• Boy Scouts on edge as they await decision on gays

    Jacquelyn Martin / AP

    Pascal Tessier, 16, center left, a Scout, and his brother Lucien Tessier, 20, who had earned the rank of Eagle Scout, pose for a portrait with their parents, Oliver Tessier, left, and Tracie Felker, at their home in Kensington, Maryland, on Monday. The two Tessier boys enjoyed Cub Scouts, progressed to Boy Scouts, and continued to thrive there even as many in their troop became aware that each boy was gay.

    By Miranda Leitsinger, Staff Writer, NBC News

    Published at 4:45 a.m. ET: Special prayers have been urged, petitions handed in, phone calls placed and pleas for a delay made, all over a decision on an issue that has rocked one of America’s most popular youth organizations: whether or not gays can join the Boy Scouts.

    A decision by national Scout leaders is expected Wednesday. Some fear an unwanted new era, while others are welcoming what they believe is an overdue change that comes amid other recent gains for the LGBT rights movement nationwide.

    President Barack Obama has twice weighed in on the issue, earlier this week affirming his support for including gays in the Boy Scouts of America, while former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has called for an end to what he labelled the “war on Scouts.”

    “The Boy Scouts are a fundamental part of this nation’s moral bedrock and they are one of our great cultural institutions. We have trusted them to grow and develop our young men for over a century,” Zach Wahls, an Eagle Scout and son of a lesbian couple campaigning for gays to be included, said Tuesday. “They’re a big deal, and that is why this proposed change is so critically important.”

    Advocates on both sides of the issue have stepped up their campaigns ahead of the BSA's final decision: They’ve encouraged their backers to make their voices heard through a phone-in and email deluge. A conservative group, the Family Research Council, said that it and 41 other groups ran a newspaper ad on Monday asking the BSA not to change the policy, and some conservative religious groups have urged their supporters to join in prayer to ask the board not to accept gays.

    Related: 'Gravely distressed': Religion looms large over Boy Scouts decision on gays 

    John Makely / NBC News file

    Ryan Andresen had recently completed the requirements to earning his Eagle Scout award, including his final project of building a "tolerance wall" for victims of bullying like himself, but his Scoutmaster would not sign off on honoring him with the Boy Scouts' highest ranking because he is gay, his mother said. Here, Ryan holds an Eagle Scout pin that was sent to him from a supporter.

    A coalition of Boy Scouts councils representing some 540,000 youth -- or 20 percent of the organization’s 2.6 million active Scouts -- asked the national organization on Monday to delay a decision on ending the controversial policy, saying it was concerned “about the pace at which such actions are being taken,” according to a statement posted on the website of the Utah-based Great Salt Lake Council.   

    Roger “Sing” Oldham, spokesman for the conservative Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, said the outpouring of feedback on the issue came as no surprise to him since his group felt the BSA had not allowed opponents of the change to weigh in on the proposal, which was announced just a little more than one week ago and was being reviewed by national leaders.

    Oldham said he had spoken with some troop leaders, pastors and parents who have expressed concern about the way forward if gays are allowed, particularly those units that will try to maintain the ban locally as would be permitted under the proposal. For more than two-thirds of Scouting groups affiliated with religious bodies, faith plays a large role in the private youth organization.

    “When local chapters begin realizing the financial liability that they face if they exercise the local option then … they’re going to have to say we either fall into step or we have just to end the relationship,” he said. “There’ll be attrition over time and, you know, the Scouts will have permanently altered the face of who they are into the future.”

    'Feeling of shame'
    Some have said they will even leave the organization over the issue.

    Angela Russell, who has an 11-year-old in the Boy Scouts and a 9-year-old in the Cub Scouts, said that if the BSA allows gays, particularly as leaders, they would be “breaking their own highly held codes to be ‘morally straight’ and to commit to such principles via oaths and promises.”

    If the ban is lifted, “I must remove my boys from this program. My heart truly aches to think of it,” Russell, of Auburn, Wash., wrote in a letter she emailed to NBC News. “However, to leave them in a program that goes against its own teachings would be worse.”

    But another mother, of a Boy Scout and two Cub Scouts, said she had “been torn for years” over the policy since her own mother is a lesbian and allowing gays would be a relief.

    “I am very happy about the things my children have learned and the tools they have been given from the program,” Gina Beaudry, 37, of Raleigh, N.C., who will be the Cub Scoutmaster for her sons pack this year, wrote in an email to NBC News. 

