Jeremy T. Ringfield's Blog, page 183

University of California bans use of diversity statements in hiring

The University of California will no longer allow diversity statements to be used for faculty hiring, the system announced this week – abandoning a controversial practice that UC spearheaded for over a decade.

The change comes as UC battles pushback from the Trump administration over diversity initiatives and the federal government has threatened to withhold millions of dollars in funding from universities that have programs or policies related to diversity, equity and inclusion. The administration has already slashed millions of dollars in federal funds from Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Diversity statements generally ask job applicants to describe how they would contribute to campus diversity. The UC Board of Regents adopted a commitment to achieving diversity among university faculty and students in 2007 and many UC academic departments and programs have since required applicants to describe how they have prioritized diversity in their careers and how they would advance diversity and inclusion in their role at UC.

But in a reversal, the decision to scrap the statements also came from the regents, who are currently gathered at UCLA in their first meeting since the federal government launched several investigations into the university system and UC campuses over allegations of antisemitism and discrimination.

In a Wednesday letter to campus provosts announcing the change, UC provost Katherine Newman said some programs, departments and recruitments have required diversity statements as part of the hiring process, “despite the fact that the University of California has never maintained such a systemwide policy.”

“The requirement to submit a diversity statement may lead applicants to focus on an aspect of their candidacy that is outside their expertise or prior experience,” Newman said in the letter. “To be clear, stand-alone diversity statements will no longer be permitted in recruitments.”

She said faculty will still be allowed to share any “inclusive academic achievements in teaching, research and service” during the academic review process and reaffirmed the university system’s commitment to serving all communities.

In 2018, UC Berkeley received funding from the UC Office of the President to conduct a cluster hire to expand and recruit diversity in the life sciences departments. Nearly 1,000 applications were received for five open faculty positions, and a campus hiring committee narrowed the pool of applicants to 214 – based solely on candidates’ contributions to diversity, equity and inclusion.

This week, the systemwide change garnered praise from critics of the practice, who called diversity statements “loyalty oaths” and “tools of discrimination” that promote race-based hiring and are used to weed out applicants opposed to diversity initiatives.

“Mandatory diversity statements can too easily become a test of political ideology and conformity,” said UC Davis mathematics professor Abigail Thompson in a 2019 Wall Street Journal opinion piece where she criticized UC Berkeley’s rubric used to score an applicant’s diversity statement.

The University of California was sued over its use of diversity statements in 2023, but the case was tossed out by a federal judge in January 2024.

But others expressed concern that the regents’ decision is an attempt to appease President Trump and his administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion programs in higher education and protect UC funding.

UC President Michael Drake announced a systemwide hiring freeze Wednesday in preparation for funding impacts at both the state and federal level. Stanford, Harvard and Johns Hopkins University have also announced hiring freezes or job cuts as a way to cut costs and prepare for additional Trump administration funding cuts.

“The timing of this decision… indicates that it is not actually about what materials we request from job candidates,” said Mara Loveman, a UC Berkeley professor and board member of the Berkeley Faculty Association. The decision “is clearly a minimal effort to defend the University of California against the Trump administration’s authoritarian attacks on higher education in California and across the country.”

Horoscopes March 22, 2025: Reese Witherspoon, look over your options carefully

CELEBRITIES BORN ON THIS DAY: Reese Witherspoon, 49; Elvis Stojko, 53; Bob Costas, 73; William Shatner, 94.

Happy Birthday: Look over your options carefully this year. Don’t feel pressured to change unless you encounter an opportunity that makes you feel comfortable. Put your emotions aside and look at the logistics of each situation and the most likely outcome. Focus on getting things done, updating your skills and getting on the treadmill to better your vitality. A balanced diet and exercise regime will improve your health and emotional well-being. Your numbers are 6, 14, 20, 24, 32, 35, 44.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Point yourself in a direction that offers rewards. Immerse yourself in learning something that’s got job market potential. Put your emotions on the back burner and do whatever it takes to ensure you maintain your status quo. Look the part and market yourself for success. Romance is on the rise. 2 stars

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Before altering your life, check that your paperwork is updated to avoid setbacks. Stick to a budget you can handle and only take on responsibilities that won’t interfere with what’s important to you. Balance, integrity and living up to your promises will help you achieve your dreams, hopes and wishes. 5 stars

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Work behind the scenes to finish things on time and without interference. Put a plan in motion to address your concerns and ensure you maintain a strong financial position and peace of mind regarding your health and emotional well-being. Walk away from uncertainty and manipulative people. Romance is on the rise. 3 stars

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Build strength, gain support and do your best to advance. Pay attention to situations that are in dire need of an overhaul. The spotlight will be on you as you transform what is no longer working for you. Concentrate on the result, and letting go of the past will be easier. 3 stars

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Be ready to pivot when necessary to maintain the pace and sufficient accuracy to advance. Learning will have an impact on how you press forward. Refuse to let what others choose disrupt your plans. Someone you connect with will offer a perspective that reflects what you want to achieve. 3 stars

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): A change will lift your spirits and offer insight into something that interests you. Dig in and learn all you can. Understanding the dynamics of an event, activity or lifestyle change will encourage smart choices, adjustments and the outcome you desire. Be cautious of emotional situations regarding money, contracts or health issues. 5 stars

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Problems will surface if you let emotions step in and take over. Do whatever it takes to keep the peace; you’ll dodge a situation that could leave you at odds with what to do next. Concentrate on personal growth, physical fitness and home improvements where you can accomplish something worthwhile. 2 stars

