanding answers on why the language is not included. But it appears that the Arabic community is looking for...

You may say that there is no discrimination against Christians in America or casually dismiss it because Christians need no protection here because this is allegedly a Christian nation. But there is plenty of such discrimination, as I documented in my book "Persecution" a few years back. During the publicity tour for the book, I had a mini-debate with Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz on CNN, as I recall. Dershowitz, who was very respectful and who is unquestionably quite intelligent, advanced a curious argument that night. If memory serves, he suggested that it is absurd for me to argue that Christians...

The Washington Post is being sued for age and race discrimination by a longtime black advertisement department employee who was abruptly fired and replaced with a younger white man in what the lawsuit suggests was part of a larger effort by the paper to push out older black workers. Sounds sinister, but in the federal lawsuit, which has not been reported anywhere else, David DeJesus, 59, does not actually allege any overtly discriminatory behavior by his boss, such as racial slurs or derogatory comments based on his age. But thanks to the expansive interpretation of civil rights laws that the...

--In 2011 the agency sued the retail giant, Abercrombie & Fitch, accusing it of religious discrimination for firing 19-year-old Umme-Hani Khan for wearing a hijab at a northern California store. The company, which focuses on hip casual wear for consumers aged 18 to 22, has a policy against head covers of any kind for its employees. In the case of this Muslim woman it amounts to discrimination based on religion, according to the EEOC, and that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Employers are required to accommodate the sincere religious beliefs or practices of employees, the...

She’s one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood. She won the Golden Globe and was nominated for an Academy Award for her1988 hit “Working Girl.” She's the daughter of Golden Era star Tippi Hendren and the wife of Antonio Banderas. But Melanie Griffith says today, the work offers have pretty much dried up. “It is what I never thought would happen when I was in my 20s and 30s, hearing actresses bitch about not getting any work when they turned 50. Now I understand it, it is just different. In a lot of ways, (Hollywood) a very superficial place,”...

At the same time the IRS harassed Republican nonprofit groups during the 2012 political campaign, it selectively advised black churches and other Democrat nonprofits on how far they can go in campaigning for President Obama and other Democrats. This raw exercise in political favoritism has not been reported in the context of the still-smoldering IRS scandal, in which the agency in 2012 audited big GOP donors and blocked Tea Party groups trying to obtain tax-exempt status as part of what House investigators suspect was an effort to re-elect the president. But that same year, top officials with both the IRS...

<p>The Tennis Channel has lost its bid for a review of a pivotal court decision in its marathon legal match against cable giant Comcast Corp.</p> <p>On Wednesday, the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Tennis Channel's petition that asked the full panel of judges to hear its case accusing Comcast of anti-competitive behavior.</p>

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The federal government has dismissed allegations that three University of California campuses failed to effectively respond to claims of anti-Semitism that arose out of pro-Palestinian events at the schools. The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights said in letters sent last week to leaders at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz and UC Irvine that the protests, teach-ins, lectures, graffiti and heated confrontations that gave rise to the claims didn't constitute harassment of Jewish students. In its Aug. 19 letters to the universities, the Education Department said in most cases the activities at issue were...

And, the odds are much better in discrimination lawsuits. Most everyone has heard of the Pigford Case, where over 18,000 black "farmers" (even those who farmed no more than a potted plant) were offered  up to $62,000 each from a class action lawsuit via President Obama's signature. Without a whole lot of evidence, it was determined that the U.S. Department of Agriculture discriminated against minorities when implementing certain farmer financing programs. These sort of stories are reminiscent of the infamous New York "Ghost Riders," - people who would jump on buses involved in accidents - after the accidents, and, thereby, were...

London Mayor Boris Johnson has blasted European Union (EU) immigration for favoring Eurozone workers instead of those from Commonwealth nations today. The Conservative politician said Britain needs to look beyond the EU and should forge stronger ties with fast growing economies, in particular Australia. Mr. Johnson said the UK and Australia should set up a “free labor mobility zone” where he feels there are “immense opportunities”. … Mr. Johnson launched his attack on the EU after receiving a letter from Australian Sally Roycroft, who had been working in London schools. The London Mayor said the teacher had been “effectively kicked...