    “To have this ban lifted would take away some of the feeling of shame I feel for the organization that has been so beneficial to my children. I would hate to see any child or parent not feel like they were welcome in the program.”

    Related: After years of heartache, gay Scouts and supporters react warily over proposal to lift ban

    The proposed policy change comes just seven months after the BSA said it was sticking with its ban following a confidential two-year review.

    That review was announced months after Jennifer Tyrrell was dismissed from her post as leader of her son’s Tiger Cubs den because she is a lesbian, and a few months before California teen Ryan Andresen was denied his Eagle award because he is gay.

    Both cases made national headlines, roiling the private youth organization. Some critics pointed to declining membership numbers as a sign that families were being turned off over the issue. The controversy also prompted a few hundred Eagle Scouts to turn in their hard-earned regalia in protest of the ban, which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in 2000.

    Wahls believes the Boy Scouts will lift the exclusion of gays and rejects the idea it will cause any “mass exodus.”

    “We don’t think that that’s going to be a problem at all and think that this move will definitely bolster Scouting for future generations,” he said, later adding, “Our generation has embraced LGBT rights, and like all things, Scouting should not be playing catch up, it should be blazing the trail.”

    Related: 

    Gay teen denied Eagle Scout: 'Change is happening' over Boy Scouts anti-gay policy

    Eagle Scouts return badges to protest policy banning gays

    Boy Scouts: We're keeping policy banning gays 

    If you are a current or former member of the Boy Scouts and would like to share your thoughts on how your troop, pack or council is handling the possibility of a change in the membership policy, you can email the reporter at miranda.leitsinger@msnbc.com. We may use some comments for a follow-up story, so please specify if your remarks can be used and provide your name, hometown, age, Boy Scout affiliation and a phone number.

  • Rhode Island school bans father-daughter dances, says they break the law

    Following a complaint filed by the ACLU, school officials in Cranston, R.I. have ended gender specific activities like father-daughter dances and mother-son ballgames to comply with state gender discrimination laws. WJAR's Katie Davis reports.

     

    By NBC News staff

    The school system in Cranston, R.I., announced it is banning traditional father-daughter and mother-son activities, saying they are a violation of the state's gender discrimination law, the Providence Journal reported late Monday.


    Superintendent Judith Lundsten told the newspaper the decision was in response to a complaint from the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of a single mother who said her daughter was not able to attend a father-daughter dance.

    “This is 2012 and they [public schools] should not be in the business of fostering blatant gender stereotypes,” Steven Brown of the Rhode Island ACLU told WPRO News.

    According to the Providence Journal, Lundsten said that while federal law banning gender discrimination gives an exemption for such gender-specific events, Rhode Island law does not.

    In a letter sent out in August, Lundsten says, “I acknowledge that many of these events have long traditions and for many parents, these types of gender-based events are not an issue, however, this is a public school system and under no circumstances should we be isolating any student from full participation in school activities and events based on gender," according to WPRO.

    Sean Gately, a Republican state Senate candidate, brought the ban to light Monday, adding that, if elected, he would work to change the state law, the newspaper reported.

    According to The Associated Press, School Committee member Janice Ruggieri said the school system can begin hosting "family dances" to accommodate all kinds of parenting situations.

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  • Air Force rules limit size of tattoos, role of gospel

    Reuters file

    U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz at the Pentagon, who recently retired. Schwartz was criticized by both sides for his handling of religion in the military.

    By Kari Huus, NBC News

    Just days before retiring as Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Gen. Norton Schwartz issued a document designed to dictate the conduct of U.S. airmen worldwide — all violations enforceable by military law. For the first time, amid regulations on tattoo size and flag handling etiquette, it laid down the law on religious proselytizing by leaders: Don’t do it.

    Section 2.11 of the 27-page Air Force Instruction AFI 1-1 Standards of Conduct is the latest salvo in a battle over religious bias and Christian proselytizing in the military branch. It calls on officers and supervisors to "avoid the actual or apparent use of their position to promote their personal religious beliefs to their subordinates or to extend preferential treatment for any religion." 


    The document's section on religion echoes a memo Schwartz sent out to all Air Force leadership on religion last September, but adds the threat of penalty for violations.

