Newsroom roundup

Co-authored by nonbinarybarbie, dogmama18, womanlywords26

LOCAL

A white supremacists group had shown face over a weekend in Mid-September. The members went to a neighborhood in Harrisonburg, known as Old Town. The properties in Old Town house a bunch of our JMU faculty and staff members. They had dropped leaflets randomly and weighed them down with pebbles. The leaflets called JMU Professors communists and claimed that Black Student Athletes here at JMU take advantage of white women. The Harrisonburg Police Chief, Kelley Warner, claimed that there is no current threat to our community and this was just an act to spread hate. The leaflets were brought to attention when a JMU Staff member collected them. The biggest question following the class discussion is who gets to decide whether or not this is a threat to our community and peers, and how far does this clan have to go before it is considered a real threat. Here is the link to the article about this.

NATIONAL 1

In April 2022 Brenda Tracy brought a sexual misconduct complaint against Mel Tucker to Michigan State University. Mel Tucker is a football coach for Michigan State and Brenda Tracy is a sexual assault awareness speaker for athletics for Michigan State University. Tracy and Tucker created a co-worker friendship due to Tracy’s work in sexual assault awareness. Tracy claims that Tucker was masturbating on a phone call with Tracy. Tracy felt extremely uncomfortable and filed a sexual assault claim against Tucker. Tucker is married and has 2 children. The University opened up the investigation of Tracy’s complaint in December 2022 and Tucker was suspended September 10th, 2023 and fired on September 18th, 2023. Tucker is now in the process of filing a wrongful termination case against the university. Here is the link to the article about this.

NATIONAL 2

A judge in Wyoming dismissed a lawsuit against Artemis Langford, a transwoman and member of University of Wyoming’s sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma. Six girls in the sorority filed a lawsuit against Ms. Langford, stating that they felt uncomfortable with her presence in the sorority house. A member claimed that Langford was a “sexual predator” in the sorority house and filed the lawsuit to look into her induction as a transwoman member of the sorority. The judge dismissed the case stating he could not override how a private institution defined a woman in their bylaws. Here is the link to the article about this.

“With its inquiry beginning and ending there, the court will not define a ‘woman’ today,” Johnson wrote.

GLOBAL

Canada’s parliament committees have been pushing for the government to do more when it comes to reproductive and sexual rights. While Canada is generally more progressive, the committee hopes to expand access to reproductive and sexual rights to other countries. The house of commons foreign affairs took in data from varying sources such as local organizations, citizens, and members of committees to formulate their goal to approach sexual and reproductive rights on a global scale. This report found that countries like Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico have created more access to abortions for women. However, this is just the start of global advocacy as committees urge the Canadian government to take a leadership role in influencing other countries to step up and do a call for action towards non-progressive countries. In their global approach, the committee proposes that the Canadian government spend up to 700 Million Dollars on Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare between this year and next year, this can not only save lives, but can lift strains on the healthcare system. Committee also pushes the government to collect more data about access to sexual and reproductive rights in conflict zones like China’s treatment of Uyghur people.  Uyghur people are descendants of Islam culture living in Xinjiang and make up less than half the population there. It is documented that Uyghur citizens have been detained against their will and put into camps lined with armed officers and have a shoot to kill policy for those who try to escape. Also in these camps, Chinese officials have been forcibly mass sterilizing Uyghur women. It is also seen that Chinese citizens have destroyed tombs and religious artifacts of the Uyghur. It is said in the article I chose “They are not only committing genocide, but are committing a crime against humanity”. Here is the link to the article about this.