For homecoming in 2009, the student council at Red Wing High School in Red Wing, Minnesota decided to go with a “tropical theme” for the dance. Instead, 60 students at the “predominantly white school” attended homecoming dressed for “Wigger Wednesday,” wearing costumes that “from their perspective” looked “black.” These included “oversized sports Jerseys, low-slung pants, baseball hats cocked to the side, and ‘doo rags’ on their heads.” The term “Wigger” is a pejorative slang term for a white person who mimics mannerisms, language, fashions, and stereotypes associated with black culture. It is “a portmanteau of either wannabee or white and nigger” and, here, is demeaning of African-Americans by mocking what the students interpreted to be their culture.

By allowing a class to celebrate “Wigger” — or alternatively known there as “Wangsta” — Day, the high school has earned its very own federal class action lawsuit. Former Red Wing High School student Quera Pruitt, an African-American, filed the suit in Minnesota on behalf of an unnamed class of “all students who experienced discrimination as a result of Wigger Day” — a class that may include more than 40 people. The school principal and school district superintendent, however, still “den[y] the allegations that it has created a racially hostile environment.” The Huffington Post’s Steven Hoffer reports:

Red Wing principal Beth Borgen and school district superintendent Karsten Anderson, both defendants in the suit, say the school is committed to creating a learning an environment free from discrimination.

According to a 2009 article on KARE-11, students participating in “Wigger Day” that year were immediately sent to change their clothes, but no additional punishment followed.

[Pruitt's attorney Joshua] Williams, who is seeking $75,000 in damages for his client, did not know whether “Wigger Day” took place again in 2010.

A statement from Anderson obtained by HuffPost says the district “denies the allegations that it has created a racially hostile environment and looks forward to meeting these allegations in court.”

Of course, the fact that this day of racist revelry turns out to be a tradition at the school belies any diverse utopia school officials say they strive for. Williams notes that the school district actually admitted that “Wigger Day” “occurred in at least the ‘last couple of years‘” and yet still failed to prevent it from happening in 2009. Even though Pruitt and her mother “complained directly to school officials,” somehow the officials still want to deny the “racially offensive nature of Wigger Day.”

Some students at the high school showed their continued, “proud” support for “Wigger Wednesday” by creating a Facebook group that explicitly — quite explicitly — vows to “keep wigger wednesday [sic] goin” until someone — presumably Pruitt or the principal — “quits.”

Dow Chemical will pay just $2.5 million in fines for several longstanding environmental problems at the company’s Midland complex in Michigan. It took the chemical giant almost four years to formally address problems identified by regulators, and the company will not admit any wrongdoing. Nevertheless, federal officials still cheered the settlement as a victory:

On July 29 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Justice Dept. said that Dow has agreed to a pay a $2.5 million fine for practices that regulators found violated federal environmental laws and endangered public health.

The alleged violations were identified during inspections that took place between 2005 and 2007. Officials said it took years to investigate and negotiate a comprehensive settlement to address all the violations at Dow’s large Midland complex.

In a 24 count complaint filed in the Eastern District of Michigan court along with the settlement, the government accused Dow of violating Clean Air Act rules for monitoring and repairing leaking equipment, for demonstrating compliance with rules for chemical, pharmaceutical and pesticide manufacturing, and for failing to comply with reporting and recordkeeping requirements.

Dow also violated the Clean Water Act’s “prohibition against discharging pollutants without a permit.” In November 2007 the EPA notified Dow it found potential clean air and hazardous waste violations, which may have increased public exposure to hazardous pollutants that can cause serious health effects including birth defects and cancer.

According to the EPA, Dow’s Midland facility released 275,912 pounds of toxic chemicals in the last year. Craig Harris, a specialist in environmental sociology at Michigan State University, points out that during the time the violations occurred, Dow booked at least $6.2 billion in profits. “In other words,” he says, “the fine to which ‘our’ government agency has agreed represents less than one-half of one-tenth of one percent of Dow’s net income during the period of the infractions.”

“It’s hard to see how this reduces the incentive for future violations, as the U.S. EPA press release claims,” Harris observes.

(HT: Washington Independent)

President Obama nominated a very odd candidate to be the next U.S. Attorney in Utah, the chief legal advisor to the Senate’s most radical tenther, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT):

President Barack Obama tapped Sen. Mike Lee’s legal counsel to be the next U.S. attorney for Utah, a move that infuriated Democrats from the state and ended a lengthy political drama over who would claim the high-profile position.

The White House on Tuesday announced the nomination of David Barlow. He will need to win Senate confirmation before he can claim the spot as Utah’s top federal prosecutor, a job that has remained vacant since the end of 2009.

