From: noraa@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (aaron.l.hoffmeyer)
Subject: Re: Sexual Discrimination
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 11:55:36 GMT

>In article <1993Jan23.102416.8212@cbnewsk.cb.att.com>, noraa@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (aaron.l.hoffmeyer) writes:

[about an idea for filing sexual discrimination suits against the courts
or states for blatant sexual dsicrimination against men....]

In article <1993Jan23.162445.22930@noose.ecn.purdue.edu> garrod@dynamo.ecn.purdue.edu (David Garrod) writes:

>The laws for federal law suits are slightly different from state laws.
>The biggest difference is that the loser gets to pay for the attorney
>fees of the winning party.  States have bottomless pockets when it
>comes to defending legal action.  Any father`s group would have to
>probably post bond and would also probably run out of money to keep
>up the case as the state finds one method after another to delay things
>and run up costs.

The suits could be filed at the county level, the state level AND/OR
the federal level.

>     If I was the state defending such an action I would take
>depositions from virtually every judge, lawmaker in the state.  The
>attorney representing the fathers would have to be present to ask
>questions in rebuttal and cost of hours alone could run to megabucks.

The goal here is not to win one or 52 or 4500 different suits.  The
goal primarily is to really shake things up.  There are about eight
lawyers that are active in the local fathers' rights group.  In the
past, one of these folks lent a great deal of personal time and effort
for no fee towards just such a suit.  Members could be involved in
their free time.  Frankly, I don't care what the FED, states or
counties would do to try to defend themselves or what the cost is for
such litigation.  The goal is not to tie up, swamp and overload the
system.  The goal is to open their eyes.

This is my point....

Are the domestic relations courts of the US practicing sexual
discrimination?  If no, then everything is hunky-dory and we are all
wasting our time, churning our wheels, whining and crying over
nothing.  If yes, then we have a moral imperative to ourselves, our
children, their progeny, to society and to intellect itself to see that
these wrongs are corrected.

The latter seems to be the case, and seems to be the way we are
responding.

We can do this, one day at a time, one small battle at a time, and
slowly convince all the judges and referees and attorneys and
legislators and presidents and fathers and mothers and children that
things are not right.  And when we have convinced either a vocal and
powerful majority, or a very powerful plurality that justice and right
are not being served, then things will change.  We can do this by
laying back, getting our one hour every decade on *48 Hours* and our
two editorials in the paper a year, and our one, two or three
representatives on some state commission, and things will eventually
even out ... maybe in a decade, maybe two, maybe three ... maybe it
will take 100 years.  Who knows?

Or, we can do something major, something dramatic, something that would
have immediate and far-reaching consequences.  When the Supreme Court
ruled, as it did all those years ago, that abortion should be
legalized, the effects were immediate and profound.  If the Supreme
Court rules that fathers have been summarily discriminated against in
domestic relations and juvenile courts and by state statutes in
virtually every state, well....

There are many ways to attack this problem.  What I am proposing is that
we *seriously, very seriously* consider using this legal system, which
has defiled an entire gender, against itself.  I don't have the
specifics worked out--I'm soliciting for ideas.  

The more I thought about this idea, the more I liked it.  There are
many ways it can be done--with one model case that goes to the Supreme
Court, or with many cases, intended primarily to garner attention to
our plight, get legislators off their duffs, and get court officials to
recognize that they can be and will be held accoutable for their sexist
beliefs and acts.

Logic, reason, intelligence and morality hang in the balance--waiting
for us to right this wrong.  Our children are waiting.  Their children
may have to wait.

Finally, I'd like to conclude with some data that Bob Kirkpatrick
recently posted....

>I ran across this while doing some file searches the other day. It's kind
>of interesting. These are for the year 1990, and doesn't seems to give all
>of the reports. More on this below.
>
>What's startling is the total of cases: 982 for one year...
>I sure hope these are statewide and not county.
>
>
>                                             1     2     3    4    5    6
>Verified Case   .........................   144   091   177  159  133  278
>Terminations    .........................   061   020   101  006  040  065
>Foster Care     .........................   022   039   018  013  033  011
>Guardianships   .........................   052   009   055  020  026  034
>Returns         .........................   009   023   003  120  034  168
>
>Category                   Definition
>
>1:   Males 15-20           Verified Cases consist of physical abuse to
>2:   Males 21-25           biological offspring which required hospital-
>3:   Males 26-up           ization on more than 3 occasions.
>
>4:   Females 15-20         Terminations are where the parental rights were
>5:   Females 21-25         revoked. Foster Care is semi-permanent placement
>6:   Females 26-up         of the children. Guardianships are temporary 
>                           placements (18 mo. or less). Returns are where
>                           the child was returned to the care of the parent.
>
>This *seems* to indicate that incidence of female perpetrated abuse is about
>5-30% greater than male perpetrated abuse. These figures don't _appear_ to
>take into account whether there was more than one child in the home or not,
>and only deals with cases where intervention by the Juvenile Court system
>was invoked. So cases from divorce and/or non-parent abuses are absent. CPS
>only cases (cases which didn't come to court) are also apparently absent.
>What I find a bit disturbing is the breakdowns --how the courts react to men
>versus women in these cases.

So, in this sample, the women categorically abused children more than
men.  Yet, when they did, they were much less likely to suffer the
consequences that the men faced.  In verified cases for women abusers
less than age 20, 120/159 had their children returned to them, but for
men in the same age group, only 9/144 got their children back.

Isn't this sexual discrimination?  Isn't it also representative of the
plight of men in the American judicial system?  Aren't we morally
obligated to fix this problem?

Aaron L. Hoffmeyer
TR@CBNEA.ATT.COM