When a 50-year-old woman steps out in public wearing a face mask in the midst of a global pandemic, it’s generally not noteworthy. But when said woman is the president’s wife — it’s a national news story. 

On Sunday, five months into the COVID-19 outbreak that has claimed more than 137,000 American lives thus far, First Lady Melania Trump stepped out in public wearing a mask to safeguard against the spread of coronavirus for the first time.

In a video posted to the First Lady’s official Twitter account on Sunday, Trump can be seen touring the grounds of the Mary Elizabeth House, a Washington, D.C., ministry that works to support young mothers who are in or have aged out of the foster care system.

“It was a pleasure to spend time with the staff, mothers & children at The Mary Elizabeth House, a place that helps strengthen families & provides life skills, counseling & educational resources to help vulnerable single women & their children. #BeBest,” Trump wrote in a tweet alongside the video.

Today I visited The Mary Elizabeth House, an inspiring place & supportive community for young women & children. I met w staff, mothers & children, & dropped off boxed lunches & #BeBest items to show my appreciation for their efforts to strengthen families in our community. pic.twitter.com/lR8vTfrx8u

— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) July 9, 2020

Although the First Lady posted about the importance of wearing a mask to stall the spread of coronavirus back in April (“Take social distancing & wearing a mask/face covering seriously. #COVID19 is a virus that can spread to anyone,” she wrote on Twitter), neither she nor her husband, President Donald Trump, had sported the protective face coverings publicly until last weekend. Trump, in all his presidential power, has previously stated that he won’t be wearing a mask in public saying that he doesn’t “see it happening.” The president also mocked assumed Democratic nominee Joe Biden for wearing a mask before.

But it looks like things have changed, as wearing a mask has become a political debate in the months since the pandemic started. On Saturday, Trump wore a mask — publicly — during a visit with wounded veterans at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

The reversal brings the Trumps into line with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidance on continuing to wear the masks in public in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus, which is believed to be highly transmissible through respiratory droplets released into the air, even when a potential carrier is asymptomatic. The president has been notoriously averse to heeding the conventional wisdom on mitigating the spread of COVID-19, and has even gone so far as to host his infamous open-air rallies despite the fact that new instances of the virus continue to surge across the country.

Melania Trump, despite her previous insistence that wearing a mask is necessary, has remained quiet in the face of her husband’s protest against them. The Trumps, it’s worth noting, are no strangers to flouting traditionally observed sartorial norms. During a trip to visit children detained in a border camp amid the Trump administration’s immigration fiasco of 2018, Melania famously wore a jacket emblazoned with the phrase “I really don’t care, do you?” And the president himself, famously, once defied the advice of medical professionals and opted to forego protective glasses in order to stare bravely into the sun during a solar eclipse

Let’s not commend the Trumps yet, though — after all, they’re just doing what we’re all supposed to be doing amid a pandemic

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Hell Is Donald & Melania

Why Ivanka Brought Her Purse To A Tear-Gassing

Can Trump Really Threaten To Defund Schools?

Responding to repeated insistences from Education Secretary Betsy DeVos that students must return to school full time this Fall despite concerns about the potential spread of COVID-19, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) wrote on Twitter that the Trump administration official has “no plan,” and said that “teachers, kids and parents are fearing for their lives.”

“You point to a private sector that has put profits over people and claimed the lives of thousands of essential workers,” Pressley wrote on Sunday. “I wouldn’t trust you to care for a house plant let alone my child.”

The call-out came hours after DeVos made the rounds on the Sunday morning shows, doubling down on her previous calls to fully reopen schools and have children return to “learning full-time,” even as coronavirus cases continue to surge across the country. In one particular sentiment, DeVos suggested that schools that do not re-open should not receive any additional government funds during the pandemic.

“If schools aren’t going to reopen and not fulfill that promise, they shouldn’t get the funds,” DeVos said, with an “investment in education” as the promise she referred to. “And give it to the families to decide to go to a school that is going to meet that promise.”

DeVos repeatedly doubled down saying that, “Kids need to be back in school and that school leaders across the country need to be making plans to do just that,” DeVos said. “There’s going to be the exception to the rule, but the rule should be that kids go back to school this Fall. Where there are little flare-ups or hot spots, that can be dealt with on a school-by-school or a case-by-case basis.”

According to a report from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), children make up about 0.02% of all COVID-19 fatalities. In the U.S., this amounts to over 10,000 children under the age of 15. DeVos came under fire over the weekend when a viral Tweet suggested that she was willing to let thousands of children risk their lives in order to re-open schools and avoid seeking alternate plans for education during the pandemic.

Despite threats from the Trump administration to cut federal funding from districts who refuse to plan for full reopenings, many districts have outlined plans to reopen in a limited capacity, or to lean more heavily on online learning curriculums in lieu of making in-person classroom attendance mandatory. During her appearance on CNN’s State of the Union broadcast on Sunday, DeVos danced around host Dana Bash’s repeated questions about what school districts should be doing in order to ensure that students are safe this Fall.

