Harassment

A former Disney employee is expected to announce Monday a federal lawsuit against the entertainment giant, saying she was harassed and unfairly removed from her hostess job after refusing to remove her head scarf while at work. Imane Boudlal, who is Muslim, said she had worked at Storyteller's Cafe in Disney's Grand Californian Hotel & Spa in Anaheim for two years when she began wearing her hijab to work in August 2010. Boudlal said she was told wearing her scarf was a violation of company policy, and she would either have to remove it, cover it with a hat or take a job working out of public sight.

Just months before he was handcuffed and taken to jail, Carlos Bustamante was his usual relaxed, confident self when he joined a couple of his Santa Ana City Council colleagues for a boxing match at the Phoenix Club. As he walked into the packed arena with Councilwoman Michele Martinez, she asked if everything was OK. She'd heard that he was in serious trouble - that even the chair in his old county office had been hauled away as evidence by the authorities. For years, rumors had swirled about Bustamante's conduct with women.

COLORADO CITY, Ariz. - Isaac Wyler is one of the unwanted ones. For years, he has endured a cruel banishment from those he once considered brethren - followers of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Out here on the desert high plains, guarded by big-shouldered buttes, church outcasts are dismissed as apostates, ostracized in life and condemned to burn in hell after death. Wyler was among several members banished by church leader Warren Jeffs in 2004 for unspecified sins.

WASHINGTON - During their long campaign to loosen rules on campaign money, conservatives argued that there was a simpler way to prevent corruption: transparency. Get rid of limits on contributions and spending, they said, but make sure voters know where the money is coming from. Today, with those fundraising restrictions largely removed, many conservatives have changed their tune. They now say disclosure could be an enemy of free speech. High-profile donors could face bullying and harassment from liberals out to "muzzle" their opponents, Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

A financially struggling charter school organization has paid nearly $1.4 million to settle three sexual-harassment claims against its highest-profile educator, Fernando Pullum, a widely honored musician and teacher, The Times has learned. Pullum, 54, quietly left ICEF Public Schools last year, and a school named after him folded into another campus under a different name. Pullum directed performing arts at ICEF, which developed a reputation as a strong program. ICEF was embroiled in the harassment claims last year as the charter group, which operates 13 schools in south and southwest Los Angeles, was struggling for financial survival.

It's not easy growing up gay in America, despite the nation's increasing acceptance of same-sex marriage and other issues of gay equality. Gay and lesbian teenagers across the United States are less likely to be happy, more likely to report harassment and more inclined to experiment with drugs and alcohol than the nation's straight teens, according to a new nationwide survey of more than 10,000 gay and lesbian young people. The survey , which will be released Thursday by the Human Rights Campaign, aWashington, D.C.-based civil rights group, is described as one of the largest ever to focus on the nation's gay youth.

A senior L.A. school district official who accused former Supt. Ramon C. Cortines of sexual harassment will seek additional damages because the school system publicly disclosed details about the allegations and a settlement approved by the Board of Education. Attorneys representing Scot Graham, 55, also assert that they now want to negotiate directly with current Supt. John Deasy, who has been largely uninvolved in the matter. In a statement, the L.A. Unified School District said that the school board Tuesday "voted unanimously to reject a new counter settlement proposal.

Three New Jersey teenagers have been charged in connection with the bullying of a 15-year-old who eventually committed suicide, a case that comes on the heels of the harassment conviction of former Rutgers University student Dharun Ravi. Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi announced the criminal charges against the three on Wednesday, a day before Ravi was to begin serving a 30-day jail sentence for his crimes. The heightened anti-bullying legislation used to charge the three teens evolved from Ravi's case, which made headlines in September 2010 when Ravi's 18-year-old gay roommate, Tyler Clementi, threw himself from the George Washington Bridge after learning that Ravi had spied on him during an intimate encounter with a man. At a news conference, Bianchi said a 19-year-old and two juveniles were facing charges resulting from the alleged robbery, assault and verbal abuse of Lennon Baldwin, a Morristown High School freshman, in the weeks leading up to Baldwin's March 28 suicide.

A settlement with the employee who made allegations of sexual harassment against former L.A. schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines threatened to unravel Tuesday over disputed terms of the agreement and its disclosure by the Los Angeles Unified School District. The allegations also have had fallout at the Ramon C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts, which sent a delegation Tuesday to meet with Board of Education President Monica Garcia over changing the downtown school's name.

ROCKVILLE, Md. The fliers first showed up in March, dropped on doorsteps of the big homes in Todd Stave's quiet cul-de-sac. They compared him to a Nazi. Two months later and 50 miles away, new anti-abortion leaflets appeared in another peaceful suburban subdivision where Stave's in-laws lived. Bearing the same bloody images, the leaflets asked neighbors to pray for the family and to call or visit their home. Protesters also showed up at his daughter's middle school. Stave, 44, son of a doctor who performed abortions and whose office was once firebombed, decided to fight back.