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Stop procrastinating and start doing. If you need to pick up knowledge, get busy doing research. Reach out to experts and pick their brains. Attend seminars, conferences or trade shows that offer unique perspectives regarding something you want to pursue. Give yourself a chance to be imaginative and playful. Romance is favored. 4 stars

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Question everyone and everything. Get your facts straight and a budget in place. It’s best to move forward cautiously to avoid undue debt. Stick close to home and monitor what’s happening in your neighborhood. Self-improvement will boost your confidence and encourage you to let go of the past. 3 stars

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Revisit contracts and joint ventures. Keep an eye on co-ownerships and what your partners are doing. Keeping tabs on the fine print and overhead will help avoid unnecessary loss. Refuse to let anyone bully or manipulate you with fast talk or charm. Be blunt and quick to make alterations when necessary. 3 stars

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Go over your expenses and see where you can cut corners. Refuse to let anyone talk you into a change that will inflate your budget. Explore new ways to use your skills to bring in extra cash. Personal gain is within reach if you propose a service in demand. Self-improvement and love are favored. 3 stars

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Participate in something that brings you joy. Social events promoting fitness, health and diet will motivate you to look and feel your best. Refuse to let anyone put a damper on your day. Say no to emotional chaos and personal affronts. Take control and do what’s best for you. 4 stars

Birthday Baby: You are punctual, attentive and cautious. You are prudent and accommodating.

1 star: Avoid conflicts; work behind the scenes. 2 stars: You can accomplish, but don’t rely on others. 3 stars: Focus and you’ll reach your goals. 4 stars: Aim high; start new projects. 5 stars: Nothing can stop you; go for gold.

Visit Eugenialast.com, or join Eugenia on Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn.

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Under threat from Trump, Columbia University agrees to policy changes

By JAKE OFFENHARTZ, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Under threat from the Trump administration, Columbia University agreed to implement a host of policy changes Friday, including overhauling its rules for protests and conducting an immediate review of its Middle Eastern studies department.

The changes, detailed in a letter sent by the university’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, came one week after the Trump administration ordered the Ivy League school to enact those and other reforms or lose all federal funding, an ultimatum widely criticized in academia as an attack on academic freedom.

In her letter, Armstrong said the university would immediately appoint a senior vice provost to conduct a thorough review of the portfolio of its regional studies programs, “starting immediately with the Middle East.”

Columbia will also revamp its long-standing disciplinary process and bar protests inside academic buildings. Students will not be permitted to wear face masks on campus “for the purposes of concealing one’s identity.” An exception would be made for people wearing them for health reasons.

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In an effort to expand “intellectual diversity” within the university, Columbia will also appoint new faculty members to its Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies department. It will also adopt a new definition of antisemitism and expand programming in its Tel Aviv Center, a research hub based in Israel.

The policy changes were largely in line with demands made on the university by the Trump administration, which pulled $400 million in research grants and other federal funding, and had threatened to cut more, over the university’s handling of protests against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

The White House has labeled the protests antisemitic, a label rejected by those who participated in the student-led demonstrations.

A message seeking comment was left with a spokesperson for the Education Department.

As a “precondition” for restoring funding, federal officials demanded that the university to place its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department under “academic receivership for a minimum of five years.”

They also told the university to ban masks on campus, adopt a new definition of antisemitism, abolish its current process for disciplining students and deliver a plan to ”reform undergraduate admissions, international recruiting, and graduate admissions practices.”

Historians had described the order as an unprecedented intrusion on university rights long treated by the Supreme Court as an extension of the First Amendment.

On Friday, freedom of speech advocates immediately decried Columbia’s decision to acquiesce.

“A sad day for Columbia and for our democracy,” Jameel Jaffer, the director of Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said in a social media post.

Trump administration cuts legal help for migrant children traveling alone

By REBECCA SANTANA, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration Friday ended a contract that provides legal help to migrant children entering the country without a parent or guardian, raising concerns that children will be forced to navigate the complex legal system alone.

The Acacia Center for Justice contracts with the government to provide legal services through its network of providers around the country to unaccompanied migrant children under 18, both by providing direct legal representation as well as conducting legal orientations — often referred to as “know your rights” clinics — to migrant children who cross the border alone and are in federal government shelters.

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Acacia said they were informed Friday that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was terminating nearly all the legal work that the center does, including paying for lawyers for roughly 26,000 children when they go to immigration court. They’re still contracted to hold the legal orientation clinics.

“It’s extremely concerning because it’s leaving these kids without really important support,” said Ailin Buigues, who heads Acacia’s unaccompanied children program. “They’re often in a very vulnerable position.”

People fighting deportation do not have the same right to representation as people going through criminal courts, although they can hire private attorneys.

But there has been some recognition that children navigating the immigration court system without a parent or guardian are especially vulnerable.

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2008 created special protections for children who arrive in the U.S. without a parent or a legal guardian.

Emily G. Hilliard, deputy press secretary at Health and Human Services, said in an emailed statement that the department “continues to meet the legal requirements established” by the Act as well as a legal settlement guiding how children in immigration custody are being treated.

The termination comes days before the contract was to come up for renewal on March 29. Roughly a month ago the government temporarily halted all the legal work Acacia and its subcontractors do for immigrant children, but then days later Health and Human Services reversed that decision.