    "COMPLIANCE WITH THIS PUBLICATION IS MANDATORY," the memo says in bold, adding that "failure to adhere to the standards set out in this instruction can form the basis for adverse action under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)."

    "It carries a lot of weight inasmuch as it’s careful to point out that an individual who violates it can be subject to court martial," said Gary Solis, who teaches military law at Georgetown University. "So the things that are covered in the document, which are very wide ranging, open up violations to court martial prosecution, that is federal conviction should there be a conviction. So it carries significant weight."

    What is harder to predict is how AFI 1-1 — called by an Air Force Press release "the capstone act" of Schwartz’s 29-year career — will be interpreted, distributed and enforced where it applies to religion.

    "It certainly is important and binding ... and it could lead to punishment. But then it could lead to punishment if you wear your hat backwards," said Elizabeth Hillman, professor of law at University of California Hastings College of Law and President of the National Institute of Military Justice. "It is still going to be up to individual commanding officers to decide what’s OK and what’s not. They have a great deal of discretion."

    As in U.S. public institutions more broadly, there has been a long string of battles between those in the military who want to root out religious content and others, mainly fundamentalist Christians, who argue that to do so impinges on religious freedom.

    Related: Outrage, calls for action over anti-Muslim materials in military training
    Related: Marine werewolves transform into Crusaders, and back again

    The conflicts have arisen over military leadership promoting Christian religious meetings through official channels, military courses incorporating Biblical material in coursework, officers trying to convert non-Christians and allegedly favoring "born again" Christians and using Christian doctrine and imagery in logos and official military materials and Christian prayer in official events.

    The military has been sued for using Christian doctrine to recruit new members, and pressured to change logos and review course materials that incorporate Christian doctrine, and more recently, those that are anti-Islam.

    In 2006, after complaints by non-Christians that they were being pressured by evangelicals to convert, the Air Force issued guidelines cautioning superiors from pressing their personal religious views on subordinates. But months later they eased the guidelines after Christian conservatives argued that the guidelines restricted freedom of religion.

    In Aug. 2011, in a victory for trying to extricate religion from military business, the Air Force suspended a course called “Christian Just War Theory” — which had been required for missile officers at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The PowerPoint for the class drew heavily upon Bible passages and Christian imagery to teach morals and ethics of launching nuclear weapons. In the class students were taught based on a passage in the Book of Revelations that Jesus Christ is a "mighty warrior" who believed some wars to be just, according to Truthout.com which broke the story.

    Military Religious Freedom Foundation

    A public billboard in Colorado Springs contains the entirety of U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Norton Schwartz's Sept. 1, 2011 directive on religious neutrality. The billboard was put up by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation to assure that it was widely disseminated.

    Shortly after this revelation, Schwartz issued a memo using language almost identical to that used in AFI 1-1 calling on all Air Force leaders to "avoid the actual or apparent use of their position to promote their personal religious beliefs to their subordinates or to extend preferential treatment for any religion."

    He went on to say that opportunities for worship, religious studies and prayer meetings can be promoted by chaplains, but not by commanders. And he instructed those who felt they were facing unfair bias on the basis of religion to contact a military attorney.

    Political blowback
    In response to the memo, and other moves, 66 members of Congress led by Randy Forbes, president of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, wrote a letter of protest to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta blaming Schwartz for an "alarming pattern of attacks on faith in the Air Force."

    "We believe this statement exemplifies the troubling 'complete separation' approach that is creating a chilling effect down the chain of command as airmen attempt to comply," it said, according to a report in Air Force Times.

    For those who advocate a "complete separation" of church and state, the Schwartz memo would have been a victory, except that some commanders refused to disseminate the memo, according to Mikey Weinstein, founder of the nonprofit Military Religious Freedom Foundation. 

    That omission prompted MRFF to receive "a literal torrent of complaints" from military members who Weinstein says are afraid to directly confront the pervasive Christian culture in the Air Force.

    The organization invested in a large billboard down the street from the academy containing the text of the entire memo.

    As for dissemination of AFI 1-1, the Air Force has a plan "to ensure all Air Force personnel have access to this Instruction," said Air Force spokesman Capt. Derek White.

    White did not have the Aug. 7 instruction before speaking to NBC News on Aug. 20. 

    Forbes of the Congressional Prayer Caucus did not respond to a request for comment on the new regulations.

