students deserve a seat at the table... SEAT is a progressive movement committed to organizing power among a network of young people. We are developing transferable skills and demonstrating youth visibility in traditionally adult-dominated fields of policymaking
U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights Resolves Investigation of the Removal of Library Books in Forsyth County Schools in Georgia | U.S. Department of Education
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Affirms That Texas Book Ban Law is Unconstitutional - AAP
Court Ruling Affirms Preliminary Injunction Barring Unconstitutional Book Rating Requirements in Favor of the Coalition of Texas Bookstores, National Booksellers, Authors, and Publishers The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit today affirmed the preliminary injunction of the “Reader Act” (formerly HB 900) granted by Judge Alan D. Albright of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin
Unbottled : the fight against plastic water and for water justice - Daniel Jaffee
"In just four decades, bottled water has transformed from a luxury niche item into a ubiquitous consumer product, representing a $300 billion market dominated by global corporations. It sits at the convergence of a mounting ecological crisis of single-use plastic waste and climate change, a social crisis of drinking water affordability, and a struggle over the fate of public water systems. Unbottled examines the vibrant movements that have emerged to question the need for bottled water and challenge its growth in North America and worldwide. Drawing on extensive interviews with activists, residents, public officials, and other participants in controversies ranging from bottled water's role in unsafe tap water crises to groundwater extraction for bottling in rural communities, Daniel Jaffee asks what this commodity's meteoric growth means for social inequality, sustainability, and the human right to water. Unbottled profiles campaigns to reclaim the tap, and addresses the challenges of ending dependence on packaged water in places where safe water is not widely accessible. Clear and compelling, it assesses the prospects for the movements fighting plastic water and working to ensure water justice for all"--;"An exploration of bottled water's impact on social justice and sustainability, and how diverse movements are fighting back. In just four decades, bottled water has transformed from a luxury niche product into a $300 billion global industry. It sits at the convergence of a mounting ecological crisis of single-use plastic waste and climate change, a social crisis of drinking water affordability, and a struggle over the fate of public water systems. 'Unbottled' examines the vibrant movements that are questioning the need for bottled water and challenging its growth in North America and worldwide. Drawing on extensive interviews with participants in a range of controversies--from bottled water's role in unsafe tap water crises to groundwater extraction in rural communities--Daniel Jaffee asks what this commodity's meteoric growth means for social inequality, sustainability, and the human right to water. Clear and compelling, it assesses the prospects for the movements fighting plastic water and working to ensure water justice for all"--Page 4 of printed paper wrapper.
Three lenses on the human rights of older persons: Age, disability, and vulnerability
To protect the well-being of older persons, the international human rights community must draw on established human rights principles while addressing the unique needs associated with this stage of the life course.
In the Fight Against Book Bans, Retired Librarians Are Making a Difference | From the Editor
They care deeply and can't be fired. Retired librarians are bringing experience and passion to the cause of intellectual freedom. With advocacy skills training and opportunities to mentor, retirees could become even more powerful assets.
Librarians, who lost jobs for not banning books, are fighting back
Librarians in at least three states are asking the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to intervene after they were fired for refusing to ban books.
By Allan Cho (Follow us on LinkedIn) As part of the Visible Minority Librarians of Canada Network (ViMLoC), I’ve participated in its mentorship program and have met many talented and eager ear…
Systemic Racism, Clients, and the Law Societies - Slaw
Systemic racism is a reality in Canada. At many junctures in life, a person’s access to opportunities and fair treatment will be affected by their race, skin colour, or indigineity. The legal profession, in order to do its essential work in our society, must recognize and confront systemic racism. So far, most formal efforts to […]
Supreme bias : gender and race in U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings - Paul M. Collins, Lori Ringhand, and Christina Boyd
"In Supreme Bias, Christina L. Boyd, Paul M. Collins, Jr., and Lori A. Ringhand, present for the first time a comprehensive analysis of the dynamics of race and gender at the Supreme Court confirmation hearings held before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Drawing on their deep knowledge of the confirmation hearings, as well as rich new qualitative and quantitative evidence, the authors highlight how the women and people of color who have sat before the Committee have faced a significantly different confirmation process than their white, male colleagues. Despite being among the most qualified and well-credentialed lawyers of their respective generations, female nominees and nominees of color face more skepticism of their professional competence, are subjected to stereotype-based questioning, and are more frequently interrupted and described in less positive terms by senators. In addition to revealing the disturbing extent to which race and gender bias exists even at the highest echelon of U.S. legal power, this book also provides concrete suggestions for how that bias can be reduced in the future"--
Librarians turn to civil rights agency to oppose book bans and their firings
Some librarians who've been fired as they take a stand against discrimination and banning books are turning to a federal civil-rights enforcement agency for help.
