January 25, 2018 In July 2017, after seven days of statements and testimony from more than 150 sexual abuse survivors, Larry Nassar, the former team doctor for the U.S. gymnastics team, was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison. From the women's testimony, here's what we learned: Many of the accusers were minors, as young as six years old, at the time of the assaults. Most of the women were gymnasts but they also included dancers, rowers and runners. Some of those who shared their experiences…

January 17, 2018 Updated: July 16, 2019 It has become commonplace to witness a public display of bigoted and offensive language. In a tweet, President Trump remarked that four U.S. Congresswomen of color (Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Pressley and Tlaib) should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” The language of "go back to where you came from" is widely recognized as a racist slur, and in particular this one is also…

January 12, 2018 White supremacists expressed delight online after President Trump’s reported remarks about “shithole” majority black countries. Mr. Trump made the comments Thursday afternoon during a White House meeting about immigration, asking the assembled group of Senators and Representatives why he would want “all these people from shithole countries,” referring to African nations and Haiti, adding that the United States should admit more people from…

January 10, 2018 By Brittan Heller | Director of the Center for Technology and Society & Aaron Sussman | Associate National Civil Rights Counsel It was a hoax turned deadly. On the evening of December 28, a distressed-sounding man called the police in Wichita, Kansas, and confessed that he had shot his father in the head, was holding his mother and sibling hostage, and had poured gasoline in the house, threatening to set it on fire. He then gave the police his address. …

December 20, 2017 At the Anti-Defamation League, 2017 was a year of heightened challenges and unforeseen obstacles to our mission to fight anti-Semitism and secure justice and fair treatment for all. In 2017 hate crimes rose, bomb threats shattered the Jewish community’s sense of security, anti-Semitic incidents increased, white supremacists were emboldened, domestic terrorism reared its ugly head, anti-immigrant rhetoric soared, and discriminatory policies such as the Muslim travel ban…

December 19, 2017 President Trump’s December 6 declaration recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel and setting in motion the relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem engendered strong diplomatic protests, as well as some protests in the streets. Moving beyond their initial outraged reaction, some Arabic-language media is continuing to focus on this issue, with editorial cartoons suggesting Jewish and Israeli domination of the United States. …

America’s deadly epidemic of school shootings continued last week, when William Atchison, a 21-year-old gas station attendant, disguised himself as a student and went to Aztec High School in northwestern New Mexico to conduct a shooting spree, something he had fantasized about for some time. Atchison killed two students, Casey Jordan Marquez and Francisco Fernandez, and shot at a number of others before killing himself, a shocking and tragic turn of events for the people of Aztec…

December 18, 2017 Cartoons published in Qatari media used anti-Semitic imagery in its criticism of a Bahraini non-governmental delegation to Israel as an act of betrayal of Arab nationalism. According to reports, an unofficial Bahraini delegation comprised of religious figures made a visit to Jerusalem this month in order to convey a message of tolerance. Bahrain has no formal ties with Israel and this is considered a first-of-its-kind visit; in response to criticism over the visit,…

December 14, 2017 After several weeks of discord, Identity Evropa has parted ways with Richard Spencer. This comes as a blow to the alt right leader, who counted on IE to loyally attend and promote his events. Evan McLaren, the Executive Director of Spencer’s National Policy Institute and former Identity Evropa member, tweeted, “It is upsetting to observe a worthwhile activist group, into which much value was built and for which I was once a state coordinator, now being led so…

December 11, 2017 President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was widely condemned by Arab governments. Arabic-language media followed suit, and some outlets even used the historic declaration to propagate anti-Semitic cartoons relating to Jews, Jerusalem, and/or U.S.-Israel relations. In some instances, these cartoons suggest that Israel controls or dominates U.S. foreign policy, for example depicting U.S. President Donald Trump as a puppet operated by Israeli…

December 08, 2017 All online platforms with user-generated content struggle with how best to moderate that content.The stakes are especially high when the platform is exclusively aimed at young children. This is something YouTube, whose parent company Google is part of ADL’s Problem-Solving Lab, learned in a particularly disturbing way, as the young viewers of its popular YouTube Kids app were suddenly exposed to videos of their favorite characters suffering grisly deaths,…

December 01, 2017 By David Barkey, Religious Freedom Counsel & Southeastern Area Counsel The U.S. Supreme Court soon will hear oral arguments in a case called Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Cakeshop’s owner is asking the Court do something unprecedented – allow him based on religious objections to refuse service to customers for who they are. ADL recently joined an amicus brief to the Court filed by a coalition of civil rights and religious…

November 30, 2017 November 24 witnessed the deadliest terror attack in Egypt’s history when gunmen detonated explosives at a Sufi mosque in the Sinai Peninsula and then sprayed the worshippers with bullets, killing more than 300 people and wounding more than 100. While no organization claimed responsibility for the attack, it is thought to have been carried out by local militants affiliated with the Islamic State. Sufism, a branch of Islam, is a minority regarded by the Islamic…