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The Case For Action

07/01/2013 Nativegrl77


DAILY SNAPSHOT Friday, June 28, 2013

The Case For Action

This week, the President gave a major speech on climate change policy, hosted a roundtable discussion with business leaders, named a new director of the FBI, and welcomed the next class of Presidential Innovation Fellows.

Click here to watch the latest installment of “West Wing Week.”

Senate Votes to Reform Our Nation’s Immigration System

Yesterday, 68 members of the U.S. Senate, Republicans and Democrats, came together and voted to reform our nation’s immigration system.

After our visit to the Martin Luther King School, we boarded a ferry to Goree Island, a small island off Senegal’s coast. For roughly three hundred years until the mid-1840s, countless men, women and children from Africa were kidnapped from their homes and communities and brought to this island to be sold as slaves.

Today we mark another important achievement for equal rights, this time for over a million Americans — and over 340 million people worldwide — who are blind, visually impaired, or with other print disabilities.

Democrats are fighting for … You

07/01/2013 Nativegrl77

But Democrats across the country are as busy as ever:

Electing progressive leaders who will get the President's back

Taking historic steps to fight climate change

Working to fix our broken immigration system

And none of this could happen without your support, so thanks

Before tonight's deadline at midnight, please chip in to keep this work going

https://my.democrats.org/Deadline

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Lara S. Kaufmann, National Women’s Law Center

07/01/2013 Nativegrl77

We just had a major victory — and we hope you’ll help us celebrate!
As you know, pregnant and parenting students face a lot of challenges in school. Educational barriers and discrimination often make it hard for teen moms to succeed in school.
But this week, things are looking up.
The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights just released guidance for schools on Title IX and pregnant and parenting students, for the first time in 22 years. To get the word out, the Department is sending pamphlets explaining the guidance to thousands of school districts as well as colleges and universities across the country. The pamphlets help clarify what the law says when it comes to pregnant and parenting students — and that’s great news for teen girls.
But to be effective, the guidance has to be enforced. Please thank Secretary Duncan and remind him of the next important step for pregnant and parenting students — enforcement.
This Title IX guidance was sorely needed, and NWLC fought hard for it. We’ve been getting calls for years from young women who are being pushed out of school in violation of the law.
For example, some high school students in Georgia were told that they had to come back to school within a week of giving birth, or they’d be marked unexcused for any absences and wouldn’t be allowed to make up the work they’d missed. At the same school, pregnant and parenting students were prohibited from running for homecoming court and from being included in senior superlatives.
Sounds crazy, right? It’s 2013. Forty-one years after Title IX was passed, this shouldn’t be happening anymore. Not only should schools not be discriminating, but also there is a lot schools can and should do to support the success of pregnant and parenting students.
That’s another reason the guidance released this week is so important. It not only explains what schools have to do to follow the law — it suggests school strategies and program ideas to make a difference in the lives of young parents and their children.
Please join us in thanking Secretary Duncan for issuing this guidance and reminding him of the need for enforcement.
Thanks again for all of your hard work.
Sincerely,