How bad are hate speech laws in the UK? Saying "it's OK to be white" can result in a harsher sentence than child pornography.
@abigailandwords found numerous cases in which UK judges jailed thought criminals while letting actual criminals off the hook.
The list is shocking.🧵
Judge Benedict Kelleher sentenced a man to 18 months in prison for chanting "who the fuck is Allah?" He gave a lighter sentence to a man who physically assaulted a police officer.
Judge John Temperley gave a man 12 weeks in prison for a racist Facebook post. He did not impose any prison time on a man with 46 indecent images of children.
An incendiary Facebook comment earned a man 20 months in prison, in part because his lack of privacy setting was taken as evidence of incitement.
But 8,000 images of child porn? That will only get you a six month sentence from Judge Kearl.
Judge Rupert Lowe sentenced a man to nine months in jail for shouting racist comments at a football player. Lowe gave no jail time to a doctor who ejaculated into a cup of coffee and gave the cup to a woman.
NEW: NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab laid off 900 workers due to budget cuts. But it refuses to fire its top DEI officer, Neela Rajendra, who has said that "extreme deadlines" are an obstacle to "inclusion."
The lab changed her title but kept many of her duties the same.🧵
Rajendra said on a 2022 podcast that that "some people might be left behind" by the "super fast pace" of tight deadlines. That comment came two years before a pair of astronauts were stranded on the International Space Station for nine months due to a faulty propulsion system.
In 2024, the lab laid off 900 workers—or 13% of its staff—amid budget cuts due to delays on its Mars Sample Return program.
Rajendra survived the cull, however. And even after Trump's executive order banning DEI in the federal government, the lab kept her around.
NEW: Trump's Equal Employment Opportunity Commision (EEOC) sent letters to 20 white shoe law firms today requesting information about their diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, arguing that many of the firms' practices appear to violate civil rights law.🧵
The letters ask the firms to provide detailed information about their diversity fellowship programs—some of which explicitly limit eligibility based on race—and to explain how the firms achieved rapid changes in their demographic makeup without recourse to race discrimination.
Recipients of the EEOC's letters include Latham & Watkins, WilmerHale, Skadden Arps, Goodwin Procter, Hogan Lovells, Kirkland & Ellis, and White & Case. Two of the firms, Perkins Coie and Morrison & Foerster, were sued over their minority-only fellowships in 2023.
NEW: A gender studies professor who says "white empiricism" undermines Einstein’s theory of relativity sits on a top advisory panel at the Energy Department.
Meet Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, who claims string theory "failed to succeed" because the field has too many white men.🧵
Prescod-Weinstein, a professor of physics and gender studies at the University of New Hampshire, was appointed to the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel (HEPAP) under the Biden administration in 2024.
The panel advises the DOE on research and funding priorities for particle physics, giving it significant say over which projects receive federal support.
Prescod-Weinstein will remain on HEPAP until 2027 unless the Trump administration takes action to remove her.
SCOOP: Illinois runs a scholarship program for graduate students that explicitly excludes white applicants, a move lawyers say is unconstitutional and could jeopardize the federal funding of more than two dozen participating universities, including Northwestern and UChicago.🧵
The program, Diversifying Higher Education Faculty in Illinois (DFI), was established by state law in 2004 and provides financial aid to "members of traditionally underrepresented minority groups" pursuing masters or doctoral degrees.
Students apply to the program through their universities, each of which has an "institutional representative" who helps "verify ... that applicants for the fellowship meet all eligibility criteria."
NEW: The American Sociological Association is suing to block the Trump administration's Dear Colleague letter on DEI.
But guess what? ASA has a fellowship that openly discriminates against white applicants—something that would have been illegal even without the new guidance.🧵
With help from Democracy Forward, a legal nonprofit whose board is chaired by disgraced Dem superlawyer Marc Elias, ASA sued to block the enforcement of the Dear Colleague letter, which argues a wide range of DEI initiatives—not just overt racial preferences—violate Title VI.
The complaint described a parade of horribles that would allegedly result from the guidance. The list of prohibited practices is so broad, according to the ASA, that even honoring Martin Luther King Jr. could jeopardize a school’s federal funding.
NEW: Scores of Iowa public school districts now have affirmative action plans that encourage race-based hiring and other diversity initiatives, potentially imperiling their federal funding under new guidance issued by the Trump administration.🧵
The plans, which are required by state law, include hiring goals for minority teachers, courses on "equity in mathematics," and bonuses for teachers who specialize in "culturally responsive leadership."
Some set percentage targets for "BIPOC representation" or explicitly say that race is "considered when making employment decisions."