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Iowa’s supreme court has unanimously granted legal recognition to same-sex marriages!
More cool details:
- The ruling will take effect on April 24, three weeks from today.
- Two of the justices behind the unanimous opinion were appointed by Republicans.
- The decision is based on the Iowa state constitution, so it cannot be appealed to any other court.
- It appears that the earliest the decision could be overturned by constitutional amendment is November 2012.
- Such an amendment would require approval by the Iowa state legislature prior to a popular referendum.
The majority leaders of both houses of the state legislature can be expected to oppose any effort to overturn the decision by constitutional amendment — they released a joint statement today hailing the ruling as an example of “Iowa common sense and Iowa common decency.”
It’s been a long, long time coming, but I know … a change is gonna come.
A big victory for students’ rights: a federal judge has blocked a Pennsylvania prosecutor’s plans to file child pornography charges against three teenage girls who stored suggestive photos of themselves on their cell phones.
Two of the three were wearing opaque bras in the photographs at issue, and the third was topless. None was engaging in sexual activity. The three were among twenty students in Pennsylvania’s Tunkhannock School District who were contacted by the prosecutor after school officials confiscated their cell phones, searched them, and found nude or revealing photos on them.
The prosecutor told the twenty students that they had a choice — they could sign up for an ongoing educational program on “what it means to be a girl in today’s society” and mandatory drug tests, or they could be charged with possession and distribution of child pornography, a felony.
Seventeen of the students signed up for the program. The other three sued. And yesterday a federal judge took their side.
The prosecutor, reached for comment yesterday, refused to say whether he would appeal the judge’s decision.
According to the Times of India, students at the Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University in Lucknow staged a march on campus yesterday to complain about one of their professors.
The marchers carried signs and chanted slogans accusing Kamal Jaiswal, head of the department of applied animal science, of sexual harassment, soliciting bribes, and “asking students to visit his place and work as his domestic help.”
According to the article, their complaints led the university’s vice chancellor to suspend the professor and launch an internal inquiry into their charges.
The omnibus budget bill that the Senate passed last night may make low-cost birth control available from campus health centers after a four-year absence.
The bill incorporated the Affordable Birth Control Act, which overturns provisions of a 2005 law that, in the words of Choice USA,
stopped pharmaceutical companies from providing prescriptions at lower than market costs to health clinics and College and University health centers. Previously, companies were supplying schools and safety-net providers with low cost or no cost birth control. As a result of the [Deficit Reduction Act], low income women and college students were forced to pay market price, approximately $40-$50 per month.
The Affordable Birth Control Act was the subject of intense organizing by campus groups, making its passage a victory for students and for student activism.
Quoting Choice USA again, “This is an example of the power we as young people have to make real change that directly impacts our lives. Congratulations everyone!”
Last April we passed on word that a student at the University of Portland had been threatened by administrators with disciplinary action after reporting a sexual assault. She and a male student had been drinking at a party in violation of university policy. She told the university he raped her in her dorm room. The university took no action.
A year later, after the student went to the campus newspaper with her story, she got a letter from the university’s judicial co-ordinator saying that the two students’ drinking had made “consent—or lack of consent … difficult to determine,” and that “there are possible violations for which [the complainant] could be charged.”
Today comes word that the university’s sexual assault reporting policies have been revised. The new policy reads as follows:
“To foster the safety and security of the entire community, the University of Portland encourages reporting of all instances of sexual assault. … To remove barriers to reporting, the University will not pursue potential policy violations of the survivor which occurred in the context of the sexual assault. Likewise, the University will not pursue potential policy violations of a person who comes forward to report sexual assault.”
This change brings Portland’s policies in line with Catholic colleges like Gonzaga, Santa Clara and Notre Dame. According to a university administrator, it brings the university’s written policies in line with “the University’s values and practices regarding sexual assault that have been in place for many years.”
Thanks to Inside Higher Ed for the heads-up. New visitors are welcome to follow us on Twitter.
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