Virginia’s two Democratic U.S. senators urged the state’s Supreme Court to reject proposed changes to the state’s congressional map, claiming that the changes would make it more difficult for three incumbent Democratic lawmakers to be reelected. The Dec. 20 letter from the two male senators emphasizes that all three of their electorally endangered colleagues are female, and it comes after the Virginia Supreme Court appointed two special masters. The court appointed RealClearPolitics senior elections analyst Sean Trende and University of California–Irvine political science professor Bernard Grofman to redraw Virginia’s electoral maps after an independent state commission deadlocked over a redistricting plan, as The Epoch … Continue reading Dem senators tell Virginia Supreme Court redrawn electoral map doesn’t protect Democrats enough

Pharmacists across the United States will soon have to embrace the left’s political and cultural agenda as a result of radical new ideologically-motivated revisions to the wording of their professional oath. Although Marxist-inspired critical race theory in public education has been meeting unprecedented resistance across the country in families with children in government-run schools, “woke” ideology has been consolidating its hold over academia, government, the corporate world, and the helping professions. One manifestation of wokeness or political correctness is “health equity,” a variant of social justice ideology that has been defined as “the absence of unfair and avoidable or remediable … Continue reading Woke pharmacists add diversity, antiracism to professional oath

North Carolina is urging the Supreme Court to throw out a watchdog group’s challenge to the University of North Carolina’s partially race-based admission policies. The case is Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. University of North Carolina, court file 21-707, an appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) describes itself as “a nonprofit membership group of more than 20,000 students, parents, and others who believe that racial classifications and preferences in college admissions are unfair, unnecessary, and unconstitutional.” In its still-pending petition before the Supreme Court, the Arlington, Virginia-based SFFA argued that … Continue reading North Carolina asks Supreme Court to deny challenge to race-based admissions at UNC

Former Smith College administrative employee Jodi Shaw, a white woman, is suing the elite school in federal court for retaliation and racial discrimination including forced participation in humiliating ideological indoctrination sessions. David Pitvorak, who describes himself in his Twitter biography as an “individual rights attorney taking on Critical Race Theory in the courts,” is representing Shaw in the lawsuit. “We allege that Smith forced Shaw to undergo ritual racial humiliation and tasked her with implementing policies that racially segregated and discriminated against students,” Pitvorak tweeted. The 101-page lawsuit was filed Dec. 16 in the U.S. District Court for the District of … Continue reading Smith College ex-staffer sues over anti-white racism, ideological struggle sessions

A good-government group is suing Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold in federal court for refusing to allow the inspection of voter list maintenance records as required by federal law. Griswold, a Democrat, is refusing to allow the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) access to voter list maintenance documents, including data that Colorado receives from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). Griswold says her agency’s contract with ERIC prohibits the release of the data that ERIC provides to member states. ERIC, a nonprofit that describes its mission as “assisting states to improve the accuracy of America’s voter rolls and increase access to voter registration … Continue reading Group sues Colorado secretary of state for illegally withholding voter data

The Supreme Court issued a procedural ruling late Dec. 16 that will prolong the ongoing litigation over the Texas “heartbeat” law that bans abortions after six weeks of gestation and crowdsources enforcement to members of the public. The brief order, signed by Justice Neil Gorsuch, sends the case to the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit–which is perceived as a conservative appellate court—as Texas officials had requested. The high court refused to stay the Texas law. “We know the Court of Appeals is inclined to slow walk this challenge and allow Texas to enforce the law relative to District Court,” … Continue reading Supreme Court sends Texas ‘heartbeat’ abortion law appeal to the 5th Circuit

A good-government group asked a federal court to be allowed to intervene in an apparently collusive Democratic Party lawsuit in Virginia so the group may safeguard electoral integrity protections that the Democrats seek to dismantle. For a half-century, would-be voters in Virginia have been required to provide their Social Security number on their registration application form, but now that Democrats are about to lose control of the governor’s and attorney general’s offices in coming weeks, the party is arguing that this longstanding requirement somehow imposes a burden on the right to vote, according to papers filed with the court by the Public Interest Legal … Continue reading Group asks to intervene in Democrats’ sue-and-settle lawsuit against Democratic-controlled election board