“The key for education leaders, and these are smart people who can figure things out, they can figure out what is going to be right for their specific situation, because every school building is different,” DeVos said. “Every school population is different.”

“Okay, but I’m not hearing a plan from the Department of Education,” Bash responded. “Do you have a plan for what students and what schools should do?”

“Schools should do what’s right on the ground at that time for their students and for their situation,” DeVos replied.

DeVos also dodged questions about the Trump administration’s seriousness when it comes to stripping schools of their federal funding, saying that her department is simply “committed to ensuring that students are in school and learning.” The comments immediately drew the ire of several top Democrats, who countered that the Trump administration’s carelessness in providing guidance on school reopenings bordered on misconduct.

“What we heard from the secretary was malfeasance and dereliction of duty,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said during a separate interview on CNN on Sunday. “This is appalling.”

Sen. Kamala D. Harris (Calif.) said in a tweet that DeVos’ “lack of leadership on how to safely resume schools is dangerous to our students, our teachers, and our staff.” Harris also wrote: “She has no plan.”

Time and again, DeVos has signaled a willingness to acquiesce to President Trump’s most base impulses when it comes to school safety. In addition to a long history of siphoning funding away from public schools in order to benefit private ones, DeVos also famously advocated for federal dollars to be spent on arming teachers in the wake of a deadly shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 students and faculty members dead. 

But on Sunday, at least one GOP leader signaled a commitment to limiting school reopenings in his state until it seemed safe for students and faculty to do so.“Everybody would like to get our kids back to school as quickly as we can, but we also want to do it and make sure our kids are going to be as safe as possible,” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said during a Sunday appearance on Meet The Press. “So, we’re not going to be rushed into this.”

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

How Betsy Devos Is Bulldozing Title IX Rules

Ayanna Pressley Claps Back At Betsy DeVos Comment

Special Olympics Funding Will Go Foward

Weeks after George Floyd’s death at the hands of the Minneapolis police spurred a nationwide racial uprising, a new video clip shows an Allentown, Pennsylvania, police officer attempting to apprehend a man by holding his knee to his neck.

The footage, which was posted on the “Black Lives Matter to Lehigh Valley” Facebook group Saturday, shows a group of Allentown officers pinning a man to the ground outside the emergency room of the Sacred Heart campus of St. Luke’s Hospital. The man being apprehended does not appear to resist as the officers hold him down, and can be heard screaming in Spanish as one officer kneels on his throat.

The video recalls the now-infamous video of Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes on May 25, despite his repeated cries of “I can’t breathe.” A final medical examiner’s report classified Floyd’s death a homicide caused by “a cardiopulmonary arrest while being restrained” as a result of “neck compression,” and Chauvin, along with three other officers, were eventually charged with murder in relation to Floyd’s death.

Ben Crump, the attorney representing Floyd’s family, wrote on Twitter, “@AllentownPolice held down this man’s face to the pavement and then one of its officers placed their knee on his neck!! This happened yesterday and is exactly what led to #GeorgeFloyd’s death. We need this officer’s name and badge #NOW. #ICantBreathe”

In a statement released on Sunday night, Allentown Police Chief Glenn Granitz said that officers had been responding to an unrelated matter outside the hospital on Saturday when they noticed the man in the video vomiting and staggering down the street. 

“The observed erratic behavior resulted in the officers and hospital staff interacting with the individual,” Granitz wrote. “The individual began to yell, scream and spit at the officers and hospital staff. As the officers attempted to restrain the individual, all parties fell to the ground. The individual continued to be noncompliant which required officers to restrain the individual and the hospital applied a spit shield. The male in question was escorted into the hospital for treatment. The male was treated and later released.”

Granitz also confirmed in the statement that videos of the altercation are under review, and that the Lehigh County District Attorney’s office is currently investigating the conduct of the officers in question. Although the 23 second clip posted to social media will play a “significant” role in the department’s investigation of the incident, Granitz also confirmed that “witnesses are being interviewed and additional videos of the interaction are being reviewed.” 

“We plan on releasing relevant videos later this week as we complete this inquiry,” he added.

Despite assurances by police that the incident is being investigated, a group of protestors gathered outside of the Allentown police headquarters late Saturday night in response to the footage, and another action set to highlight community leaders as speakers has been announced for Monday night.

In a Facebook post, the administrators of Black Lives Matter to Lehigh Valley outlined six demands in response to the incident, including the release of bodycam footage from the officers involved, the suspension of the officers while the results of an investigation are pending and the implementation of a criminal justice review board in criminal justice review board in Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton, Pennsylvania. 

“The video that has now been shared at the national level was scary, alarming, and reduced trust not only for the resident’s of Allentown, but for people across this country who shared our same sentiments,” the post reads. “All lives cannot begin to matter until Black Lives begin to matter.”

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Vauhxx Booker Says 5 White Men Tried To Lynch Him

Copaganda: How Police Continue To Ask For Sympathy

NYPD Pepper Sprayed Queer Liberation Protestors

Like a scene out of the least-beloved Christopher Guest movie ever, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo lifted a blue curtain during his Monday afternoon press briefing to reveal a giant model mountain meant to represent the peaks and valleys of the state’s COVID-19 cases.

