Here are this week’s SWAJ Research Links, compiled by SWAJ Team Member Mark Kurth.
National Inquiries
Is Adidas having a Bud Light moment? Transgender Pride swimsuit touches off controversy
The swimsuit is part of Adidas' "Let Love Be Your Legacy collection" made by South African designer Rich Mnisi to celebrate Pride Month.
Adidas unveiled the collection this week, calling the partnership with Mnisi a “shared ambition to encourage allyship and freedom of expression without bias, in all spaces of sport and culture.” Mnisi described his collection as “a symbol for self-acceptance and LGBTQ+ advocacy.”
Conservative Activist Poured Millions Into Groups Seeking to Influence Supreme Court on Elections and Discrimination
Flush with money after receiving the largest-known political advocacy donation in U.S. history, conservative activist Leonard Leo and his associates are spending millions of dollars to influence some of the Supreme Court’s most consequential recent cases, newly released tax documents obtained by ProPublica and The Lever show.
Tim Scott’s Vision for America Isn’t for Black People
Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, on Monday officially announced he’s running for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. But Scott’s vision for the country makes no sense at all.
Instead of boldly bridging the persistent gaps in wealth and racial equality that affected him, Scott’s policies would exacerbate them. While his personal journey stands as a powerful testament to the boundless potential of the American dream, his political track record paints a contrasting image—one where the advancement of Black individuals is woefully overlooked.
Objection to sexual, LGBTQ content propels spike in book challenges
A small number of people were responsible for most of the book challenges, The Post found. Individuals who filed 10 or more complaints were responsible for two-thirds of all challenges. In some cases, these serial filers relied on a network of volunteers gathered together under the aegis of conservative parents’ groups such as Moms for Liberty.
Amanda Gorman is ‘gutted’ by school district’s decision to restrict her poem after a parent complained it contained ‘hate messages’
A parent of a student at Bob Graham Education Center – a kindergarten through eighth grade school in Miami Lakes – objected to Gorman’s poem “The Hill We Climb,” for which they erroneously listed Oprah Winfrey as the author/publisher, according to documents first obtained by the Florida Freedom to Read Project whose authenticity was confirmed by CNN.
It “is not educational and have (sic) indirectly hate messages,” the complaint said, adding that the poem would “cause confusion and indoctrinate students.”
Daily Wire's Matt Walsh: “Diversity is an anti-white conspiracy”
All diversity initiatives are anti-white initiatives. Anytime you hear about any kind of diversity initiative anywhere, whether it's in government, in corporations, in any institution at all, it is an anti-white initiative. Diversity is an anti-white conspiracy.
GOP cooks up a new storm on gas stove rules
GOP lawmakers will use a subcommittee hearing and committee vote Wednesday to step up their attacks on the Biden administration’s efforts to regulate the kitchen appliances, portraying proposed efficiency standards from the Energy Department as federal overreach.
Oath Keepers founder sentenced to 18 years in Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy case
The sentence for Stewart Rhodes is the longest imposed on a Jan. 6 defendant to date. In a politically-charged speech in the courtroom just before his sentencing, Rhodes called himself a "political prisoner" and said that when he talked about "regime change" in a phone call with supporters earlier this week, he meant he hopes that former President Donald Trump will win in 2024.
The Florida mom who sought to ban Amanda Gorman’s poem says she’s sorry for promoting the Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The post came to light this week after the Miami Herald identified Salinas as the Miami Lakes, Florida, mother who petitioned her children’s school to ban students’ access to the Gorman poem. Gorman read the poem, called “The Hill We Climb,” at President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
Salinas also petitioned the school to restrict children’s books about the Black poet Langston Hughes and about Black and Cuban history. After a committee reviewed her challenges, the Miami-Dade County school district opted to restrict all but one book about Cuba from grades K-5, while leaving them available to middle school students.
Florida Mom Behind Amanda Gorman Book Ban Has Proud Boy Links
In August 2021, Salinas attended a protest against masks in Miami-Dade schools, where she was photographed standing next to Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys. Tarrio had already been implicated in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, for which he was later convicted of seditious conspiracy. (Salinas has shared posts indicating she believes Jan. 6 defendants are political prisoners.)
Just over a year later, Salinas attended another rally organized by the Proud Boys in support of Christoper Morzon, a far-right extremist nicknamed the “Cuban Confederate.” At the protest in November, 2022, Salinas can be seen wearing a Ron DeSantis T-shirt and hat.
Why Moms of Liberty Group Acts a Lot Like Daughters of the Confederacy
Both women's groups have a conservative-leaning political ideology, actively oppose diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, are interested in maintaining a white-centered power structure, and share a deep interest in educating White children with the explicit goal of shaping their worldview.
6 MAY 1933: LOOTING OF THE INSTITUTE OF SEXOLOGY
On 6 May 1933, the Institute of Sexology, an academic foundation devoted to sexological research and the advocacy of homosexual rights, was broken into and occupied by Nazi-supporting youth. Several days later the entire contents of the library were removed and burned.
States Fights
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton investigating second hospital for gender-affirming care
This time he is investigating Texas Children's Hospital, which is based in Houston but has pediatric, urgent-, and specialty-care clinics in Austin.
