tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73966222024-03-13T16:13:36.030-04:00ChangeServantBig ideas
Random thoughts
Irregular musingsClaire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.comBlogger187125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-9981522136448153402024-02-13T16:15:00.001-05:002024-02-14T15:29:30.828-05:00Know Yourself, Be Yourself, Speak for Yourself or NotI am familiar with the essential conflict that can arise when you want to speak for yourself and in your own voice but you have a job that requires you to speak for your boss in their voice or to speak for an institution in a voice that serves the institution's interests and purpose rather than your own.The president of Colorado College, L. Song Richardson (a lawyer and expert on DEI issues and Claire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-16682460789757105502024-01-02T16:25:00.004-05:002024-01-02T16:59:28.786-05:00Disrupting Non-Profits -- Part II Disrupting Non-Profits – Part II
Empowering Contributors: The Vital
Role of a Content Contribution and Payment Policy for Nonprofits
In the dynamic landscape of nonprofit work, passion
fuels purpose, and volunteers are the lifeblood of advocacy. It’s time for
non-profits to assign value to the stories and pictures contributed by these volunteers,
people impacted by your work, and donors Claire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-59034370794869065332023-07-24T16:37:00.008-04:002024-01-02T16:56:50.320-05:00Deeply Honored and HumbledOn Saturday, July 22, 2023, my Delegate, Betsy Carr, called to say that she wanted to come by my house to drop "something" off. She appeared with a printed and framed copy of the resolution set out below passed by the House and Senate of Virginia last February.I am so incredibly honored that the legislature would see fit to pass this very flattering resolution. Humbled that they would do soClaire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-18448392469714771812023-03-02T12:10:00.002-05:002024-01-02T16:57:15.875-05:00Starting A 501 C3 Nonprofit in Virginia-- Or Not ...<!--[if gte mso 9]>
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Claire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-46252160426042488642023-02-17T11:08:00.004-05:002024-01-02T16:57:55.522-05:00Mass Surveillance Coming to Virginia UPDATE: A coalition came together to defeat these two bills for this year. Congrats due to @JusticeFwdVA, @LegalAidJustice, @AFPVA, @VAstudentpower, @thcjusticenow, @ACLUVA, and @ActivateVA. These groups collaborated and their effective advocacy resulted in both the House and Senate bills being recommitted on Tuesday, February 22, 2023, to the respective Transportation Committees from Claire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-85364426235478860462022-12-08T23:37:00.012-05:002024-01-02T16:58:27.461-05:00Disrupting Non-Profits -- Part 1 By Claire Guthrie Gastañaga
If we are serious about non-profits being or becoming
equitable and inclusive organizations, it is time to disrupt some of the
traditional beliefs about how non-profits are governed or operated.
Let’s start with the accepted belief that every board member
must be a volunteer … that non-profit board members may not be compensated. There is no law against Claire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-73995588209499399312022-10-26T18:26:00.001-04:002024-01-02T16:55:27.871-05:00Opposition to Governor Youngkin"s Misguided "Model" Policies for Treatment of Transgender StudentsThese are the comments that I submitted to the Department of Education in opposition to the dangerously flawed and harmful Model Policies proposed by Governor Youngkin and his allies:I write to state my
opposition to implementation and enforcement of the misguided Virginia Department
of Education’s (VDOE) 2022 Model Policies for the Treatment of Transgender Students in
Public ElementaryClaire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-62878151721274686302022-04-11T10:39:00.003-04:002022-04-11T10:39:53.708-04:00A Personal Aside -- Lessons Learned -- In Honor of Rebecca Jeffers Guthrie (July 21, 1925 to April 11, 2005) Lessons Taught; Lessons Learned
Reflections of a Daughter
Presented April 15, 2005, at the Celebration of Life for Rebecca Jeffers Guthrie by Claire Guthrie Gastañaga with
able assistance from her buddy, Peter Blair Guthrie
My mom was her own woman.
