the Bernera cafe/dog/legal aid saga - wtf?

[AuntieBiotics]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ced71ny99y5o

American woman living in Bernera is suing the local community run cafe because it would not admit her "emotional support" dog. She is being supported by the Ethnic Minorities Law Centre because Americans are ethnic minorities, and is being funded by Legal Aid. She wants £10k, which would shut them down.

I mean. What the actual fuck. Move to a tiny island with 250 people on it, claim you're being ostracised and harrassed and try to solve that by suing a charity? That'll sort it. And LEGAL FUCKING AID???

Here's the archive version, although as @NancyThompson says, it's not really more than the insta post: https://archive.is/S1Y0n

How has CK not just shrivelled up and died of shame, like any normal person would? HOW??

She is deranged. I donated, best of luck to the community.

She is American
Shame and embarassment are not things they are usually familiar with

From the reporting she has done similar before in America, and that might have contributed to her moving to Scotland.

Apparently the Bernera Community Association has now received over 11000 donations totalling £177k! Great news.

Wow. That's brilliant. I mean, it's dreadful that it's needed, but it's great that they now have a proper war chest. I just hope the action is thrown out early doors and there's some money left to spend on community stuff.

That is amazing! Good luck to them, the community deserves every penny after being put through this.

Maybe she's related to Trump.

Wasn't his Mum from Lewis?

Really pleased about the total that the donations had reached. Also hoping the case gets thrown out in February and they have some money left over.

Was thinking - if it goes to court will she have to prove that the dog is a certified support dog for the courts to allow her to bring them into court with her - as presumably if she has a 'support' dog she will need it in court. But courts presumably only allow in proper support dogs rather than those who just state they are. Will be interesting.

I tried to donate and the 'prove you're a human' thing is some fucking jumping duck that you have to click on! The wee bastard is eluding me.

I can’t remember a jumping duck when I donated. I’m not sure I would have been able to manage that level of dexterity either

She thinks she's a beautiful, brave freedom fighter. Or something. She doesn't think she's doing anything wrong.

I just tried again and it didn't do it that time 😄
Donation made!

Ah, I was hoping to see the jumping duck 😂

I’m not sure the jumping duck was ever there. I suspect that Thispost may be more aptly named Thispissed

Hey everyone I can’t find my previous post but I am sure it was this thread I was on that I said I’d call back the EMLC and report!
I was on holibobs…

Ok so I am back now and I did!

The woman I spoke to at EMLC was very defensive (unlike the very helpful understanding person I spoke to last time) when I asked why are they supporting someone who appears to not to be an ethnic minority re. Claire kellerman?

So, they said representing a non-ethnic minority WAS within their remit and also asked who I was.

I said I was a tax payer and as EMLC receives grants from the government I was interested.

At the end before I terminated the call I told them I was contributing to an article on this (which is true) stay tuned for that.

Of course they weren’t able to explain why they are then called the ethnic minority law centre. Bit like a women’s legal centre repping men. As I mentioned before I volunteered for them many years ago as a law student and their remit has clearly changed for them to be supporting Claire Kellerman because even if she was an ethnic minority that’s nor the kind of thing they would’ve gotten involved in.

I found this article after the call : https://www.scotsman.com/news/former-scotland-office-minister-resigns-from-law-centre-over-island-dog-snub-row-8960866

“Labour peer Lord Foulkes told The Scotsmansaid he had resigned his role at the Ethnic Minorities Law Centre (EMLC) in protest at its support for Claire Kellerman, stating that she was "not an ethnic minority person," and was involved in a "provocative" case that was causing problems for the community.”

I assume they’ve gotten a lot of media calls over this latest development as well as just generally at this point which maybe explains her defensiveness lol

It’s outrageous though. They are compromising helping others for this nonsense case and it’s damaging the EMLCs reputation and no doubt taking away from other clients with serious cases. Shame on them.

fantastic! Proud to be have contributed (a very tiny amount) towards this! 😃

I will donate again on my next pay day.

Would they have become involved because they understood the issue to be disability rights?

How much checking would they do?

I don’t know but it doesn’t really make it any better if that was the case surely?

Even if we accept for arguments sake that Clare Kellerman is disables, disability isn’t the same as being an ethnic minority.

It would be like a (non-disabled) Black woman thinking their entitled to be repped by a disability legal centre to fight a racism charge.

Or an Asian man thinking they can access help from a women’s legal centre because they too are a discriminated against minority.

The EMLC website “about us” section suggests it’s set up for the “BAME” community in Scotland.

Lord Faulkes obviously had the same understanding as me that it was for ethnic minorities and for serious cases, not this absolute nonsense - hence his resignation.

If their mission aims have changed that’s fine - but they might want to edit their website and rename the legal centre.

It's just so basic. You are a small organisation designed to fight to protect the rights of a specific demographic which everyone generally agrees is under represented and struggles to get legal help. You get public money to help you achieve these aims.

Then someone who doesn't fall into your target demographic, or only fits if you do some severe mental gymnastics comes along and asks you to take a case against a very small charity and someone decides it's a marvellous idea and just the sort of thing your charity/organisation was set up to support.

I mean. WTF. People within the organisation must be fuming too.

It's just so basic. You are a small organisation designed to fight to protect the rights of a specific demographic which everyone generally agrees is under represented and struggles to get legal help. You get public money to help you achieve these aims

Yes, you summed it up much better than me OP!

Thankfully I haven’t donated time or money to them recently but if I had I’d be even more enraged. I can imagine a lot of donors are going to be upset. They are playing a very silly game.

I am trying to find out the complaints process or who else I can contact about this. The EMLC FAQs page has disappeared. Perhaps I’ll contact someone at Scottish gov since they are one of the main funders.

I agree that it's not immediately obvious, but they do have a section on general discrimination on their website

https://emlc.org.uk/what-we-do/discrimination/

What We Do – Discrimination

It is against the law to discriminate against anyone because of: age; gender reassignment; being married or in a civil partnership; being pregnant or on maternity leave; disability; race including colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin; religion or belief; sex and sexual orientation. These are called ‘protected characteristics’.

In fighting against discrimination, we have significant expertise working at a high level in most of the following: individual discrimination rights; responsibilities and duties of employers; equality provisions under the Equality Act 2010; issues related to protected characteristics; and discrimination law generally and in particular outside the realm of employment. Our experience has been gained through work at employment tribunals, courts and other relevant forums.

Ah I see. Thanks for that - I hold my hands up - I didn’t see that section and I wonder how long it’s been there? It wasn’t there many years ago when I volunteered.

So this means they can take on all kinds of protected characteristics which yes- is effectively what they said on the call.

And yet even Lord Faulkes someone who was a patron for them thought it was only for ethnic minorities/race related cases.

I feel they should change the name, it’s misleading!

Maybe just “minority legal centre”?

And I’d like to see what grounds they got the funding on.

I doubt Mermaids (trans issues) for example are out there providing support for all kinds of alleged discrimination. They will stick to trans issues.

It’s very peculiar that one of the few centres set up specifically for ethnic minorities is now not so, but hasn’t updated their title to reflect this change.

Race aside, surely they can see this case isn’t in the public interest - even if she was an ethnic minority like a traveller or an Asian person! I am sure Faulkes wouldn’t have resigned if they were repping a non- ethnic minority woman battling sexism for example. But even in that case I would still say I believe the title of the centre and the stated aims need to be made more clear!