“Do you know what this is?” Cuomo asked the room of assembled reporters; one curtly replied: “No.” 

“This is the mountain,” Cuomo supplied, helpfully. “This is the mountain that New Yorkers climbed. You know how I keep showing the curve? This is the curve. It’s actually proportionate. We started on Day 1, and the numbers kept going straight up for 42 days.”

Cuomo’s science fair-looking model of the COVID-19 curve was on full display at Monday’s press conference, during which the governor used his platform to boast about how the state of New York has battled the novel coronavirus in recent months.

After a mandatory stay-at-home order that spanned some 78 days, New York has largely flattened its number of coronavirus cases. The state has commenced with the beginning phases of its reopening plans and, according to the governor, the number of confirmed cases fell to 391 on June 28. When compared with the more than 10,000 confirmed cases in New York in April, the numbers tell a promising story: As states across the U.S., including Florida, California and Texas, continue to experience alarming spikes in new infection rates, New York’s numbers appear to be holding steadily low — for now.

But while Cuomo’s installation — not his first foray into mixed-media art, it must be noted — appears to be a good-natured way to keep daily press briefings lighthearted during what remains a time of great stress for many New Yorkers, the governor’s many and well-documented missteps should be enough to keep anyone from laughing too hard. 

As ProPublica has reported, during the pandemic’s early, but vitally important stages Cuomo initially rebuked New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s decision to shut down the city as a part of an ongoing “intrastate cold war” between the two elected officials, failing to act for another week and in the process delaying action at a critical juncture when New York’s coronavirus cases were doubling near-daily.

Cuomo and his health commissioner, Howard Zucker, are also liable for the decision to make it mandatory for nursing homes to readmit residents who had tested positive for COVID-19 after they had been discharged from the hospital, as long as they were stable — a policy that enabled the virus to ravage New York’s assisted care facilities after as many as 4,500 COVID-19 infected patients were sent to stay at nursing homes across the state.

To date, more than 31,000 New Yorkers have died from COVID-19, all while Governor Cuomo has sat at the helm of the response team. It’s nice that he can goof off and commission his interns to construct what looks like a glorified seventh-grade science project, or perhaps like a lost scene from Parks and Recreation, but the many thousands who have lost loved ones as a result of his negligence probably aren’t laughing.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Trump Tweeted A Video In Support Of "White Power"

New Yorkers Protest Rent In Front Of Cuomo's House

Trump Is Willing To Protect Monuments Over People

In true 2020 form, there is a harrowing answer to Bonnie and Clyde and it’s “Ken and Karen,” a white St. Louis, Missouri, couple who pointed loaded guns at a group of Black Lives Matter protesters marching past their lavish property on Sunday. 

In pictures and videos posted to social media, the couple — whose real names are Mark and Patricia McCloskey — can be seen barefoot on their front lawn, aiming an AR-15 rifle and a handgun at protesters as they pass by their expansive home. It should be noted, apropros of perhaps nothing, that Ken is wearing a pink polo shirt and khaki pants while pointing said gun.

Amid ongoing nationwide protests to demand that police be held accountable for the violence they disproportionately exert against people of color, demonstrators in St. Louis had been moving peacefully through the city’s wealthy Forest Park neighborhood on Sunday evening to demand the resignation of Mayor Lyda Krewson. Protestors specifically called out Krewson for her decision to release the names and addresses of residents who had participated in anti-police brutality actions. But when protesters breached the gates of the McCloskey’s gated community, the couple seemingly decided to go full vigilante to defend their property, known locally as the Neimann Mansion.

In pictures and videos shared to Twitter, the McCloskeys can be seen indiscriminately brandishing their weapons at the crowd, although it’s unclear whether or not the guns were actually loaded at the time of the altercation. At one point, Mark McCloskey appears to accidentally point his AR-15 rifle at his wife as he locks eyes with protesters.

Social media users were quick to bestow the “Karen” and “Ken” monikers usually reserved for entitled white people upon the couple, lumping them in with the similarly armed white protesters who have descended upon statehouses and capitals in recent weeks to protest the injustice of being forced to wear masks in public. And, in the hours since the images of them circulated, mock-ups of Karen and Ken Chadbro as a movie poster (with special guest “Freedom Musket”) have started to quickly go viral.

To make matters worse (for himself), Trump re-tweeted a video of the McCloskeys holding weapons at protestors, just one day after the president tweeted another video in support of “white power.” Advocates of the Black Lives Matter movement have called Trump’s actions to be racist and calculated, with the possibility that this could incite a race war.

The decision to aim weapons into a crowd of peaceful protesters comes during a period of heightened violence as national demonstrations for justice stretch into their second month. Just one day before the McCloskeys emerged onto their front lawn, a man protesting the death of Breonna Taylor — the Black 26-year-old EMT who was shot dead by police as she slept without ever being suspected of a crime — was fatally shot by a man in his early 20s in Louisville, Kentucky.