She came from strong stock … not a magnolia in any sense of the word, but down to earth and forged from Wheeling
Claire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-4826102579057521472022-02-22T00:13:00.000-05:002022-02-22T00:13:51.910-05:00Governing Access to the Ballot Box -- Presentation to Encore Learning, February 21, 2022 Today,
as we celebrate “Presidents’ Day,” we must talk of justice. Justice in our
schools, justice on our streets, justice in our jails and prisons, and, yes,
justice at the ballot box.
And,
we must begin any talk of justice at the ballot box by recognizing the
injustice of Virginia’s history of overt, substantial and violent
discrimination against Black voters, as a group and individuallyClaire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-17534111559169297172021-09-16T16:16:00.003-04:002024-01-02T16:30:34.729-05:00Choosing the People's Lawyer: Questions to Ask Candidates for Virginia Attorney General (Updated 2021 Election Cycle)As folks debate the role of the
Attorney General and the candidates in the 2021 election, I've updated a blog
entry I first wrote before the 2005 elections regarding the role
of the Attorney General and the scope of the power we afford the person we
elect to this too little discussed, "down ballot" race. I hope that
you will find it helpful, and that it will make clear that the Attorney General
Claire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-51707763821238689252021-05-14T15:59:00.003-04:002021-05-14T16:00:53.907-04:00TransitionsThinking about "retiring" this month after 9 years at the ACLU of Virginia, I turned as I often do to a book by Robert Grudin – Time and the Art of Living.The book is a collection of Grudin's meditations about time organized into chapters including "Politics of Time", "Achievement", "Growth and Age". The front flap of the book jacket describes it as a "symphony of penetrating insights and Claire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-34133325613246435012020-12-10T09:51:00.003-05:002021-09-20T18:06:03.111-04:00Ask Candidates for Governor -- Do you support the right to vote for all?When challenged in 2016 by people asserting that his voter restoration initiative was a plan to qualify Black people to vote for Hilary, then Governor Terry McAuliffe chose to respond by publishing this data that showed that a majority (52%) of the 170,000+ people whose rights he restored were white (even though a majority of those disenfranchised were and are people of color). This Claire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-6827227282113120352020-12-02T12:30:00.005-05:002020-12-04T09:16:57.244-05:00Making Room at the Top and for SelfIn October, I announced my intention to "retire" from my job as Executive Director of the ACLU of Virginia. Here's what I said about my decision:"It is with profound gratitude for the eight plus years that I have been honored to be allowed to serve as the Executive Director of the ACLU of Virginia that I submit my resignation effective March 31, 2021 or as soon as my successor is in place.I Claire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-60759352601937130402020-09-25T11:04:00.004-04:002021-09-20T18:05:02.732-04:00One Person Can Make a Difference ... and How! Vigil
-- Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg
September
20, 2020
We are here
tonight to pay our respects to a righteous woman who led the way for all of us.
Justice Ruth
Bader Ginsberg’s dedication to her vision of an America where we are all truly
equal --- where our policies and our laws do equity --- left us in a profoundly
better place than she found us. It is
not an Claire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-11519106253712662832020-09-25T10:46:00.004-04:002020-12-04T09:22:52.468-05:00Playing on the Women's Team This is the text of a talk I gave in Richmond at a Mindful Mornings event. What's most important in the context of this election and elections in Virginia in 2021 is where it ends --- "Let’s make a pact here and now that each of us will find and support a woman candidate for governor whose positions on issues we care about are aligned with ours, and refuse now to reject argumentsClaire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-25887041300307774682012-10-19T09:37:00.005-04:002020-12-04T09:21:42.244-05:00The DebatesSo, in 2004, I wrote this about the Bush/Kerry debates:
Is it just me or are these guys (Bush/Kerry) lining up at the stop light in their hemi Dodges revving their engines...rearing up on their hind legs like stallions pawing the air with their hooves ... putting their heads down and snorting and pawing the ground... butting heads like two mountain goats...
guess you get my drift...&Claire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-6647246902019083242012-08-10T10:14:00.005-04:002024-01-02T16:49:15.439-05:00The Price of Inaction
Looking for something else on my blog today, I came across a post that I wrote this in November 2006, that included these comments on a study of the experience of women of color in law firms, almost 50% of whom had reported being subjected to some kind of harassment on the job:
There is open hostility and rising fear out there regarding the rate of change in America .. change that has pushed Claire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-30167400684241692052012-03-15T11:50:00.000-04:002012-03-15T11:50:19.177-04:00Pundits' PodiumProud to have been invited to participate in a new blog sponsored by the Richmond Times Dispatch, Pundits' Podium. You can follow the blog on Tumblr.