The program is funded by a five-year contract, but the government can decide at the end of each year if it renews it or not.

A copy of the termination letter obtained by The Associated Press said the contract was being terminated “for the Government’s convenience.”

Michael Lukens is the executive director of Amica, which is one of the providers contracting with Acacia in the Washington, D.C. area. He said with the renewal date swiftly approaching, they had been worried something like this would happen.

He said they will continue to help as many kids as they can “for as long as possible” and will try to fight the termination.

“We’re trying to pull every lever but we have to be prepared for the worst, which is children going to court without attorneys all over the country. This is a complete collapse of the system,” he said.

SF Giants’ Encarnacion will undergo X-rays on left ring finger after leaving game

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Jung Hoo Lee’s availability for Opening Day is already up in the air. Now, the status of Jerar Encarnacion is also ambiguous.

Encarnacion exited Friday afternoon’s game against the Cleveland Guardians due to an apparent injury to his left ring finger after diving for a ball in right field, jeopardizing his availability for the Giants’ first game of the season.

“He was just trying to lay out and make a good play and caught his fingers underneath,” said manager Bob Melvin.

Encarnacion, 27, projects to make the Giants’ Opening Day roster as a bench bat who can play first base and both corner outfield positions. He’s solidified his spot on this team with an excellent spring, hitting .302 with two homers, a team-high 14 RBIs and an .856 OPS over 20 Cactus League games this spring.

If Encarnacion begins the season on the injured list, one of the candidates who could fill Encarnacion’s specific role is David Villar. The 28-year-old is out of options, meaning the Giants must designate him for assignment if he’s not on the Opening Day roster. This spring, Villar is hitting .190/.261/.381 with two homers and four RBIs.

Grant McCray is currently competing for a spot on the Giants’ Opening Day roster as well, but he stands to provide more value with speed and defense than with his bat.

Jake Lamb, a non-roster invite, could be another option, though he was reassigned to minor league camp prior to Friday’s game. Lamb, a left-handed hitter, .273 /.333/.364 with three doubles this spring.

Encarnacion signed a minor-league deal with the Giants after hitting after hitting 19 home runs In 26 games for Guerreros de Oaxaca of the Mexican League. He continued to impress with Triple-A Sacramento (10 homers, 1.054 OPS) and earned a promotion to San Francisco. Encarnacion had modest results the Giants, hitting five home runs and totaling 19 RBIs with a .248 batting average over 35 games, but the true allure of Encarnacion resides in his batted ball data.

If Encarnacion played enough games to qualify, his 95.0 mph average exit velocity would’ve ranked fourth in average exit velocity behind only Aaron Judge (96.2 mph), Shohei Ohtani (95.8 mph) and Oneil Cruz (95.5 mph). Encarnacion would’ve also ranked in the top-five of hard hit percentage and bat speed.

Webb wraps up spring with latest solid outing

Solely from the perspective of strike-to-ball ratio, Logan Webb’s outing against the Guardians was his worst outing of the spring. Webb, though, will gladly take the results in his Cactus League finale: 5 2/3 innings, one earned run, one walk, seven strikeouts. Over five starts this spring, Webb posted a 1.77 ERA with 22 strikeouts to three walks over 20 1/3 innings, a far cry from the 10.97 ERA that he posted last spring.

“I fully expected myself to have a 10 ERA this spring,” Webb said. “I joke around with guys that I’m not a very good spring pitcher, but I’m excited with how things have gone, and hopefully, just take it into the season.”

Aside from the results, Webb has used this spring to experiment and tinker with his game despite finishing sixth in NL Cy Young Award voting last season.

He threw more cutters, a pitch he only used 83 times last season. He tinkered with his mechanics, adding movement to his backfoot when he’s out of the windup. He altered his signature changeup after the pitch performed poorly in 2024, throwing the offspeed offering roughly two miles per hour slower compared to last season.

“I tried to do it as much as I can during the offseason so I didn’t have to try to change too much during spring,” Webb said. “I feel like I did it last year where the results weren’t there, and then you’re trying to change things. It’s definitely different air here than it is in most places, right? … I think the goal was just to stay healthy and trust it.”

Worth noting

Along with Lee, infielder Casey Schmitt is also dealing with a back injury. He won’t play on Saturday, but he will probably play in the exhibition game on Sunday against the Sacramento River Cats.Matt Chapman hit his fifth home run of the spring, a screaming line drive that barely eclipsed the left-field fence. Brett Wisely, who will likely be the Giants’ fifth infielder, also hit his first home run of the spring, a towering, go-ahead, three-run shot in the eighth inning.

FACT FOCUS: Posts falsely claim federal judiciary members are in secret club, undermining Trump

By MELISSA GOLDIN, Associated Press

After Chief Justice John Roberts rebuked calls this week by the Trump administration to impeach judges, social media users falsely claimed that he and other high-level legal professionals are part of a “secretive, invite only club.”

Many questioned the motives of members, hinting at coordinated efforts to oppose President Donald Trump.

Among those named was U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg, who Trump had demanded be removed from the bench for his order blocking deportation flights that the president was carrying out by invoking wartime authorities from 18th century law.

But the group in question — the American Inns of Court — is hardly secretive given its large public presence, and there is no evidence that members are involved in nefarious activities targeting Trump. Roberts is no longer an active member and Boasberg is the president of a chapter that is no longer affiliated with the parent association.

Here’s a closer look at the facts.