Despite their apparent recklessness, the McCloskeys are practicing lawyers who run a law firm from inside their palatial estate (now aptly dubbed the McMansion). And, according to the Daily Mail, one of Mr. McCloskey’s clients is, ironically, a man who was a victim of police brutality.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Trump Tweeted A Video In Support Of "White Power"

Why Protestors Continue To Set Up Autonomous Zones

What To Know About The Right-Wing Boogaloo Bois

On the afternoon of April 22, Vanessa Guillen vanished from the Fort Hood Army base in Killeen, Texas.

The 20-year-old private first class was last seen in the parking lot of her Regimental Engineer Squadron Headquarters, and her barracks room key, ID, and wallet were later found in the base’s armory room, where she had been working. But since then, no one has seen or heard from Guillen, and only now — two months from the day since she disappeared — have Army officials offered their first public commitments to finding her.

In a video posted to Facebook on Sunday night, Fort Hood Deputy Commander Major General Scott Efflandt appealed to the public to come forward with any clues or information that could lead them to Guillen. “We want to bring Vanessa home as efficiently and rapidly as possible,” Efflandt said. “We need to bring Vanessa back to her Army family, and to bring her back to her family, and we won’t stop this effort until we’re successful.”

Chris Grey, spokesman for the Army Criminal Investigation Division, said in a statement released on Monday that investigators are “completely committed to finding Vanessa and aggressively going after every single piece of credible information and every lead in this investigation.”

“We will not stop until we find Vanessa,” Grey added.

But a troubling wrinkle in Guillen’s story, coupled with the Army’s relative inaction up to this point, have become the sources of dark conspiracy theories that have cropped up on the Internet: Three weeks before her disappearance, Guillen told her mother that she was sexually assaulted by one of her Sergeants on Fort Hood.

According to a website set up on Guillen’s behalf by family members, the sergeant in question would follow Guillen around the base “whenever [she] would run and exercise,” intimidating her and making her feel uncomfortable.  

“My mom tried tried to convince me to give her the name of the person who was harassing me, but I didn’t want to get in trouble,” the website, which is written by family from Guillen’s perspective, alleges. “My mom told me that she would report it for me, but I told her that I knew of other female soldiers that had reported sexual harassment and that the US Army didn’t believe them.”

In a harrowing twist, the search for Guillen kicks off the same week that investigators uncovered the skeletal remains of Private Gregory Wedel-Morales, one of two Fort Hood soldiers who went missing in 2019 just days before he was set to be discharged from military service. Investigations into the whereabouts of the other soldier, as well as the circumstances surrounding Morales’ death, remain ongoing. 

The troubling developments on Fort Hood have been enough to pique the interests of internet sleuths and celebrities alike, many of whom are determined not to let a woman of color slip so seamlessly from the public’s radar. Guillen’s advocates include the actress Salma Hayek, who has pledged to post about Guillen on her Instagram every day until she is found, and Houston rapper Baby Bash, who has pledged to contribute $5,000 to a reward fund that currently stands at $50,000. 

Among those skeptical of the strange circumstances of Guillen’s disappearance is the family’s attorney, Natalie Khawam, who told ABC News that Vanessa told loved ones she didn’t want to report the sexual harassment out of fear of retaliation. 

“The facts aren’t good. I don’t like them,” Khawam said. “There were a few incidents where she had told her colleagues, her friends, her family about being sexually harassed but she was afraid to report it. How does someone disappear on a base that has more protection and safeguards than anyone else on the planet?”

Despite the morbid details surrounding the Fort Hood base, the Army CID has said it has found “no credible information or report” to corroborate the allegation that Guillen was sexually assaulted or anything that might connect her case to the disappearance of Gregory Wedel-Morales. 

According to the family’s website, Guillen was last seen wearing a black shirt, purple leggings and black Nike tennis shoes. Officials are urging members of the public with any information to call 254-495-7767.

Refinery29 has reached out to the family’s attorney as well as the Army Criminal Investigation Division. We will update this story as we know more.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Two Black Men Were Found Dead & Hanging From Trees

Lori Vallow's Ex Spoke To Police Before He Died

Kristin Smart's Case Has New Info, 23 Years Later

Moments before he took center stage in Tulsa for the rally meant to mark the unofficial launch of his 2020 reelection campaign, President Donald Trump gazed out from behind the curtains in disbelief: Where he had expected to see supporters packed to the rafters, there was a sea of empty blue chairs. The president “gazed at the empty Bank of Oklahoma Center in horror,” according to the New York Times.

In the run-up to the event, campaign staffers had boasted about receiving 1 million RSVP’s, and local officials had pegged the estimated attendance at 100,000. But hours before the rally was set to begin, aides aboard Air Force One briefed a “stunned” Trump on the news that turnout was far lower than anticipated, multiple sources with knowledge of the conversation told the New York Times. A second, outdoor rally that Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were slated to speak at was eventually scrapped due to low attendance.

Days after the flopped event, it remains unclear what actually led to the low turnout, although a group of Trump advisers acknowledged to the Times that fears over the spread of the coronavirus in an indoor space likely played a role. But as aides rush to explain away the low turnout as a fluke, hundreds of teenagers on TikTok and many fans of Korean pop music are taking credit for the modest crowd size, claiming that it was the result of an elaborately staged prank designed to feign high demand for tickets. 

