Black man in NYC who failed teacher's test many times will receive over $2 million in compensation after court determines test was racist
A black man in New York City appears to have failed his way into millions of dollars. According to a report from the New York Post, he has been awarded more than $2 million in supposed lost compensation plus interest after he repeatedly failed a mandatory teacher's test that a court later determined was racially biased.
On July 5, Herman Grim, 64, of Queens was awarded $2,055,383 as part of a series of judgments expected to cost NYC perhaps more than $2 billion. The judgments stem from the Liberal Arts and Sciences Test, which all NYC teachers and prospective teachers were required to pass in order to receive a teaching license between 1994 and 2014. Between 1993 and 1995, 90% of white teachers and prospective teachers who took the test passed, compared to just 53% of their black counterparts. Hispanic test-takers performed even worse, passing just 50% of the time.
Because of the supposed "disparate impact" of the test, a class-action suit was filed against NYC's Board of Education in 1996. Even after a court ruled in favor of the city in 2003, the plaintiffs refused to give up and eventually secured a victory in 2012 when Manhattan federal Judge Kimba Wood claimed that the test violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Post reported. The city has repeatedly claimed that it had no control over teacher testing, which was then mandated by the state.
Eventually, the city exhausted its resources — and perhaps its will — to continue fighting and stopped fighting the lawsuit. In November 2021, just before he left office, Mayor Bill de Blasio earmarked $1.8 billion in payouts in connection to the suit. Thus far, Grim, who took the test multiple times in the 1990s but never passed, has been granted the largest judgment.
"I can’t tell you how many times I took them. A lot! A lot!" Grim told the Post in an interview that was occasionally interrupted by the chirp of a smoke detector. He could not provide the outlet with any examples of racial bias in the test.
Though several failed attempts to pass the test might have put a teaching career out of reach for most applicants, Grim defied the odds. He opened a preschool business in the mid-90s and kept it open until 2015. He also spent time as a substitute teacher in the city until last year when he passed the current certification exam and became a special education teacher in Harlem.
Judgments may be awarded to as many as 5,200 failed test-takers like Grim. Thus far, about 3,000 judgments have been issued, ranging from a few hundred dollars to Grim's $2 million. At least 225 awardees have received at least $1 million. And many of these recipients will continue to receive money well into the future, as some judgments will provide recipients with a pension and health insurance once they pass retirement age.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/black-man-in-nyc-who-failed-teacher-s-test-many-times-will-receive-over-2-million-in-compensation-after-court-determines-test-was-racist ?
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Oh, So That's Why We Haven't Heard About This 'Transphobic' Murder
Courtesy of Multnomah County Sheriff's Office (MCSO)
Earlier this month, a Portland man was brutally stabbed to death protecting his transgender-identifying friend from a convicted criminal, who was allegedly targeting the "LGBTQ+ person." More than two weeks later, why haven't we heard about this seemingly "anti-trans" hate-fueled murder on the streets of an ultra-liberal haven? It's self-evident: The suspect is black.
The homicide victim, 32-year-old Colin Michael Smith, a white male, was with friends outside of the High Dive Bar in the early hours of July 2 just before 2:00 a.m. when a black man—whom authorities have now identified as 24-year-old Rahnique Usef Jackson—targeted and harassed an LGBTQ+ member of Smith's group, witnesses allege. Smith reportedly stepped in, sticking up for his friend, who identifies as a transgender woman. That's when Jackson allegedly stabbed Smith several times, killing him.
"It was a hate crime," the victim's sister, Danielle Smith, told KOIN News in a TV interview. "She was trans [allegedly the intended target], he [the suspect] didn't like it, and Colin—defending his friend—was in the way. And that's what happened. It's just tragic."
Fleeing the scene of the fatal Sunday stabbing, Jackson evaded law-enforcement capture for days until he was arrested by members of the U.S. Marshals Service on Friday, July 7, the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) announced in a press release. Jackson was then transferred to the bureau's homicide unit, interrogated by PPB detectives, and booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center on charges of second-degree murder, a Class A felony, and unlawful use of a weapon, a Class C felony.