CLAIM: Roberts, Boasberg and other powerful legal professionals are part of a secret, invite-only club that is working against Trump.

THE FACTS: This is false. Roberts was a member of the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court chapter of the organization prior to his confirmation to the Supreme Court in 2005, but he is not currently an active member of the organization, according to Executive Director Malinda Dunn.

Boasberg is the president of the Edward Bennett Williams Inn of Court, but the chapter disaffiliated from the parent association about 10 years ago when it decided it no longer wanted to pay dues to the national group, Dunn said. He was an active member prior to the chapter’s decision to operate independently.

FILE – U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, chief judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, stands for a portrait at E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse in Washington, March 16, 2023. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via AP, File)

Information on the American Inns of Court is readily available online. Chapters also have their own websites, which often include details about programs they host for members, typically focused on networking, education and mentorship. Dunn said that members have a wide range of political opinions, but that the organization itself is “assiduously apolitical.”

Some on social media, however, baselessly claimed that there is more to the group than meets the eye.

“It has been revealed that Chief Justice John Roberts is part of an elite, invite-only group called the American Inns of Court, alongside some of the most openly anti-Trump judges in D.C.,” reads one X post.

And yet a check of other members reveals a diverse group. Many current and former Supreme Court justices have been members of the American Inns of Court, according to Dunn, including Sandra Day O’Connor, Neil Gorsuch, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Clarence Thomas.

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Inns of Court have existed in the United Kingdom for hundreds of years. The American system, founded in 1980 out of discussions among legal professionals, including Chief Justice Warren Burger, is loosely based on this concept from across the pond.

The American Inns of Court states on its website that it is “dedicated to professionalism, ethics, civility, and excellence” and that its mission is to “inspire the legal community to advance the rule of law by achieving the highest level of professionalism through example, education, and mentoring.”

O’Connor said in a 2015 video that “maintaining and improving an ethics of professionalism is what the American Inns of Court are all about.”

There are more than 300 active chapters across the U.S. Each one manages its own membership and some are limited to practitioners in a certain legal field. Roberts’ former chapter, for example, states that “members are elected to the Inn after being nominated by a current member” and that they must be “actively engaged in appellate practice.”

Dunn said chapters are advised to ensure that their members include legal professionals with different levels of experience. Some may hold membership drives to recruit new faces.

Roberts is currently an honorary bencher in The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, an inn of court in the U.K. This is a purely ceremonial role that, according to Dunn. British inns of court will always offer such a position to Supreme Court justices when they are confirmed, she said.

Representatives for Roberts and Boasberg did not respond to a request for comment.

Her case changed trans care in prison. Now Trump aims to reverse course

By Bram Sable-Smith, KFF Health News

In 2019, Cristina Iglesias filed a lawsuit that changed the course of treatment for herself and other transgender inmates in federal custody.

Iglesias, a trans woman who had been incarcerated for more than 25 years, was transferred from a men’s prison to a women’s one in 2021. And in 2022, she reached a landmark settlement with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to receive gender-affirming surgery, which the agency said it had never provided for anyone in its custody.

By the time she got the surgery 10 months later, another federal inmate had also received a procedure to align their body with their gender identity. No other such surgeries for people in federal custody are publicly documented, although some people in state prisons have also received gender-affirming surgery, including at least five in Illinois and 20 in California within a U.S. prison population that tops 1.25 million people.

Still, those procedures loomed large in the 2024 presidential election. Political advertising for President Donald Trump and other Republicans included $215 million on anti-trans ads, according to media tracking firm AdImpact. One such ad declared that Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris supported “taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners,” and concluded, “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.” Some Democrats bemoaned the ads as having helped tip the election.

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In the run-up to the Nov. 5 election, 55% of voters felt support for trans rights had gone too far, according to VoteCast, a survey by The Associated Press and partners including KFF, the health policy research, polling, and news organization that includes KFF Health News.

On Inauguration Day, Trump issued a flurry of executive orders that included a directive to bar federal spending on gender-affirming care in federal prisons and to “ensure that males are not detained” in federal women’s facilities.

“President Trump received an overwhelming mandate from the American people to restore commonsense principles and safeguard women’s spaces — even prisons — from biological men,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly wrote in an email. “Forcing taxpayers to pay for gender transition for prisoners is the exact sort of insanity that the American people rejected at the ballot box in November.”

But for Iglesias, 50, Trump’s order was a shocking reversal.

“It puts someone’s life in danger being in a men’s prison as a trans woman,” she said from Chicago, where she’s lived since her release in 2023. “It’d be like putting sheep in a hyenas’ den.”

Iglesias said she faced emotional and physical abuse from her father for her desire to be female. When she was 12, she said, he put a gun in her mouth after finding her wearing her sister’s clothes. Iglesias said she ran away from home, stole checks, cars, and jewelry, and ended up in jail.Lockup was not fun, Iglesias said, but it was the first place she got to be treated as a woman. So, she said, she wanted to stay. In 1994, she landed in federal prison after writing threatening letters to federal judges and prosecutors, according to court filings. In 2005, records show, she pleaded guilty to sending a letter to British officials that she falsely claimed contained anthrax. She told investigators she hoped to get extradited.

“I was reading these things where they were allowing trans females to start living with females,” Iglesias said.

She said her outlook changed after the death of her mother in 2010, which prompted her to get serious about having a life outside of prison, and about improving her life inside it.