In dozens of videos posted in the weeks leading up to the event, TikTok users encouraged viewers to register online for the free event in the hopes of derailing the eventual turnout numbers. Although the platform is more widely associated with dance challenges and memes, many of the TikTok-using cohort are members of Gen Z, the generation that prides itself for its nihilism, left-leaning politics and love of dumb pranks — especially at the highest level.

Many sectors of K-pop fans are similarly prone to activism: earlier this month, groups mobilized en masse in defense of Black Lives Matter, flooding police tip lines with requests for footage of “illegal activity” by protesters, racist hashtags, and “fancam” videos in order to distract from those who would seek to weaken the movement. Fans also mobilized to match BTS’s $1 million donation to Black Lives Matter in less than 24 hours, showing the capability of their massive audience.

But Team Trump denies the insinuation that Tiktok’s Gen Z or K-pop’s hard leftist could be responsible for derailing this large of a rally. In a statement, Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale — who organized the event, and who advisers told the Times the inflated original campaign numbers could most likely be attributed to — blamed the “fake news media” and overblown concerns about coronavirus for the low turnout.

“Leftists and online trolls doing a victory lap, thinking they somehow impacted rally attendance don’t know what they’re talking about or how our rallies work,” Parscale said. “Registering for a rally means you’ve RSVP’d with a cellphone number and we constantly weed out bogus numbers, as we did with tens of thousands at the Tulsa rally, in calculating our possible attendee pool.”

Regardless of which factors were responsible for the low turnout, the flubbed campaign relaunch seems to have spurred a reckoning within the Trump camp as poll numbers continue to suggest that Trump is lagging behind presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden in popularity.

And while the event had been planned, in part, to demonstrate a high demand for more public appearances by the president, White House advisers told the Times that the rally was ultimately an optics “disaster” and an “unforced error” that will disincentivize the campaign from holding future events this summer. So, as it turns out, Gen Z and K-pop stans might just save us all yet.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Tiktok's Save Barron Trump Conspiracy, Explained

The Hypocrisy Of Trump's Police Reform Order

Tag Yourself In This "Trump Vs. Democrat" Poll

In a striking victory for LGBTQ+ rights, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the sex-discrimination provision enshrined in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act extends to gay, lesbian, and transgender Americans — granting vital protections to workers who could have been otherwise ostracized based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

This victory for the LGBTQ+ community comes just a few days after Trump and his administration sought to roll back protections for transgender people in the Affordable Care Act by shrinking the definition of sex discrimination.

Advocates continue to fight back on the Trump administration’s efforts to diminish these protections, citing historic cases of discrimination. The case that prompted the decision, Bostock v. Clayton County, centered around a Georgia man named Gerald Bostock who was fired from his job as a child-welfare advocate after his coworkers learned of his participation in a local gay softball league. The decision was carried out in a 6-3 ruling, with Justices John Roberts and Neil Gorsuch siding with the court’s progressive justices in the majority opinion. 

The ruling is clarifying for several reasons: For one, it has ripple effects that will surely be felt in another yet-to-be-ruled on case, R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC, in which the transgender plaintiff also argued that her firing on the grounds of gender identity ran afoul of Title VII’s sex-discrimination provision.

But Gorsuch’s decision in particular has also drawn the ire of the same conservative activists who once raised millions to secure his seat on the bench in the hopes that he would help to advance the conservative agenda in rulings on landmark cases.

Installing conservative justices on the Supreme Court is, after all, a multi-million dollar project — one that the activists bankrolling it often claim as the one redeeming quality of a Trump presidency. Sure, Trump might be an uncouth serial philanderer who would use the presidency shamelessly for his own personal enrichment, they argue, but his ability to appoint conservative justices could potentially do more to advance a right-wing doctrine than any one piece of legislation ever could.

But Gorsuch’s decision to side with progressive justices — which he has claimed stemmed from a “textualist” interpretation of Title VII — upends that theory.

Ironically, textualist judicial philosophy is usually favored by conservatives: It means interpreting the precise intent of a given statute at the time it was written, rather than viewing the language through a modern lens in order to better reflect the current values of society. But Gorsuch argued in his decision that employers who would seek to discriminate against gay or transgender employees would have to necessarily make judgments about them based on their sex—meaning that, in this case, a more conservative textual analysis would actually put you on the side of LGBTQ+ rights.

“Have no doubts about what happened today: This was the hijacking of textualism,” Carrie Severino, the president of the Judicial Crisis Network, wrote on Twitter shortly after the decision came down. The Judicial Crisis Network reportedly spent $10 million on efforts to guarantee Gorsuch’s confirmation in 2017, and another $10 million to secure Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s spot on the bench in 2018

 “You can’t redefine the meaning of words themselves and still be doing textualism,” Severino continued. “This is an ominous sign for anyone concerned about the future of representative democracy.” 

