A story in today’s New York Times offers a disturbing look at the smear tactics and threats the Cain campaign is using to intimidate the four women accusing the candidate of sexual harassment, and any women that might come forward in the future:

L. Lin Wood, the lawyer hired by the Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain to fend off sexual harassment accusations, has warned that any other women who might be considering coming forward with similar allegations “should think twice.”

On Wednesday morning, less than 24 hours after Karen Kraushaar identified herself as one of two women who had received monetary settlements relating to harassment allegations against Mr. Cain while working for the National Restaurant Association in the late 1990s, Ms. Kraushaar faced questions about a workplace complaint she filed at a subsequent job… Hours later, Rush Limbaugh seized on that report to argue that Ms. Kraushaar has “a pattern of whining.” [...]

[S]he and the others confronted the challenges of taking on a presidential candidate: intensive scrutiny of their backgrounds and motives, encouraged and amplified in this case by conservative news outlets and commentators whose support for Mr. Cain as he battles the allegations has helped him weather the crisis so far.

Cain and his defenders aren’t bothering to conceal their intention to silence would-be accusers with bullying. The campaign has hired investigators to dig up dirt on the women. Many respected media outlets are becoming willing accomplices in the diversion of questioning the alleged victims rather than investigating Cain’s conduct.

The insulting assumption behind the AP’s decision to investigate and report on Kraushaar’s past in the first place is, of course, that her credibility is diminished because she had problems with another employer. Besides the fact that the other complaint had nothing to do with sexual harassment, it’s also absurd to think that the same woman couldn’t experience hostile situations in two workplaces.

According to one report, one in ten women in the workplace will at some point be “promised promotion or better treatment if they [are] ‘sexually cooperative‘” with a co-worker or supervisor. Kraushaar didn’t want to come forward but was publicly outed against her will. Instead of becoming a passive voice in the media maelstorm, she chose to accept the situation and tell her story.

Sharon Bialeck, the first woman to go public with her accusation, also had every detail of her past and financial history picked over — nevermind that she has shown no intention of suing Cain for money. During a press conference this week, Cain said he couldn’t remember meeting Bialeck, yet called her “troubled,” out for money, and part of a “Democrat machine” out to destroy him. Bialeck and Kraushaar are both registered Republicans. Fully aware of the attacks they would face, they say they spoke out because they felt compelled to inform Americans about a leading presidential candidate’s actions and character.

Conservatives’ knee-jerk reaction has been to blame the women before learning anything about them. Republicans have suggested that what Cain allegedly did wasn’t so bad, that sexual harassment doesn’t even exist or is only, in Rush Limbaugh’s words, “a political tool of the left to get rid of people, or to score money gains.” A New York Post columnist called Bialek a “gold digger” who “flirted like a tart” with Cain.

Sadly, the smear campaign Cain’s accusers are facing is exactly the reason many women don’t report incidents of rape or harassment. They fear they won’t be believed or taken seriously, and may well suffer retribution for filing complaints. That message is only reinforced for women watching the persecution of Cain’s accusers, who may conclude that reporting assaults is not worth the risk of public shaming.

Rape and sexual assault are two of the most under-reported crimes, with fully 60 percent of cases not reported to police. Women know that if they press charges or go public, they may be called “sluts” and have their sexual pasts used against them — which is why many states have rape shield laws to protect victims from having irrelevant facts jeopardize their ability to get a fair hearing.

The Cain campaign’s deplorable tactics are already having their desired affect: Kraushaar told friends that all the scrutiny might keep the other women from speaking out with her.

From nearly the first day the President Obama too office, Senate Republicans waged war against his judicial nominees. Indeed, judicial confirmations are down 30 percent from the rate under Obama’s two predecessors. Yet, as the Wall Street Journal reports, these roadblocks come at the worst possible time. While filibusters and delays kill new judicial confirmations, the federal courts’ caseload is exploding:

Over the past three decades, the U.S. has steadily added to the federal rule book through new criminal statutes and regulations that carry criminal penalties. Combined with beefed-up enforcement, that has led to a 70% jump in the number of pending federal criminal cases in the past decade—to over 76,000, according to the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts.

Civil litigation, which accounts for over three quarters of federal court cases, is getting squeezed the most. In 2007, fewer than 7% of civil cases were more than three years old. By last year, that percentage more than doubled, with nearly 45,000 cases in a holding pattern. . . .

Exacerbating the problem are vacancies on the federal bench. Despite the surge in case loads, the number of authorized federal judgeships has risen just 4% since 1990. Of the 677 district court judgeships currently authorized, about 9.5% are vacant.

Indeed, the caseload crisis is so severe that it is actually starting to impact wealthy and well-connected corporations — Google and Oracle have waited two years for a trial on an intellectual property dispute with no end in sight. The real losers from this crisis, however, are too often people who are far less capable of waiting out the financial burden of justice denied:

For two and a half years, Amy Bullock has been waiting for her day in court seeking damages for the death of her husband in a 2006 truck accident. Her suit was filed in Denver federal court two years later against Daimler Trucks North America LLC, formerly Freightliner LLC.