She began requesting hormone therapy in 2011 and was approved for it in 2015, according to court records. The 2019 lawsuit that led to her transfer to a women’s prison and her surgery was initially handwritten and prepared with the help of only another inmate.

“The lawsuit was the foundation for everything that I am today,” Iglesias said. “For the first time in my life, instead of digging myself in these holes, I was digging myself out.”

Along with her settlement, Iglesias received a commitment from the Federal Bureau of Prisons to create a timeline for considering other inmates’ requests for gender-affirming care, and to recognize permanent hair removal and gender-affirming surgery as medically necessary treatments for gender dysphoria — a medical condition in which the discrepancy between a person’s gender identity and their sex assigned at birth causes significant distress.

In February, in response to Trump’s executive order, the bureau issued new guidelines requiring prison staffers to refer to inmates’ “legal name or pronouns corresponding to their biological sex,” and ending clothing requests “that do not align with an inmate’s biological sex.” The guidelines end referrals for gender-affirming surgery but allow inmates already receiving treatment, such as hormone therapy, to continue.

However, in a lawsuit filed March 7, a trans prisoner alleged the hormone therapy she had been receiving since 2016 was stopped on Jan. 26.

Spokespeople for the bureau did not respond to requests for comment.

The bureau spent $153,000 on hormone therapy in fiscal year 2022, its former director told Congress, 0.01% of its total spending on health care.

The new guidelines on trans inmates say that Trump’s executive order “does not supersede or change” the obligation to comply with federal regulations. But the executive order calls for amending them to prevent trans women from being housed in women’s prisons.

“It hurt my heart when I seen that because I do know other girls that are still in prison,” said Iglesias, who spent more than 25 years in male facilities. “Female prison is safe for a trans woman, and you can be who you are. You’re not penalized because you’re feminine.”

But requesting a transfer to a facility matching inmates’ gender identity had not been easy, and few prisoners had been moved before the order. A 2025 government court filing said that federal prisons house 2,198 trans prisoners out of over 155,000 inmates. Of those, the filing said, 22 are trans women housed in female facilities, and one is a trans man in a men’s facility. Although courts have blocked attempts to move that small subset of trans prisoners after the order, a trans prisoner not included in those suits had been relocated, The Guardian news outlet reported.

A Department of Justice report from 2014 estimated that trans inmates in state and federal prisons were 10 times as likely as other prisoners to report incidents of sexual victimization.

Iglesias said she experienced such violence firsthand. Included in her suit was a copy of a 2017 psychological report that said Iglesias reported being the victim of sexual misconduct or abuse in 1993, 2001, 2013, 2015, 2016, and 2017. Later filings included allegations of having been raped in 2019 and 2020, and a series of rapes, threats, and other abuse in 2021 before she was transferred to a female facility. Iglesias said she faced more abuse than she officially reported.

“Just because you commit a crime doesn’t mean you deserve to have violence against you,” said Michelle García, deputy legal director of the ACLU of Illinois and one of the attorneys who ultimately represented Iglesias.

Federal law requires all inmates to be protected from abuse. A 1994 Supreme Court decision acknowledged trans inmates as particularly vulnerable to attack. Regulations from the Prison Rape Elimination Act, passed unanimously by Congress in 2003, contain specific provisions for trans inmates, including allowing them to shower separately from other inmates and requiring prison officials to consider their health and safety when deciding whether to house them in male or female facilities.

Courts also have ruled that “deliberate indifference” to an inmate’s “serious medical needs” violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual” punishments. The quality of overall medical care for federal prisoners has come under scrutiny amid reports of inmates going without needed medical care and preventable deaths.

Iglesias successfully argued in court that gender-affirming surgery was necessary for her gender dysphoria. She was diagnosed with what was then called “gender identity disorder” soon after entering federal custody in 1994, according to court filings. Her diagnosis was updated to gender dysphoria in 2015.

Iglesias’ court filings documented her having been assessed for the risk of suicide 33 times and placed on suicide watch 12 times, as well as an attempt at self-castration in 2009.

“Defendants are aware of Iglesias’s suffering, but have delayed her treatment without evaluating her medically,” the judge in her case wrote.

García called the Trump administration’s targeting of care for trans inmates cruel, unnecessary, and illogical.

“They’re not assessing the constitutional rights of people,” García said. “They’re making choices because this is a vulnerable community that they can rally people behind to hate.”

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Health insurers made $41B the year COVID-19 landed. Why are they raising rates now?

By Christopher Snowbeck, The Minnesota Star Tribune

Claire Lindell had to wait months for treatment when doctors in April 2020 were forced to suddenly cancel the little girl’s spine surgery.

The delay was particularly stressful because the operation addressed several issues, including the 4-year-old’s high risk of respiratory infection — such as from the emerging COVID-19 virus.

“That was a tough period,” recalled her father, A.J. Lindell of Prior Lake, Minnesota.

Five years later, Claire’s health care journey has gone well. And the Lindells, who always kept paying health insurance premiums even when care was unavailable, help illustrate an intriguing financial backstory with the pandemic.

Claire Lindell, 9, is pictured with her family, from the left, dad A.J. Lindell, brother Owen Lindell and mom Michelle Lindell at home in Prior Lake, Minnesota, on Monday, March 17, 2025. (Renée Jones Schneider/The Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS)

Hospitals and clinics across the country were frantically preparing five years ago this spring to conserve resources for an expected surge of COVID-19 patients that some feared could overwhelm the health care system.

