Latest news with #DiversityEquityInclusion
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Pastor slams his own church for accepting Target donation amid boycott
A Georgia pastor has called out his own church for accepting a $300,000 donation from Target following the retailer's decision to phase out Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives. Rev. Jamal Bryant, pastor of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church just outside of Atlanta, is one of the driving forces behind a boycott of Target after the company scaled back its DEI commitments. In a sermon, Bryant accused the National Baptist Convention of 'selling out' after the denomination accepted the donation from Target and accused the company of bypassing him in an effort to win back the support of Black consumers. Target previously said the boycotts had done some damage to sales during a quarter call with analysts in May. 'You thought you were going to go around me and go to the National Baptist Convention and sell out for $300,000?' he said at his sermon Sunday. 'Are you crazy to think that we gonna' sell out for chump change? You must not know who we are!' Bryant added in his sermon that he called the President of the National Baptist Convention, Rev. Boise Kimber, and demanded the organization stand with him and the boycott. In a statement, Kimber said the church is 'working on a three-year plan' with Target that will 'be very beneficial to the Black community.' 'With the federal government making deep cuts in education, health care, and other essential services, we know the Black Church will be called upon to stand in the gap,' Kimber said. 'Our outreach programs serving both our congregants and the broader community must be fully resourced to respond to the need. I am proud to say we will answer the call.' 'Target's generous donation will help us provide scholarships, support senior citizens, and invest in entrepreneurship programs that uplift our people and the future,' he added. In response to Bryant and other criticism, Target said it was 'proud' to be partnering with the church 'to make a meaningful impact in communities across the country by supporting access to education, economic development initiatives and entrepreneurship programs.' The boycott was initially slated to last 40 days, but will continue until Target agrees to four demands put forward by the pastor. The demands call for Target to fully commit to DEI at every level of the company, honor its previous pledge to invest $2 billion in the Black business community, deposit $250 million in 23 Black-owned banks, and partner with business programs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities to support young entrepreneurs. 'Target is working hard to divide our community rather than stand on the principles of dignity and decency,' Bryant said in a follow up post on Instagram. 'We are working hard with the heads of the denominations to find resolve that shows solidarity. Stay out of target because we are standing on business. Together there's nothing we can't accomplish and we will fight on until victory is won!'
The Independent
5 days ago
- Business
- The Independent
Pastor slams his own church for accepting Target donation amid boycott
A Georgia pastor has called out his own church for accepting a $300,000 donation from Target following the retailer's decision to phase out Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives. Rev. Jamal Bryant, pastor of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church just outside of Atlanta, is one of the driving forces behind a boycott of Target after the company scaled back its DEI commitments. In a sermon, Bryant accused the National Baptist Convention of 'selling out' after the denomination accepted the donation from Target and accused the company of bypassing him in an effort to win back the support of Black consumers. Target previously said the boycotts had done some damage to sales during a quarter call with analysts in May. 'You thought you were going to go around me and go to the National Baptist Convention and sell out for $300,000?' he said at his sermon Sunday. 'Are you crazy to think that we gonna' sell out for chump change? You must not know who we are!' Bryant added in his sermon that he called the President of the National Baptist Convention, Rev. Boise Kimber, and demanded the organization stand with him and the boycott. In a statement, Kimber said the church is 'working on a three-year plan' with Target that will 'be very beneficial to the Black community.' 'With the federal government making deep cuts in education, health care, and other essential services, we know the Black Church will be called upon to stand in the gap,' Kimber said. 'Our outreach programs serving both our congregants and the broader community must be fully resourced to respond to the need. I am proud to say we will answer the call.' 'Target's generous donation will help us provide scholarships, support senior citizens, and invest in entrepreneurship programs that uplift our people and the future,' he added. In response to Bryant and other criticism, Target said it was 'proud' to be partnering with the church 'to make a meaningful impact in communities across the country by supporting access to education, economic development initiatives and entrepreneurship programs.' The boycott was initially slated to last 40 days, but will continue until Target agrees to four demands put forward by the pastor. The demands call for Target to fully commit to DEI at every level of the company, honor its previous pledge to invest $2 billion in the Black business community, deposit $250 million in 23 Black-owned banks, and partner with business programs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities to support young entrepreneurs. 'Target is working hard to divide our community rather than stand on the principles of dignity and decency,' Bryant said in a follow up post on Instagram. 'We are working hard with the heads of the denominations to find resolve that shows solidarity. Stay out of target because we are standing on business. Together there's nothing we can't accomplish and we will fight on until victory is won!'
