The Week In Woke

The Bee:

Target stopped funding the Congressional Black Caucus's "nonprofit arm" (read: grift to pay off their political cronies and unemployable children and mistresses).

The CBC now threatens a boycott unless their grift is restored.

The Congressional Black Caucus is boosting a boycott effort against retail giant Target for ending its DEI initiatives, a rollback that included the termination of a corporate sponsorship program that has been lucrative for the caucus's nonprofit arm.

Since 2020, Target has donated at least $1.4 million to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, a think tank that works hand in hand with the 62-member caucus. Target pledged $1 million over five years to the foundation through its Racial Equity Action and Change (REACH) initiative to "advance social justice and racial equity for Black individuals" in the wake of the death of George Floyd. The retail giant donated $200,000 to the foundation for "meeting expenses" in December to honor several caucus members, according to lobbying records.

But Target shut off the cash spigot for all of its DEI programs in January in response to President Donald Trump's executive action on DEI. The company announced it will wind down REACH and reevaluate "corporate partnerships to ensure they are directly connected to our roadmap for growth," seemingly putting funding for the CBC Foundation on the chopping block.

Now, the Congressional Black Caucus is making thinly veiled threats to endorse boycotting Target if it does not reinstate "diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives that were eliminated or rolled back," according to a statement the caucus released after a meeting with Target CEO Brian Cornell and other executives last week. CBC members "warned that efforts to restore consumer and public trust without genuine action and accountability would risk inflicting lasting damage to the company's brand and credibility," according to a statement from the caucus.

Columbia President (and former NBC "News" Karen) Claire Shipman told the former university's board of trustees to fire an outspoken Jewish member who was complaining about the harassment and assaults on Jewish students and replace her with an "Arab," as she called it.

Before she became the acting president of Columbia University, Claire Shipman argued that the school needed to get an "Arab on our board" and suggested that a Jewish trustee should be removed over her pro-Israel advocacy, according to text messages obtained by the House Committee on Education and Workforce.

"We need to get somebody from the middle east [sic] or who is Arab on our board," Shipman, then the co-chair of Columbia's board of trustees, wrote in a message on January 17, 2024. "Quickly I think. Somehow."

A week later, Shipman told a colleague that Shoshana Shendelman, one of the board's most outspoken critics of campus anti-Semitism, had been "extraordinarily unhelpful," adding, "I just don't think she should be on the board."

Harvard is facing a billion dollar deficit due to the imminent loss of federal funding, and is begging woke corporations for donations to make up the gap.

Harvard University is asking major corporations for research funding after President Donald Trump revoked more than $2 billion in federal grants from the school over campus anti-Semitism and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

Harvard is "ramping up conversations with big technology and pharmaceutical companies in efforts to drive more corporate funding so research stays active," the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. The talks remain in early stages, with no new funding agreements yet secured, according to university and company sources.

The corporate outreach comes as Trump has cracked down on Harvard for failing to protect Jewish students from violent protesters and implementing what he calls "discriminatory and illegal" DEI policies. Trump has frozen nearly $3 billion in federal funding from Harvard, revoked the school's authorization to host international students, and proposed removing Harvard's tax-exempt status if the university "keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting 'Sickness.'"

For purposes of allowing unqualified DEI law students to become lawyers, they've made the bar exam childishly easy.

For decades, the bar exam was the last line of defense -- a rigorous filter ensuring that only those with real legal chops could represent the public. Today, that filter is being shredded, sacrificed on the altar of equity and inclusion. The result? A collapse in standards, the death of meritocracy, and a profession on the brink of irrelevance.

The NextGen Bar Exam, set to roll out in 2026, is not about modernizing legal education or making better lawyers. It is about making the exam easier to pass. Out go the demanding essays and complex legal analysis; in come more multiple-choice questions and "practical" scenarios that test little more than common sense and the ability to regurgitate buzzwords. The new mantra is "minimal competence," a phrase so hollow as to be meaningless.

The new system benefits neither clients, who deserve skilled and well-prepared advocates, nor the public, who depend on lawyers to guide them through a complex legal system. The only winners are bureaucrats and activists obsessed with "equity."

