A court has ruled against a proposal by the Nasdaq market index to impose diversity, equity, and inclusion standards on company boards. The proposal would have been the first of its kind and would have required that the 3,000 companies listed on the index have at least one woman on their boards of directors, one person who is a minority, and one LGBTQ person.'We respect the court’s decision and do not intend to seek further review.' On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans ruled against the Securities and Exchange Commission accepting the DEI proposal from Nasdaq. “It is not unethical for a company to decline to disclose information about the racial, gender, and LGTBQ+ characteristics of its directors,” read the ruling. “We are not aware of any established rule or custom of the securities trade that saddles companies with an obligation to explain why their boards of directors do not have as much racial, gender, or sexual orientation diversity as Nasdaq would prefer.”The Nasdaq index released a statement defending the standard. “We maintain that the rule simplified and standardized disclosure requirements to the benefit of both corporates and investors,” read the statement. “That said, we respect the court’s decision and do not intend to seek further review.”The SEC said it was still determining its next steps in light of the ruling. A group of Republican attorneys general questioned the standards in a letter to Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman in October. “Given Nasdaq’s zealous desire to impose quotas on companies, several of which are headquartered in our states, we are interested in learning what policies Nasdaq has in place to ensure its listed companies are following federal and state anti-discrimination laws,” they wrote in the letter. Democrats in Congress issued a letter in October asking companies to continue implementing DEI policies after pressure from conservative activists forced many to drop the controversial standards. John Deere, Molson, Harley-Davidson, and Ford were among those companies to reject DEI after initially caving to demands from the left. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Former Texas Children’s Hospital surgeon and whistleblower Eithan Haim is facing massive legal challenges after exposing the hospital for secretly providing “gender-affirming care” to minors. Now, his wife, Andrea Haim, is speaking out on his behalf since Eithan is under a “defacto gag order,” or a “non-gag gag order.” “The largest children’s hospital in the world was lying to the public about the existence of its transgender program for children. As a result of his whistleblowing, the Texas legislature passed FB14, which was the law banning transgender care for minors in the state of Texas,” Haim tells Allie Beth Stuckey of “Relatable.” Eithan has been indicted on four felony counts for what Andrea calls “completely made-up and baseless violations of HIPAA,” which they’ve been fighting since June 2023. “Some of his colleagues had told him that they were implanting puberty-blocking devices into children as young as 11 years old,” Andrea explains, adding, “The fact that they were doing it on kids who claimed to have gender dysphoria was really surprising.” “We started to look into it further, and the first thing I did was Google Texas Children’s transgender program. It didn’t exist on the internet,” she continues. “The only thing that you could see was a statement from March of 2022, in which Texas Children’s Hospital stated unequivocally that they were stopping their program due to a Texas attorney general opinion that these procedures may be considered child abuse under Texas law.” “But they never admitted that they restarted it. So it was surprising to hear that these procedures were still going on,” she says. That’s when Andrea took it upon herself to join a Zoom conference in January 2023, which was hosted by the Baylor College of Medical Ethics. “What we learned is that Texas Children’s had an extensive transgender medicine program. They were implanting puberty blockers, and prescribing puberty blockers on children as young as 11 years old. And they started doing this only three days after they said that they paused or stopped the program,” Andrea explains. “They had the doctors who were part of this program on there, and those doctors said that they were prescribing puberty blockers to children, they were telling parents that they needed to agree or consent to getting children on puberty blockers,” she continues, noting that the doctors used the line, “Would you rather have a living son or a dead daughter?” “I think this is one of the most malicious lies that has to do with transgender medicine for children,” she adds. Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

An Iowa social studies teacher produced a long, physical list of "banned words" and threatened to punish students if they are heard using them. Iowa teacher Leah Ingraham from the Fremont-Mills Community School District allegedly put the poster of forbidden terms in her classroom for her seventh-grade students to see. The list of "banned words" contains everything from jokes to references to pro-masculinity words. Starting off seemingly as a joke, the first term on the list was "Diddy party," followed by "diddler." Students are also seemingly banned from using terms like "alpha, beta, omega," and "sigma," which are typically related to terms like alpha male. More obscure and unknown references included a ban on saying "baby oil," "skibiti (toilet)," and even the word "Ohio." It's unclear why Ohio was chosen, but some definitions on the Urban Dictionary said that it could be used to say a person is bipolar or freaking out. This is apparently based on the state's unpredictable weather. The middle school students are also explicitly banned from "barking," "meowing," telling "fat jokes," and telling "LGBT+ jokes." The list had several spelling mistakes, including "refrences" and "gigga." Lastly, students are banned from using online terms such as "rizz," which essentially means being good at flirting, "womp womp," meant as an onomatopoeia for failure, and "talk or hawk tuah." The latter refers to online personality Hailey Welch and her podcast. Welch is known for starring in a viral video in which she talked about sex acts. In the bottom corner of the banned words poster, students are warned that if they "say any of these words" they will "owe Ms. Ingraham a 30min detention." List of banned words posted at Fremont-Mills Community School District in Tabor, Iowa.Photo courtesy Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression first covered the story after a parent of one of the students sent the organization the photo. The foundation told Blaze News that it has sent a letter to the Fremont-Mills Community School District over free speech concerns. The foundation has not heard back from the district. 'Students have First Amendment rights, and they don't shed those rights when they put on their backpacks.' National Desk reported, however, that school Principal Kurt Hanna said, "The grievance in question was previously addressed with the complainant [and] will be investigated further after more information was received this afternoon." Hanna added that "internal reviews of classroom procedures and practices" are regularly conducted with the district. FIRE's Aaron Terr called the teacher's decision "terrible" and a signal that "words can be arbitrarily banned." "Students have First Amendment rights, and they don't shed those rights when they put on their backpacks," Terr added. The foundation said its ultimate goal was to teach students that their right to free speech will be threatened throughout their lives and that students should speak up when that happens. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

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