Facebook Adds 'Civil Union,' 'Domestic Partnership' to Relationship Status Options

By  Bianca Bosker, The Huffington Post
02.18.11

Facebook has added two new relationship status options users can include in their online profiles: "in a civil union" and "in a domestic partnership."

The new fields are being rolled out in the U.S. and several other countries, including Canada, France, the U.K., and Australia, starting today.

"This has been a highly requested feature from users," said Facebook's Andrew Noyes, manager of public policy communications. "We want to provide options for people to genuinely and authentically reflect their relationships on Facebook."

Among other information included on their Facebook profiles, such as their alma mater and favorite books, users also have the option to characterize their relationships. Previously, the set of options included: single, in a relationship, married, engaged, it's complicated, in an open relationship, widowed, separated, and divorced.

The changes were made in consultation with Facebook's Network of Support, a group that includes LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] organizations such as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, and the Human Rights Campaign.

"As LGBT people face a patchwork of relationship recognition laws, this gives people more tools to adequately describe their relationship," said Michael Cole-Schwartz, spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign. "Facebook has been a company that has tried to be inclusive of the LGBT community and this just one sign of it."

Richard Socarides, president of Equality Matters and former gay rights advisor to president Bill Clinton, echoed Cole-Schwartz's praise.

Facebook has always been an empowering place for gay people--it's a place you can be yourself in relative safety," Socarides told the Huffington Post in an email. "This is a natural progression of that. In most places, gay Americans can't yet marry but they may be able to formalize their relationship short of marriage. This change reflects that reality. Well done."

Although Facebook's new relationship status options mark a milestone for the LGBT community, Cole-Schwartz noted that challenges remain, particularly when it comes to dealing with cyberbullying, harassment, and hate speech online.

"There are people who are vulnerable and people who are going to be bullies online and people need to have the right tools to keep up with that," Cole-Schwartz said. "That will continue to be something that all online spheres wrestle with and need to be cognizant of.?

Images of the Golden State: "California, Find Yourself Here" (The California Travel & Tourism Commission, 2009 - UK Version)

Same-Sex Couples Stage Valentine's Day Protest

 

Reflection 3: Made in the Golden State—Influential California Companies

Which California company's services do you most utilize?

California is home to some of the most compelling companies in the world, leading the way in fields as diverse as defense, biotech, alternative energy, and entertainment. Coming from a state that is home to both Silicon Valley and Hollywood, our companies are also strong cultural forces around the world, using technology and media to shape people's everyday lives. In fact, so influential are California companies that some have even become verbs in the American vernacular. Going to miss your favorite show tonight? Tivo it. Need some quick cash? You can eBay some of your stuff. Have a question you need a quick answer to? Just Google it. After reviewing this list of California-based companies, write about the three companies that most influence your day-to-day life. Why do these companies impact you so much? How have you come to count on them? What about them is uniquely Californian?

Requirements:

• MLA format
• 2 pages minimum

Due: We 2.23 / Th 2.24

CSU Campuses Urged to Give Local Students Priority

By Nanette Asimov, San Francisco Chronicle
02.14.11

Students applying to jam-packed California State University don't always get into their campus of choice, but they've always been able to count on priority admission to their local CSU.

Until now.

San Diego State University became the first of 22 CSU campuses to turn away qualified local students this school year, eliminating the priority treatment locals had long enjoyed and instead taking the most qualified applicants from across California.

San Francisco Chronicle February 14, 2011 04:00 AM Copyright San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Concerned that San Diego State's action will lead to similar access problems across the cash-strapped CSU system, California's Legislative Analyst's Office is calling for the state to guarantee the right of all qualified students to enroll in their local CSU campus.

In a report released Monday, the legislative analyst urged lawmakers to take steps - through state law or by amending the advisory Master Plan for Higher Education - to ensure that qualified local students aren't turned away from their local campus.

"Each campus wants to take the best and brightest students, and I'm sympathetic to that argument," said Steve Boilard, director of higher education at the Legislative Analyst's Office. "In an ideal world, that looks good.

"But the reality is that these campuses have more applicants than they can handle - so if students have to be turned away, we say the first thing you should do is fill slots with local students."

CSU has been forced in recent years to limit enrollment as campus budgets have shrunk, even as applicants and demand for popular majors have increased.