Although conservatives might be disappointed now, and liberals might be praising Gorsuch now, they should take heart: The Supreme Court is still set to take up a major challenge to the landmark Roe v. Wade decision this term, meaning that Gorsuch will have plenty of time to make up for any love lost in the Republican party.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Supreme Court Ruling Protects LGBTQ+ Workers

The Queer Black History Of Rioting

Black Pride Events Save LGBTQ+ Lives. Now What?

An estimated 15,000 protesters turned out to march down Brooklyn’s Eastern Parkway in solidarity with Black transgender lives on Sunday, more than three weeks into the racial uprising sparked by the death of George Floyd. Dressed all in white, the group advanced like a tide.  A collaboration between The Okra Project, which provides meals to black trans people, and the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, the rally endeavored to call attention to the disproportionated levels of violence and discrimination that black trans individuals face.

Among the speakers who addressed the massive crowd was Melania Brown — the sister of Layleen Polanco, a Black trans woman who died of a seizure in New York City’s Rikers Island in 2019 after corrections officers failed to check in on her at the required 15-minute intervals.

“My sister is not here to fight for herself, but I’m here,” Brown said. “We’re here, and they’ve got to make room for us. And if they don’t, we’re taking it.”

The renewed energy around Polanco’s case comes just days after the emergence of new video footage which shows guards in the restrictive housing unit where she was being held exhibiting negligent behavior after she suffered an epileptic seizure in their custody.

The footage in question, first obtained and released by NBC News, shows that corrections officers checked in on Polanco at 1:42 p.m, and then again at 2:27 p.m. — 47 minutes later, which is not in accordance with DOC policy, stating that suicide prevention agents are supposed to check in on inmates in Punitive Segregation housing every fifteen minutes. The disturbing footage also appears to show guards laughing outside of Polanco’s cell as they realize that she requires medical attention while exhibiting no sense of urgency.

The outcry over the guards’ behavior in the moments before Polanco’s death comes after news about the ruling over her death just last week. A six-month-long investigation into Polanco’s death by the city’s Department of Corrections and Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark concluded with no criminal charges filed, according to reports filed in the first week of June.

“We have concluded that we would be unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that any individual committed any crime associated with Ms. Polanco’s demise,” Clark said. Decisions about potential administrative action against the corrections officers involved are still pending.

However, the new footage may change the case. David Shanies, a lawyer representing Polanco’s family in a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city and Department of Correction, said it was “horrifying for the family to see this footage,” which he called “the last piece of the puzzle,” in the case.

“It’s the last bit of indifference to her life that we saw and recklessness to a person who obviously needed help,” Shanies said.

“[The family was] completely unprepared for what they saw,” Shanies added. “They all broke into hysterical crying, understandably. And to this day, Layleen’s mother is haunted by the images of the guard laughing at her daughter.”

While the lawsuit is ongoing, Polanco’s death has spurred some groups — including the LGBTQ- focused New York City Anti-Violence project — to call for permanent reforms in New York City’s jail system, including an end to cash bail and solitary confinement practices and for the correction officers involved to be fired.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Layleen Polanco's Case Demands Cash Bail Reform

Video Footage Shows Rayshard Brooks' Final Moments

In Videos Of Racist Killings, Who Is Behind The Ca

Nearly a year after Layleen Polanco, a 27-year-old transgender woman, was found dead in her cell at New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex, an investigation into her death by the city’s Department of Corrections has concluded with no criminal charges filed.

Polanco was arrested on April 16, 2019 for controlled substance and assault of a cab driver, ABC News reports, and was held on $500 bail partly as a result of an existing years-old prostitution charge. After a fight with another inmate, Polanco was placed in a solitary confinement cell for 20 days, and an autopsy report eventually concluded that her sudden death there was the result of “epilepsy (SUDEP) due to a mutation in the CACNA1H gene.”

In a statement on Friday announcing the investigation’s findings, Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said that the purview of the investigator’s office was “not to determine whether it was a wrong decision to place Ms. Polanco into Punitive Segregation while she was suffering from a documented seizure disorder… but to determine whether that decision rose to the level of criminal behavior.” 

“After an in-depth investigation by my Public Integrity Bureau, we have concluded that we would be unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that any individual committed any crime associated with Ms. Polanco’s demise,” Clark said.

Polanco’s death has been a flashpoint for Black and Latinx transgender rights in the New York, and has also stoked conversations about the city’s urgent need for cash bail reform. In response to her death, the New York Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement launched the “#HALTsolitary Campaign,” which brings together advocates, allies, and lawyers in an effort to end the practice of solitary confinement within the city’s jail system. In a statement, the group’s members said that they were “saddened and outraged by Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark’s callous disregard for the life of Layleen Polanco.” 

“Facing sex work and drug charges, Layleen never should have been in jail, and both must be decriminalized,” the statement reads. “Furthermore, it is precisely because New York would lock a person with a dangerous seizure condition in solitary confinement that this medieval torture — this chamber of living death — must be abolished for everyone.”

Although the Department of Investigation probe did not uncover any criminality in the way Polanco was treated, it did find that corrections officers had failed to check in on Polanco in her cell every 15 minutes, as is DOC policy, but had instead allowed up to 47 minutes to elapse in some instances between checks.