And last week, a grand jury indicted Jackson, represented by a court-appointed public defender, on those charges plus a bias crime in the second degree, a Class A misdemeanor, Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt announced Thursday via press statement his office issued. Jackson is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday when he's slated to plead guilty or not guilty.
While the vast majority of national news sites have yet to pick up this story of anti-transgender persecution resulting in a late-night street slaying, the local media have sanitized their headlines. The Oregonian, the Portland-based newspaper of record, titled its article on Jackson's arrest, "Man arrested in last week's stabbing in SE Portland," and the Portland Tribune similarly published a piece, "Suspect arrested in killing of popular Portland restaurant worker," with no mention of the apparent motive.
Like illegal alien Gerson Fuentes, who repeatedly raped a 10-year-old Ohio girl, and Black Lives Matter ideologue Darrell E. Brooks, who mass murdered senior citizens and a child attending a Christmas parade, Jackson is afforded non-editorialized descriptors absent of modifiers and the go-to flourishes that the vulturous, pouncing media oft-employs to politicize a tragedy.
Of course, if the races were reversed in this tragic case of interracial violence, and Jackson were a white man accused of murdering a black victim, we would know every single aspect of the suspect's life down to the most minute details: where he went to high school, his mother's maiden name, the first car he owned, etc. Reports of a "white supremacist," "transphobic" murderer knifing an "LGBTQ ally" would be spotlighted on the front page of The Washington Post and be center stage in CNN's coverage.
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Man Arrested While Preaching at Pennsylvania Pride Event Sues Police
The street preacher who was arrested by police shortly after arriving at a June 3 LGBT pride event sponsored by the city of Reading, Pennsylvania, is suing the police, the city, and Reading Mayor Eddie Moran.
The group Reading Pride Celebration partnered with the city for a ceremonial raising of the rainbow flag at Reading City Hall for the start of LGBT pride month, followed by a short parade to a park where there was a rainbow pride celebration with speakers and free food.
About 50 people, including Mr. Moran, attended the flag raising and stood on the sidewalk at City Hall. Organizers had a loudspeaker to make speeches.
Across the street, a handful of people gathered to protest the event, none with loudspeakers. Police stood in the street between the groups.
Damon Atkins 41, arrived at the event carrying a sign with a slogan that showed his opposition to the event, police said in the criminal complaint describing the arrest.
The offending two-sided sign had Bible verses. On one side it said, “Jesus said go and sin no more,” and the other side said, “Jesus said I am the way, the truth and the life.”
The arrest was caught on video by another street preacher, Matthew Wear. The men had seen each other before, but did not know each other and did not arrive together or coordinate anything. Mr. Wear arrived first, and previously told The Epoch Times that he preached until police told him to stop, then started shooting video of the event.
He captured Mr. Atkins arriving on the scene and his interaction with the arresting Reading Police officer.
The officer approached Mr. Atkins and told him to be respectful and to “let them have their day,” referring to the LGBT pride gathering.
“Oh, I’m respecting,” Mr. Atkins said in the video. “You know who is cheering for us? The people that are in hell. So, you do you, and I’ll do me. This is public property.”
The officer turned his back and walked a few steps into the street. Mr. Atkins raised his voice and got out part of a sentence.
“Yo. God is not—,” Mr. Atkins began saying, but the officer turned back to Mr. Atkins, put him in handcuffs, and had him transported to a police processing center where he spent a few hours in police custody.
According to court papers filed in federal court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Mr. Atkins’ attorney argued the arrest was in retaliation of his client’s viewpoints and in violation of his First Amendment right to free speech and his Fourth Amendment right to be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures. Mr. Atkins is also suing for defamation of his character and reputation; placing him before the public in a false light; malicious prosecution; assault and battery; and false imprisonment.
Joel Ready, an attorney with Cornerstone Law based in Blandon, Pennsylvania, is representing Mr. Atkins and says the video is compelling evidence.
“You have a very clear indication that an officer told him to stop speaking simply because he didn’t like the content of the sign that he was carrying. You have less than 30 seconds from when he arrived on scene. And then you have an arrest halfway through a sentence because basically, you use the word God,” Mr. Ready told The Epoch Times.