And even then, this is not to say that the new bar somehow guarantees equality of opportunity. Rather, it tries to force equality of outcome, no matter how much the universal bar must be lowered in the process.

Jonathan Turley on the Katanji's Oprah Winfrey "jurisprudence."

Justice Barrett clearly had had enough with the self-aggrandizing rhetoric. She delivered a haymaker in writing that "JUSTICE JACKSON would do well to heed her own admonition: "[E]veryone, from the President on down, is bound by law." Ibid. That goes for judges too."

She added, "We will not dwell on JUSTICE JACKSON's argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries' worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this: JUSTICE JACKSON decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary."

In other words, the danger to democracy is found in judges acting like kings. Barrett explained to her three liberal colleagues that "when a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too."

The last term has laid bare some of the chilling jurisprudence of Justice Jackson, including a certain exasperation with having to closely follow the text of laws. (In an earlier dissent this term, Jackson lashed out against the limits of textualism and argued for courts to free themselves from the confines -- or shall we say the "minutiae" -- of statutory language). In this opinion, Barrett slams Jackson for pursuing other diversions "because analyzing the governing statute involves boring 'legalese.'" Again, what Jackson refers to as "legalese" is the heart of the judicial function in constraining courts under Article III.

Untethered by statutory or constitutional text, it allows the courts to float free from the limits of the Constitution.

MIT student: I was chased out of the school due to being Jewish, and the administration allowed it.

[A career in academia] is no longer available to me. In January, I left MIT because of the antisemitism I experienced on campus. Now I'm suing the university.

The antisemitism didn't start on Oct. 7. I joined the board of MIT Grad Hillel during my first year on campus because, as I told MIT News, "I think it's important to demonstrate Jewish culture at a time when antisemitism is on the rise."

Three months after the profile was published, Hamas terrorists waged the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust -- and my fellow students at MIT celebrated, posting, "Victory is ours."

...

We witnessed our peers chant for violence against Jews, take over buildings, interrupt classes with antisemitic rants, and harass, intimidate and bully Jews for being Jewish.

This hostile environment was exposed to the world in December 2023 when MIT's president, Sally Kornbluth, was called to Congress alongside the presidents of Harvard and Penn, to answer for the antisemitism on her campus.

She testified, now infamously, that calls for the elimination of the Jewish people can be antisemitic "depending on the context." After that day, calls for the genocide of Jews continued, and the climate of terror on campus intensified.

...

With MIT doing nothing to curb the escalating antisemitism on campus, the situation spiraled out of control.

In November 2024, a tenured MIT professor posted online that a "Zionist 'mind infection' " is being funded by "Jewish student life organizations" such as Hillel and Chabad.

When I pointed out that his message was extremely dangerous rhetoric, the professor began targeting me personally in X posts to his 10,000 followers. He did so over and over again. In his sixth post, for example, he referred to me as "an excellent case study."

I sent the professor an email with a simple request: "Please leave me alone." He then emailed the entire Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, including students and faculty, promising to use me in his upcoming seminar as a "real-life case study" of the Jewish "mind infection."

He continued targeting me in a relentless series of mass emails, copying high-level administrators, including Kornbluth. In one of these emails, he stated that I have "powerful connections" to the media and to "influential friends in Congress like Rep. Elise Stefanik" -- which is false.

Suddenly, I became the target of widespread harassment. Students, staff and non-affiliates piled on, amplifying the professor's vitriol against me. One staff member sent a mass email painting me as a racist. My mother worried I would be killed.

The most disturbing aspect of this whole episode was that Kornbluth -- who was copied on the exchange where the harassment was on display in real time -- stayed silent, as did the other high-level administrators. Not one of them intervened.

On the morning of the seminar, flyers were slipped under the doors in the graduate dormitory where I used to live, containing an article advocating for violent "resistance" against Jews. The flyer specifically targeted me. It contained a graphic styled after Hamas headbands that read, "This article and the author were banned from MIT after Zionists tweeted about it."

I was one of the Jews who had tweeted about the article, which says, "We will burn the ground beneath your feet" next to the logo of a US-designated foreign terrorist organization.