As ThinkProgress explained after news broke that Barlow was being vetted for this job, Barlow’s close association with Lee raises very serious questions about whether he can be trusted to enforce laws intended to protect ordinary Americans ability to earn a living, be safe from natural disasters and enjoy a secure retirement. Before the Senate even considers confirming Barlow to be the top federal attorney in Utah, Barlow should be required to answer a number of difficult questions about whether he shares any of Lee’s most indefensible positions on the Constitution:

• Will Barlow Vigorously Protect Seniors’ Right To Social Security? As a Senate candidate, Lee claimed that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to provide “a decent retirement plan.” Barlow should disavow this radical belief before he can be confirmed.
• Will Barlow Vigorously Protect Seniors’ Right To Medicare? In the same speech, Lee also claimed that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to provide “health care” — a view that would invalidate Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP and the Affordable Care Act. Barlow should also disavow this radical belief before he can be confirmed.
• Will Barlow Enforce Child Labor Laws? Lee believes that child labor laws are unconstitutional because the Constitution “was designed to be a little bit harsh.” Before Barlow can be a U.S. Attorney, he must swear under oath that he will enforce federal child labor laws without reservation.
• Will Barlow Enforce Food Safety Laws? In a radio interview last January, Lee said that food safety is “not necessarily the role of the federal government.” As a U.S. Attorney, however, Barlow will be responsible for prosecuting criminal violations of laws ensuring that our food is safe to eat. Before Barlow can be a U.S. Attorney, he must swear under oath that he will enforce federal food safety laws without reservation.
• Does Barlow Believe That The Constitution Requires The Poor To Starve? In the same radio interview, Lee also said that federal anti-poverty programs are “not necessarily the role of the federal government” under the Constitution. Barlow should explain whether he shares his boss’ apparent belief that food stamps and similar programs are unconstitutional.
• Does Barlow Believe That Federal Disaster Relief Is Unconstitutional? Lee has also suggested that federal disaster relief violates the Constitution. Barlow should disavow this radical belief before he can be confirmed.

Barlow’s decision to leave a successful and lucrative law practice in order to work for someone with Lee’s contempt for the Constitution raises serious concerns about Barlow’s fitness to serve as Utah’s top federal attorney. It is, of course, possible that Barlow does not share his boss’ views — indeed it is even possible that Barlow sought the U.S. Attorney job because he wanted a face-saving way to leave a job that forces him to push a dangerous and radical interpretation of the Constitution. Before Barlow can be confirmed, however, the Senate owes the people a Utah a duty to ensure that Barlow will not use his position in the Justice Department to push Mike Lee’s radical constitutional agenda.

Yesterday, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) announced his presidential campaign’s “Justice Advisory Committee,” along with its co-chair Robert Bork.

The Senate rejected Bork’s 1987 Supreme Court nomination in a bipartisan 58-42 vote, but Bork has since emerged as the slain martyr at the center of the conservative legal movement’s creation myth. In this sense, Bork’s involvement is a coup for a campaign that is struggling to prove Romney’s hard right credentials in the face of his decision to ensure that all people in his state enjoy access to affordable health care.

For the majority of Americans who are uninterested in hard right governance, however, Bork’s record raises very serious questions about whether someone who would take legal advice from him has any business appointing judges and Supreme Court Justices:

• Opposition To Civil Rights: One year before President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned whites-only lunch counters and other forms of discrimination, Bork criticized the Act as a moral abomination. “The principle of such legislation is that if I find your behavior ugly by my standards, moral or aesthetic, and if you prove stubborn about adopting my view of the situation, I am justified in having the state coerce you into more righteous paths. That is itself a principle of unsurpassed ugliness.”
• No Right To Contraception: In Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court held that married couples have a constitutional right to use contraception — a decision that was later extended to all couples. Bork called this decision “utterly specious” and a “time bomb.”
• Banning Porn, Art and Science : Bork also called for shrinking the size of the First Amendment until it is small enough to be drowned in a bathtub. “Constitutional protection should be accorded only to speech that is explicitly political. There is no basis for judicial intervention to protect any other form of expression, be it scientific, literary or that variety of expression we call obscene or pornographic.”
• Believes Government Can Criminalize Sex: In its landmark Lawrence v. Texas decision, the Supreme Court reached the obvious conclusion that it is none of the government’s damn business who anyone is having sex with — overruling a previous decision in Bowers v. Hardwick. Bork, however, wrote that “Bowers v. Hardwick, which upheld the community’s right to prohibit homosexual conduct, may be a sign that the Court is recovering its balance . . . . I am dubious about making homosexual conduct criminal, but I favor even less imposing rules upon the American people that have no basis other than the judge’s morality.”
• No Constitutional Protection for Women: Bork also claimed that the Constitution does not shield women from gender discrimination. In Bork’s words, “I do think the equal protection clause probably should be kept to things like race and ethnicity.”

Four of the Supreme Court’s current members are over age 70. One of these justices is a cancer survivor. So whoever takes the oath of office in 2013 could have the opportunity to fill several of these seats. Now that Romney has selected Bork as one of his chief judicial advisers, the American people have a right to know whether Romney shares any of Bork’s previously expressed positions on civil rights, the rights of women, and how far government may intrude into our bedrooms, classrooms, art galleries and laboratories.