THE DAILY BLADE: Small Towns Cry “Tio” Over Lawsuits To Overturn Anti-Illegal Immigration Ordinances
Represented by Yale University law school students, 10 illegal immigrants are suing Danbury, CT, over a 2006 illegal immigration sting conducted by local and federal authorities. The suit alleges that local and federal authorities lured day laborers into a van by posing as contractors, arrested them and turned then over to federal agents. Court documents claim the men were detained without charge for days or weeks, were denied right to due process, free speech and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. The legal eaglets argue that the U.S. Constitution protects the civil rights of all people in the United States, whether citizens or not. The town’s Republican mayor, Mark Boughton, plans to fight for city hall.
Meanwhile in neighboring NJ, the Riverside Township Committee voted 3-1 to rescind an ordinance passed a year ago that would punish employers and landlords who do business with illegal immigrants. Township officials said they couldn't afford to defend the law in court; a federal judge earlier this year found a similar ordinance in Hazleton, PA, unconstitutional. Officials estimated that nearly half the town's population of 8,000 were illegal immigrants, which had strained public services. The New York Times reports:
[T]he town was hit with two lawsuits challenging the law. Legal bills began to pile up, straining the town’s already tight budget. Suddenly, many people - including some who originally favored the law - started having second thoughts.
So last week, the town rescinded the ordinance, joining a small but growing list of
municipalities nationwide that have begun rethinking such laws as their legal and economic consequences have become clearer. …
In the past two years, more than 30 towns nationwide have enacted laws intended to address problems attributed to illegal immigration, from overcrowded housing and schools to overextended police forces. Most of those laws, like Riverside’s, called for fines and even jail sentences for people who knowingly rented apartments to illegal immigrants or who gave them jobs.
In some places, business owners have objected to crackdowns that have driven away immigrant customers. And in many, ordinances have come under legal assault by immigration groups and the American Civil Liberties Union.
In June, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction against a housing ordinance in Farmers Branch, Tex., that would have imposed fines against landlords who rented to illegal immigrants. In July, the city of Valley Park, Mo., repealed a similar ordinance, after an earlier version was struck down by a state judge and a revision brought new challenges. A week later, a federal judge struck down ordinances in Hazleton, Pa., the first town to enact laws barring illegal immigrants from working or renting homes there.
Their finances already stretched tight by having to provide public services to a burgeoning population of illegal aliens, small towns can ill afford attorney fees and court costs to defend laws meant to slow the tsunami. Riverside had spent $82,000 defending its ordinance, and it risked having to pay the plaintiffs’ legal fees if it lost in court, notes The Times.
Great Moments In Higher Education
In an article about alternative student newspapers increasingly foregoing print editions to exist solely on the Internet, Inside Higher Ed quotes Dan Reimold, a journalism Ph.D. candidate at Ohio University wondering “What would students do if they got to create a media by them, for them - to create whatever they want, and not have to worry about what’s always been?” Probably this:
The Rocky Mountain Collegian … published an editorial that reads, in total, “Taser this… F--- BUSH,” spelling out the expletive, along with an explanation that “this column represents the views of the Collegian’s editorial board.”
Colorado State University’s 10-member faculty-student Board of Student Communications held a hearing to determine whether to fire the paper’s editor-in-chief, J. David McSwane. Reports the Rocky Mountain News:
For some, it was a matter of protecting free speech.
For others, it was about punishing the editor of a campus newspaper, who they believed damaged the credibility of Colorado State University nationally when he decided to publish the F-word in the school newspaper.
"Our university will take a hit for the poor choices of one student," said Chelsea Penoyer, chairwoman of the College Republicans at CSU.
Penoyer was one of more than 300 students and members of the staff and community who attended a hearing Wednesday night of CSU's Board of Student Communications. …
Jeff Browne, director of student media, said that if all of the advertisers who threatened to pull their business do, the school could lose $50,000 of advertising. The newspaper's staff has taken a 10 percent pay cut because of lost revenue.
Many of those calling for McSwane's firing Wednesday night focused on the financial damage caused by the editorial.
“I could potentially see this trend leading us into destruction well into six figures,” said Lenay Snyder, who oversees advertising for CSU's student media. …
Journalism instructor Pam Jackson said the use of the F-word in the school newspaper was no different from anti-abortion groups using shocking images in their protests. Both, Jackson said, are protected forms of free speech.
You’ll recall that as a high school senior McSwane pretended to be a high school dropout with a drug habit wanting to enlist in the military, and videotaped recruiters offering to pay for a drug detox kit, and steering him to an online diploma mill. With his guts and instincts, McSwane could have made a great journalist. How unfortunate he devolved into a group think hack before he even graduated college.
The New York Times Is Ova The Top On Embryonic Stem Cell Research
In a recent editorial, The New York Times laments a “vexing” problem that is slowing embryonic stem cell research: “There are distressingly few women willing to donate their eggs for experiments at the frontiers of this promising science.” Why? Well, here’s The Times’ explanation:
Many were likely deterred by the time, effort and pain required — including daily hormone injections and minor surgery — to retrieve the eggs. And they were almost certainly discouraged by the meager compensation.
Although women can be paid thousands of dollars to donate eggs for fertility treatments, ethical guidelines and some state laws say they cannot be paid much for donating to research. These restrictions are meant to protect the women against exploitation, but they have created a dearth of egg donors for stem cell research.
It never occurs to The Times that - all other consideration aside - when a woman donates her eggs to an infertile couple, the resulting embryo will have a chance to develop into a new life. When she donates her eggs to stem cell research, the resulting embryo will be killed and so that its stem cells can be harvested. This is, literally, a life and death decision for the young woman who is willing to donate her eggs. The winner: life.
The Times inexplicably champions efforts to create “cybrid embryos” (animal-human hybrids) until scientists find alternative stem cell sources - and then cites just such an alternative:
[M]any scientists are hoping that it will be possible, without using eggs at all, to convert human skin cells directly into embryonic stem cells, as has been shown possible in mice. That would be an elegant solution to the vexing egg donor problem.
Stem cells derived from skin cells would also be ethically and morally suuperior to creating cybrids not found in nature.
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