    For Weinstein, it remains to be seen if AFI 1-1 marks a move in the right direction — and it depends on distribution and enforcement.

    "It looks very nice," he said. "The problem is if you create a mandate that is complied with more frequently in the breech than in the conformance you create a problem 100 times worse than if you had not created the mandate in the first place ... It is looked at with scorn and derision."

    Weinstein, who has been involved in dozens of battles to extricate religious materials from military settings, recently lambasted Schwartz for his "scandalously non-confrontational approach to the Christian extremist predators" in the Air Force.

    "It was a transparent and likely guilt-ridden concession by Schwartz, yet it was both too little and too late," Weinstein wrote in an op-ed article. "With Schwartz’s butt-covering, last second, 'midnight drive-by' delivery of AFI 1-1, we have no alternative left but to look to the new USAF Chief of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, to show the all-too-rare backbone once required of all top leaders within the U.S. Military."

    Eugene R. Fidell, who teaches military law at Yale Law School, said  the document could make a difference in Air Force culture.

    "It’s one thing for a Chief of Staff of the Air Force to issue a letter that goes around," said Fidell. "It is another to put it in permanent form so the next chief won’t take a different approach. I think for him to have done what he did ... I think it was appropriate and gutsy."

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  • Philadelphia swim club discrimination case settled

    By Lauren DiSanto, NBCPhiladelphia.com

    The Justice Department announced a settlement agreement Thursday in a Philadelphia-area racial discrimination case dating back to June 2009.


    During that summer, Creative Steps Day Camp of Northeast Philadelphia paid The Valley Swim Club in Huntingdon Valley for pool access for summer campers. After their first day of swimming, the camp's money was refunded and campers were told not to return.

    Several campers claimed they heard pool members making racial comments while they were at the club.

    The settlement agreement for $1.1 million is to be split among the 73 African-Americans involved in the case.

    See the original story at NBCPhiladelphia.com | More from NBCPhiladelphia.com

    At the time, Valley Swim Club officials said race had nothing to do with it and that there were too many children for the lifeguards on duty.

    nbcphiladelphia.com

    The former Valley Swim Club in Huntingdon Valley, Penn.

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    The Justice Department spent months investigating along with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission and found it was racial hostility that prompted club members to ban the African-American children from the pool.

    The Valley Swim Club filed for bankruptcy in November 2009. It was sold in June 2010 for $1.46 million.

    According to the settlement, $65,000 will be set aside from the proceeds of the property sale to create a diversity leadership council between members of Creative Steps Day Camp and former Valley Club members. The council will work together to provide activities between the groups to include swimming, field trips and camps.

    The settlement agreement is awaiting approval from the Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. It's already been approved by a District Court judge.

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    “This settlement provides significant opportunity to children who were denied an opportunity based on their skin color,” said JoAnn Edwards, executive director of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, in a release issued Thursday. “Our hope is that this case serves as prevention for years to come and a reminder that discrimination is illegal and has no place in Pennsylvania.”

     

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  • Muslim woman sues Disney over wearing hijab at work

     

    Jae C. Hong / AP file

    Imane Boudlal, right, covers her face as she leaves Disney's Grand Californian Hotel with civil rights coordinator for the Council on American Islamic Relations Affad Shaikh, left, in Anaheim, Calif. on Aug. 18, 2010.

    By Kari Huus, NBC News

    Updated at 8 p.m. ET: A former Disney employee on Monday sued the California-based entertainment giant, charging harassment and religious discrimination against her based on her Muslim religion and ethnic origins in North Africa.

    A Disney spokesman said the company tried to accommodate the religious beliefs of Imane Boudlal, but that the restaurant hostess rejected their efforts at compromise and quit coming to work. 

    Boudlal, a 28-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen from Morocco, started working at the Storytellers Café, a restaurant at the Grand Californian Hotel and Spa in the Disneyland Resort, in April of 2008. She alleges in a lawsuit filed in federal court that management failed to address persistent racial and religious harassment from fellow workers and that it refused to accommodate her wish to wear a traditional Muslim headscarf or "hijab" at work, a dispute that ultimately led to her departure in 2010.


    "Disneyland calls itself the happiest place on Earth, but I faced harassment as soon as I started working there," said Boudlal in the complaint filed in California Central District Court in Los Angeles. "It only got worse when I decided to wear a hijab. My journey towards wearing it couldn’t have been more American; it began at my naturalization ceremony. I realized that I had the freedom to be who I want and freely practice my religion."

