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Elite women’s college rejects transgender student, prompts outcry

Elite women’s college rejects transgender student, prompts outcry

Thu, Mar 28 2013

By Zach Howard

NORTHAMPTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) - A transgender high school student has had her application to a prestigious all-women’s college denied because she is tagged as legally male on government documents, prompting a vocal online and social media campaign on her behalf.

Calliope Wong, 17, a Connecticut senior who was born a male but has identified as female since adolescence, says Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, twice opted not to read her application and returned it in the mail.

Almost all of Wong’s paperwork to Smith, including transcripts and references, identifies her as female. But the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, form from the U.S. Department of Education marks her as male, she told Reuters on Thursday.

Smith’s admissions office told her the FAFSA designation makes her ineligible, based on Smith’s policy that applications and supporting papers consistently reflect that the student is a woman.

Laurie Fenlason, Smith’s vice president for public affairs, said the school does not comment on the status or admissibility of individual applicants. But she added, “Every application to Smith is treated on a case-by-case basis, and application materials must reflect female identity.”

Smith also has legal concerns over changing its admissions policies, Fenlason said. Schools such as Smith are concerned they could lose federal funding under Title IX, a law that bans sexual discrimination in education but exempts single-sex institutions.

“Title IX is an important factor in our consideration but not the only one,” she said. “Smith is focusing on the broader policy challenge of how to be inclusive and supportive of transgender students while being faithful to the mission of a women’s college.”

Wong’s plight has garnered attention since she started to chronicle her experience with Smith on a Tumblr blog last year.

The case at Smith, which has admitted women only since opening in 1875, has triggered heated criticism among the school’s often-progressive students and alumni.

Students and graduates have taken to social media sites, including the Facebook groups “Trans women belong at Smith College” and “Smith Q&A,” to show support.

An online photo campaign depicts scores of people holding signs calling on Smith to allow transgender and transsexual females.

In Massachusetts and Wong’s home state of Connecticut, a transgender person would need to have sex-reassignment surgery to change the legal sex on a birth certificate and thus amend a FAFSA form.

Wong has not undergone the costly reassignment procedure.

(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Todd Eastham)

sonofbaldwin: anarcho-queer: NYPD Officer Blows Whistle On Stop & Frisk,  Superior’s Told Him To Target “Male Blacks 14 to 21” (Must Read) As hearings are under way to investigate New York City’s stop and frisk policy, one police officer is testifying that he was told by superiors to target young black men between the ages of 14 and 21. Stop and frisk is a method of searching people in which a cop is able to stop someone he or she suspects of a crime, and is able to frisk that individual if they feel that there is some justification. New York City policy made 685,724 stops as part of the policy in 2011 alone. In total, they have made over 5 million stops, and 85 percent of those stopped were black or Latino. 88% were innocent, meaning they were not arrested or given a summons. Officer Pedro Serrano, in court to testify yesterday, played a covert recording he’d obtained of an interraction with his superior where he was told the race of people to target, though not that he should stop everyone of that race: Stop “the right people, the right time, the right location,” Deputy Inspector Christopher McCormack is heard saying on the recording. “He meant blacks and Hispanics,” Officer Pedro Serrano, who made the secret recording, testified Thursday in Manhattan federal court. “So what am I supposed to do: Stop every black and Hispanic?”Serrano was heard saying on the tape, which was recorded last month at the 40th Precinct in the Bronx.[…] “I have no problem telling you this,” the inspector said on the tape. “Male blacks. And I told you at roll call, and I have no problem [to] tell you this, male blacks 14 to 21.” During cross examination, City lawyer Brenda Cooke got Serrano to admit that McCormack never said he wanted Serrano to stop all blacks and Hispanics. “Those specific words, no,” he told her. The news about targeting black men tracks with yesterday’s revelations that the NYPD set quotas for arrests. It also explains the fact that, in 2011, NYPD made more stops of young black men than there actually are young black men in the city. Serrano’s tape and testimony were introduced as evidence in a class-action lawsuit against the NYPD’s controversial stop-and-frisk tactic brought by four black New Yorkers who claim they were targeted because of their race. Also, the first of several tapes surreptitiously made by Brooklyn cop Adrian Schoolcraft made its debut at the trial. The audio he recorded proved that the police department ‘manipulated’ crime reports to make to it seem like crime decreased in NYC.  After the NYPD found out about Adrian’s incriminating evidence, they broke into his apartment, handcuffed him and locked him in a insane asylum for 6 days against his will to silence him. Watch the apologists try to call this something other than racism even though the evidence is damning.
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sonofbaldwin:

anarcho-queer:

NYPD Officer Blows Whistle On Stop & Frisk,  Superior’s Told Him To Target “Male Blacks 14 to 21” (Must Read)

As hearings are under way to investigate New York City’s stop and frisk policy, one police officer is testifying that he was told by superiors to target young black men between the ages of 14 and 21.

Stop and frisk is a method of searching people in which a cop is able to stop someone he or she suspects of a crime, and is able to frisk that individual if they feel that there is some justification. New York City policy made 685,724 stops as part of the policy in 2011 alone. In total, they have made over 5 million stops, and 85 percent of those stopped were black or Latino. 88% were innocent, meaning they were not arrested or given a summons.

Officer Pedro Serrano, in court to testify yesterday, played a covert recording he’d obtained of an interraction with his superior where he was told the race of people to target, though not that he should stop everyone of that race:

Stop “the right people, the right time, the right location,” Deputy Inspector Christopher McCormack is heard saying on the recording.

“He meant blacks and Hispanics,” Officer Pedro Serrano, who made the secret recording, testified Thursday in Manhattan federal court.

“So what am I supposed to do: Stop every black and Hispanic?”Serrano was heard saying on the tape, which was recorded last month at the 40th Precinct in the Bronx.[…]

“I have no problem telling you this,” the inspector said on the tape. “Male blacks. And I told you at roll call, and I have no problem [to] tell you this, male blacks 14 to 21.”

During cross examination, City lawyer Brenda Cooke got Serrano to admit that McCormack never said he wanted Serrano to stop all blacks and Hispanics.

“Those specific words, no,” he told her.

The news about targeting black men tracks with yesterday’s revelations that the NYPD set quotas for arrests. It also explains the fact that, in 2011, NYPD made more stops of young black men than there actually are young black men in the city.

Serrano’s tape and testimony were introduced as evidence in a class-action lawsuit against the NYPD’s controversial stop-and-frisk tactic brought by four black New Yorkers who claim they were targeted because of their race.

Also, the first of several tapes surreptitiously made by Brooklyn cop Adrian Schoolcraft made its debut at the trial. The audio he recorded proved that the police department ‘manipulated’ crime reports to make to it seem like crime decreased in NYC. 

After the NYPD found out about Adrian’s incriminating evidence, they broke into his apartment, handcuffed him and locked him in a insane asylum for 6 days against his will to silence him.

Watch the apologists try to call this something other than racism even though the evidence is damning.

My name is not Annie. It’s Quvenzhane.

- 9-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis, correcting the AP Reporter who said she was “just going to call her Annie.” (via shereader)

Annie? How is that even related to her actual name? White folks are so disrespectful. 

(via daniellemertina)

She’s just been cast to play “Annie” in a movie, that’s why. Still fucked up though.

(via ancestryinprogress)

That’s even worst in my opinion! I’ve never heard of anybody say “I’ll just call you [whatever their name in a movie was]” before. They could only do this to a black actor with a non-eurocentric name. 

(via daniellemertina)

So proud of her for correcting them though.

(via elegantly-tasteless)

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