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The U.S. Naval Academy has changed its policy and will no longer consider race as a factor when evaluating candidates to attend the elite military school, a practice it maintained even after the U.S. Supreme Court barred civilian colleges from employing similar affirmative action policies. Republican President Donald Trump’s administration detailed the policy change in a filing on Friday, asking a court to suspend an appeal lodged by a group opposed to affirmative action against a judge’s decision last year upholding the Annapolis, Maryland-based Naval Academy’s race-conscious admissions program. Days after returning to office, Trump signed an executive order on January 27 that eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion programs from the military. Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth two days later issued guidance barring the military from establishing “sex-based, race-based, or ethnicity-based goals for organizational composition, academic admission, or career fields.” The U.S. Department of Justice said that in light of those directives, Vice Admiral Yvette Davids, the Naval Academy’s superintendent, issued guidance barring the consideration of race, ethnicity or sex as a factor in its admissions process. The Justice Department said that policy change could affect the lawsuit filed by Students for Fair Admissions, a group founded by affirmative action opponent Edward Blum, which has also been challenging race-conscious admissions practices at other military academies. Blum’s group had been seeking to build on its June 2023 victory at the Supreme Court, when the court’s 6-3 conservative majority sided with it by barring policies used by colleges and universities for decades to increase the number of Black, Hispanic and other minority students on U.S. campuses. That ruling invalidated race-conscious admissions policies used by Harvard and the University of North Carolina. But it explicitly did not address the consideration of race as a factor in admissions at military academies, which conservative Chief Justice John Roberts said had “potentially distinct interests.” After the ruling, Blum’s group filed three lawsuits seeking to knock out the carve-out for military schools. The case the group filed against the Naval Academy case was the first to go to trial. But U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett in Baltimore sided with Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration in finding that the Naval Academy’s policy was constitutional. Nate Raymond, Reuters
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E-Commerce
Theres a reason Haliey Welch seemingly vanished from the internet overnight: Shes the focus of an upcoming documentary exploring her meteoric riseand dramatic fallfrom viral fame. The 22-year-old influencer will be the subject of an upcoming documentary from Emmy-winning production company Bungalow Media + Entertainment, according to Deadline. The documentary will chronicle how Welch, a young woman from a small town with no active social media presence, unknowingly created a viral moment that gave way to a global phenomenon, per a press release shared with the outlet. The documentary will focus on Welch’s “unexpected rise to fame, the scrutiny that followed,” and will expose “the incredible power social media has to crown and crucify its internet darlings, the press release continued. Welch became a viral sensation after her video interview was uploaded by the Tim & Dee TV YouTube channel, where she responded to one of their questions with the now-iconic hawk tuah catchphrase. With only a single sentence, Haliey Welch went from an unknown young woman having a night out on the town to enjoying 15 minutes of fame to global phenomenon who cemented her status in the pop culture lexicon. There are very few people who know what it is like to achieve this level of fame and live under the 24/7 microscope known as social media, Bob Friedman, producer and CEO at Bungalow Media + Entertainment, said in a statement. He adds that the documentary will chronicle Welchs journey as well as explore the highs and lows of living in the public eye. After her viral moment, Welch parlayed her 15 minutes into a business empire, launching merchandise, the Talk Tuah podcast, and a Gen Z-targeted dating app called Pookie Tools. In early December, Welch announced that she would be releasing her own cryptocurrency memecoin called $HAWK, which quickly tanked and caused Welch to disappear from the internet in a cloud of controversy. I hope yall been enjoying the crazy stories about my life unfold on social media, Welch said in a statement about the upcoming documentary. First, I was dead. Then pregnant. Now Im wanted by Interpol and in jail! Luckily, weve been working with Bungalow to start spilling the tea and the truth is actually even more bizarre than you think. To get the full story, fans will have to be patient. Release details for the documentary have yet to be announced.
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E-Commerce
The head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Friday said he is opening an investigation into the diversity practices of Walt Disney and its ABC unit, saying they may violate U.S. equal employment opportunity regulations. FCC Chair Brendan Carr wrote Disney CEO Robert Iger in a letter dated Thursday that the company’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts may not have complied with FCC regulations and that changes by the company may not go far enough. “I want to ensure that Disney ends any and all discriminatory initiatives in substance, not just name,” Carr wrote in the letter, which was seen by Reuters. He has sent letters to Comcast and Verizon announcing similar probes into diversity practices. “We are reviewing the Federal Communications Commissions letter, and we look forward to engaging with the commission to answer its questions,” a Disney spokesperson said. Disney recently revised its executive compensation policies to remove diversity and inclusion as a performance metric, adding a new standard called “talent strategy,” aimed at upholding the companys values. Carr said FCC’s Enforcement Bureau will be engaging with Disney “to obtain an accounting of Disney and ABCs DEI programs, policies, and practices.” Carr, who was designed chair by President Donald Trump on Jan. 20, has been aggressively investigating media companies. In December, ABC News agreed to give $15 million to Trumps future presidential library to settle a lawsuit over comments that anchor George Stephanopoulos made on air involving the civil case brought against Trump by writer E. Jean Carroll. Days after Carr took over as chair, the FCC reinstated complaints about the “60 Minutes” interview with Harris, as well as complaints about how ABC News moderated the pre-election TV debate between then-President Joe Biden and Trump. It also reinstated complaints against Comcast’s NBC for allowing Harris to appear on “Saturday Night Live” shortly before the election. Trump has sued CBS for $20 billion, claiming that “60 Minutes” deceptively edited the interview in order to interfere in the November presidential election, which he won. CBS, which is owned by Paramount Global, this week called on the FCC to dismiss the complaint “without delay,” but Carr quickly rejected the idea, saying the investigation would continue. David Shepardson and Dawn Chmielewski, Reuters
Category:
E-Commerce
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