The most common approach has been to hold nonlocal applicants to a higher academic standard for enrollment than local applicants. This approach is used at 15 popular CSU campuses, including San Francisco State and San Jose State.

For decades, only one CSU campus - California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo - was so selective that local students were given no priority. At the other 22 campuses, qualified applicants from local high schools were a shoo-in.

Neither state law nor the Master Plan ever required that practice, and San Diego State became the first to revoke its policy.

"We are being forced to ration educational opportunity," San Diego State President Stephen Weber told the San Diego Tribune. "At some point, I've got to place my bet on the student that's most likely ... to succeed and graduate."

Last fall, nearly 4,800 San Diego area high school seniors applied and qualified for enrollment at San Diego State. More than a third, 1,740, were turned away.

But the legislative analyst's report says students should not have to leave home to go to school.

"We believe that ensuring local access to all eligible students is more important than maintaining equal admissions criteria for all applicants," the report says.

Assemblyman Marty Block, D-San Diego, chairman of the Higher Education Committee and a former dean of San Diego State, introduced a bill last year to require CSU to give priority to local students. It didn't get far. But another Block bill requiring public hearings and a waiting period for changes impacting local access became law Jan. 1.

"It's critical that the Legislature step up and require the CSU to meet its core mission, which is serving local students," Block said Monday.

But campuses offer no guarantees.

San Jose State University, with about half of its students from local high schools, is among the most popular campuses in the state.

"We've stuck with it this far," said spokeswoman Pat Lopes Harris. "But I don't want to say we'll never compromise the local area guarantee."

At San Francisco State, freshman Champagne Francis said she would prefer that CSU admit many more students from far-flung places.

"I would disagree with putting more restrictions" on nonlocal students, she said.

Francis, it turns out, is from Fresno.

"Sometimes," she said, "you just need to get away from home."

The legislative analyst's full report, "The Master Plan at 50: Guaranteed Regional Access Needed for State Universities," can be found at links.sfgate.com/ZKWC.

Pod of Orcas Spotted Just Outside Golden Gate

Week 4: Oakland

Lake Merritt

I rode down to the tracks.
Thinking they might sing to me.
But they just stared back.
Broken, trainless and black as night.
Climbed out onto my roof.
So I'd be a poet in the night.
Beat the walls off my room.
I saw the big room that is this life.
This is my condition:
Naked and hysterical,
Reaching to grab a hand
that I just slapped back at.

—Jawbreaker, "Condition Oakland"

Week 4: Oakland
Mo 2.14 / Tu 2.15
Read: eR—"An Argument Against Same-Sex Marriage: An Interview with Rick Santorum" (The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life), "Preserve Traditional Marriage for Benefit of Future Generations" by Roger Crouse (Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel), "Sex and Consequences" by Peter Wood (The American Conservative)
In-Class: Literature Analysis / Short Answer Responses 

We 2.16 / Th 2.17
Read: "The Worst Thing about Gay Marriage" by Sam Shulman (The Weekly Standard), "We Don't Need Gay Marriage" by Mark Vernon (The Guardian), "The Secular Case Against Gay Marriage" by Adam Kolasinksi (The Tech), "Why One Queer Person is Not Celebrating California's Historic Gay Marriage Decision" by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (Alternet)
In-Class: Reading discussion; Lecture—“The Fundamentals of Rhetoric”

Upcoming:

Week 5: Lodi
Mo 2.21 / Tu 2.22
Read: eR—“The Economist Debates: Single-Sex Marriage” (The Economist), "An Argument for Same-Sex Marriage: An Interview with Jonathan Rauch" (The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life), "Same-Sex Marriage: 'A Basic Civil Right'" by James Rotondi (The Huffington Post)
In-Class: Reading discussion; Presentations; Preview: Persuasive essay
Returned: Literature Analysis / Short Answer Responses

We 2.23 / Th 2.24
Read: eR—"Same-Sex Marriage: Losing a Battle, Winning the War" by Andrew Cohen (Vanity Fair), "Stupidity, Gay Marriage, and the Evolution of Religion" by Dan Agin (The Huffington Post), "The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage” by Theodore B. Olson (Newsweek), "Why I Fought for the Right to Say 'I Do'" by Greta Christina (Alternet), "Slippery Slop" by Dahlia Lithwick (Slate); MANZ—p. ix - 59
In-Class: Reading discussion; Presentations; Lecture—“Thesis Statement Speed Dates”
Due: Reflection 3