He's suing. Good. Burn it down.

The BBC took part in a calculated broadcast of "hate speech."

Bear in mind, conservative women are in jail right now for tweets about immigrants the British establishment found too "hateful" to be permitted.

Why aren't Kneecap and Bob Vylan in jail, too? Why aren't the BBC's directors?

THE events at Glastonbury this past weekend should concern anyone who believes that anti-Semitism has no place in British public life. What unfolded on one of the country's most iconic cultural stages wasn't spontaneous rebellion or edgy political commentary: it was a deliberate and co-ordinated act of provocation. Worse, it was broadcast live to a national audience, under the watch of both the BBC and the festival's organisers.

Kneecap are a band whose lead singer has previously been arrested under anti-terrorism legislation and who has openly threatened to use his platform to make anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements, both on television and at Glastonbury. Despite this history, the band were not only invited to perform but reportedly informed by the BBC that their set would not be aired. In reality, what followed suggests a calculated workaround.

Just before Kneecap's performance, the BBC aired the set of a lesser-known duo, Bob Vylan, with a troubling legal background and a documented history of anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric. Bob Vylan, known associates of Kneecap, were given a prime broadcast slot directly before their set. This was no coincidence. Judging by the crowd's reaction, many knew what was coming.

...

To make matters worse, Glastonbury also hosted a scheduled talk by Palestine Action, a group that was recently proscribed by the UK government under anti-terrorism legislation. Their inclusion wasn't just provocative; it may well constitute a direct violation of UK law. That one of Britain's most visible cultural institutions gave a platform to an organisation designated a terrorist group is not only outrageous -- it raises urgent questions about institutional responsibility and legal oversight.

...

This is not just about Glastonbury. It speaks to a broader institutional failure -- across the BBC, the arts sector and civil society -- to recognise and respond to anti-Semitism when it comes cloaked in the language of activism. The double standards are glaring. No other form of bigotry would be tolerated so openly at a major UK event, let alone amplified to millions via public broadcast.

What we witnessed was not a mistake. It was a choice. The BBC and Glastonbury's organisers must answer for it. Who signed off on these decisions? What safeguards failed? And what's being done to ensure it never happens again?

I would defend them if the UK were a nation that defended free speech -- but they don't. They send people to jail for objecting to unlimited third world immigration.

Kneecap and Bob Vylan must go to jail as well.

But they won't.

And the head of the BBC won't be punished, either.

Avon and Somerset police have confirmed that they are assessing coverage of the event to decide whether a criminal investigation will be mounted.

In Two-Tier Keir's Britain, there is no guarantee of that, but on the face of it Vylan should be in the dock for his call to kill Jews -- and so should the BBC senior executives who allowed this torrent of hate to be broadcast live on their platform to millions of people world wide.

This stands out as one of the worst misjudgements in the 100-year history of the BBC, and it is so serious that director general Tim Davie should be sacked for gross misconduct and a flagrant disregard to ensure impartiality. Even culture minister Lisa Nandy has asked for an explanation.

There are no extenuating circumstances. Since the October 2023 massacre of more than 1,000 Jews by Hamas terrorists, Jewish groups have been warning the Corporation that their coverage of events in Palestine has been seriously biased, but precious little has been done to redress the concerns. The BBC response is almost invariably to say -- without a scrap of evidence -- that their critics are wrong.

How did this horror story happen? It's because for the BBC, Glastonbury is a sacred event. Every year, it sends a reputed 1,000 staff to Worthy Farm to facilitate the worship. They stay in L400-a- night hotels and write acres of self-congratulatory verbiage about how wonderful their coverage will be.

...

It's been obvious for years that Glastonbury organisers Michael Eavis and his family -- condoned by the BBC -- have made the festival into a major far-left political event. Sponsorship has been totally dominated by right-on organisations such as Oxfam and Greenpeace and audience flag-waving features constant reminders of that agenda.

In effect, the BBC have used the excuse of artistic merit to ignore their Charter obligation for impartiality, and now that self-righteous complacency has blown up in their face. But they should have seen it coming.

