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The Student Non-Discrimination Act: Clarifying Protections for LGBTQ Students

Posted by Amy Tannenbaum, Program Assistant | Posted on: April 18, 2013 at 02:06 pm

When applying to college several years ago, I was privileged to be able to consider women’s colleges without being concerned that my gender identity would present any problem in the application process. This is because I am cisgender – a term used for people who have a gender identity that “matches” the sex they were assigned at birth. For transgender applicants like Calliope Wong, things were more complicated.

Calliope, who identifies as a transgender woman, applied with high hopes to Smith College, a women’s college in Massachusetts. Her application was returned to her, unreviewed, with a letter from the admissions office that because her federal financial aid paperwork indicated her sex as male, they could not accept her application.

When I think about Calliope, I also think about how much we need the Student Non-Discrimination Act (SNDA), a bill that was reintroduced today in the House of Representatives.

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NWLC Joins Title IX Lawsuit Regarding Sexual Assault and Harassment

Posted by Devi Rao, Fellow | Posted on: April 18, 2013 at 11:38 am

Today, NWLC, with the Michigan law firm Smietanka, Buckleitner, Steffes and Gezon, filed a Title IX lawsuit in federal court against the Forest Hills School District outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan. We represent a high school student—we call her Jane Doe to protect her privacy—who was sexually assaulted on campus by a fellow student and star basketball player.

Jane was brave enough to tell a teacher what happened, and that teacher told the school principal. But when the principal met with Jane and her parents he discouraged her from filing a police report and implied that she’d jeopardize her assailant’s changes of getting recruited by Division 1 schools (!!!).

Jane reported her assault to the police anyway, and they opened an investigation. Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex-based harassment, including sexual assault, in federally-funded education programs, requires schools to investigate and respond to allegations of sexual assault.

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Blow to Low Wage Women Workers: Genesis Healthcare Corp v. Symczyk and the Fair Labor Standards Act

Posted by Cortelyou Kenney, Fellow | Posted on: April 18, 2013 at 09:16 am

On Tuesday, in Genesis Healthcare Corp v. Symczyk, the Supreme Court struck a blow to collective actions under the Fair Labors Standards Act (“FLSA”). In a 5-4 decision, the Court held that courts lack jurisdiction to hear collective action cases if the named plaintiff’s (or plaintiffs’) own claims are “moot.” Under the FLSA, collective actions are similar to class actions in that they allow plaintiffs to sue on behalf other unnamed, but similarly situated, individuals, but collective actions do not require many of the stringent limitations imposed on class actions (such as numerosity or typicality of claims). The Supreme Court’s decision means that if the named plaintiff no longer has a “personal stake” in the case and no other individuals have yet joined the case, no relief is available to the group and the case must end, even though the named plaintiff’s complaint sought damages for a group and not solely for herself.

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MO Attorney General Won’t Appeal Ruling Striking Down an Exemption to the Contraceptive Coverage Requirement

Posted by Kelli Garcia, Senior Counsel | Posted on: April 17, 2013 at 10:41 am

Score one for sanity! Last Thursday, the Missouri Attorney General announced that he will not appeal a federal court ruling that struck down a Missouri law that would have required insurance issuers to issue polices without contraceptive coverage to employers who claim that birth control violates their “moral, ethical or religious beliefs.”

The law directly conflicted with the federal health care law’s contraceptive coverage requirement, which requires all new health insurance plans to cover contraceptives with no co-pay. In his announcement, the Attorney General aptly stated, “the attempt to deny contraceptive coverage to women in Missouri is just plain foolishness” and “cannot be supported by case law or sound policy.”

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Most People Want States to Take Federal Money to Cover More Uninsured People through Medicaid

Posted by Andrea Maruniak, Media Manager | Posted on: April 16, 2013 at 11:07 am

Cross-posted from the Daily Kos.

Across the country, states continue to debate and negotiate whether they will accept federal money to cover more uninsured people through Medicaid. But nearly two out of three people have already made up their minds that lawmakers should take this unprecedented opportunity to cover more people, according to a new survey sponsored by the National Women’s Law Center and Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families.

The new health care law known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) allocates money for each state to cover more uninsured people through Medicaid. It’s a great deal for states, since these federal dollars will cover 100% of costs in the first few years and will ultimately pay for 90% of the yearly costs of this coverage. But because last year’s Supreme Court decision made accepting these funds optional, in states that choose to turn down the money, some people will earn too little to qualify for tax credits to purchase coverage in the new health insurance marketplace, yet won’t be able to obtain coverage through Medicaid. In other words, these people will fall into a “coverage gap” and will get no help toward affording health coverage, while some people who make more money will still get help.

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Who Pays on Tax Day?

Posted by Julie Vogtman, Senior Counsel | Posted on: April 15, 2013 at 02:42 pm

In my first Tax Day blog post, I focused on one really unfair aspect of our tax code: the wealthiest Americans often benefit more from all sorts of deductions and exclusions than middle-income taxpayers do.

But the super-rich aren’t the only ones who might be getting a better deal from the tax code than you. If you paid even a dollar of federal income tax last year, you paid more than Facebook did. And more than FedEx. And more than Southwest Airlines. Every year, these and many other large, profitable corporations manage to take advantage of loopholes and special preferences in the tax code to avoid paying their fair share of taxes; in fact, these companies often end up with a big tax rebate. Today, Citizens for Tax Justice is calling out these tax dodgers, making the rounds in D.C. with a giant mobile billboard:

CTJ's mobile billboard

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What Do Extra Tax Breaks for the Rich Cost Women & Families? A Lot.

Posted by Julie Vogtman, Senior Counsel | Posted on: April 15, 2013 at 12:31 pm

Happy Tax Day, everyone! When it’s time to pay my taxes, I try hard to focus on all of the important programs and services those dollars support. (You can see exactly how your own federal income taxes are spent using this nifty Tax Receipt from the National Priorities Project.)

But I have to admit – I’m also thinking about the people who make a whole lot more money than I do and get a better deal from the tax code. The fact is, super-rich taxpayers currently benefit much more than ordinary taxpayers like me from many federal income tax deductions and exclusions. For example, for a wealthy taxpayer in the top tax bracket (39.6 percent) who pays $10,000 in mortgage interest, the mortgage interest deduction is worth $3,960. For a middle-income taxpayer in the 15 percent tax bracket who pays the same $10,000 in mortgage interest, the deduction is worth only $1,500.

It’s time for the richest Americans to pay their fair share

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Happy Tax Day!

Posted by Amy K. Matsui, Senior Counsel and Director of Women and the Courts | Posted on: April 15, 2013 at 11:19 am

This post is the ninth in a series of weekly posts containing tax information and filing tips. Check back next week for our next post, or click here to read past posts. 

So today is the deadline for filing your federal tax return (and most state returns). Although many people associate filing their taxes with feelings of confusion, stress, and general misery, tax time can also help give low- and moderate-income families a financial boost through federal tax credits like:

  • Earned Income Tax Credit, designed to supplement the wages of low- and moderate-income families (those who earned less than $50,270 in 2012). This credit is worth up to $5,891 and is available as a refund for families who owe little or no income tax.
  • Child Tax Credit, designed to help families offset some of the costs of raising children. This credit is worth up to $1,000 per child. Families who owe little or no income tax can receive some or all of this credit as a refund if they earned at least $3,000 in 2012.  
  • Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, designed to offset some of the child and dependent care costs that families incur in order to work. This credit is worth up to $2,100, though the amount that can be claimed is limited by the amount a family pays in federal income taxes.

And many states offer their own versions of these credits.

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