Yahoo
20-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
20 NIH grants restored to UMass system after judge rules against Trump admin
Twenty grants from the National Institutes of Health previously awarded to the University of Massachusetts system will be restored after a Monday court order from a federal judge. U.S. District Court Judge William Young ordered the Trump administration to restore more than 360 NIH grants nationwide that were the subject of two lawsuits — one filed by affected individuals and industry organizations, the other by 16 state attorneys general, including Massachusetts. The restored grants are only a sliver of the NIH grant cancellations — 2,282 grants amounting to nearly $3.8 billion of lost funding as of June 4, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. Young declared the cancellations 'illegal,' saying he had 'never seen government racial discrimination like this' in his 40 years on the bench. Many canceled grants were related to LGBTQ communities, racial minorities and other topics considered 'diversity, equity and inclusion' (or DEI) by the Trump administration. Read more: Federal judge orders Trump admin to reinstate hundreds of NIH grants The federal government now has the opportunity to appeal Young's initial order in the cases. As part of the Monday order, 20 grants are slated to be restored to the UMass system. Listed by grant awardee, they are: UMass Chan Medical School — 'Pathway to graduate study post-baccalaureate training program' UMass Lowell — 'Longitudinal Mechanisms of Food and Nutrition Security and Cardiometabolic Health in PROSPECT' UMass Chan Medical School — 'Structural Racism and Engagement of Family Caregivers in Serious Illness Care' UMass Boston — 'U54 Comprehensive Partnership for Cancer Disparities Research' University of Massachusetts — 'Optimizing an mHealth intervention to improve uptake and adherence of the HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in vulnerable adolescents and emerging adults' University of Massachusetts — 'Applying Deep Learning for Predicting Retention in PrEP Care and Effective PrEP Use among Key Populations at Risk for HIV in Thailand' University of Massachusetts — 'Effect of Medicaid Accountable Care Organizations on Behavioral Health Care Quality and Outcomes for Children' University of Massachusetts — 'Adapting Effective mHealth Interventions to Improve Uptake and Adherence to HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) in Thai Young MSM' University of Massachusetts — 'Faithful Response II: COVID-19 Rapid Test-to-Treat with African American Churches' University of Massachusetts — 'Training the Long-Term Services and Supports Dementia Care Workforce in Provision of Care to Sexual and Gender Minority Residents' University of Massachusetts — 'Pathway to graduate study post-baccalaureate training program' University of Massachusetts — 'Improving COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake Among Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups with Rheumatic Diseases' University of Massachusetts — 'Regulated Proteolysis in Bacteria Development and Stress Response' University of Massachusetts — 'IRACDA at Tufts University' (postdoctoral training) University of Massachusetts — 'Deciphering the Molecular Features Underlying LRP1-Mediated Tau Spread (Diversity Supplement)' University of Massachusetts — 'Bacterial and Molecular Determinants of Mycobacterial Impermeability' University of Massachusetts — 'Initiative for Maximizing Student Development at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School' University of Massachusetts — 'Improving the Part C Early Intervention Service Delivery System for Children with ASD: A Randomized Clinical Trial (Diversity Supplement)' University of Massachusetts — 'ASHA Bangladesh — An Integrated Intervention to Address Depression in Low Income Rural Women' University of Massachusetts — 'Outlining Shadows of Structural Racism Using Publicly Available Social Determinants of Health Data' In a statement Monday night, Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell called the court ruling 'a win for us all and a rebuke of the discriminatory actions carried out by this Administration. 'We won't let this Administration play politics with our public health or violate the law,' Campbell said. 'I look forward to seeing these federal funds restored to life-saving and critical health care and research.' A Harvard Medical School associate professor is also slated to see her canceled grants restored. Brittany Charlton, founding director of the LGBTQ Health Center of Excellence, is one of the individual plaintiffs suing. Her NIH funding to study the mental health of young LGBTQ people was cut in March, affecting a team of 18 researchers and causing students to fear for their safety. As federal funding cuts hit Harvard, a private investment firm and other donors step up Trump admin asks court to rule against Harvard without a trial Federal judge orders Trump admin to reinstate hundreds of NIH grants Federal judge delays decision over Trump admin barring Harvard foreign students Harvard's Monday court date will be important for international students. Here's why Read the original article on MassLive.