    In Islam, the hijab is an expression of a commitment to modesty and virtue by women, and those who choose to wear it typically do so at all times outside the home.

    Boudlal worked as a hostess in the Disney restaurant — greeting and seating patrons.

    Like other front-line employees and Disney cast members, she wore a uniform specifically designed for that position at Disney — in this case a long sleeved white shirt and western-style vest that are intended to evoke America at the turn of the 19th century.

    Disney

    Illustration of a head covering in lieu of a hijab that Disney representatives say was proposed to go with the Boudlal's uniform at Storytellers Cafe, a restaurant at its Grand Californian Hotel and Spa.

    In 2010, after two years working at the restaurant, she requested permission to also wear her headscarf, a function of her growing religious conviction.

    However, managers argued that the headscarf violated the restaurant's "look" policy, and could negatively affect the experience of diners, according to the complaint, drafted with the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

    Suzi Brown, director of media relations for Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, released a statement on the allegations:  

    "Walt Disney Parks and Resorts has a history of accommodating religious requests from cast members of all faiths.  We presented Ms. Boudlal with multiple options to accommodate her religious beliefs, as well as offered her several roles that would have allowed her to wear her own hijab.  Unfortunately, she rejected all of our efforts and has since refused to come to work."

    The lawsuit alleges that her managers did not address her complaints of harassment by other employees, who she says taunted her with names including "camel," "terrorist" and "Kunta Kinte," a reference to the slave in the 1976 book "Roots," by Alex Haley, that later became a television miniseries.

    "In fact, the 'look' policy was loosely enforced in the restaurant, withseveral employees sporting tattoos, jewelry or hairstyles in violation. Christian employees were allowed to work with marked foreheads on Ash Wednesday, in spite of the fact that this, too, goes against the stated policy," the complaint says.

    Boudlal said Disney refused her efforts to compromise, such as offering to wear a scarf to match the work uniform.

    Among the proposals that Disney made were several different specially designed headcoverings for Boudlal.

    Disney's Brown sent an image of one of these proposed garments — which she said was the third effort to meet the employee's religious needs and the company's 'look' policy before Boudlal "refused to come to work."

    The other option for Boudlal was to work in behind-the-scenes positions, out of sight of diners.

    Boudlal refused these options, considering them unfair and humiliating, according to the complaint.

    "This is modern day Jim Crow," said Anne Richardson, a Los Angeles attorney who represents Boudlal. "Muslims who want to express their religion by wearing a headscarf have to work in the back, out of sight."

    Watch the most-viewed videos on NBCNews.com

    Speaking to NBC News by phone on Monday, Boudlal said that after leaving Disney she was fired from another job after her manager learned of her dispute with Anaheim-based Disney through an Internet search.

    Thus, she has suffered loss of income, as well as depression and anxiety, said ACLU-SC attorney Mark Rosenbaum in the complaint calling for a jury trial.  

    "There has been real emotional suffering here," he said Monday. Rosenbaum declined to specify damages sought on Boudlal’s behalf.

    In addition, Rosenbaum said the suit aims to force a change in Disney’s policies.

    "You never see anyone working there wear a hijab," he said. "We want those practices changed, and want training for employees and managers. It’s about getting Disney to change its policies and practices."

    In a separate case in 2010, American Muslim Noor Abdullah was told she could not wear the hijab while working as a vacation planner at a Disney Resort Esplanade ticket booth, and she declined to take a job out of view of the public where the hijab was allowed, according to a report by NBC San Diego.

    Ultimately, Disney worked with Abdullah to create a head covering that met her religious needs and the requirements of the public position, the report said.

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  • Baptist leader: Decision not to wed black couple must be a learning experience

    Handout / Reuters

    The Rev. Fred Luter, head of the Southern Baptist Convention, said a Mississippi pastor's decision to cancel an African-American couple's wedding ceremony was "unfortunate," but a situation that all pastors can learn from.

    By Louis Casiano, NBC News, NBC News

    The leader and first African-American president of the Southern Baptist Convention said Monday that a Mississippi church's decision to not marry a black couple "is unfortunate" and "an isolated incident from which pastors can learn."


    The Rev. Fred Luter told the Baptist Press, the official newspaper of the SBC, the church's decision should be not be seen as representing the church's position. 

