Below the Fold - negligence in an armed society

Current trends show that, without intervention, the U.S. wage gap will close only for white women... by 2059. Hispanic and Black women would have to wait a century. And this pay gap is the result of more than discrimination in the hiring process. From social expectations to the disproportionate marketing of low-paying jobs to women, the pay gap is also maintained by such lost opportunities and pathways.

• Asking for a candidate’s salary history has been prohibited in California, Washington, Maryland, Ohio, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Colorado, and Nevada, in a bid to price the job, not the person.
• Nevada and Colorado also require companies to provide salary information to a candidate. In Nevada, this happens after a candidate completes an interview while in Colorado the intel is shared even sooner.
• Most recently, New Zealand pushed forward a petition demanding pay transparency in an effort to catch up with similar legislation in Europe.

The U.S. is still struggling to address the rise in school shootings. Most recently in Michigan, a high school is avoiding blame for a shooting despite repeated signals and opportunities for prevention. Here’s what happened:

• Around May 2021, 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley’s depression hit rock bottom, he stopped doing his homework, and more generally showed signs of suicidal ideation.
• In November, students reported that Ethan left a jar with a bird’s decapitated head in the boys bathroom. Though the school says they were unable to determine where the jar came from, Ethan was known for allegedly torturing animals regularly.
• Throughout the month, the school was informed of concerning posts on Ethan’s social media pages and teachers reported worrisome behavior in the classroom. Still, the school emailed his parents saying that large assumptions were being made and turned into rumors.
• On November 30, Ethan made a violent drawing of guns, a person bleeding, and the words, “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me” on a test review sheet. While the drawing was reported, Ethan’s parents refused to take him home and the school released him back to the classroom.
• Later that same day, Ethan shot and killed four students and injured another seven. The gun was in his backpack — a gift from his parents — the entire day, including while in the office and with his parents. A simple backpack search would have found it.

• Some schools invested precious funding into expensive security services and metal detectors, though research is inconclusive on their efficacy.
• The Safe School Initiative provides a series of recommendations following the 1999 Columbine shooting for how to make schools safer and identify students with potential for violence — though a Secret Service report concludes there is no accurate profile of such. Still, per their guidelines, Ethan posed a number of substantive warnings that should have prompted the involvement of a clinician and search of his home, locker, and backpack.