Rights and Needs: Widows as a Protected Group in Christine de Pizan’s Thought

2020 ◽  
pp. 133-152
Keyword(s):  
2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 180-195
Author(s):  
Shirley A. Jackson

In 2017, Oregon passed House Bill 2845 requiring Ethnic Studies curriculum in grades K–12. It was the first state in the nation to do so. The bill passed almost fifty years after the founding of the country’s first Ethnic Studies department. The passage of an Ethnic Studies bill in a state that once banned African Americans and removed Indigenous peoples from their land requires further examination. In addition, the bill mandates that Ethnic Studies curriculum in Oregon's schools includes “social minorities,” such as Jewish and LGBTQ+ populations which makes the bill even more remarkable. As such, it is conceivable for some observers, a watered-down version of its perceived original intent—one that focuses on racial and ethnic minorities. Similarly, one can draw analogies to the revision of the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 when it included women as a protected group. Grounded in a socio-political history that otherwise would not have been included, this essay examines the productive and challenging aspect of HB 2845. Framing the bill so it includes racial, ethnic, and social minorities solved the problem of a host of bills that may not have passed on their own merit while simultaneously and ironically making it easier to pass similar bills.


1982 ◽  
Vol 51 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1219-1238 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Terris ◽  
John Jones

Four studies are presented that examine various aspects of theft in the convenience store industry. Study 1 was a survey of both managers' ( n = 24) and retail clerks' ( n = 54) opinions on how and why convenience store employees steal. Results showed that the most frequently used theft techniques involved various ways of stealing cash from a register. Major reasons for employees' theft included financial need, low wages, revenge, and thrill-seeking. Major perceptions about why some employees never steal included fear of apprehension and personal honesty. Study 2 ( N = 61) showed that convenience store employees with more tolerant attitudes toward theft and violence, as measured by a pre-employment psychological test, the Personnel Selection Inventory, were more likely to engage in theft and other types of counterproductive behavior. Study 3 showed that the use of the inventory for 19 months by a 30-unit convenience store chain, for the purpose of screening out potential employee thieves and other counterproductive employees, was reliably more effective in reducing company shrinkage than a pre-employment polygraph procedure that was used for 23 months. Finally, Study 4 showed that the inventory had no adverse impact upon any protected group. Implications of these findings are discussed.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hossein Estiri ◽  
Zachary Strasser ◽  
Sina Rashidian ◽  
Jeffrey Klann ◽  
Kavishwar Wagholikar ◽  
...  

The growing recognition of algorithmic bias has spurred discussions about fairness in artificial intelligence (AI) / machine learning (ML) algorithms. The increasing translation of predictive models into clinical practice brings an increased risk of direct harm from algorithmic bias; however, bias remains incompletely measured in many medical AI applications. Using data from over 56 thousand Mass General Brigham (MGB) patients with confirmed severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), we evaluate unrecognized bias in four AI models developed during the early months of the pandemic in Boston, Massachusetts that predict risks of hospital admission, ICU admission, mechanical ventilation, and death after a SARS-CoV-2 infection purely based on their pre-infection longitudinal medical records. We discuss that while a model can be biased against certain protected groups (i.e., perform worse) in certain tasks, it can be at the same time biased towards another protected group (i.e., perform better). As such, current bias evaluation studies may lack a full depiction of the variable effects of a model on its subpopulations. If the goal is to make a change in a positive way, the underlying roots of bias need to be fully explored in medical AI. Only a holistic evaluation, a diligent search for unrecognized bias, can provide enough information for an unbiased judgment of AI bias that can invigorate follow-up investigations on identifying the underlying roots of bias and ultimately make a change.


Legal writers call it “adverse effects discrimination” and “adverse discrimination effect,” which describes a situation in which a policy that seems on its face to treat everyone equally actually has an adverse impact on a protected group. Applied to gender inequality, ageism, and differential provisions for workforce training, there are plenty of cases to support the principle. One of the most notable Supreme Court cases in Canadian legal history is Gosselin v. Quebec (Attorney General). This chapter is an overview of some of the opinions published about Gosselin that exposes the Charter as negative law and constitutes part of a needs assessment for judicial instruction about deciding cases of equity.


2006 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 461-502 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claus Kreß

AbstractThe article sets out the nature, the history and the general structure of the crime of genocide and provides a comprehensive analytical commentary of the elements of the crime. Against the current trend of the international case law to expand the boundaries of the definition at the risk of the crime's trivialization this article develops a strict construction even if the results may appear politically unattractive. The article starts from the premise that, for all practical purposes, the occurrence of a crime of genocide entails a collective destructive act. This collective act forms the objective point of reference of the required intent to destroy a protected group in whole or in part; the vain hope of an individual to contribute, by way of commission of one of the underlying offences, to the destruction of a group falls short of this concept of a realistic genocidal intent. The article rejects a purely subjective definition of the various categories of protected groups and cautions against the conversion of the crime of genocide into an unspecific crime of massive human rights violations based on discriminatory motive. At the same time, it is submitted that not every campaign of so-called "ethnical cleansing" is to be considered as the infliction on the group of conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part. Regarding the mental elements of the crime it is held that, contrary to a widespread belief, it is the interpretation of the terms "destroy" and above all "part" (of a group) that determines the general scope of the crime to a much greater extent than the construction of the word "intent". The predominant narrow interpretation of the word "destroy" in its physical and biological meaning is supported while it is noted that the most recent ICTY case law reveals an inclination of re-introducing the concept of social group destruction through the backdoor of the words "in part". The extension of those words to comparatively small regional communities is probably the most conspicuous aspect of the general trend to over-expand the crime's definition. Conversely, the reference to the particularly heinous character of genocide is not good enough an argument to accept the many flaws of the prevailing purpose-based approach to the word "intent". The article suggests instead that the word "intent" means that the perpetrator commits the prohibited act with the knowledge to further thereby a campaign targeting members of a protected group with the realistic goal of destroying that group in whole or in part.