Syndicated columnist Pat Buchanan made a statement Friday guaranteed to make liberal media members' heads spin. During a discussion about Affirmative Action on PBS's McLaughlin Group, Buchanan said, "Whites are the only group that you can discriminate against legally in America now" (video follows with transcript and commentary): (VIDEO-AT-LINK)JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, HOST: Are you saying college admissions should be based on diversity? ELEANOR CLIFT, NEWSWEEK/DAILY BEAST: Yeah, I mean, I think lots of factors go into diversity. I think race can be one of them, and I think the Supreme Court so far agrees with that. MCLAUGHLIN: 67 percent opposed it,...

Starting Jan. 1, Bert Fish Medical Center will no longer hire tobacco users, joining two other local hospitals in telling smokers not to apply. Applicants will be tested for a nicotine byproduct and sign an agreement to remain tobacco-free during their employment with the New Smyrna Beach public hospital. The prohibition doesn't apply to volunteers, medical staff or Bert Fish's roughly 700 employees who were hired before the implementation date... "Not all slopes are slippery but this one really is," said Lewis Maltby, president on the National Workrights Institute, a nonprofit offshoot of the American Civil Liberties Union based in...

Denouncing the use of race in college admissions on PBS’ The McLaughlin Group, former Richard Nixon speechwriter and GOP presidential candidate Pat Buchanan claimed that caucasians were the only group in America who could be legally discriminated against. “It should be like the NFL: whoever’s the best player plays, and whoever does best academically should be advanced,” Buchanan said of diversity in collegiate acceptances. “What is wrong with that?” “I think there’s an argument to be said that the greatest affirmative action program that there is in the country is being born white,” panelist Michelle Bernard argued. “There is a...

August 23, 2013 - ReligiousLiberty.TV [dc]Y[/dc]esterday, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment does not protect a photographer’s decision not to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony even if it would violate the photographer’s deeply held religious beliefs.  In 2006, Elane Huguenin, owner of Elane Photography, declined a request to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony. In 2008, the New Mexico Human Rights Commission ruled that she had engaged in illegal discrimination based on sexual orientation and ordered her to pay $6,600 in attorney fees. [caption id="attachment_6018" align="alignleft" width="146"] Elaine Huguenin[/caption] Vanessa Willock, who requested the photography, is an...

A white police sergeant who is president of the St. Louis Police Officers Association was awarded $620,000 in a reverse racial discrimination suit Wednesday. A federal jury made the award to Sgt. David Bonenberger, who had sued in January 2012. The civil suit alleged that he was passed over for a leadership post at the city Police Academy. It claimed that academy director, Lt. Michael Muxo, told Bonenberger he shouldn’t bother to apply for the assistant director opening. Muxo told him that the job was going to a black woman, the suit said.

Dear Chancellor Miller: On May 9, you announced that you were initiating a process to "rethink" our university's approach to diversity and inclusion. Then, on August 16, you announced that eleven individuals agreed to serve on your Chancellor’s Committee on Diversity and Inclusion. For the following reasons, I find the composition of the committee to be deeply problematic. 1. Your inclusion committee is 0% white male. I have written three books dealing with campus diversity issues. I have been invited to speak on issues of diversity (largely ideological) at 78 college campuses. Over the last ten years, I have written...

NEW YORK – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon denied on Monday there is any bias in the UN against Israel. At a press “encounter” at the UN Headquarters in New York, a reporter for Israel Radio pressed Ban about his comments last Friday while meeting with students at the UN headquarters in Jerusalem. Ban simply said, “I don’t think there is discrimination against Israel at the United Nations.” He continued, “The Israeli government maybe raised this issue that there’s some bias against Israel, but Israel is one of the 193 member states. Thus, Israel should have equal rights and opportunities without...

