UCLA ROTC instructor one of 32 suing Trump for ban on transgender people in military
Kate Cole, a senior military science instructor at UC Los Angeles Army ROTC, joins 31 other plaintiffs in a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s administration for its ban on transgender people in the military, according to the Daily Bruin.
Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 27 to attempt to ban transgender people from the military, claiming that the standards required for active duty are “inconsistent with the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria.”
United States District Judge Ana Reyes blocked the ban with a preliminary injunction that went into effect March 18, but the Supreme Court ruled on May 6 to temporarily uphold the ban.
Law firms GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders and the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) filed the complaint on behalf of the plaintiffs. They argued that the Trump administration violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause with the ban.
“Our legal claim is very straightforward — that it violates equal protection,” NCLR Legal Director Shannon Minter said. “When the government singles out a group of people in order to treat them disfavorably, that violates the requirement that the government has to treat everyone equally.”
Cole is a transgender woman who served in the military for more than 17 years. She told the Daily Bruin she is only two and a half years away from her retirement, and if the ban were to pass, she wouldn’t be able to retire.
“I would lose my retirement. I would lose my health benefits,” Cole said, according to the Daily Bruin. “I would lose everything.”
Over $800 million cut from grants geared toward homelessness, mass incarceration
A Berkeley-based organization that works to develop solutions to mass homelessness, incarceration and community violence lost $641,050 in funding after cuts from the Department of Justice (DOJ), according to the Daily Californian.
Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (B.O.S.S.) operates a trauma recovery center and behavioral health outreach team, and oversees shelters for unhoused people in Alameda County. The news of the cut comes from an April 22 letter from B.O.S.S. CEO Donald Frazier.
“We have a women and children’s reentry campus where women who are released from jail or prison can get their lives back together [and] reunite with their children at this campus — they have up to 18 months and longer if they need to do that,” Frazier said. “We have a men’s reentry facility as well, called New Hope reentry campus.”
A partner of B.O.S.S. that helps expand its services to East Oakland, the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR), lost about $5,550,000 across four grants, according to Reuters.
Nonprofits in Oakland, such as the NICJR, still receive funding from the Department of Violence Prevention through Measure NN, a tax to fund police and fire services, according to NICJR Executive Director David Muhammad.
“The cuts for all of (the grants) that I’m aware of, including for my own organization — the notices were inaccurate,” Muhammad said to the Daily Cal. “The notices said, ‘These are being cut pursuant to the administration’s priorities, which are public safety and reducing crime and protecting America’s children.’ And this is exactly what [these] grants fund.”
According to Reuters, these cuts come during a nationwide action from the DOJ to cut a total of 365 grants valuing $811 million, including those for victim service programs, police training and trauma centers.