The Supreme Court agreed on Dec. 15 to review an appeal by a former Texas state trooper who claims that his former employer discriminated against him after he suffered injuries during his deployment in the Iraq War as a member of the U.S. Army Reserves. The man filed suit against his former employer in Texas state court in 2017, seeking more than $5 million. The Supreme Court granted Torres’s petition for a writ of certiorari, or review, in the case known as is Torres v. Texas Department of Public Safety. Petitioner Le Roy Torres enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve … Continue reading Supreme Court to hear case of Texas state trooper pushed out of the force after Iraq War injuries

The Supreme Court agreed to resolve whether parties in private arbitration outside the country are able to use U.S. courts to compel the production of evidence. The decision to grant the petition for certiorari, or review, on Dec. 10 in ZF Automotive US Inc. v. Luxshare Ltd., came after the high court blocked a lower court’s order in the legal proceeding on Oct. 27. That order would have forced a Michigan company to hand over documents to a Chinese manufacturer disputing the value of the assets of a business unit in the company’s German parent company that it purchased in 2017. On Dec. 10, the … Continue reading Supreme Court agrees to hear Chinese manufacturer’s lawsuit against US auto parts maker

The Supreme Court is considering whether it should intervene in the case of a San Diego high school student who claims that the local school district’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate imposed on students unconstitutionally discriminates against her by not offering a religious exemption. Lawyers from the Thomas More Society, a national public interest law firm focusing on religious freedoms, filed an emergency application with the high court on Dec. 10 asking it to block the mandate. The court then ordered the San Diego Unified School District to respond to the application by Dec. 16. On Dec. 4, the U.S. Court of Appeals for … Continue reading SCOTUS considers blocking San Diego school vaccination mandate

A Colorado-based adventure tour operator is suing the Biden administration for trying to force his company to pay its employees $15 per hour starting next month, a rate of compensation that the company’s founder says would drive his business into bankruptcy. Entrepreneur Duke Bradford founded Arkansas Valley Adventures (AVA) in 1998. Currently, the company has 250 employees who provide outdoor experiences throughout the year, including guided, multi-day river rafting wilderness trips. Because Colorado’s rivers go through federal land, rafting businesses such as AVA require special use permits from the federal government. The businesses pay the government a fixed percentage of service … Continue reading Tour operator sues Biden administration for applying minimum wage hike to noncontractors

News Analysis The Supreme Court has had a mixed track record over the past year in terms of protecting Americans’ civil rights during the ongoing pandemic, according to legal experts consulted by The Epoch Times. The nation’s highest court generally did a good job at safeguarding religious freedoms, as it struck down limits on church capacity. A year ago, the court blocked then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo from enforcing pandemic-related restrictions on attendance at places of worship in a 5–4 ruling in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, which was a departure from the high court’s previous hands-off rulings … Continue reading Supreme Court has mixed record on protecting civil rights during the pandemic, experts say

Virginia’s incoming Republican governor is vowing to withdraw his state from a regional carbon emissions-trading exchange to which 10 coastal and New England states currently belong—a move that, if successful, would be a major setback for the left-wing environmentalist movement. During a Dec. 8 address to the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce, Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin described the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) as a “carbon tax that is fully passed on to ratepayers,” saying he would issue an executive order to take the state out of the interstate compact when he’s inaugurated next month, The Hill newspaper reported on Dec. 9. Virginia became part … Continue reading Incoming Virginia governor vows to reduce energy costs by exiting regional cap-and-trade scheme