“I don’t think it gets much clearer that the police officer is engaged in content-based discrimination, and that he’s also engaged in religious discrimination, and of course, both of those things are unconstitutional. I’ve done a decent amount of First Amendment litigation at this point, and I have to say it’s rare to see a case that’s so startlingly clear.”
Charges Withdrawn
A representative from Reading Police told The Epoch Times the department cannot comment on pending litigation. The Berks County District Attorney’s office withdrew the charges four days after the arrest citing insufficient evidence and prosecutorial discretion.
Mr. Moran did not respond to a request for comment, but he did release a comment after the event.
“First and foremost, I consider myself lucky to have been able to participate in the Reading Pride March and Rally. It truly was a wonderful event, and I look forward to continuing to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community throughout the month of June,” Mr. Moran’s statement said.
“With regard to the incident, the City respects the First Amendment rights of all individuals. However, freedom of speech does not include the right to disrupt an organized event and interfere with the rights of others.”
But court papers say at no point did Mr. Atkins engage in vulgar, obscene, or profane language, shout any insults, or hurl any object directed toward the flag-raising ceremony. In fact, the documents say, Mr. Atkins was deprived of any meaningful opportunity to participate in the demonstration.
“You have a lone dissenter, a lone voice speaking an unpopular message, and the police are arresting this person, and to the cheers of a crowd,” Mr. Ready said.
“That should disturb any American, that the police can come and say, because your message is unpopular, we’re going to—in front of a crowd—declare on behalf of the government of the city in which you live, that your words are not welcome here, that your particular viewpoint is wrong. And that is what I think is particularly chilling.”
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When there is a Presumption of evil not innocence
Gross injustice in Australia
How can it be that a man of impeccable character in his late 70s is convicted of 28 nasty sexual and physical abuse offences between 1964 – 1973, simply on the say-so of half a dozen late middle-aged women who were juvenile delinquent inmates at an institution?
Because if you are named in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, you are guilty, right? The legal process is just a formality. From the start you are referred to as an abuser and the complainants as victims.
From being so named in the Royal Commission to being charged, tried and found guilty by a jury, the process is guilt by accusation. It replaces the presumption of innocence with the presumption of evil.
The law relating to sexual abuse allegations is now so deformed as to allow such miscarriages of justice to occur with ease. The innocent get shoved in with the guilty.
That is what happened to Noel Greenaway, now in his mid-80s, sentenced (in 2020) to 20 years in jail. Attracted by the promise to be believed, some unscrupulous women joined the thousands of genuine abuse victims to claim rewards (tangible or otherwise) on offer.
On 8 February 2018, Malcolm Turnbull made a short statement to Parliament about the Royal Commission’s work. ‘Reading some of the witness statements, it’s clear that being heard and being believed means so much to the survivors, so much more than many of us would imagine. Three words: “I believe you,” coming after years, often decades of authorities’ denial of responsibility.’
On 23 October 2018, Scott Morrison apologised to victims of child sexual abuse in a speech in Parliament. ‘I simply say, I believe you, we believe you, your country believes you,’ he said.
On 22 October 2020, Anthony Albanese echoed that sentiment in Parliament: ‘We will always hold in our hearts those who didn’t live to hear the words, ‘We hear you. We believe you.”’
Bill Shorten added his voice to the chorus of shame: ‘But know that today Australia says sorry. Australia says we believe you,’ he said.
The sentiment is right and commendable, but the application of it has led to other injustices.
Notorious Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s undoing as a serial abuser of women set off the rush to ‘believe all women’, with society licensing the courts to reverse the onus of proof from the accuser to the defender. But there was an important element in the Weinstein case that has been abandoned by the courts in recent years, notably in Noel’s case.
That was the testimony from supporting witnesses. The purpose of such witness testimony was ‘to show when the disclosure was made to someone, that a disclosure was made, and that it was made against the defendant,’ as the Weinstein prosecution argued. There was no such testimony in Noel Greenaway’s case. On the contrary, the claimants all said they never told anyone at the time in the 1960s, when they were youngsters, or since. Until the Royal Commission.
