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Afternoon Briefs: Hate speech mustn’t be normalized, ABA president says; Title IX protects gay and transgender students

By Debra Cassens Weiss

June 16, 2021, 3:45 pm CDT

ABA president: Hate speech legitimizes intolerance

ABA President Patricia Lee Refo said Tuesday the association is “deeply troubled” by recent hate speech directed at Jewish, LGBTQ, Asian American and Muslim people. Refo said studies show a correlation between exposure to hate speech and the increase in hate crimes. Hate speech “serves to legitimize intolerance, reinforce stereotypes and further discrimination,” Refo said in a statement. “We must not let any messages of hatred be normalized if we hope to advance the rule of law to achieve an inclusive society.” (Refo’s June 15 statement)

Title IX bans LGBTQ discrimination, DOE says

The U.S. Department of Education is interpreting Title IX’s ban on sexual discrimination in federally funded education programs to protect students on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The department’s interpretation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 differs from that of the Trump administration. The department said its new interpretation is based on the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, which held that the ban on discrimination in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act applies to gay and transgender workers. (The New York Times, U.S. Department of Education’s June 16 press release)

Former federal judge dies at 99

Former U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York died Tuesday at age 99. He had retired from the federal bench last year. Weinstein was a counsel for the NAACP on Brown v. Board of Education, working under the lead of lawyer and civil rights activist Thurgood Marshall, who would go on to become a U.S. Supreme Court justice several years later. As a judge, Weinstein oversaw mass tort cases, including lawsuits alleging injuries from the chemical Agent Orange and asbestos. According to the New York Times, Weinstein was known “for his bold jurisprudence and for his outsize personality. He was the personification of the activist judge, defying decades of increasingly conservative influence in the federal judiciary.” (The New York Times, the Washington Post, Law.com, Law360)

Emails show Trump wanted DOJ to challenge 2020 presidential election results

Aides to former President Donald Trump pressured former Acting U.S. Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen to investigate election fraud claims—even while Attorney General William Barr was still in the job, according to emails released Tuesday by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Rosen reacted with disbelief. “Can you believe this?” he said in an exchange with another top official regarding an allegation of “signature match anomalies.” Among the requests pressed by aides and an outside lawyer was for the Department of Justice to file a lawsuit directly with the U.S. Supreme Court that challenged the 2020 presidential election results in battleground states. (The Washington Post, Politico, Law360, the New York Times)