The Pride group founder who has attacked JK Rowling constantly online has been arrested for sexually assaulting children. This was a pastime he engaged in with his boyfriend, who was also arrested.

A man has been jailed for 24 years for raping an "extremely vulnerable" 12-year-old boy after the pair met on a dating app.

Stephen Ireland, 41, who co-founded Pride in Surrey in 2018, raped the child at the flat he shared with his then-partner and co-defendant David Sutton, 27, in Addlestone on 19 April 2024 after messaging on Grindr.

Ireland was also sentenced to a further six years on extended licence, while Sutton was jailed for four-and-a-half years for making indecent photographs of children and possession of an extreme pornographic image.

At Guildford Crown Court on Monday, Judge Patricia Lees said Ireland "took advantage" of a vulnerable child.

The boy - referred to in court as Child A - who had been reported missing at the time, told police they had sex in the flat, smoked a bong which was later found to have contained methamphetamine, and that pornography was played on a laptop.

The court heard the boy had initially told Ireland he was aged 17 -- but when he later claimed to be aged 13, Ireland replied: "OK -- we just have to keep it a secret."

"Your response was telling," Judge Lees told Ireland, who sat in the dock dressed in a large red T-shirt and showed no emotions throughout the hearing.

"Far from finding that repugnant, you found that exciting, and sought to do it again."

In a Telegram chat that took place after their encounter, Ireland sent Child A a message in which he described his age as "naughty and kinky", the court heard.

On the same day, Ireland asked the boy if he would have a threesome and sent the child pictures of himself and Sutton.

Jurors heard that Ireland sent a picture of Child A to Sutton, describing him as a "14-year-old baby" who "wants to play with men's bodies", and the pair exchanged messages about the child.

...

"You fed off one another," Judge Lees told the defendants during the sentence hearing on Monday.

"You definitely supported one another in your perversions."

So close to Pride Month?

SO CLOSE TO PRIDE MONTH?!?!

Ofcom is the UK's Orwellesque media regulator. It's supposed to insure that the state media remain impartial, given that everyone, on the left and right, is compelled to pay for the BBC if they own a TV at all.

In practice, what it does is ruthlessly enforce a left-wing speech code on all media outlets, including the ones that are privately funded.

Now Ofcom is warning a privately-funded news channel, GB News, that they have to keep indoctrinating the public that trans women ARE women-- even in the face of a UK Supreme Court finding that they're not.

Media regulator warns GB News that it cannot treat the controversy as settled despite Supreme Court ruling in April

Broadcasters must give airtime to claims that biological men are women when covering trans issues, Ofcom has said.

The media regulator warned GB News in a letter seen by The Telegraph that it could not treat the controversy as settled, despite the Supreme Court victory for women's rights campaigners in April 2025.

The court decided that under the Equality Act, the word "woman" means a biological woman rather than a person's self-identified gender.

As a result, women-only spaces have a legal right to be protected. Sir Keir Starmer has told hospitals and universities to obey the law and ban trans women from female lavatories "as soon as possible".

However, Ofcom has said that the judges' ruling does not mean the matter is "settled".

In the past, the regulator has said that it considers it "settled" that climate change is real and a man-made phenomenon.

Therefore, in situations discussing climate change, broadcasters do not have to provide an opposing view such as a climate change sceptic.

GB News wrote to Ofcom asking it to confirm that the ruling had settled the matter of the definition of a woman by saying it was defined by biological sex and not gender identity.

The station also asked the regulator to confirm that television companies would be able to refer to people such as sports stars solely by their biological pronoun.

But Ofcom said the Supreme Court only ruled on the definition of a woman in terms of the Equality Act and not on its meaning in other contexts.

The decision suggests broadcasters will continue to have to present both sides of the debate: those who believe there are only two sexes and those who believe a person's gender identity can change their actual sex.

Ofcom's response also suggests that broadcasters should use a person's preferred pronoun.

In its letter, GB News wrote: "We would be grateful if Ofcom could confirm that in light of the Supreme Court judgment, it is now a settled matter that the terms 'man', 'woman' and 'sex' can only be understood to mean biological sex, biological woman and biological man and, as a consequence, it is also a settled matter that a 'trans woman' is not a biological female, and a 'trans man' is not a biological male."