“At a minimum, every inmate housed in Punitive Segregation shall be observed at least once every 15 minutes at irregular intervals,” Margaret Garnett, the commissioner of the Department of Investigation, said in a Friday statement.

Reform advocates have long been fighting to do away with cash bail in New York City, and won a major victory in 2019 when the New York legislature passed a progressive legislative package aimed at doing away with cash bail for many misdemeanors and nonviolent crimes. But partly under the cover of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Andrew Cuomo backed a budget reform measure that drastically rolled back the bail reforms just three months after they went into effect, temporarily dashing the hopes of those who wanted to see the practice eliminated in the city once and for all.

According to Cuomo’s agreement, the previously-abolished cash bail for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, like Polanco’s, was reinstated. Many suspected that this decision came at the hands of Republican constituents remaining unhappy with the original elimination of cash bail. Now that allies grapple, once again, with Polanco’s death, the ethical value of our cash bail system is at the forefront.

There are plenty of good reasons to want to do away with cash bail, which is, at its most essential, a way for those with means to “buy” themselves out of jail cells while they await trial. Those without are subjected to all the harms of incarceration, regardless of guilt.

But while New York’s rolled-back cash bail protocol — which goes into effect on July 1 — will still prohibit judges from assigning cash bail to most misdemeanors and violent felonies, they will have the option to use a person’s legal history and status in order to set cash bail — meaning that bail reform advocates will still have their work cut out for them for the foreseeable future.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Black Women Are Fighting Cash Bail During COVID-19

A Man Died In Jail After He Couldn't Pay $100 Bond

What College Admissions & Cash Bail Have In Common

No modern grassroots uprising is complete without a robust social media component, and the racial insurgency that has followed George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers has been no exception. In the weeks of anti-police brutality actions that have followed Floyd’s killing, Instagram timelines have been flooded with anti-racist resources and graphics calling for systemic overhaul — and some posts are highlighting the fault lines among activists on whether the way forward is through reform or abolition.

The central tension of police abolition vs. reform comes down to a single question: Is the work of activists to create safer, more community-friendly versions of the same systems that have already claimed and destroyed countless black lives, or is it to reimagine them from the ground up?

In the now-viral “8 Can’t Wait” campaign unveiled by Campaign Zero, the police reform collective formed by Black Lives Matter activists including Deray McKesson and Brittany Packnett, eight tidy squares call for reform policies to be universally adopted by law enforcement in every American city that would ostensibly help to protect black lives.

The policies in question include banning the use of chokeholds and strangleholds, requiring police to utilize deescalation tactics and prohibiting officers from shooting at moving vehicles. The graphic has been shared widely online, in part due to its simplicity and accessibility, but it has also served as a flashpoint for a larger conversation among activists: Should the goal be to reform the American police force, or to abolish the current system as we know it?

Seemingly in response, a second campaign has cropped up in response to the “8 Can’t Wait” campaign — one that decries it as “dangerous and irresponsible, offering a slate of reforms that have already been tried and failed, that mislead a public newly invigorated to the possibilities of police and prison abolition, and that do not reflect the needs of criminalized communities.” The result is the “#8toAbolition” campaign, which utilizes the same visual format as “8 Can’t Wait” to instead advocate for eight reforms more firmly rooted in the work of abolition organizers — things like defunding the police, investing in affordable housing, and removing police officers from schools.

Despite being a relative misnomer, the word “defund” has sparked pushback among some who question what American society would look like if police departments no longer existed. Who would you call if you were robbed? What would happen in instances of sexual assault? The answer, abolitionists say, is to ask yourself what the existing system is doing to safeguard against the problem in question — and whether a better system might be possible to imagine. For example, rather than having a 9-1-1 call result in police response, abolitionists reimagine specific response and safety systems tailored to emergencies. And, this starts with recognizing the flaws in our current approach.

“Has the current approach ended rape and murder?” the activist and organizer Mariame Kaba asked in a 2017 interview with the Next System Project. “The vast majority of rapists never see the inside of a courtroom, let alone get convicted and end up in prison. In fact, they end up becoming President. So the system you feel so attached to and that you seem invested in preserving is not delivering what you say you want, which is presumably safety and an end to violence.”

In response to similar questions about the plan to deal with rape survivors if police abolition where enacted, New York-based activist Leila Raven recently pointed out on Twitter that not only are police not trained to handle instances of gender-based violence, but they are also frequently the perpetrators of such crimes. 

“We have spent decades pouring resources into a system that has made the problem worse, and we have neglected *real* solutions that could prevent + address gendered violence, like skills based education in schools on healthy relationships, consent + boundaries,” Raven wrote.

Reacting to a separate point raised about an already-beleaguered Baltimore Police Department struggling with a 30% close rate on criminal cases even with its existing funding, Josie Duffy Rice, the president of The Appeal and host of the podcast Criminal Justice in America, said that that was the point: “Baltimore is spending way too much money on policing to solve only 30% of murders.”