WEST MONROE, La. (CBS Houston) — A New York City hotel kicks out one of the stars of “Duck Dynasty” after an employee thought he was a homeless man. Appearing along with his family on “Live with Kelly and Michael” Wednesday morning, Jase Robertson described the incident. “The first thing that happened to me at the hotel was I got escorted out,” Robertson said, joking that it was a “facial-profiling deal.” Robertson said that the hotel employee simply didn’t know who he was. “I asked where the bathroom was and he said, ‘Right this way, sir.’ He was very nice,”...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Missouri State Fair on Monday imposed a lifetime ban on a rodeo clown whose depiction of President Barack Obama getting charged by a bull was widely criticized by Democratic and Republican officials alike. The rodeo clown won't be allowed to participate or perform at the fair again. Fair officials say they're also reviewing whether to take any action against the Missouri Rodeo Cowboy Association, the contractor responsible for Saturday's event. The entertainment during the bull riding contest featured a clown wearing a mask of Obama with an upside down broomstick attached to his backside....

All people are created equal—that is, unless they’re fat. Although overweight and obesity affect two-thirds of Americans, the public is as troubled by obese people as young Haley Joel Osment was when his character declared, “I see dead people” in the supernatural thriller Sixth Sense. Overweight people are presumed lazy, undisciplined, dishonest and unintelligent. More than half of people (61 percent) see no harm in making negative remarks about a person’s weight. Obesity is the last frontier in tolerable prejudices. Whereas discrimination based on age, race, religion, sex and other protected characteristics is illegal, federal law (and most state and...

Albert Buitenhuis was told he was too heavy to stay in New Zealand. Weighs 20 stone six pounds, five stone less than when he moved there. He and wife Marthie are facing deportation from their Christ Church home. Albert is five feet ten inches tall and has a Body Mass Index of 40. An obese chef has been told he is too fat to live in New Zealand, even though he has lost 66lb since moving there six years ago. Albert Buitenhuis, who weighs 20 stone six pounds, was told that it may place demands on the New Zealand health...

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan gave an interesting speech at the NAACP meeting in Orlando on July 16th. To be sure, inner city poverty is a serious problem. The public policy question is how to best address this problem. But HUD Secretary Donovan lays the blame on racial discrimination. The key phrases in his speech are: “Bottom line: people are being denied their freedom of choice and the benefits of full citizenship. Yet because of the subtle nature of this discrimination, often times, they don’t even know they have been subjected to this abuse.” “That’s why HUD is enhancing its enforcement...

Chicago-based human rights advocates have sent a letter to the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights asking the international body to monitor Chicago’s school closings. The “letter of allegation” sent Tuesday evening to Geneva, Switzerland, asks U.N. officials to investigate whether the closing of 49 Chicago elementary schools violates children’s human rights. “The United Nations taking this issue up and giving it serious attention will really bring home to Chicago and the United States that there are violations occurring here of human rights, potentially, not just about a budget crisis,” said Sital Kalantry, the University of...

The momentum is growing to protect gays, lesbians, transgendered and veterans in the city’s anti-discrimination laws. But some local pastors say those changes may end up violating the rights of the religious. “A religious view: either you have one or you don’t, it is still a religious view. And if I don’t attain to their view, then I’m out of the picture completely. It’s a stifling of free speech,” said Pastor Steve Branson of Village Parkway Baptist Church. Ever have a Paula Deen moment -- make an off-color joke or hold a religious belief? Branson says keep it to yourself...

The IRS insists that there is no legal remedy for determining whether an applicant's constitutional rights have been violated, and that offended parties must be satisfied with a "good enough" remedy, even if it is not perfect. The IRS is doing everything it can to prevent accusers from determining whether its decision making processes violated the constitutional rights of applicants for tax exempt status On Friday, July 19, in federal district court in Washington, D.C., Department of Justice lawyers who have the misfortune of having to represent the Internal Revenue Service were forced to reveal exactly how desperate the IRS...

Lawmakers have renewed a bipartisan, bicameral effort to get veterans added to the list of those protected by law against housing or employment discrimination. Former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) introduced a bill last year to end housing discrimination against service members and veterans, but it had no co-sponsors and died in committee. In the House, Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) introduced the Veterans, Women, Families with Children, and Persons With Disabilities Housing Fairness Act of 2011, drawing progressive co-sponsors but not making it out of committee. This time, the effort is focused squarely on vets and is coordinated between the upper...