My most recent post on the Podium is how the advice I'd give people thinking about attending law school has changed in recent years. Bottom line ... if you don't know that you want to practice law, think twice.Claire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-48097436866039880392011-12-23T15:48:00.015-05:002022-12-08T11:03:54.608-05:00Virginia Small Businesses Lose Again?To his credit, Governor McDonnell has said that making Virginia the best state for small business as well as the best state in which to do business is an important objective for his administration.
In rhetoric then, Governor McDonnell is a step ahead of his predecessors, who, among other things, drafted economic development strategies with no small business representation (Governor GilmoreClaire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-76426727670957200852011-11-11T15:55:00.001-05:002011-11-11T16:05:38.160-05:00Lt. Governor Not a Member of the Senate; Can't Vote on Organization
The question whether the Lieutenant Governor can vote on the organization of the Senate is not a political question but is one of constitutional import.
The Lieutenant Governor is a member of the Executive Branch
and is not an elected "member" of "the Senate" as defined
in Article IV, Section 7 of the Virginia Constitution. Therefore, it is
unconstitutional for him to participate in Claire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-7652349906320362802011-10-31T15:13:00.000-04:002011-10-31T15:30:43.185-04:002012 Virginia General Assembly Outlook -- Immigration Policy Issues
Virginia General Assembly
2012 Pre-Session Report
by Claire Guthrie Gastañaga
October 31, 2011
Virginia has a long history of passing legislation to
identify and seek removal of unauthorized immigrants, beginning with a law
enacted during the eugenics movement that required Virginian's mental health
institutions to check immigration status on admission and report to the federal
Claire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-27185902666226317752011-10-13T10:15:00.000-04:002011-10-13T10:15:23.545-04:00Was Columbus Really a Jewish Nobleman?Columbus Day and the Jewish high holy days are just behind us. Got me thinking about a note I posted to Facebook last year, and I decided it was worth republishing in my blog this year.
Here it is:
I just finished reading a Da Vinci Code type book about Columbus, Codex 632, by Jose Rodriques Dos Santos, translated from Portuguese. While not a great book and a sometimes tedious readClaire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-85099496398478519732011-10-06T07:43:00.000-04:002011-10-06T07:43:28.417-04:00Steve Jobs: How to live before you die | Video on TED.comSteve Jobs commencement speech at Stanford. Worth watching. A man of keen insight, vision and a strong, integrated sense of self.Steve Jobs: How to live before you die Video on TED.comClaire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-81204637598713039542011-09-16T17:36:00.000-04:002011-09-16T17:36:36.084-04:00Mandatory E- Verify: A tale of strange bedfellows?
So, there was a markup on the new federal E-Verify mandate bill in Congress this week.
Most national employer groups have now decided to throw in the towel and lobby for a single national E-Verify mandate with substitution of the electronic system for the paper I-9 system and preemption of state/local mandates.
In an interesting turn of events, however, tea partiers and their Claire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396622.post-45546934326193019602011-09-14T12:33:00.000-04:002011-09-14T12:34:02.617-04:00Thinking About the Budget -- Some Voters See Fairness Where Others ... Not So MuchThe new Quinnipiac University poll is out today. The results getting the most attention concern voter support for the proposed rules the Board of Health will vote on tomorrow that will require doctors and clinics providing abortion services to have facilities comparable to hospitals.
But unreferenced in the press release and not highlighted in the press conference on the poll held today are Claire Gastanagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17911593051798008011noreply@blogger.com0