“I’ve been clear that any ‘gender transitioning’ procedures that hurt our children constitute child abuse under Texas law,” Paxton said in a statement. “Recent reports indicate that Texas Children’s Hospital may be unlawfully performing such procedures, and my office it is working to uncover the truth."
Opinion: I chose New College because I didn’t have to leave my identity at the campus door
New College was a departure from all of that. It has been a sanctuary that not only made me passionate about education in a way that high school never did, but that taught me that I don’t have to compromise who I am. As an LGBTQ student, I don’t need to leave my identity at the door in order to have the education I deserve. My full identity can sit in the classroom with me because it informs my education and interests in a way that I cannot sever from myself.
‘Beware, your life is not valued’: NAACP travel advisory warns Florida is ‘openly hostile toward African Americans’
The NAACP issued a travel advisory for Florida “in direct response to … DeSantis’ aggressive attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools,” the group said Saturday in a statement.
“Beware that your life is not valued,” NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson told CNN on Monday. He cited a new DeSantis-backed law allowing gun owners to carry a concealed weapon without a permit, as well as education policies that include a ban on teaching about gender identity and sexual orientation through 12th grade.
Missouri bill on Parson’s desk would allow public schools to teach electives on the Bible
The legislation, filed by state Sen. Karla May, a St. Louis Democrat, allows public schools and public charter schools to offer elective social studies classes including but not limited to the “Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament of the Bible” and the “New Testament of the Bible.”
It passed the Missouri Senate on a unanimous vote of 31 to 0 in March. And then, with just more than an hour left in this year’s session and with little debate, the House voted 108 to 30 last week to send the bill to Republican Gov. Mike Parson’s desk.
EXCLUSIVE: Murder, kidnapping, brutality charges: These are the cops Ron DeSantis paid to come to Florida
In response to DeSantis’ call, the Daily Dot found officers who since joining Florida police departments have been arrested for kidnapping and murder and officers who, before they moved to the Sunshine State, had numerous complaints against them, ranging from excessive force to false imprisonment to sexual extortion.
Arizona Judge Issues Final Blow to Kari Lake’s Six-Month Election Contest
In his order dismissing Lake’s sole remaining claim, Judge Peter Thompson found that the court did not find evidence of misconduct under Arizona law nor did the court find that this alleged misconduct affected the result of the election.
Women sue Texas over life-threatening abortion
Because Texas’s abortion bans continue to harm pregnant people every day, Plaintiffs amend their petition to add 8 additional plaintiffs and to urgently request temporary injunctive relief. The new plaintiffs represent a cross section of the pregnant people who need abortion care in Texas: they include women of color, women with disabilities, survivors of intimate partner violence, and women who struggle to make ends meet.
Bill to Force Texas Public Schools to Display Ten Commandments Fails
The measure was part of an effort by conservative Republicans in the Legislature to expand the reach of religion into the daily life of public schools. In recent weeks, both chambers passed versions of a bill to allow school districts to hire religious chaplains in place of licensed counselors.
But the Ten Commandments legislation, which passed the State Senate last month, remained pending before the Texas House until Tuesday, the final day to approve bills before the session ends next Monday. Time expired before the legislation could receive a vote.
Unlicensed religious chaplains may counsel students in Texas’ public schools after lawmakers OK proposal
Bill opponents, including some religious groups and Christian Democrats, fear the legislation will be a Trojan horse for religious activists to recruit in schools and would exacerbate tensions at local school boards, which would have the final say on whether to allow chaplains in schools.
“This is not what a real chaplaincy program looks like,” Joshua Houston of Texas Impact, an interfaith organization that advocates on behalf of some of the state’s largest religious groups, said last week. “We have chaplains as members. We have seminaries as members that train chaplains. They all have qualifications. In this bill, they are completely unqualified.”
“It is akin to an online marriage ordination,” he said of the bill’s training requirements.
Tennessee Speaker appoints conspiracy theorist to develop state social studies standards
With her new appointment, Cardoza-Moore will have the power to “submit final recommendations for [Social Studies] standards to the State Board.” In a statement about her new position, Cardoza-Moore said, “[t]he materials we will be reviewing can only accomplish the mission of educating good American citizens if our Tennessee textbooks are devoid of left-aligned historic revisionism and the toxic material found in the antisemitic Critical Race Theory; Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; Social-Emotional Learning and Ethnic Studies.”
A D.C. Cop Allegedly Helped the Proud Boys. Why Hasn’t Liberal Washington Done More About It?
In Washington, where Lamond is a member of the same police force that patrols city streets and battles neighborhood crime, the story has been greeted with a fair amount of surprise:
Yet that surprise may say more about the state of denial in Washington — a city where the national-politics class assumes they live in a deep-blue bubble — than about the reality of the capital’s Metropolitan Police Department.
Vocal Locals
Prosecutors looking into false reports of veterans displaced by migrants
The accusation that about 20 veterans were tossed from a Newburgh hotel in Orange County to make way for the asylum-seekers drew national headlines and broad condemnation. But the claims soon began to unravel when the hotel showed proof that it was not housing homeless veterans and that no one was displaced when the migrants arrived.