North Carolina school can't require girls to wear skirts, federal court rules
CBSN
A North Carolina charter school violated female students' constitutional rights by requiring them to wear skirts, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.
A majority of the full U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the dress code at Charter Day School in Leland violated female students' equal protection rights, siding with parents who had argued that their daughters were put at a disadvantage by the requirement.
Public schools have long been banned from enacting such mandates, but the court's majority concluded that public charter schools, since they receive public funds, are also "state actors" and are therefore subject to the Constitution's equal protection clause.
More employees of the Environmental Protection Agency were informed Wednesday that their jobs appear in doubt. Senior leadership at the EPA held an all-staff meeting to tell individuals that President Trump's executive order, "Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing," which was responsible for the closure of the agency's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office, will likely lead to the shuttering of the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights as well.
In her first hours as attorney general, Pam Bondi issued a broad slate of directives that included a Justice Department review of the prosecutions of President Trump, a reorientation of department work to focus on harsher punishments, actions punishing so-called "sanctuary" cities and an end to diversity initiatives at the department.
The quick-fire volley of tariffs between the U.S. and China in recent days has heightened global fears of a new trade war between the world's two largest economies. Yet while experts think the battle is likely to escalate, they also say the early skirmishes offer hope for an agreement on trade and other key issues that could head off a larger conflict.