Yet the first year of the pandemic was historic not only for COVID-19, but for a surprising side effect — the health system known for inexorable growth actually provided less care in most categories. Elective procedures were put on hold due to emergency orders, and even after they lifted, many patients still opted to stay away.

Health insurers were huge financial beneficiaries of this surprise.

Their profits increased 52% as they continued collecting insurance premiums while fewer patients went to the doctor. Whereas health plans across the country collectively reported an average of $27 billion in operating profit per year between 2017 and 2019, operating earnings across the industry in 2020 surged to $41.4 billion, according to a Minnesota Star Tribune analysis of data provided by Mark Farrah Associates, a Pennsylvania-based analytics firm that tracks data across all U.S. states and territories.

In 2020, customers paid about $1 trillion to health insurers, so the earnings worked out to operating profit of just over 4 cents per dollar of revenue, the analysis shows. That’s even after federal law forced them to return some excess profit via record rebates.

Minnesota-based UnitedHealth Group, parent company of health insurance giant UnitedHealthcare, saw its second quarter profit double that year. In Minnesota, three of the state’s four largest nonprofit health insurers — Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, HealthPartners and UCare — saw a noticeable improvement in 2020 financial results.

All four of those insurers plus others across the industry announced at the time financial relief packages for customers and cash-strapped health care providers that effectively reduced their rebate requirements under the 2010 Affordable Care Act. UnitedHealth Group alone provided $4 billion in premium credits, cost-sharing waivers, payments to providers and other assistance.

And across the industry, insurers imposed relatively modest premium increases the next two years, according to the Mark Farrah Associates data, which is derived from public filings with state insurance commissioners. (The statistics don’t include coverage provided by employers who self-insure their health plans.)

Fast forward past the end of the pandemic, and the health care finance story has changed dramatically — premiums are rising much faster now, amid a health care cost surge that includes costly new GLP-1 medications for diabetes and weight loss.

Those $41.4 billion profits from the first year of COVID are so far in the rearview mirror they can’t provide much cushion against today’s trends, said Cynthia Cox, a researcher who follows the individual health insurance market for California-based KFF.

“The benefits were already kind of paid out, I guess you could say,” Cox said.

“During the pandemic, basically what insurers were doing was offering cost-sharing waivers and premium waivers. And then following the pandemic, they raised premiums by less than they otherwise would have, for those first couple of years,” she said. “But now health care costs are going up again and rising faster than usual, in part because of inflation.”

For group health plans, premiums across the country increased an average of 7.8% this year before employers made benefit design changes to moderate the jumps, said Brooks Deibele, an executive vice president in the Twin Cities office of Holmes Murphy, a benefits consultant.

The increase was the biggest in more than a decade, Deibele said, and was driven by higher health care prices plus expanded use of costly prescription drugs. Initially with the pandemic, higher profits might have allowed some health insurers to absorb a portion of rate increases for customers the following year or two, he said. But that time is done.

“Any financial tailwinds that the carriers had from the pandemic — we’re well beyond that, at this point,” said Deibele, who is employee benefits practice leader at the Iowa-based company.

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In 2020, the U.S. health care system saw a big decline in utilization of preventive services like colonoscopy and mammography as well as cuts to certain elective surgeries, said Christine Eibner, director of the health care payment, cost and coverage program at California-based RAND Corp. There was a large increase at the time of doctors providing care via telehealth, Eibner said, but it wasn’t enough to offset the decline in office visits.

“Some clinics and health care providers closed services or limited access to certain procedures, and patients sought to avoid health care settings because they wanted to reduce their exposure to a highly virulent virus,” said Stefan Gildemeister, health care economist with the Minnesota Department of Health.

In Minnesota, for one, there were about 68,000 fewer outpatient surgeries statewide during 2020 than the previous year, according to state Health Department data. Annual emergency room visits fell by about 300,000 to 1.67 million during the pandemic’s first year.

Inpatient days and outpatient visits dropped along with acute care admissions, which still hadn’t returned to pre-pandemic norms in Minnesota as of 2023.

Claire Lindell of Prior Lake, Minnesota, indirectly accounted for a tiny portion of this decline.

After Lindell couldn’t have surgery in April 2020, doctors at Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare in St. Paul operated in July and August. Her surgeries were completed during the calendar year, but hospital officials say the earlier patient delays had a domino effect.

Ultimately, some cases were pushed into the following year, lowering pay from commercial health insurers during 2020.

During those opening weeks of the pandemic, there was a 60% decline in ambulatory care across the country.

“It’s really striking,” said Peter Huckfeldt, a health economist at the University of Minnesota.

The end result shows up in the medical loss ratio (MLR), a key metric for health insurers that shows the percentage of premium revenue they spend on patients’ medical expenses.

Across the country, this ratio fell from 87.2% in the pre-pandemic period to 85% in 2020, according to Mark Farrah Associates.

When an insurer’s MLR falls below certain benchmarks — 80% in the individual market, for example, and 85% in the market for large employer groups — the law says health insurers must pay consumer rebates to make up the difference. Rebates hit record numbers in 2020, RAND’s Eibner said, and remained high the following year.

With group coverage, rebates go to the plan’s sponsor, typically the employer, rather than the individual patient. Plan sponsors are expected to pass along some rebate savings to employees, but it may come in the form of lower future premiums, rather than individual rebate checks.