It added: "Following the Supreme Court judgment we are of the view that (provided there is no deliberate intention to cause harm or offence), contributors should generally be able to use biological pronouns."

In its reply, Ofcom said that it could not agree with the broadcaster's "dogmatic" pronouncements.

There is additional reporting on the UK Pride founder who repeatedly raped young boys, if you can bear it.

A man has been jailed for 24 years for raping an "extremely vulnerable" 12-year-old boy after the pair met on a dating app.

Stephen Ireland, 41, who co-founded Pride in Surrey in 2018, raped the child at the flat he shared with his then-partner and co-defendant David Sutton, 27, in Addlestone on 19 April 2024 after messaging on Grindr.

Ireland was also sentenced to a further six years on extended licence, while Sutton was jailed for four-and-a-half years for making indecent photographs of children and possession of an extreme pornographic image.

At Guildford Crown Court on Monday, Judge Patricia Lees said Ireland "took advantage" of a vulnerable child.

The boy - referred to in court as Child A - who had been reported missing at the time, told police they had sex in the flat, smoked a bong which was later found to have contained methamphetamine, and that pornography was played on a laptop.

The court heard the boy had initially told Ireland he was aged 17 -- but when he later claimed to be aged 13, Ireland replied: "OK -- we just have to keep it a secret."

"Your response was telling," Judge Lees told Ireland, who sat in the dock dressed in a large red T-shirt and showed no emotions throughout the hearing.

"Far from finding that repugnant, you found that exciting, and sought to do it again."

In a Telegram chat that took place after their encounter, Ireland sent Child A a message in which he described his age as "naughty and kinky", the court heard.

On the same day, Ireland asked the boy if he would have a threesome and sent the child pictures of himself and Sutton.

Jurors heard that Ireland sent a picture of Child A to Sutton, describing him as a "14-year-old baby" who "wants to play with men's bodies", and the pair exchanged messages about the child.

Ireland along with Sutton, who was a volunteer for Surrey Pride, were found guilty of a string of sexual offences against children including voyeurism, arranging commission of a child sex offence, and possession of prohibited images of children, after a trial at Guildford Crown Court earlier this year.

In August 2022, Ireland and Sutton discussed arrangements to procure a 13-year-old boy for Sutton's 25th birthday in October of that year, the court heard.

Ireland and Sutton were also found guilty of one count of voyeurism and one count of perverting the course of justice.

The court heard that Ireland had watched live camera footage of Sutton having sex with a 16-year-old boy at their flat in March 2024.

The teenager did not know he was being recorded, with Ireland sending Sutton messages such as "he doesn't know I'm here" and telling him what to do, the court heard.

"You fed off one another," Judge Lees told the defendants during the sentence hearing on Monday.

"You definitely supported one another in your perversions."

Ireland and Sutton also perverted the course of justice by intentionally deleting material and search history from their phones after they were released on police bail in June 2024.

Ireland was sentenced for one count of rape, three counts of causing a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity, sexual assault, conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child, arranging commission of a child sex offence, six counts of making indecent photographs of children, four counts of distributing indecent photographs of children, possession of prohibited images, and possession of an extreme pornographic image.

Sutton was sentenced for offences including voyeurism, possession and distribution of prohibited images of children, and perverting the course of justice.

Judge Lees said: "Stephen Ireland is a man who prided himself on being versed in and highly alive to the vulnerabilities of young people linked to the Surrey Pride organisation he was at the time pivotal to.

Here are the L'il Cultural Enrichers displaying their picture of Adoph Hitler, Warrior Against the Zionist Menace.

Eitan Fischberger
@EFischberger

Children in the school allegedly placed "pro-Palestine stickers on school-issued laptops and lockers" and taunted the Jewish children for being "Israeli."

Other kids described Jews as "baby killers" and said "they deserve to die because of what is happening in Gaza."

Eitan Fischberger
@EFischberger

When the family raised concerns about this and other incidents, the school told them to "toughen up."

Two days after that call, all three of their kids were expelled via email--right before mid-semester grades and after nearby schools' application deadlines had passed.