2002 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 777-785 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sumaira Macdonald ◽  
Fiona McKevitt ◽  
Graham S. Venables ◽  
Trevor J. Cleveland ◽  
Peter A. Gaines

Purpose: To compare outcomes for two nonrandomized cohorts of patients with high-grade carotid disease who underwent either unprotected carotid stenting or stent implantation protected by the NeuroShield filter. Methods: Under this protocol, symptomatic patients with carotid stenoses >70% or asymptomatic patients with bilateral carotid stenoses who were being evaluated for coronary artery bypass grafting were eligible for carotid stenting. Between December 1998 and November 2001, 75 consecutive patients (57 men; median age 67 years range 45–85) underwent carotid stenting without cerebral protection; concurrently, 75 carotid stent procedures protected with the NeuroShield filter were performed in 73 patients (51 men; median age 66 years, range 47–83). A neurologist reviewed all patients before and after treatment. The groups were comparable for age, sex, and symptoms, but the protected group had a higher proportion of postsurgical restenoses (14.7% versus 1.3%; p=0.003). Outcome measures included death and neurological events at 24 hours and 30 days. Results: There were minor technical difficulties in 12 of the protected group, but none were clinically relevant. The procedural all-stroke/death rates in the unprotected versus protected groups, respectively, were 5.3% (4/75) and 2.7% (2/75; p=0.681), while the disabling stroke/death rates were 4% (3/75) and 1.3% (1/75; p=0.620). At 30 days, the all-stroke/death rates were 10.7% (8/75) in the unprotected group and 4.0% (3/75) in the protected group (p=0.117); the death/major-disability-from-stroke rates were 6.7% (5/75) and 2.7% (2/75), respectively (p=0.442). Conclusions: Filter-related complications are well tolerated. Neuroprotection devices have the potential to reduce the procedural neurological event rate. Larger series and/or randomized trials are required for further evaluation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Khadijah Abdurahman

In 1995, there were nearly 50,000 children removed from their families into the New York City Administration for Children’s Services’ (ACS) foster care system.1 The NYC ACS’ forcible transfer of children from a protected group into another group may amount to genocide under Article 2(e) of the Genocide Convention if formal review can demonstrate an “intent to destroy” the group “as such” or at least “in part.” Rather than pursuing a citizen’s tribunal, or truth and reconciliation committee to assess the historic transfer of Black children to other groups during this period by the child welfare system, ACS has focused on collecting data from currently targeted populations in order to “predict who needs prevention” services. This paper examines the Family First Prevention Act’s legislative mandate to calculate the “souls of Black folks” and the geographies of predictive analytics developed to serve this aim. Using an abolitionist lens grounded in the epistemology offered by W. E. B. Du Bois’ Souls of Black Folks, this argument moves beyond the Fairness, Accountability and Transparency (FAT) framework to propose strategies for dismantling the “new modes of surveillance and social control” manifested in NYC ACS’ preventive turn. I propose a Get Out mathematics drawing from Katherine McKittrick’s proposal to “count it out different” as the fugitive’s alternative to state sanctioned datafication.


2002 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 232-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirto Nelso Prandini ◽  
Santino Nunes Lacanna ◽  
Paulo Roberto Valente ◽  
João Norberto Stavale

Objective: To demonstrate that mild hypothermia can be a protective element when an ischemic onset occurs in rabbit brains. Methods: A rabbit model of focal ischemia was used to test the protection provided by mild hypothermia regionally produced by means of the placement of ice bag on the scalp of a hemicranium which has had previously its bone removed. Twenty New Zealand White rabbits were divided into two groups as follows: (A) a control group where an ischemic lesion was produced by coagulation of the middle cerebral artery and (B) a brain protected group where mild hypothermia was provided during 80 to 100 minutes after the same ischemic lesion. The brains slices were stained with 2,3,5-Triphenyletrazolium (TTC). The sections were photographed with a digital camera and the infarct volume was measured through a computer program. Results: The average of infarct volume was 70.53 mm³ in the control group. In the protected group, the average of infarct volume was 41,30 mm³ only in five animals. Five animals of this group did not demonstrate macroscopically and microscopically infarct area. Conclusions: We concluded that mild hypothermia regionally produced may protect ischemic brains of rabbits.


2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 935-954 ◽  
Author(s):  
MONIKA AMBRUS

AbstractA survey of the case law of the ICTY and ICTR reveals inconsistencies and conceptual discrepancies in the approach to genocide cases, in particular with respect to the cornerstones of such cases – the identification of the protected group and its members – resulting in different levels of protection against genocide. A review model might help to address these issues, which are, arguably, preconditions of the legitimacy of these courts and of the effective enforcement of the prohibition of genocide. Given the close relationship between genocide and discrimination, this review model might be built on the ‘building blocks’ of discrimination law. The purpose of this contribution is twofold: (1) by unfolding the relationship between direct discrimination and genocide to devise a model of review, and (2) to analyse the consequences of the consistent application of this model for the identification of the protected groups and their members.


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