Greenaway’s life began to unravel on the eve of ructions that would catapult sexual abuse to the top of the world’s consciousness. What the Royal Commission started, the #MeToo movement turbocharged. Like a volcano building up its explosive load, the topic engulfed corporations as well as institutions and the Catholic church, until it blew its top in 2017, ejaculating Harvey Weinstein.
Under current rules in Australia, when it comes to sexual abuse, it is innocence that must be proved, not guilt. Innocent men have become collateral damage. Teen Vogue columnist and outspoken feminist Emily Lindin came under fire on social media in November 2017 after tweeting that she was ‘not at all concerned about innocent men losing their jobs’ over false allegations of sexual assault or harassment.
In his summing up to the jury, the judge at Greenaway’s trial explained: ‘The evidence comprises the answers that witnesses gave to questions asked of them. So the evidence then is the answers that the witness gives in the course of their evidence and the exhibits that you will have with you in the jury room. On that material, and on that material alone, you arrive at your verdicts.’
Greenaway writes from his prison cell, notepad on his knees: ‘The prosecution of individuals was also designed to appease those in the community who were naïve enough to believe the fabrications, lies and general criticism which was designed by ex-inmates and their supporters to name individuals out of revenge and to enhance their chances of claiming redress for concocted crimes committed against them.’
The Board of Inquiry into the Justice System in the ACT, chaired by Walter Sofronoff KC, was established in the wake of the abandoned prosecution of Bruce Lehrmann, accused of rape by Brittany Higgins. Chief Justice Lucy McCallum was critical of the intense media response and that much of the material had ‘obliterated the distinction between an allegation and guilt’. Police told the inquiry that they have been operating under ‘victim-centric’ guidelines for some time. Perhaps it’s time to amend those guidelines to urge investigations to be ‘evidence-centric’.
It was lack of evidence that has kept the fires of outrage burning against the conviction of then 56-year-old Sue Neill-Fraser, charged with the murder of her then 65-year-old partner Bob Chappell. She was arrested 14 years ago this August, sentenced to 23 years, and released on parole in October last year.
Long story short, their brand new yacht was found without Bob on board on the Derwent River in Hobart on Australia Day 2009. His body has never been found – yet at trial, the prosecutor speculated about what sort of injuries might have been found on him.
The prosecution could not establish a credible motive. The prosecution speculated how Bob might have been killed with a wrench. No wrench was produced in evidence. The prosecution could not place her on the yacht at the relevant time – because it had no evidence as to when Bob Chappell was murdered – or even if he was dead. The prosecution speculated how Neill-Fraser would have dragged the body up from down below deck (where she had left him at work before she went ashore for lunch with his sister), bundled him into the dinghy, and then dumped him in the water. Somewhere. On her own. The trial judge went along with the prosecution’s case. (He mentioned the imaginary wrench six times in his summing up to the jury.)
There was DNA found on the deck, traced to a then homeless 15-year-old girl. Clinging to the Crown’s case theory and fearing the DNA would upend its case, the prosecution dismissed the DNA as a red herring. They had their suspect. The only suspect.
She was characterised as cold and scheming because the prosecution case demanded it. But the prosecution’s presumption of evil doesn’t comfortably fit Neill-Fraser. Like Noel Greenaway, she has impeccable character references and lived an average, middle-class life free of blemish.
Lawyers have challenged the conviction – and the judges’ 2:1 decision to dismiss her appeal. A former Hobart prosecutor felt obliged to challenge his ‘legal family’ to correct ‘this injustice’. It hasn’t gone down well with his ‘legal family’.
A report co-authored by a lawyer and a barrister about the police investigation tabled in Parliament in 2021 reveals incompetence and withholding of evidence.
To add insult to injury, Tasmania’s Attorney-General has resisted many calls for a review of the case – preferably a Commission of Inquiry – making excuses that don’t hold water.
Greenaway and Neill-Fraser are but two sorry examples of a criminal justice system trampling the rule of law. There are plenty more. The criminal justice system spends little effort to repair the damage caused by wrongful convictions. In many cases, the appeal system actively hinders efforts to correct mistakes.
As someone once said, ‘Justice won’t be served until those not affected are as outraged as those who are.’
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/07/presumption-of-evil-displaces-presumption-of-innocence/
****************************************My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See
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