Here's the question - if you have a 3.9 GPA and are a member of the National Honor Society, should you be required to take a test to prove your proficiency in English.

If your parents are Laotian immigrants, apparently you do.

Meet Lori Phanachone. Because of her racial, immigrant, and ethnic origins, Storm Lake High School (in Iowa) has determined that she needs to prove her ability to speak English despite the fact that she is an honors student.

Why? Because she indicated that at home, she and her parents do not speak English.

Lori Phanachone is protesting this action. She finds the requirement that she do so is motivated by prejudice on behalf of the school system.

All her accomplishments do not matter to Iowa school officials, only her ethnicity and immigrant status.

Because of her refusal to conform, they are threatening her very future (threatening the scholarships she has been offered by colleges).

Just another example of racism and prejudice rearing its ugly head in America .

By now you may have seen one of the delightful breakdowns of the way women are targeted in the media by Sarah Haskins in her delightfully skewed Target Women analysis.

She covers everthing from Twilight to Disney princesses to yogurt and cleaning products.

I was particularly struck by her irreverent analysis of jewelry commercials because during this holiday seasons it seems that jewelers are striking particularly hard at consumers and I can't go 15 minutes without hearing a jewelry commercial on either the tv or radio.

The phrases "he went to Jared" and "every kiss begins with k" are making me grind my teeth together.

Two-hundred and sixty five Stanford students gathered today at the Women's Community Center on campus for a "MEGAPHONEBANK MARATHON to Defeat Prop 8", according to a representative from the Stanford Student Coalition for Marriage Equality (SCME). This makes the effort the single largest phone bank organized this year in California to Oppose CA Proposition 8.

Proposition 8, which would amend the state constitution to eliminate the right for same-sex couples to marry, has been a key focus for activism, campaigning, and education this political season. Stanford's White Plaza has been a host to a number of Student rallies, from an early October rally featuring Candace Gingrich to rallies which brought in speakers and celebrities from all over California.

In related news, a Stanford Computer Science student launched an iPhone-based (mobile) Guide to California Propositions [in Plain English].

This iPhone-based guide is intended to help voters quickly read about California Propositions as they face long lines to vote come Election Day, and can be found at http://rspace.stanford.edu/. Users can quickly browse the California propositions, read short summaries of each proposition, and follow web links to find out more information about each ballot measure.

For more information on California Propositions, please see the California 2008 ballot measures on Ballotpedia.org, and rock the vote!

This summer I read a book that shocked me. It made me realize that I, an intelligent female, had put myself in situations where I could have been date-raped. And before I read the book, I never even realized how close I could have been. Now perhaps I'm slightly naive- but honestly, until it happens to you or your friend, who isn't?
I was lucky- I wasn’t one of the unfortunate women who said no and were ignored. But I want to share with everyone “The mindset of justification” that can lead some men into date-rape. Without remorse. Without regret. Without recognizing that they did anything wrong.

The following are sections of the book I read- How Dangerous Men Think. This is from the date rape chapter. (Note- the book was written in Australia, so some of the words are a bit foreign- like lift instead of elevator)

“I remember interviewing a young guy under arrest for the rape of a young woman he had met at a nightclub earlier in the evening. To my surprise he was quite happy to talk about the events of the evening, even to the point of admitting that he had had intercourse with the young woman in question when it was quite clear that she didn't want him to. In an attempt to defend his actions he told me he had been invited back to the woman's place, that he had been buying her drinks during the night and had even paid for the taxi. He added that they had already had sex once that evening and that about an hour later he wanted to do it again, but she wasn't so keen. He told me she "wasn't so keen" because she was yelling and screaming at him to stop and trying to push him off. I asked him what he did at this stage, to which he replied, that he held her down and had sex with her. When I asked if he could see the problem with that he said "mate, I’d been buying her drinks all night; I paid for the bloody taxi; we'd already done it once. Yeah she was saying "no", come on mate, they all say "no" what's the problem?” The “problem” was he had just admitted to committing sexual assault. The "problem" was he ended up going to prison for it. The "problem" was that he didn't think he had done anything wrong"

Presented in TIME Magazine under the title Are Oil Prices Rigged?, the controversial Officer-Hayes Hypothesis claims that oil producers have artificially boosted prices by speculating in the oil futures market. It relies on the fact that the futures market is smaller than the physical oil market, so it is in an oil supplier's interest to boost prices in the smaller, price-setting market.

