Tag: lawsuiits

Teens forced out of exclusive California Catholic school for doing ‘blackface’ are awarded $1 million after proving it was green acne medication

Two California teens who were forced to withdraw from an elite Catholic high school over accusations of blackface have been awarded $1 million and tuition reimbursement.

A Santa Clara County jury sided with the teens, identified by the initials A.H. and H.H., on two claims concerning breach of oral contract and lack of due process.

The boys sued Saint Francis High School in August 2020 after photos circulated of them sporting acne treatment masks.

The controversy started when the boys were accused of performing blackface and were ultimately pressured into withdrawing from the prestigious Mountain View school.

‘It was quite clear the jury believed these were innocent face masks,’ attorney Krista Baughman told the San Francisco Chronicle after Monday’s judgement.

‘They are young kids, their internet trail is going to haunt them for the next 60 years. Now they don’t have to worry about that.’

The teens lost on three other claims alleging breach of contract, defamation and a violation of free speech.

The plaintiffs initially sought $20 million when they filed suit in Santa Clara County Superior Court, three years after they and a friend – who attended another school and was not included in the lawsuit – snapped a selfie while donning acne treatment masks.

In the offending photo, the boys’ faces were covered in dark green medication. A photo taken a day earlier revealed that they had tried on white face masks as well. 

According to documents reviewed by DailyMail.com, another SFHS student obtained a copy of the photograph from a friend’s Spotify account and uploaded it to a group chat in June 2020.

The photo resurfaced on the same day recent SFHS graduates created a meme pertaining to the murder of George Floyd, which sparked its own outrage and controversy.

The student insinuated that the teens were using ‘blackface’ and deemed the photo ‘another example’ of racist SFHS students, before urging everyone in the group chat to spread it throughout the school community.

On June 4, 2020, Dean of Students Ray Hisatake called the boys’ parents to ask them if they were aware of the photograph.

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U.S. argues for immunity in MK-ULTRA mind control case before Quebec Court of Appeal

A proposed class-action lawsuit over infamous brainwashing experiments at a Montreal psychiatric hospital was before Quebec’s highest court Thursday, as victims attempted to remove immunity granted to the United States government.

The U.S. government successfully argued in Quebec Superior Court last August that the country couldn’t be sued for the project known as MK-ULTRA, allegedly funded by the Canadian government and the CIA.

U.S. lawyers argued that foreign states had absolute immunity from lawsuits in Canada between the 1940s and 1960s, when the program took place.

But survivors (and their families) of the experiments at Montreal’s Allan Memorial Institute — which included experimental drugs, rounds of electroshocks and sleep deprivation — appealed that decision.

On Thursday, a lawyer representing the United States government told the Quebec Court of Appeal that the country should be immune from prosecution and that any lawsuit against the U.S. government should be filed in that country.

The court case stems from a class-action lawsuit filed against McGill University — which was affiliated to the psychiatric hospital — Montreal’s Royal Victoria Hospital and the Canadian and U.S. governments after Montrealers allegedly had their memories erased and were reduced to childlike states.

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In Push To Dismiss Lawsuit, CIA Says Americans Who Visited Assange Had No Privacy Rights

The Central Intelligence Agency and former CIA director Mike Pompeo contend that attorneys and journalists, who visited WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, had no “legitimate expectation of privacy” when it came to conversations with a “notorious wanted fugitive in a foreign embassy.”

“There is no plausible argument that it would be unreasonable or indiscriminate for the government to surveil Assange, who oversaw WikiLeaks’ publication of large amounts of U.S. national security information,” the CIA and Pompeo additionally contend. “Thus, any alleged surveillance of Assange that incidentally captured his conversations with U.S. citizens such as plaintiffs would not violate the Fourth Amendment [right to privacy] as a matter of law.”

The statements are part of a motion to dismiss [PDF] a lawsuit that was brought by a group of Americans, who allege that they were spied on by the CIA when they met with Assange while he was living under political asylum in the Ecuador embassy.

When one considers that Assange has been held in detention at Belmarsh prison and faces Espionage Act charges for publishing classified documents, the government is essentially arguing that it may spy on any journalist who publishes such documents and “incidentally capture” the communications of anyone communicating with that particular journalist.

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