u/lemon_lime_light

Internal records show lawmakers pressed state education officials to restore payments and approve meal sites even as front-line regulators raised concerns about the nonprofit...

In April 2021, state Sen. Omar Fateh, DFL-Minneapolis, met with top Education Department officials to explain why resolving the “reimbursement issue” was critical to “maintaining community trust in these important programs,” according to an April 26, 2021, email from the senator. A day later, the Education Department’s government relations director responded by announcing the department was lifting the payment block “due to the concerns expressed by community organizations” represented by the senator.

“That is wonderful, fantastic news,” Fateh wrote back.

Minneapolis Public Schools again faces a financial crunch in the tens of millions of dollars, while also maintaining a glut of underused buildings that suggest it is time, at last, to downsize.

Yet the state’s third-largest district also is now considering building a brand new $105 million school.

The new school, if approved, would house Anishinabe Academy on the site of the former Cooper Community School in Longfellow. The specialized school offers instruction in Native language and culture in a shared space in south Minneapolis — and long has been promised its own building.

As of this month, r/MinnesotaUncensored has been around for two years and added it's 5,000th member.

This place was created, in part, to discuss topics and express opinions that aren’t welcome or allowed in other local subreddits. But that doesn't happen without users having those conversations so thank you for participating.

And if you've found this subreddit valuable or enjoyable, it would be fun to hear why. And if you hate it, please share that too (don't hold back).

Also, "thank you" to the other mods, past and present (u/14Calypso, u/parabox1, and another who is no longer with us). This subreddit is better because of them and decisions they were right about.

State education officials repeatedly raised concerns about possible fraud in the federally funded meals program during the pandemic, but their supervisors stopped them from taking more aggressive action, according to law enforcement interviews and other investigative records newly obtained by the Minnesota Star Tribune...

Three state employees told investigators that their managers discouraged aggressive oversight because they were afraid of lawsuits. One believed the department’s leadership feared accusations of racism from Feeding Our Future, the nonprofit at the center of the fraud case, which largely served Minnesota’s East African community...

The records include FBI interviews with Jenny Butcher, a 25-year veteran of the Minnesota Department of Education who retired in 2024. Butcher told federal investigators in May 2022 that abuse in the meals program was an “open secret.”

A proposed bill would expand "disparate impact" protections under Minnesota's Human Rights Act. Some background on disparate impact from the Washington Post:

>Under the concept of disparate impact, actions can amount to discrimination if they have an uneven effect on people from different groups even if that was not the intent. It relies on data analysis to help identify discriminatory results.

Basically, it's a legal theory that justifies claims of discrimination through statistical discrepancies, rather than any discriminatory intent or treatment.

In practice, by looking at differences in hiring outcomes it says written exams are racist and physical fitness tests are sexist. And, absurdly, pointing to other well-known and obvious explanations for discrepancies (eg, sex-based differences in physical performance or academic skills gaps among minorities) cannot be used as defenses.

Apparently, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights agrees with the disparate impact approach because it created two-page flyer in support of the bill. In one example, the department says a Bachelor's Degree requirement for fast-food cashiers "disproportionately limits opportunities for Indigenous and Black Minnesotans to be hired". Excessive degree requirements may be bad business but are they "harmful discrimination" that should be illegal?

The ridiculousness here becomes even more clear when you consider that "just about everything has a disparate impact": a law professor has offered $10,000 to anyone "who can name a job qualification without a disparate impact on some group covered by Title VII" (to date, no one has collected the check).

The silver lining here is the bill appears to be going nowhere (at least this session).

From the Star Tribune:

>One of the nation’s leading powerlifting organizations settled a lawsuit alleging its organizers discriminated against a transgender athlete in Minnesota.

>USA Powerlifting reached a settlement agreement with JayCee Cooper on April 28. Cooper sued USA Powerlifting after organizers barred her from competing in a 2018 women’s powerlifting competition...

>“This settlement — which includes an acknowledgement by USA Powerlifting that their policies excluding trans women athletes for discrimination broke the law — affirms Minnesota’s commitment to protecting every person’s right to compete, belong and thrive without discrimination," said Jess Braverman, legal director for the nonprofit law firm Gender Justice...

>Terms of the agreement prohibit Cooper and USA Powerlifting from divulging settlement details. But former USAPL President Larry Maile said Tuesday’s settlement follows a Minnesota Supreme Court opinion “that has forced Minnesota to take a step backward for women, fair competition and common sense.”

To fully appreciate the absurdity here, first consider that the male advantage in weightlifting is one of the largest in sports:

https://preview.redd.it/ep50lpl0n5yg1.png?width=360&format=png&auto=webp&s=b4a74e79c59c04d6a0968052e55dfe5103037d27

As an example, from previous sparring on this issue I found that at the 2024 Olympic games in weightlifting the gold medalist in the lightest men's weight class outperformed the gold medalist in the heaviest women's weight class. That is, a 134 pound man was a better lifter than a 334 pound woman. The obvious fairness concerns in sports convinced the International Olympic committee to bar transgender athletes from Women's events.

Then remember that JayCee Cooper is 280 lb. biological male who became interested in powerlifting after transitioning to a "female identity" as an adult and set a record at perhaps the first competition. When a different private sports organization (USAPL) said they don't want something similar happening during one of their competitions, they barred Cooper from competing. Cooper sued and ultimately stuck the USAPL with a human rights violation.