Yahoo
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘People didn't like women in space': how Sally Ride made history and paid the price
A week before Sally – a documentary about the first American woman to fly into space – landed at the Sundance film festival in January, Nasa employees received emails informing them how Donald Trump's diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) rollbacks would take effect. Contracts and offices associated with DEI programs were to be terminated. Staff were given Orwellian instruction to inform the government of any attempt to disguise inclusion efforts in 'coded or imprecise language'. In the weeks to follow, Nasa would take back its promise to send the first woman and person of color to the moon's surface. Meanwhile, employees are reported to be hiding their rainbow flags and any other expressions of solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community, allegedly because they were instructed to do so though Nasa denies those claims. 'The pride flag flew in space a couple years ago,' says Cristina Costantini, the director of Sally, on a Zoom call with the Guardian. 'Now all Nasa employees are being asked to take down any representations of pride.' Related: 'Absolutely shocking': Netflix documentary examines how the Titan sub disaster happened Costantini calls the developments sad, especially because such harmful silencing contributes to the very atmosphere that made her film's subject hide her own queer identity throughout her celebrated career. Sally Ride, who made history when she rode the space shuttle Challenger into the stars on 18 June 1983, was a lesbian. The public, and so many who knew Ride personally, only found out that part of her legacy after she died of cancer in 2012. Ride's obituary identified Tam O'Shaughnessy as her partner of 27 years. O'Shaughnessy is a key voice in Sally, a National Geographic documentary revisiting everything we thought we knew about Ride – from her astronomic accomplishments to the infuriating sexism she confronted at Nasa and in the media, with reporters questioning how she would dress, whether space travel would affect her ovaries and if she would buckle and cry in the face of daunting challenges. But now there's the extra dimension, the part of Ride kept tragically buried because of the institutionalized homophobia we see resurfacing today. 'We made this movie not thinking it was particularly controversial,' says Costantini. 'We had no idea it would be this relevant.' Costantini is speaking from her Los Angeles office in Atwater Village, a photo of a space shuttle and another of Ride on the Challenger mission hovering just behind her. The investigative reporter turned film-maker – who grew up wanting to be a scientist and made her feature debut co-directing the Sundance audience award winner Science Fair – describes Ride as a major influence on her life. She remembers researching the astronaut as a young child on an old Encarta Encyclopedia CD-Rom for a book report. In grade three, Costantini contributed to a class mural where the students in her Milwaukee school painted their heroes on a wall. Ride is drawn standing alongside Brett Favre and Michael Jordan – a small sampling of the heroes that fed childhood aspirations in the mid-90s, says Costantini. With Sally, Costantini is returning to her icon's story with a canvas bigger than either a book report or mural, but an even more challenging story to tell. 'The film is really two stories interwoven,' says Costantini. 'It's the public and the private Sally. The public Sally is so well-documented that it's a problem. We had to bring in 5,000 reels from the Nasa archive and sort through and sound sync all of them. That was a monumental task. 'And then the other task is the private story, maybe the more interesting story, which has no documentation at all. There are only five really good pictures of [Sally and her partner, Tam] together that we had. You can't build a love story out of showing people the same five pictures over and over again. For that we had to kind of invent our own cinematic romantic language.' Costantini's doc pairs narrations from O'Shaughnessy and others who were close to Ride with animation and 16mm visuals. They express the love, the excitement of first relationships, the heavy toll from keeping these feelings secret and the sting when Ride – whose noted emotional reserve is making more and more sense – would behave inexplicably. 'Sally is a very confusing central subject in some ways,' says Costantini, remarking on how Ride didn't always make for a picture-perfect feminist hero, the uneasiness going a long way to make her even more compelling. The director refers to a story recounted by fellow astronaut Kathryn Sullivan. During the race to become the first American woman to go to space, Ride sabotaged a Nasa exercise Sullivan was working on. Talking heads mull whether that was an example of Ride's prankster sense of humour, or a cutthroat competitive nature that flew in the face of female solidarity and sisterhood. 