    "It's unfortunate that it happened, but we've got to learn from it, and be able to go on and do what God has called us to do," Luter told the BP.

    The First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs, Miss., made headlines last week when its pastor, Stan Weatherford, told Charles and Te'Andrea Wilson one day prior to their wedding that he could not perform the ceremony at the church. 

     

    Couple say Mississippi church blocked wedding because they are black

    Weatherford said a small minority of the congregation had spoken out against the marriage being performed at the church because it involved black people. He married the couple at a nearby church instead. 

    "The church congregation had decided no black could be married at that church, and that if he went on to marry her, then they would vote him out the church," Charles Wilson told a local news station.

    The Wilsons attended the church regularly but were not members.

    "What we can learn from it is that we need to talk to our membership about issues," Luter said in the interview published Monday. "I think if the pastor would have talked to more members about this … when this situation occurred … it probably would not have happened the way it happened." 

    The paper reported most of the churchmembers did not share the sentiments of the few who objected to the Wilsons' nuptials. 

    The SBC has come out against the church's decision and affirmed that racism is against God's will, according to the Baptist faith. 

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    "The convention's position on race relations is clear: 'In the Spirit of Christ, Christians should oppose racism,'" Roger S. Oldham, a church spokesman, told the Press. 

    Luter, a pastor himself, said he felt sympathy for Weatherford. 

    "I felt for the pastor because being a pastor myself, I know how awkward situations like that can be, whereby you have a handful of folks who have influence and will cause issues that the other folks are not aware of."

     

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  • Same-sex couples sue over adoption rights in North Carolina

    By Miranda Leitsinger, Staff Writer, NBC News

    Same-sex couples in North Carolina have filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s ban on second-parent adoptions for gay families, saying it violates their constitutional rights and is discriminatory, the American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday.

    The ban came out of a state supreme court ruling in December 2010 that only stepparents who are legal spouses of the child’s biological parent can adopt. Same-sex marriage has never been recognized in North Carolina, and in May, voters approved a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman, so there is no way for same-sex couples to become legal spouses.

    The ACLU, along with its North Carolina chapter, filed the lawsuit on behalf of six same-sex couples and their children. In each of the families, the child has a legally-recognized relationship with one parent and wants to establish the same with the second one. But under the state court ruling, the existing legal parent would have to give up their parental rights for an adoption to occur.

    Consequently, the legal complaint argues, these children “suffer numerous deprivations,” including exclusion from a number of benefits, such as health, disability and social security, “as well as uncertainty about their ability to continue their relationship with their second parent if something should happen to their legal parent.”

    Elizabeth Gill, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project, said in a statement that the policy was “discriminatory” and didn’t “take into account what’s best for a child.”

    “We don’t ever want there to be any question as to who should care for our children,” said Marcie Fisher-Borne, who has been with her partner, Chantelle, for 15 years. Each woman carried one of their two children. “If something were to happen to either one of us, it could tear our family apart.”


    Twenty states and the District of Columbia allow gay and lesbian parents to obtain second parent or stepparent adoptions, the complaint said, noting that North Carolina courts have given joint custody to gay or lesbian second parents under a “de facto parent doctrine.” However, that status does not create a “full” parent-child relationship, the complaint said.

    Named as defendants are John W. Smith, director of the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts, David L. Churchill, Clerk of the Superior Court for Guilford County, and Archie L. Smith, clerk of the Superior Court for Durham County.

    Churchill and Archie L. Smith did not return calls placed by msnbc.com seeking comment. The North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts said it does not comment on any matters where litigation is pending.

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  • Arizona grandfather accuses Barnes & Noble of gender bias

    Omar Amin

    Omar Amin

    By Sevil Omer, NBC News

    Updated at 5:55 p.m. ET: An Arizona grandfather says Barnes & Noble discriminated against him and forced him out of a Scottsdale store because he was a male customer sitting alone in the children’s section.

    Omar Amin of Scottsdale said he’s still outraged over the May 4 incident and is demanding an apology from the national book retailer. He said he is considering legal action.

    On Monday afternoon, Barnes & Noble issued an apology. “We want to apologize to Dr. Amin for a situation in which Dr. Amin was asked to leave the children’s section of our Scottsdale, Arizona store," Mark Bottini, vice president, director of stores for Barnes & Noble, said in an email. "We should not have done so. It is not our policy to ask customers to leave any section of our stores without justification. We value Dr. Amin as a customer and look forward to welcoming him in any of our stores.”