A Maine law that excludes families from a student aid program if they choose to send their children to religious schools is flatly unconstitutional and should be struck down, a seemingly sympathetic Supreme Court heard Dec. 8. The program at issue provides tuition assistance for students who don’t have a local public school so they can attend private institutions, as long as the funding isn’t used for religious education. The case is Carson v. Makin, court file 20-1088, an appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit. The petitioners are parents David and Amy Carson, and Troy and Angela … Continue reading Maine student aid program discriminates on basis of religion, Supreme Court hears

Joe Biden has pulled the nomination of totalitarian leftist law professor Saule Tarikhovna Omarova to be his Comptroller of the Currency after her radical, un-American beliefs about banking, energy, markets, and economic freedom received the public airing the democratic process requires. As reported here, the Kazakh-born immigrant whom Biden chose to oversee the banking system wanted to nationalize Americans’ bank accounts, nuke the energy sector, and deindustrialize the world’s largest economy by building a gargantuan new bureaucracy to implement aspects of both the Green New Deal and the Great Reset. When Senate Republicans grabbed the low-hanging fruit and threw the would-be banking … Continue reading Biden’s commie nominee falls on her hammer and sickle

A good-government group is suing the District of Columbia in federal court for refusing to allow the inspection of voter list maintenance records as required by federal law. The D.C. Board of Elections claims it can’t provide the voter list maintenance documents because of its contract with the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a nonprofit that describes its mission as “assisting states to improve the accuracy of America’s voter rolls and increase access to voter registration for all eligible citizens.” ERIC was created in 2012 with assistance from The Pew Charitable Trusts, a left-wing philanthropy. The board says its contract with ERIC prohibits the … Continue reading DC Board of Elections sued for keeping voter data secret

Lawyers for both the Biden administration and a longtime illegal alien who falsely stated he was a U.S. citizen on a driver’s license application told a skeptical Supreme Court on Dec. 6 that a federal appeals court erred when it ruled a deportation order against the man should be allowed to stand. How the high court rules in this case could create a legal standard regarding how much, if any, discretion judges have in cases in which aliens are seeking green cards. The appeal at hand is Patel v. Garland, court file 20-979, which comes from an Aug. 19, 2020, ruling … Continue reading Supreme Court urged to halt deportation of man who wrongly claimed to be US citizen

The largest small-business advocacy group in the country is urging the Wisconsin Supreme Court to block Democratic Gov. Tony Evers from publishing the names of those businesses in the state whose employees have tested positive for the CCP virus, which causes the disease COVID-19. Evers doesn’t have a good track record in these matters in the state Supreme Court. Emergency orders he said were aimed to stop the spread of COVID-19 haven’t fared well before that judicial body. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has repeatedly struck down pandemic mitigation orders that the governor’s administration has issued by virtue of its purported public health emergency powers. A stay-at-home order, as … Continue reading Businesses ask Wisconsin Supreme Court to prevent governor from outing companies with COVID-19-positive staff

The Supreme Court seemed open to the possibility of answering Mississippi’s call to scuttle Roe v. Wade, the perpetually controversial 1973 ruling that wrested the regulation of abortion from the states and made abortion lawful throughout the entire country. Roe v. Wade is “an egregiously wrong decision,” Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart said during oral arguments on Dec. 1. “Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey haunt our country,” Stewart said, referencing Roe’s companion ruling from 1992, which held states can’t impose significant restrictions on abortion before a fetus becomes viable for life outside the womb, somewhere around the 24-week gestation mark. … Continue reading Overturn seminal abortion precedent Roe v. Wade, state urges Supreme Court

An elderly COVID-19 patient has recovered after a court order allowed him to be treated with ivermectin, despite objections from the hospital in which he was staying, according to the family’s attorney. After an Illinois hospital insisted on administering expensive remdesivir to the patient and the treatment failed, his life was saved after a court ordered that an outside medical doctor be allowed to use the inexpensive ivermectin to treat him, over the hospital’s strenuous objections. Ivermectin tablets have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat humans with intestinal strongyloidiasis and onchocerciasis, two conditions caused by parasitic worms. Some topical … Continue reading Dying COVID-19 patient recovers after court orders hospital to administer ivermectin