“The fact is that policing in America is brutal and racist and classist, but right now it is also ineffective,” she added. “We do not need to spend more money to make it more effective. We’ve tried that.”

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Want To Defund The Police? Here’s How To Help

What Minneapolis' Abolish Police Move Really Means

The Outcry To Defund The Police Is Getting Louder

Long before a Minneapolis police officer pinned his knee to George Floyd’s neck, slowly cutting off his air supply until he was dead, American cops were killing black people with impunity. The officer who killed Floyd, Derek Chauvin, was operating as a member of the Minneapolis Police Department despite the fact that he faced at least 17 misconduct complaints. The officers responsible for the deaths of Philando Castile, Freddie Gray, and Terence Crutcher were either acquitted or had the charges against them dropped, and the officers who killed Michael Brown, Alton Sterling and Tamir Rice were never charged at all.

The frequency and uniformity with which cops are let off the hook for hurting or killing people of color is why anti-police brutality protests have erupted in every major American city in response to Floyd’s death. It’s also why activists are calling not to reform or re-train the police, but to defund them.

Usually, to “defund” something means to strip it of its funding entirely. But while there are some who would advocate to abolish the American police force wholesale, recent mainstreamed proposals to “defund” the police are actually just calling for their budgets to be drastically pared down, and for city and state municipalities to reinvest some of the money that would normally be spent on policing in housing, employment, and healthcare. 

Over the past 30 years, police budgets have ballooned in American cities, with Forbes reporting that the U.S. now spends over $100 billion collectively on policing (despite reports that crime has fallen across the board during the same time frame, irrespective of the increased budgets). In the years since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in particular, the massive cash influx has gone towards creating an increasingly militarized police force: Officers tote military grade weapons and drive armored vehicles, thanks in large part to a military-to-police equipment pipeline that some U.S. lawmakers are now calling to abolish. And at the same time police budgets have been getting bigger, attitudes on policing have been getting harsher, with many officers being trained to respond defensively and to reflexively deploy aggressive tactics in order to stay safe on the job. 

But the fact of American police being armed to the teeth is particularly striking given that research has found no evidence that shoring up police budgets keeps civilians safer — in fact, to the contrary, a 2017 report from the Center For Popular Democracy found that reallocating the money currently being spent on policing towards “a living wage, access to holistic health services and treatment, educational opportunity, and stable housing… [would be] far more successful in reducing crime than police or prisons.”

A growing political coalition across the U.S. is taking those recommendations seriously, and calls for cities to reallocate some of the money that would normally be spent on installing more officers in neighborhoods to instead be diverted to programs that support public health are growing louder. The movement already has key allies in high places: On Monday, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) tweeted her criticism of New York City’s bloated police budget.

“If police budgets bought peace, the $6 billion NYPD budget would’ve bought the most sophisticated de-escalatory operation in the world,” she wrote. “Clearly, it didn’t.

New York State Senator Julia Salazar also recently tweeted in support of defunding the New York Police Department, which currently has an operating budget of $6 billion that remained virtually untouched after Mayor Bill de Blasio’s post-COVID-19 budget restructuring (notably, the city’s Department of Education and Department of Youth and Community Development faced far deeper cuts). 

“I think that attempts to reform the NYPD have failed — attempts to provide de-escalation training, to train officers on emergency, mental health, first aid,” Salazar recently told The Appeal. “When we look at their resources, and how they’re deploying them violently and recklessly, it makes the case even stronger for reducing their budget, and then using those funds for social services [like] harm reduction, community-based public safety.”

That ideology is mirrored in similar movements that have cropped up across the country: In 2019, activists in the Durham, North Carolina-based coalition “Durham Beyond Policing” campaigned for — and won — a commitment from the city government not to fund the hiring of new police officers. In her announcement of the decision to back the group’s proposal, Durham Mayor Pro Tempore Jillian Johnson wrote, “The safest communities don’t have the most cops; they have the most resources.” And in Austin, Texas, groups like the Austin Justice Coalition (AJC) have petitioned the city council to reallocate $1.75 million from the police budget to dedicate to EMS, so that 911 calls involving mental health emergencies would be handled by trained mental health teams instead of the police.

While a growing number of activists are eager to see police budgets shrink, a recent Gallup poll found that, despite high-profile instances of violence and misconduct, the police force is still an American institution that polls high in terms of public confidence. And powerful police unions and bargaining agreements help to grant officers ironclad protections around employment and benefits in many instances, which will mean that the fight to dismantle existing police infrastructure will be fraught. 

But as Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement, recently told “Nightline” that protesters across the country have isolated “police accountability” as their near-singular demand — and they aren’t likely to rest until they see it met.

“[Protesters] want to see the arrest of all the officers involved [in the murder of George Floyd]. They want to have no more terror, no more police terror in their communities,” Cullors said. “Everybody wants to be apologized to. Everybody wants to be told, ‘I’m sorry. What I did was wrong. It was unacceptable. We won’t do it again and, in fact, this is how we change.’”

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Protecting Big Stores Should Not Be The Priority

"The Police Are More Dangerous Than COVID-19"

Why Are Protestors Being Framed As The Problem?