    Amin, 73, said he was ousted from the book store after a woman shopper complained to a staff employee, saying she felt uneasy about his presence in the children’s area.


    "I did not break any rules,” Amin told msnbc.com on Monday. “There was no sign posted that said men are not allowed in the children's book area."

    Amin said he had been looking for books to buy for his two grandchildren, ages 7 and 5, when his cell phone rang. He said he sat on the floor by the windows and spoke quietly to a friend, he said.

    Amin said a store employee interrupted his call and said he needed to leave the store.

    Arizona's public-accommodations law prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender, according to Arizona State University law professor Charles Calleros.

    Calleros told the Arizona Republic that if women without children are allowed to shop in the children's section, "then we arguably have gender discrimination.”

    Amin, the director of Parasitology Center Inc. in Scottsdale and an expert in infectious disease, had written a complaint to Barnes & Noble.

    “It's not enough. I want my honor restored,” Amin told msnbc.com. “I want to walk back into the store with my head held up high. I did not break any rules. My pride has been scratched.”

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  • Too hot to work at a lingerie shop?

    Brendan Mcdermid / Reuters

    Lauren Odes and her attorney Gloria Allred (R) speak at a news conference in New York, May 21, 2012. Odes is suing her former employer, claiming she was dismissed for dressing too provocatively.

    By Eve Tahmincioglu

    The website for a Manhattan lingerie boutique called Native Intimates has a photograph of a well-endowed woman pushing her breasts together. So, it’s odd that an employee of the shop is claiming she was fired for being “too hot.”

    But that’s exactly what Lauren Odes is alleging.

    “When I was first told that I was ‘too hot’ and that my breasts were too large I was shocked,” said Odes in a statement released Tuesday. Her sexy appearance, she said, got her a pink slip from an employer who sells intimate apparel much sexier than your basic slips.

    Not surprisingly her story is getting a lot of media attention thanks in part to the celebrity lawyer representing her, Gloria Allred, who held a press conference Monday about the allegations. Allred has taken on many high profile and controversial discrimination cases in her day, including the case of a banker who claimed in 2010 she was fired for being too sexy.

    In Odes’ case, however, the work environment would seem a bit more conducive to a little cleavage.

    Odes began working for Native Intimates on April 24 handling data entry and shipping tasks, but by May 1 she was out of a job. She alleges her supervisors told her that her choice of clothing was disliked by the company’s owner, an Orthodox Jew.

    In a statement, Allred said a complaint has been filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in New York claiming Odes “was simply fired for being attractive and for not conforming to the religious strictures imposed by top management, apparently for having female body parts, despite having ably performed her professional duties.”

    A woman reached by phone at Native Intimates would only say: “We’re not interested in giving a comment.”

    A spokeswoman for the EEOC would not comment on the complaint.

    Odes is alleging two types of discrimination: one based on gender and another based on religion.

    Being too hot is not a protected category under the nation’s labor laws, but being terminated because you’re a woman or for religious bias is a legal no-no.

    It’s unclear exactly why Odes was fired, but what is clear is employers have a lot of latitude in restricting what their employees can wear.

    “All companies, regardless of whether they’re selling lingerie or whatever, are permitted to have and enforce dress codes that an owner sees as appropriate,” said Keisha-Ann G. Gray, an employment attorney for Proskauer, a law firm that represents employers. “They are permitted to require their employee to dress conservatively,” she noted, if it’s applied equally among workers of different genders, religions, and races.

    Odes said she asked about a dress code when she was hired. She said she was told to look around and see what everyone else was wearing. "The dress varied from very casual athletic wear to business dress,” she said.

    She also claimed she was wearing “very covered up attire” but it was her body that was the target of her employer’s disdain. She said that at one point a female employee suggested that she consider taping down her breasts.

    Women are often held to a double standard at work when it comes to their appearance, said Anne York, associate professor of economics at Meredith College’s School of Business in Raleigh, N.C.

    While a supervisor may have thought she might turn off customers, she said, a well-endowed woman would seem like the perfect fit for a lingerie business. 

    Parking spaces in New York City can be hard to come by, as evidenced by the 12 by 23-foot spot in Greenwich Village currently on sale for a cool million.