Opinions : a decade of arguments, criticism, and minding other people's business - Roxane Gay
From beloved and bestselling author Roxane Gay, "a strikingly fresh cultural critic" (Washington Post) comes an exhilarating collection of her essays on culture, politics, and everything in between. Since the publication of the groundbreaking Bad Feminist and Hunger, Roxane Gay has continued to tackle big issues embroiling society--state-sponsored violence and mass shootings, womens rights post-Dobbs, online disinformation, and the limits of empathy--alongside more individually personalized matters: can I tell my co-worker her perfume makes me sneeze? Is it acceptable to schedule a daily 8 am meeting? In her role as a New York Times opinion section contributor and the publications "Work Friend" columnist, she reaches millions of readers with her wise voice and sharp insights. Opinions is a collection of Roxane Gays best nonfiction pieces from the past ten years. Covering a wide range of topics--politics, feminism, the culture wars, civil rights, and much more--with an all-new introduction in which she reflects on the past decade in America, this sharp, thought-provoking anthology will delight Roxane Gays devotees and draw new readers to this inimitable talent.
AI Book Bans: Testing LLMs Against the Freedom to Read | Library Innovation Lab
What happens when large language models are asked to provide justifications for book bans? Do the same built-in guardrails that prevent them from generating ...
The Critical Librarianship and Pedagogy Symposium : reflections, revisions, and new works - Yvonne Mery and Anthony Sanchez (Editors)
The Critical Librarianship and Pedagogy Symposium: Reflections, Revisions, and New Works collects expanded and updated presentations given at the Critical Librarianship and Pedagogy Symposium (CLAPS) held biennially at the University of Arizona Libraries. This anthology provides a toolkit for critical library pedagogy that recognizes how knowledge is created within historical and deeply politicized contexts. Authors working in library or disciplinary teaching.
Hidden Barriers: The Experience of Academic Librarians and Archivists with Invisible Illnesses and/or Disabilities | Manwiller | College & Research Libraries
Hidden Barriers: The Experience of Academic Librarians and Archivists with Invisible Illnesses and/or Disabilities
Postcards from the Gender War: Job Hunting as a Trans Early-Career Librarian
By Ezekiel Amari McGee (Follow us on LinkedIn) For the past year, watching the news often feels like watching a Hitchcock film—you know something awful’s coming, it’s just a matter of when. Wh…
It may have just gotten harder to protect minority communities from pollution - New Jersey Monitor
In recent years, some states have invested in air quality monitoring, applied extra scrutiny to permitting decisions and steered cleanup funding to minority communities that have borne the brunt of pollution for decades. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision striking down race-conscious college admissions policies, state lawmakers are facing a […]
American Bar Association Condemns Assault on Law Firm Diversity Efforts
The President of the American Bar Association (ABA), Mary Smith, expressed deep concern over the challenges faced by law firms’ diversity initiatives following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to reject affirmative action in colleges and universities. The ABA, the largest voluntary bar association in the country boasting around 166,000 members as of 2022, has conveyed […]
The safe library : keeping users, staff, and collections secure - Steve Albrecht
"This book provides advice and support to help library employees best deal with sexually harassing patrons, unruly groups of students, gang members, thieves, Internet hogs, and others who can disrupt the safe library environment"--
The fear of too much justice : race, poverty, and the persistence of inequality in the criminal courts - Stephen Bright And James Kwak
"A legendary lawyer and a legal scholar reveal the structural failures that undermine justice in our criminal courts. The Fear of Too Much Justice offers a timely, trenchant, firsthand critique of our criminal courts and points the way toward a more just future"--
Anticolonial eruptions : racial hubris and the cunning of resistance -Geo Maher
"Resistance is everywhere, but everywhere a surprise, especially when the agents of struggle are the colonized, the enslaved, the wretched of the earth. Anticolonial revolts and slave rebellions have often been described by those in power as "eruptions"--volcanic shocks to a system that does not, cannot, see them coming. In Anticolonial Eruptions Geo Maher diagnoses a paradoxical weakness built right into the foundations of white supremacist power, a colonial blind spot that grows as domination seems more complete. Anticolonial Eruptions argues that the colonizer's weakness is rooted in dehumanization. When the oppressed and excluded rise up in explosive rebellion, with the very human demands for life and liberation, the powerful are ill-prepared. This colonial blind spot is, ironically, self-imposed: the more oppressive and expansive the colonial power, the lesser-than-human the colonized are believed to be, the greater the opportunity for resistance. Maher calls this paradox the cunning of decolonization, an unwitting reversal of the balance of power between the oppressor and the oppressed. Where colonial power asserts itself as unshakable, total, and perpetual, a blind spot provides strategic cover for revolutionary possibility; where race or gender make the colonized invisible, they organize, unseen. Anticolonial Eruptions shows that this fundamental weakness of colonialism is not a bug, but a permanent feature of the system, providing grounds for optimism in a contemporary moment roiled by global struggles for liberation"--