News & Commentary

This piece was originally published on JustSecurity.org on October 7, 2013.

Last week, we filed a friend-of-the court brief in support of Aimee Greene, a firefighter who faced discrimination and harassment while working in the Buckeye Valley Fire District in Arizona. Despite having college degrees in firefighting, thousands of hours of firefighting experience, and consistently positive job evaluations, Aimee was denied a promotion to captain. In fact, when it became known within the firehouse that a woman wanted to be a captain, Aimee's male coworkers turned on her, calling her abusive names, telling her she had no "right" to seek promotion, and making her do training drills alone while the others watched and mocked her. Aimee was told that her place was in the kitchen, not on a fire truck.

The frenzy over "Operation Fast and Furious" has been hard to avoid. It's been the subject of a massive DOJ report, Congressional hearings, contempt votes, subpoena fights in federal court, and relentless media scrutiny. But if there's one telling the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) would love to rectify, it's the "thoughtcrime" account of Agent John Dodson, one of the ATF insiders who helped bring the operation to public light.

I recently came across the following quote from Albert Einstein which, if you just sub out “Communism” and replace it with “terrorism,” pretty much nails our current situation:

Imagine yourself at 13. Maybe you'd just started 8th grade. Maybe you'd just seen your first PG-13 movie. Now watch this:

Frustration continues to reign in Washington as the federal government shutdown (or slimdown, as Fox News is calling it) enters its second week.

What justification did the employer of an Ohio woman use when it fired her after learning she was pregnant?

On September 21, I took a walk with a friend near Central Park after dropping off my wife and 1-year-old son. A group of young men on bikes saw my turban and beard – distinctly identifiable features of a devout Sikh – and yelled "Osama" and "Terrorist" before grabbing my beard and punching my face and torso, leaving me with a fractured jaw and other injuries. This isn't the community I've been welcomed by and gotten to know over the past few years, as demonstrated by the bystanders who intervened on my behalf. Nor is it representative of my regular personal and professional interactions. Why did this happen?

Herman Wallace died this morning. He was 71 years old and debilitated by terminal liver cancer. Three days ago, he went home to New Orleans for the first time since he was a young man. He has spent virtually all of the last 42 years locked alone in a room the size of a parking space.