'She didn't leave tell all diaries or an audio journal of how she was feeling in every single moment. So we're left to interpret later on what her choices were, and why she did what she did.' Costantini also points to Ride's five-year marriage to fellow astronaut Steve Hawley. The union in retrospect can be seen as a betrayal of who she was, and the LGTBQ+ movement that she never publicly aligned with. But it was also a necessary and sacrificial career move to make her dream possible, deflecting any suspicions about sexual orientation while making Ride a more ideal candidate to make history and inspire young women. 'People didn't like women in space,' says Costantini. 'And they especially didn't like single women in space. Some of the male astronauts were, like: 'Well, it was a good look for her not to be single and in space.'' When Ride does climb above the atmosphere on her historic mission, there's a cathartic moment where the tense conflicts within her – or put upon her – are either resolved or abandoned, if only temporarily. Related: Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story review – dazzling glamour and true grit 'I loved being weightless,' says Ride, while in space, her recorded words packing new mean considering all the burdens we now understand. 'It's a feeling of freedom.' 'She escaped Earth's orbit – Earth's gravity – metaphorically too,' says Costantini, on that pivotal moment in American history and Ride's personal life. 'Looking at the Earth from space, she started to, for the first time, really think about the imaginary lines that we have. She was struck by the fact that all these countries have known borders around them. These are human constructions. As Tam says in the film, the lines between genders, the lines between race, the lines between countries, who we're allowed to love, those are meaningless constructs. 'Space was transformative for her. When she came back to Earth, she finally allowed herself to be who she really is, and love who she really loved.' Sally premieres on National Geographic on 16 June and is available on Hulu and Disney+ on 17 June
The Guardian
10-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Smithsonian rejects Trump's attempt to fire National Portrait Gallery director
The Smithsonian Institution has rebuffed Donald Trump's attempt to fire the director of its National Portrait Gallery, with the museum's governing board asserting its independence in a direct challenge to the president. In a statement issued after an emergency meeting Monday, the Smithsonian's board of regents declared that 'all personnel decisions are made by and subject to the direction of the secretary, with oversight by the board' – turning away Trump's claim of authority over the institution's staffing. The standoff centers on Kim Sajet, whom Trump announced he had fired on 30 May, calling her 'highly partisan and a strong supporter of DEI' – or diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives – on social media. Sajet has continued reporting to work, creating a direct confrontation between the White House and the US's flagship cultural institution that has a 178-year-old governance structure built against political interference. The board backed secretary Lonnie Bunch, saying he 'has the support of the board of regents in his authority and management of the Smithsonian'. The statement also directed Bunch to ensure museum content remains 'unbiased' while maintaining that the Smithsonian 'must be a welcoming place of knowledge and discovery for all Americans'. The White House did not return a request for comment. The Smithsonian, which operates 21 museums and the National Zoo and attracts millions of visitors annually, represents America's largest museum and research complex. In March, Trump signed an executive order targeting 'anti-American ideology' at the museum system, claiming the institution had fallen 'under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology' and instructing Vance to remove 'improper ideology' from its museum system. Trump's attack on Sajet focused, among other reasons, on her Democratic political donations and her rejection of a pro-Trump painting by artist Julian Raven. Sajet reportedly told Raven his artwork was 'too pro-Trump' and 'too political' for the gallery, the artist told the Washingtonian in 2019. And unlike the Kennedy Center, which Trump successfully overhauled by installing himself as chairperson, the Smithsonian operates under a unique governance model with board members representing all three branches of government, including JD Vance, the vice-president, and John Roberts, the chief justice. The clash is all part of Trump's broader assault on cultural institutions. His administration has gutted the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities while proposing a 12% cut to the Smithsonian's budget, including complete elimination of funding for the Anacostia Community Museum and the National Museum of the American Latino. Trump's attempted cultural revolution has already devastated the Kennedy Center, according to the Washington Post, where ticket sales have plummeted about 36% since last year and artists have launched boycotts since his takeover. The president posted on social media there would be 'NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA' at the venue in May – though the father-disguised-as-nanny Mrs Doubtfire is scheduled to go on.
