As the above account reveals, the intersection of federal civil rights statutes and civil service law has produced a complicated, at times confusing, process for resolving claims of discrimination in the federal workplace. But even within the most intricate and complex systems, some things are plain. So it is in this case, where two sections of the CSRA, read naturally, direct employees like Kloeckner to district court. [...] Now just put §7703 and §7702 together-say, in the form of a syllogism, to make the point obvious. Under §7703(b)(2), "cases of discrimination subject to [ §7702]" shall be filed in district court. Under §7702(a)(1), the "cases of discrimination subject to [§7702]" are mixed cases-those appealable to the MSPB and alleging discrimination. Ergo, mixed cases shall be filed in district court.

And so that is where Kloeckner's case should have been filed (as indeed it was).

The case arose when Carolyn Kloeckner filed an anti-discrimination claim against the Department of Labor (DOL), where she worked, with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) [official website]. She claimed that she was being discriminated based on age and gender. This type of claim would not be appealable to the MSPB because no personnel action had been taken against. However, while she was waiting for the EEOC to rule on her claim, she was fired, and thus had a second claim for unlawful termination. Due to a series of procedural mishaps, Kloeckner had concurrent claims in both the EEOC and MSPB. She amended the former and had the latter dismissed without prejudice, but later, when the EEOC finally ruled, they returned the case to the DOL as a sanction for Kloeckner not following proper discovery procedure. The DOL ruled against Kloeckner, and when she attempted to appeal, her case was dismissed due to the belief she was appealing her original case with the MSPB. She then filed in district court, which ruled against her for lack of jurisdiction. This far, her case has never been adjudged on the merits.

The court concludes ... that sufficient private speech interests are implicated by the specialty license plates to preclude a finding of purely government speech. The court finds that this conclusion is in keeping with the common-sense notion that the North Carolina specialty license plate program as a whole, and the Choose Life plates in particular, are, at bottom, a government-sponsored avenue to encourage private speech. The court also concludes … that the State's offering of a Choose Life license plate in the absence of a pro-choice plate constitutes viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment.

Reproductive rights [JURIST backgrounder] remain a controversial issue in North Carolina and across the country. Last year a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction [JURIST report]], blocking part of the state's abortion law that required a physician to perform an ultrasound and describe the images to the patient. The judge ruled [opinion, PDF] that the plaintiffs were likely to prevail on their First Amendment [text] challenge to certain provisions of the "Woman's Right to Know Act" [HB 854 materials]. Opponents of the law have called it "draconian" and have stated that women seeking abortions will face dramatic changes once the law takes effect, while supporters contend that the new law will give women the opportunity to "know all the facts" about abortion.

In October, Bielefeldt presented his own report [JURIST report] to the UN General Assembly [official website] that urged all member states to protect freedom of belief as it applies to religious conversion. In particular, the report documents the Special Rapporteur's analysis of international patters of abuse in the area of religious conversion [UN News Centre report], detailing violations in which people are either restricted in their rights to conversion or are forced to convert or reconvert to become more "acceptable" to the society in which they live.

Senate Bill 6151's intention was to prohibit anyone from "advertising [the] commercial sexual abuse of a minor if he or she knowingly publishes, disseminates, or displays, or causes directly or indirectly, to be published, disseminated, or displayed, any advertisement for a commercial sex act." Though the goal is commendable, its language has been received with skepticism by the courts. In July Martinez granted a preliminary injunction [order, PDF] for the plaintiffs in an opinion that foreshadowed the law's ultimate invalidation. Backpage.com initially filed the lawsuit [complaint, PDF] in June.

The international community has been monitoring the rights of the child since to convention entered into force in 1990. In July a UN committee condemned [JURIST report] Israel's treatment of child detainees. Last November the UN asked [JURIST report] Syria to respond to inquiries regarding a report dealing with child torture. In November 2008, the US admitted [JURIST report] to the committee that it was detaining 12 juveniles in Guantanamo. This realization came only months after the committee asserted [JURIST report] that military tribunals were not the proper venue for juvenile detainees. In May of that year the Department of Defense confirmed a previous report [JURIST reports] that the US was detaining 2,500 juveniles in Afghanistan.

Egypt's revolution [JURIST backgrounder] last year has generated many political clashes, particularly regarding the draft constitution. This new decree comes only one day after Morsi revoked the expanded powers he gave himself [JURIST reports] late last month. Last week, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official profile] expressed grave concern [JURIST report] at the rising death toll during the ongoing political chaos. Pillay complained that Egypt's draft constitution passed without the participation of Christian or liberal legislators and that it omitted references to international human rights treaties that Egypt had ratified. Also last week, Egypt's Supreme Judicial Council agreed to oversee the national referendum [JURIST report] on the country's new constitution and planned to delegate about 10,000 judges to monitor the referendum. In late November Egyptian courts suspended work [JURIST report] to protest Morsi's decree because it had removed judicial review of his actions. In October, Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] urged Egypt to amend its proposed constitution [JURIST report] to comply with international treaties. In July, a few days after he was sworn in as president, Morsi issued a decree [JURIST reports] calling the Egyptian parliament back into session, despite a previous ruling by the Supreme Constitutional Court dissolving parliament after finding that one-third of its members were elected illegally.