It has been postponed twice, once in November 2010, about two weeks before the trial was supposed to start, and again this October to make way for a firearms case.

All Americans depend on the courts to ensure that the law is applied fairly and swiftly. There is no excuse for the Senate GOP’s decision to hobble the judiciary’s ability to meet this need.

Edward DuMont is an outstanding attorney. A former Supreme Court advocate in the U.S. Solicitor General’s office and later a senior DOJ official responsible for computer crime, e-commerce and privacy, DuMont held a prestigious clerkship with conservative superjudge Richard Posner, and was voted one of the best appellate attorneys in the country in six different annual surveys of his peers. After President Obama nominated DuMont to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, three former Republican Solicitors General endorsed his nomination.

DuMont is also openly gay — indeed he would have been the first openly gay federal appeals judge in American history if he had been confirmed. Sadly, that will not happen. In a recently released letter, DuMont asked President Obama to withdraw his nomination — citing the nearly limitless ability of just a few senators to shut down the confirmation process:

Although I was first nominated more the 18 months ago, the Senate Judiciary Committee has not held a hearing on my nomination. My understanding is that this inaction results from opposition on the part of one or more members of the Committee minority. While I regret this, I also recognize that any degree of opposition can be enough, as a practical matter, to prevent action by the full Committee or the Senate. Given the passage of time, that appears to be the case here.

Under these circumstances, drawing the process out further does not seem either sensible for me or fair to the Federal Circuit, which has important work to do and deserves to be able to address it with a full complement of active judges. Accordingly, I respectfully request that you withdraw my nomination at this time.

DuMont is correct to be concerned about the dysfunction that now rules our Senate. By this point in their presidencies, both of President Obama’s two predecessors had confirmed 50 more lower court judges than have been confirmed under Obama. In today’s filibuster-driven Senate, unambiguously qualified nominees with impressive bipartisan support languish until their nominations finally die of old age.

Worse, while DuMont’s opponents in the Senate have refused to even explain why they believe he is unsuited for the bench, it is difficult to ignore the fact that DuMont is not the first openly gay nominee to receive questionable treatment from Senate Republicans. Last month, the GOP caucus suddenly decided to oppose lesbian Judge Allison Nathan’s nomination to a federal court in New York after two anti-gay group announced they were opposing her. Like DuMont, Nathan is an exception attorney — a former Supreme Court clerk, even — and had broad bipartisan support. Indeed, many of the Republican Senators who voted against her confirmation on the Senate floor first voted for her in committee.

In other words, it’s difficult to escape the conclusion that Senate Republicans are holding gay nominees to a different standard than everyone else.

One of North Carolina’s largest school districts has agreed to better protect Latino students from discrimination after the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) filed a federal complaint with the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights against the school system. The SPLC complained in April that Durham Public Schools did not follow federal law to “ensure that non-English speaking students have a meaningful opportunity to participate in education programs.”

Specifically, the center’s letter said the district only provided three Spanish interpreters for 5,300 students whose primary language was Spanish, did not provide translated information for non-English speaking parents, and that the schools “created or maintained” an hostile learning environment:

Take for example the situation of C.A.H. [...] C.A.H. presented the proof of residency documents called for under District policy, but Hillside staff requested that she produce a passport and immigrant visa – something never requested of non-Latino students. During the enrollment process, a school staff member made several derogatory comments asking her “how can you be here without a passport or visa” then concluding that “you must be an illegal.” [...]

We are particularly concerned about the atmosphere at Northern High School where teachers routinely engage in ethnic name calling of students with no repercussions. In one situation, a group of Latino students were called “Eses” by their teacher while being collectively accused of theft. “Ese” is a derogatory slur, intended to imply gang or criminal affiliation. [...]

On one occasion, a teacher removed F.C.M. from class in response to an allegation of a minor discipline infraction, forcibly pushed him against a wall, and suggested that F.C.M. “go back to your own country.” Following this incident, in mid-January 2011, the same teacher advised F.C.M. to sit next to a bilingual student, S.R., during the screening of an instructional video. The video was not captioned for Spanish and S.R. was deputized to translate for F.C.M. Ironically, the students were later reprimanded for talking and were taken out of the classroom by the teacher into the hallway. As had occurred in the previous incident, the teacher commented that “y’all not gonna do nothing here . . . why don’t you go back to where you came from.”

In response to the civil rights complaint, Durham Public Schools agreed to strengthen its anti-discrimination policy, review registration and enrollment policies, provide documents to parents in their native language, and provide interpreters to help parents understand the information. “It’s really a commitment from the school system to fix the problem and ensure that what has been suggested or proposed is actually being done,” said Jerri Katzerman, deputy legal director of the SPLC.

The changes by Durham school officials will hopefully serve as an example for other North Carolina school districts as the state’s population continues to shift. Minorities made up 61 percent of the state’s population growth, according to the 2010 Census, and in Durham County, minorities make up 57 percent of the population. And the actions stand in stark contrast to the racial profiling and bullying of Latino students in Alabama in the wake of that state’s extreme immigration law.