NEWS & LETTERS, December 2009
Women World Wide
by Mary Jo Grey
Right-wing militants in Somalia are rounding up and whipping women who are not wearing veils or socks. More than 130 people were detained in three days for "violating" sharia law. Women have also been flogged for wearing bras, and forced to remove their bras and "bare their breasts."
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The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has ruled that Belmont Abbey Catholic College in Belmont, N.C., discriminated against its employees on the basis of sex by denying them healthcare coverage for oral contraceptives. In 2007, the college stopped its insurance coverage of oral contraceptives, voluntary sterilization and abortion.
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A nearly $500,000 judgment awarded to a Library of Congress employee, who lost that job while undergoing a gender change from a man to a woman, will stand and not be challenged by the Obama administration. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on her behalf in 2005 and two months ago a federal judge gave her back pay and damages because of sex discrimination. She said she saw support of the judgment as recognition that transgender discrimination must end.
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