Department of Justice

Having a smartphone with GPS is great, right? We can map directions, find the best places to eat in the area, and have a car come pick us up wherever we are. But it can also be scary and dangerous:

• A man in Arizona stalked his wife by tracking her cellphone, and murdered their two children, before shooting himself.
• A Texas woman packed up her car and drove to a friend’s house after her husband assaulted her, only to have him secretly track her through her phone’s GPS and show up, assault her again, and take the car.
• Near Seattle, a mechanic tracked his wife’s cellphone, found her at a store with another man, and shot and killed their five children and then himself.

Technology that allows a third party to monitor a smartphone user’s location is frighteningly prevalent. In December 2010, an investigation by the Wall Street Journal revealed that of the 101 top smartphone apps, nearly half (47) disclosed a user’s location to third parties, typically without the user’s consent. Many of these are “stalking apps,” which are used to stalk and harass women. Read more »

Yesterday the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Allentown, Pennsylvania School District filed a proposed consent decree to resolve multiple complaints of peer-on-peer sexual assault at Central Elementary School. Specifically, a number of individual plaintiffs alleged that six- and seven-year-old students were sexually assaulted by another student in the boys’ bathroom at Central Elementary School during the 2003-04 school year.

The students alleged violations of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which bans sex discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. Sexual harassment, including sexual assault, is a type of sex discrimination.

DOJ intervened in a private lawsuit filed by student victims against the district, and conducted an investigation into the claims. DOJ found that sexual assaults had occurred on at least five separate occasions; the district was told of each incident immediately after it occurred, but failed to take appropriate action (and in some circumstances took no action) to prevent further assaults from occurring. Read more »

The benefits of racial integration have been demonstrated time and again. At the National Women’s Law Center, we believe that racial integration is not only essential for equality of opportunity and elimination of stereotypes on the basis of race, but that integration benefits women by undermining powerful gender stereotypes.

Unfortunately, as Education Secretary Arne Duncan noted last week, “Racial isolation remains far too common in America’s classrooms today and it is increasing. This denies our children the experiences they need to succeed in a global economy, where employers, coworkers, and customers will be increasingly diverse. It also breeds inequity, which is inconsistent with America’s core values.”

Which is why we were excited that on Friday, the Department of Justice and the Department of Education released joint guidance for how K-12 schools, colleges, and universities can voluntarily consider race to achieve diversity and avoid racial isolation. The guidance is meant to clarify three earlier Supreme Court decisions related to diversity in school (Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger). The new guidance nullifies two earlier guidance letters from 2008 that incorrectly described those court decisions and discouraged school districts from making efforts to diversify their student populations. Read more »