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Our Vision to Achieve True Public Safety
For decades, local, state and federal public officials from both political parties and powerful interest groups engineered the system of mass incarceration. They did this in part by constructing a narrative of fear fueled by racism through which they passed laws, spent billions of dollars, and separated millions of families. It was a disaster of epic proportions that unfolded in slow motion and for which we are still paying the price today as a nation.
T
By aclutn
Jul 19, 2018
10 Questions for Brett Kavanaugh
This piece originally appeared at The New York Review of Books. As a matter of policy, the ACLU, of which David Cole is the National Legal Director, neither endorses nor opposes Supreme Court nominees.
With his selection of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill Justice Anthony Kennedy’s seat on the United States Supreme Court,
By aclutn
Jul 18, 2018
Brett Kavanaugh's One Abortion Case
In October 2017, I went to court to stop the Trump administration from blocking a young immigrant from obtaining an abortion. She had crossed into the United States the month before and discovered she was pregnant soon after. She never had any doubt about what she wanted to do. But the Trump administration had other plans for her.
Her plea, which I relayed to a three-judge appeals panel, was: “Please stop delaying my decision any longer.” That panel includ
By aclutn
Jul 18, 2018
Is There a Religious Right to Discriminate Against LGBT Foster and Adoptive Parents? A Federal Court Says No.
Nearly 118,000 children are awaiting adoption in the United States, and yet some religious conservatives are insisting that they have a right to put their own religious beliefs ahead of the best interests of children in the state’s care. This issue is being debated from the halls of Congress to state legislatures to courtrooms across the country. But last Friday, a federal court in Philadelphia said there is no such right.
In a first-of-its-kind ruling, U.S. District Judge Petrese B. Tucker ruled that Catholic Social Services does not ha
By aclutn
Jul 17, 2018
4 Years After Eric Garner’s Death, We’re Still Waiting for Justice
Four years ago today, Eric Garner was killed on Staten Island by police. The 43-year-old father died after he was put in a chokehold by New York Police Department Officer Daniel Pantaleo. His last words, “I can’t breathe” — repeated 11 times while half a dozen officers did nothing to intervene — helped fuel a movement for police accountability that continues today.
Yesterday, the
By aclutn
Jul 16, 2018
Inside the Family Separation Legal Drama
The federal judge who ordered the Trump administration to reunite the nearly 3,000 children it separated from their parents has temporarily blocked the government from deporting any of the families it reunites until at least July 23.
The ACLU had requested the temporary restraining order due to concerns that families may have been coerced into agreeing to
By aclutn
Jul 16, 2018
Black Lives Matter Is Still Here — And Avoiding the Mistakes of Their Predecessors
This piece originally appeared at Newsweek.
The fifth anniversary of the founding of Black Lives Matter makes me think back 50 years, not five. Shortly before he was ki
By aclutn
Jul 16, 2018
Why There Must Never Be a Speech and Assembly Tax
A historic level of activism and protest has been seen in our nation’s streets and public parks over the past two years. These protests reflect the profound importance of our constitutional right to peaceful assembly: People come together, voice their dissent, and organize for change. The right to join with neighbors in protest is core to the First Amendment and critical to a healthy and vibrant democracy.
On Jan. 20, 2018, thousands of people gathered on Cambridge Comm
By aclutn
Jul 13, 2018
The Supreme Court’s Disingenuous Funeral Ceremony for Korematsu
Over Independence Day weekend, I joined hundreds of fellow Japanese-Americans at the Tule Lake Pilgrimage. Held on the site of the Tule Lake Segregation Center, this pilgrimage offers a chance to remember how the U.S. government imprisoned our families without trial during World War II.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt provided the legal authority for this incarceration by signing Executive Order 9066
By aclutn
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