Parking near the beach on a holiday weekend is certainly a challenge. It appears Florida now has lesbian-only designated parking spots. Violators apparently get a free heavy cocktail glass hurled through their vehicle's window. Just ask these two women about it. On Saturday evening a woman, age 36, driving a 2012 Ford truck, and her friend, age 38, turned down a street near St. Augustine Beach and parked the truck. As they exited the truck, a woman who had been sitting on the upper deck of a residence along the street shouted down to them "Hey! Only lesbians can park...

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie recently had gastric bypass surgery to help him lose weight.The American Medical Association’s decision to call obesity a “disease” instead of a medical condition could make it harder to discriminate against fat employees, The Wall Street Journal Law Blog reports. Now that obesity is a disease, people with body mass indexes of more than 30 are almost certainly covered under The Americans with Disabilities Act, attorney Jon Hyman told the Law Blog. That 1990 law says employers have to provide disabled workers with “reasonable accommodations” to help them do their jobs. It also makes it...

With just days to go before two of Philadelphia's most prestigious hospitals refuse to hire smokers, the ban has relit a debate about the wisdom of regulating workers' behavior away from the workplace. Both the highly rated University of Pennsylvania Health System, which includes the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, as well as the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, named by US News and World Report as America's top children's hospital this year, will join dozens of hospitals across the country when they implement their policy on Monday, July 1. The move has generated criticism among civil liberties activists, hospital...

Although some see it as a clear-cut case of race discrimination, Kim Ratliff, a County Commissioner in Mecklenburg County, N.C., doesn’t regret saying that the next county manager should be a “non-white male.” Ratliff’s comments were made last Friday when she commented on the departure of longtime county manager Harry Jones, WISTV.com reports. The County Commissioner said other county officials should learn from Jones’ tenure as county manager. “There were some people the manager was not talking to. There were county commissioners who were not talking to the manager,” she said, adding that the future county manager must have open...

A landmark Supreme Court ruling that struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act has set up a stand-off between Republican-led states and the Obama administration over controversial voting laws that until now had been stalled. The 5-4 ruling on Tuesday addressed a 1960s-era provision that largely singled out states and districts in the South -- those with a history of discrimination -- and required them to seek federal permission to change their voting laws. The court ruled that the formula determining which states are affected was unconstitutional. ********************** Attorney General Eric Holder warned states against going too...

Suppose you own a business and put out an ad for people who want a job. Many apply. You run background checks, including criminal checks, which are perfectly legal. You learn that some of the prospective employees have criminal records. And you decide you’d rather not have a convicted thief working the cash register at your business or you think it’s better that you don’t hire someone with a violent past, fearing he might hit a customer or fellow worker who looks at him the wrong way. Or maybe you figure, you just don’t want convicted criminals in your company....

A Brooklyn man has sued his former employer for firing him because of his weight, court documents show. A lawsuit, filed June 19 in the Kings County Supreme Court, maintains that Jerry Greenberg, the owner of the art framing store Frame it in Brooklyn Inc., withdrew an offer of employment to Seth Bogdanove because he was too overweight. Bogdanove worked at Frame it in Brooklyn from 1994 to 2008, according to court documents. He told ABC News that he did not want to discuss why he left the store, but emphasized that his decision had nothing to do with medical...

Aren't you glad we have a federal government that is watching every move we make over us? What would we do without them? I found this latest story at What Would The Founders Think. They wrote about it first in February of this year and now the story is coming to fruition. If you are a business owner, ie. someone who employs one or more people, this should give you reason for concern. Once again, the government is sticking its nose where it doesn't belong. Fox News - The Obama administration is suing Dollar General and a BMW facility in...

Conservatives have long suspected there is discrimination against conservative professors in academia, and now there is evidence to prove it. Sociology professor Neil Gross, a self-described liberal, reveals the results of surveys showing this bias in his new book, Why Professors are Liberal and Why do Conservatives Care? Sociologist George Yancy asked professors if they would be more or less likely to hire someone if they were a Republican, evangelical or fundamentalist. Three-quarters said political affiliation would not affect their hiring decision. But the one-quarter that did say it would influence their decision virtually all said they would favor a...