News & Commentary

The most common refrain from gun rights supporters in the wake of mass shootings or other gun violence is that the best response to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Yet in recent weeks, we have seen two Black men, a group already disproportionately victimized by police use of lethal force, shot and killed by police while protecting those around them with guns they were legally allowed to carry.   It turns out that not only are unarmed African-Americans more likely to be shot, but those who seek to follow the

DeAnna LeTray of Watertown, New York, was arrested in September 2017 during a domestic dispute with her daughter’s boyfriend, who she says pointed a gun at her.  LeTray, who is trans, says the Watertown police officers who arrested her mocked her gender expression and questioned her gender identity. Then,

Exactly one year ago today, the Supreme Court allowed the full implementation of Trump’s Muslim ban. It would be months still before it heard oral arguments in Hawaii v. Trump and issued its ruling on June 26, allowing the ban to remain in place. But on Dec. 4, 2017, America began to ban millions of Muslims from the United States, even if they have family members, jobs, academic spots, or other compelling connections here, and even if they would otherwise be fully entitled to receive a visa to come here.  This day goes down in the history books, not only as an enor

Sometime between now and Dec. 7, when the current appropriation for the Department of Homeland Security will expire, Congress needs to provide the agency with another’s year’s funds. A single word has become a sticking point for the politicians who will vote on that funding: “wall,” as in President Trump’s border wall.  Trump and his Republican allies are demanding billions of dollars for walls along the U.S.-Mexico border.

It’s not often that you’ll find the ACLU on the same side of an issue as President Donald Trump.  But in the waning days of the 115th Congress, lawmakers have the rare opportunity to show bipartisanship isn’t completely

Peter Sean Brown is a U.S. citizen who lives in the Florida Keys. He was born in Philadelphia and has lived in Florida for 10 years. Before this year, he had never heard of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. That changed abruptly last April, when the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office he

A federal appeals court in New York will hear oral argument on Tuesday in our lawsuit fighting for the public’s right to know the legal justifications for government spying. The Freedom of Information Act

Alongside the major criminal justice reform headlines that came out of the midterm elections, a quieter trend also gained momentum through the ballot box: a budding, national threat to due process and the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. On Nov. 6, six states adopted, through ballot initiatives, what is known as “Marsy’s Law,” which enshrines a specific set of legal rig

Six-year-olds never seem to run out of questions, and my son is no exception. But in August, CJ asked me a question that was harder than the rest: He wanted to know if there was something wrong with his hair. As a father, I’d tried to shield him from racism for as long as I could.