Nevertheless, insurers “can’t really hoard it, because they are subject … to these minimum loss ratio requirements,” Eibner said. “So they couldn’t just pocket all of that — they had to pass some of it back.”

Over the past three years, MLRs have increased again with higher medical spending. The trend of rising expenses explains why premiums are continuing to grow, said Ezra Golberstein, an associate professor in the division of health policy and management at the U.

“This is a period when we are seeing things like the explosion of the GLP-1 drugs, which are very expensive, and we’re seeing the continued growth of a lot of different biologic drugs that are also very expensive,” Golberstein said. “That’s to say nothing of the continued consolidation of the health care delivery systems, which also drives up prices.”

General inflation has been making its way into health care provider budgets, exerting upward pressure on costs, Eibner noted. She also cited “workforce shortages that may be affecting prices.”

Insurers’ average profit margins fell to about 2.4% in 2023, the most recent year data is available, according to Mark Farrah Associates — lower than the pre-pandemic period. The data includes individual market coverage, fully insured groups and Medicaid and Medicare coverage provided through private health plans.

The precise mix of factors pushing up premiums can vary by market, said KFF’s Cox, noting that individual market health insurers don’t typically cover GLP-1 medicines for weight loss. Even so, those premiums across the country are up about 7% this year, the highest growth rate since before the pandemic.

Private health insurance expenditures always tend to rise, but for 2020 they were down 0.4% overall. Spending by the federal government — including big investments for vaccine development and to help health care providers — grew by more than one-third, driving an overall increase in health care expenditures by year-end.

Bloomington, Minnesota-based HealthPartners said its health insurance division saw lower-than-expected claims for about three months in spring 2020 followed by a significant rebound in claims in the third and fourth quarters.

The insurer said 2023 marked its third consecutive year of record-setting claims costs, including $650 million in prescription drug spending — an increase of 15%.

“Specific to GLP-1s, we paid about $12.5 million for that class of drugs in 2022 and $46.1 million in 2023,” the insurer said. “Given the very high cost … we put limitations and exclusions on this category of medication for 2024 because we know our members can’t afford the premium increases that would be required to cover the drug.”

Cost controls by insurers get controversial when patients feel like coverage denials are blocking needed care. A.J. Lindell said he had to spend months in late 2021 and 2022 going through various appeals to get an insurer to pay for Claire’s in-home care.

It was one of several such episodes the family has endured over the years, he said, but there were no coverage snags in the first 18 months of COVID. During that period, financial assistance from health plans often included waiving certain rules that drive denials.

Claire Lindell was born with a genetic condition whose impacts extend to her heart and lungs.

Surgeries in 2020 addressed multiple curvatures of her spine and have clearly helped her lung function, A.J. Lindell said. The procedures also enabled her to keep her head raised and look around more easily, letting her better connect with peers and family and observe the surrounding world.

The good outcome ameliorated the stress of that initial treatment delay, Lindell said, along with the challenge of repeat hospitalizations during the public health emergency.

“She’s thriving at school,” he said. “She can go out in the world and interact with people and make her mark. It’s something that five years ago — there was no way we could have even pictured this.”

©2025 The Minnesota Star Tribune. Visit at startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Discussion on funding for council member trip to Italy tabled

MONTEREY – The Monterey City Council voted to table discussions of a council member trip to Italy, asking for clearer guidelines from city staff before moving forward.

The agenda item, listed under the consent agenda Tuesday, considered approving additional travel expenses for Mayor Tyller Williamson and Councilwoman Kim Barber to visit the city’s sister city in Italy.

Williamson motioned for the item to be tabled until city staff could bring back a clear policy outlining travel for council members.

“There is an effort to have a policy established, and I think that’s going to be a healthy space to have a good conversation about how we move forward on council members having travel paid for,” Williamson said. “Whether it be for sister cities or otherwise. Council members go to conferences and board meetings outside of the area that the city pays for, so I think a clear policy and procedure would be great for how we move ahead.”

Tuesday’s agenda specified that if approved, the total cost would not exceed $9,500 or $4,733 each for Williamson and Barber. The agenda lists $1,800 for airfare to and from Sicily and transportation within the city, $24 per night for lodging in Isola delle Femmine for seven nights if lodging is not offered through the Sister City relationship and $135 per day for small miscellaneous expenses.

The agenda report also detailed that mayor/council travel and meetings were currently over-budgeted for the 2024-2025 fiscal year.

About a dozen spoke up during public comment, with most people suggesting the council find outside sources for funding, like fundraising or private funding.

Council members Ed Smith and Jean Rasch echoed the sentiment, saying they will not support any additional expenditures for city travel.

“I want to do it in keeping with the resolution that we authorized in 2017 which is no expenditures or city money for any sister city travels,” Smith said. “I would not support any expenditure for any of the city council members to travel on a sister city excursion much less out of the country.”

Rasch brought up the example of the Marina mayor’s recent travels and said she believes the city should follow a similar model.

“Mayor (Bruce) Delgado is in Japan with a 10-person delegation, and he’s reporting that every person is paying their own,” Rasch said. “So that’s a model for us to emulate. I won’t be supporting any taxpayer money going to any payments for international travel, even though it’s a great concept, we just don’t have the jurisdiction.”

Legal experts say Trump official broke law by saying ‘Buy Tesla’ stock but don’t expect a crackdown

By BERNARD CONDON, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — When a White House adviser in the first Trump administration told TV viewers to “Go buy Ivanka stuff,” top government lawyers sprang into action, telling her she had violated ethics rules and warning her not to do it again.