  • White firefighters awarded $2.5 million in discrimination case

    By Elizabeth Chuck, Staff Writer, NBC News

    Twelve white firefighters who sued after not getting promotions they were in line to get have been awarded a total of more than $2.5 million from the city of Buffalo.

    The men sued the city in 2007, claiming the fire department illegally allowed promotional lists with their names on them to expire so they could promote African-American firefighters instead.

    The firefighters' awards were based on how far their promotions would have taken them - $49,000 to $500,000 - plus emotional damages, which ranged from $20,000 to $30,000, reported NBC affiliate WGRZ.com.

    "The two fellows who are getting the most were selected for promotion to lieutenant in the fall of 2005 by the fire commissioner, and then again around the end of January 2006 by a new fire commissioner. Those two fellows have never made it to lieutenant," an attorney representing the plaintiffs, Andrew Fleming, told msnbc.com on Thursday. "They had been working 10 or 12 years by 2006. So the judge looked at what their prospective promotions would have been, and ruled that it was likely they would have made battalion commander."

    Those two were each given $500,000 based on the judge's calculations, he said.

    'They really felt betrayed'
    The compensation ruling was awarded on Tuesday by state Supreme Court Justice John Michalek, who 15 months ago made the initial ruling that Buffalo had illegally failed to promote the firefighters because of racial discrimination.

    In order to qualify for a promotion, a firefighter needs to take a promotional eligibility exam, which tests the skills they would need to serve as a lieutenant, captain, or other higher-ranking position in the department. The Buffalo case alleged that white firefighters had scored high enough on their exams, but were then denied promotions because the city wanted to give minorities, who hadn't scored as well, the chance to fill those positions.

    "The word that kept coming up was betrayal," Fleming said. "They really felt betrayed by the city."

    This isn't the first allegation of racial discrimination in the Buffalo Fire Department, or in fire departments around the country. According to a 2010 story on BuffaloNews.com, the department was sued in federal court over the fairness of the promotion exams before: A group of African-American Buffalo firefighters claimed that because only a handful of minorities had passed the tests, blacks did not have an equal shot at promotions as whites did in the department.

    A judge dismissed the suit, though, ruling that there was insufficient evident to prove the city intentionally engaged in discrimination against black firefighters.

    The awards this week came in a state court case.

    Reverse discrimination was also addressed in a lawsuit at a New Haven, Conn. Fire Department that made its way to the Supreme Court in June 2009. Similar to the Buffalo case, the court ruled that white firefighters were unfairly denied promotion because of their race, ruling in favor of the 20 white plaintiffs.

    13th firefighter got nothing
    In this week's ruling, a 13th firefighter listed in the suit, Anthony Hynes, was not awarded any damages because there wasn't enough evidence to support his claim, according to the court.

    "He was up for division chief, which is the highest rank you can get other than fire commissioner," Fleming told msnbc.com. "When he was passed over for it and another year had passed he realized he wasn't going to get it, he made the decision to retire."

    The judge likely excluded Hynes because he assumed there wouldn't have been an opening for division chief even if he hadn't retired, Fleming said.

    A spokesman for Buffalo told WGRZ.com that officials are reviewing the decision, and the city may appeal the ruling.

    Three firefighters in the case have since been injured on the job since the lawsuit was filed, but all of the others are still working for the department, Fleming told msnbc.com.

    "In some cases, they're working for people they should be in charge of. Seeing someone else wearing the captain's bars -- that's hard stuff," he said.

    'I cried at this one'
    The lawsuit describes emotional distress the men experienced over the past several years, citing sleeplessness, marital strain, and depression. The damages award was greeted with mixed emotions.

    "The fellow who didn't get any money, they all feel as though that was not fair," Fleming told msnbc.com. "Many of them had said they were very, very pleased with the result, but for many of them, they just simply say, you know what? This is not ever going to go away for me. One of them, he was on TV last night saying, 'I should be a captain; I'm only a lieutenant.'"

    "It's just bad stuff. It's just a sad case. I've never cried at a trial. I cried at this one," he added.

    Lawyers for the city said they disagreed with the judge's ruling on how much the firefighters should be paid.

    "The city, at all times, acted under its rights under federal law," Attorney Adam Perry told BuffaloNews.com. "The city has maintained its position that the liability determination made by Justice Michalek was erroneous and should be reversed on appeal."

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