In light of the realization that one firm did, in fact, control 11% of the oil futures market, Officer-Hayes has proved plausible.

Ari J. Officer studies financial mathematics Garrett J. Hayes studies materials science and engineering at Stanford.

I’ve always been a firm believer in the separation of Church and state. Even as a young child, I intuitively understood then necessity of keeping religion out of public discourse, even though my parents were evangelical fundamentalists.

I’m a believer in the firm separation of church and state because I’ve had the necessity modeled to me in both my parents family. You see, a couple years before I was born quiet a few of my aunts and uncles converted – to different religions and branches of Christianity.

My parents converted to a Protestant Fundamentalist sect, another couple of uncle’s became a Jehovah’s Witnesses, other became just plain Protestant, a whole branch of my Mom’s family became Mormon, along with one of my Dad’s brothers, while other aunt became a practicing Pagan. On my father’s side his parents were nominally Mexican Catholic while my mother’s mother and stepfather were agnostics.

Fired up with the zeal of their new found beliefs family members began immediately trying to save each other and those who took the live and let live approach. Protestant’s fought with each other and with the Catholics (some declared Catholics weren’t really Christians), then ganged up on the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons (whom they considered to be a different religion). Family gatherings became small religious wars in which each participant was determined to prove the others’ religions false. Individuals (such as my parents) began insisting on prayers over meals, which raised the question – whose prayer would be said. Relationships became strained.

Independently, each set of grandparents arrived at the only set of rules which would keep the peace – there would be no discussion of religion at family gatherings, at all. Those who did so would be asked to stop or to leave.

Do you know Lilly Ledbetter? Well, I don’t either (at least not personally), but her story is a familiar tale of women and pay discrimination. Girl meets world, girl gets job, girl works at Goodyear Tire for 20 or so years, girl gets anonymous memo at the brink of her retirement indicating that she has been the victim of chronic pay discrimination (making, on average, 30% less than numerous male peers). Girl’s plea gets rejected by the Supreme Court. Yea, that sounds about right. No, but seriously…

Lilly’s supervisors had prohibited her from discussing pay with her coworkers, enabling this vast discrepancy to persist for her entire professional career. When she did find out though, she brought the charges before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Long story short, Lebetter was awarded a bunch of money for back-pay, punitive damages, anguish etc… only to have it revoked because, well, it took her too long to file the law suit. According to Title VII, discrimination charges must be filed 180 after the initiation of the discrimination. That’s right, even though she found out about the discrimination 20 years after it’s initiation. Read more about it here.

Academics, politicians, and laypeople have all hypothesized about women and the infamous pay gap: women’s inability to negotiate pay, awkward gender dynamics in the workplace, women prioritizing motherhood over the office, etc… but this is a very real example of a woman speaking out against sex-based discrimination (and did I mention she is 70!), and the system is quashing her demand for justice. Senate republicans blocked a bill that would have instituted the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. McCain also spoke out against the bill, claiming that it would enable frivolous lawsuits to hurt big business. I’m speechless…

There are an estimated 250,230 new breast cancer cases for 2008, and an estimated 40,930 breast cancer deaths are expected in 2008. (American Cancer Society Cancer Facts & Figures 2008) Researchers have discovered more than 20 factors that increase the risk of breast cancer. Awareness of both these risks and early signs of breast cancer may prevent breast cancer mortality. And though a cure has not yet been found, the search for a cure continues!

With this in mind, we (a team of 13 Stanford students) entered the Stanford Entrepreneurship Week Innovation Tournament-- an international challenge to create as much "value" as possible out of rubber bands in six days (eweek.stanford.edu).

Our entrepreneurial venture??? RubberBandTogether (RubberBandTogether.com).