Civil Rights News: Wikipedia’s Gender Gap, Municipal Bankruptcy Hits CA Workers, Religious Employment Discrimination

Define Gender Gap? Look Up Wikipedia’s Contributor List
New York Times

This piece uncovers the one thing missing from sprawling online encyclopedia Wikipedia: a female perspective. Recent surveys reveal that only 15 percent of Wikipedia’s contributors are women, which explains the encyclopedia’s relative lack of information about typical feminine interests as opposed to the plethora of information available on their masculine counterparts. Ms. Sue Gardner, Wikipedia’s executive director, argues that this gender gap hurts the organization’s legitimacy since it unnecessarily biases the site’s content.

In Vallejo, A Municipal Bankruptcy Means Big Sacrifices For Ordinary Workers
Huffington Post

Municipal workers and the middle class have been forced to bite the financial bullet in Vallejo, Cali., as the city attempts to bounce back from its 2008 bankruptcy filing. While such municipal bankruptcies remain rare, negotiations with employees are becoming nation-wide as the middle class is forced to take on new financial burdens, with little guarantee of being paid back. Alden reports, “They are zeroing in on ordinary workers and retirees, putting wages and benefits on the line.”

Bearded Man Can’t be Prison Guard, Calif. Says
MSNBC

Controversy is brewing in California’s capital as state attorney general Kamela Harris argues that a beard makes you ineligible to serve as a state prison guard. Her argument cites a California state policy from 2004, which states that beard growth makes it too difficult to fit prison guards for the gas masks that are an essential part of their uniform. However practical its intentions may be, this policy ultimately discourages Sikhs, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, and other religious groups from becoming prison guards, since the maintenance of facial hair is very important to those groups’ religious identities.

Compiled by Brianna Deitrich, Hayley Lennon, and Alice Thompson