Government ethics experts have varying opinions on whether the 2017 criticism of Kellyanne Conway went far enough, but many agree such violations now might not even draw an official rebuke.

A week after President Donald Trump turned the White House lawn into a Tesla infomercial for Elon Musk’s cars, a second sales pitch by a U.S. official occurred, this time for Tesla stock.

“It will never be this cheap,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Wednesday. “Buy Tesla.”

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick speaks with reporters at the White House, Thursday, March 13, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Government ethics experts say Lutnick broke a 1989 law prohibiting federal employees from using “public office for private gain,” later detailed to include a ban on ”endorsements.” Although presidents are generally exempt from government ethics rules, most federal employees are not and are often punished for violations, including rebukes like the one Conway got.

As of Friday, no public action had been taken against Lutnick and it was unclear whether he would suffer a similar fate.

“They’re not even thinking of ethics,” said Trump critic and former Republican White House ethics czar Richard Painter of administration officials.

Painter has equally low expectations of that other possible brake to future violations — public opinion: ”I don’t know if people care.”

In his first term, Trump opened his hotel near the Oval Office to foreign ambassadors and lobbyists in what many legal scholars argued was a violation of a constitutional ban against presidents receiving payments or gifts that could distort public policy for private gain. His company launched a new hotel chain called “America Idea” in hopes of cashing in on his celebrity. Trump even once proposed holding a G-7 meeting of world leaders at his then-struggling Doral golf resort.

The ‘Buy Ivanka’ rebuke

But the reaction to Conway’s “Ivanka stuff” comment suggested certain lines couldn’t be crossed.

Within days of Conway’s TV comments, the head of the federal ethics agency, the Office of Government Ethics, wrote a letter to the White House saying Trump’s adviser may have broken the law and urging a probe. A White House lawyer then met with Conway to remind her of the law and reported to the ethics office that she had assured him she would abide by it in future.

Protesters outside a Tesla Service Center on Tchoupitoulas Street in New Orleans express their issues with Elon Musk and President Donald Trump on Friday, March 14, 2025. (Chris Granger/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)

But this time, there is no head of the Office of Government Ethics. He was fired by Trump. Ditto for the inspector generals of various agencies who would head any investigation.

“What is likely to happen now? I really don’t know,” said Kedric Payne, chief lawyer at the Campaign Legal Center, a non-profit watchdog that sent a letter to the government ethics office on Friday calling for an investigation. “We no longer have the head of the Office of Government Ethics to push the Commerce Department to make sure the secretary acknowledges the law.”

Payne said Lutnick’s comment on TV may seem like a small transgression but it could snowball into a bigger problem if not punished.

“It starts with one TV appearance, but can develop into multiple officials asking people to support companies and products,” Payne said. “If there are no consequences, you get into a danger zone of a corruption.”

Trump critics point to other signs that Trump is careless with the law and ethical norms, citing his pardons for Jan. 6 Capitol rioters, a decision to allow his Trump Organization to strike business deals abroad and his attack on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act banning U.S. company bribes abroad to win business.

Jelly beans and airlines

When it comes endorsing products, presidents used to be far more circumspect.

Their comments were mostly quick asides expressing opinions of taste, such as when Harry Truman called Pillsbury flour the “finest” or John F. Kennedy said United Airlines was “reliable.”

A Tesla vechile is seen near a charging station, Wednesday, March 19, 2025, in Woodstock, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Ronald Reagan famously enthused about his jelly beans habit, remarking that they were the “perfect snack.”

Trump had five Teslas lined up in the White House driveway last week as he praised Musk’s company. Then he slipped into a red Model S he had targeted for personal purchase, exclaiming, “Wow. That’s beautiful.”

“Presidents are allowed to have personal opinions on products they like and dislike,” said ethics lawyer Kathleen Clark, referring to the Truman through Reagan examples. ”But what Trump did was transform the White House into a set for advertising the products of a private company.”

“It’s the difference between holding an extravaganza and holding an opinion.”

Calls for Musk investigation

In the aftermath of the Tesla White House event, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and three other senators wrote a letter to the Office of Government Ethics saying that, while presidents are exempt from ethics law banning endorsements, Elon Musk isn’t and calling for an investigation.

FILE – Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk listens as Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show, Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

A spokeswoman from Warren’s office said the government ethics office had not yet responded about what it planned to do about the White House Tesla endorsement. The Office of Government Ethics itself said it would not comment on either the Warren letter or Lutnick’s TV appearance.

The Commerce Department did not respond to Associated Press requests for comment.

Asked whether Lutnick would be reprimanded or an investigation opened, White House spokesman Kush Desai defended Lutnick, lauding “his immensely successful private sector career” and his “critical role on President Trump’s trade and economic team.”

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Former White House ethics chief Painter says Democrats have also played loose with the ethics law.

He is harshly critical of the Clinton charity, the Clinton Foundation, which was taking donations from foreign governments when Hillary Clinton was the country’s chief diplomat as secretary of state. Painter also blasts former President Joe Biden for not removing his name from a University of Pennsylvania research institute when he was in office even though it appeared to be helping draw donations overseas.

But Painter says the slide from caring about ethics laws and norms to defiance has hit a new low.

“There’s been a deterioration in ethics,” he said. “What Biden did wasn’t good, but this is worse.”