News & Commentary

On July 7, 2016, the day after the shooting of Philando Castile, artists from the Twin Cities came together to create a public mural to process their shock and grief. In stark black and white lettering, the mural asked: What do we tell our children when education didn’t matter? When compliance, a

The continuing cruelty on display at our southern border has unleashed a righteous, primal scream of revulsion from Americans across the ideological spectrum. The outrage, plus a successful ACLU legal effort in San Diego, seems to have helped turn the tide toward family reunification. However, the common refrain seems to be, “This is not who we are,” as if ripping families apart to punish or deter crime is so novel and grotesque that it’s unrecognizable as American.   The truth is that the criminal justice system we are imposing on immigrants is a reflection of the one

On June 30, it was announced that an anti-trans measure in Montana failed to collect enough signatures to appear on the ballot in November. This is the second time in recent months that those who oppose transgender equality have failed in their efforts to use the ballot to move their agenda forward in a state many think of as conservative. The anti-trans initiative, I-183, was thought up by the Montana Family Foundation. It would have forced peo

On July 2, the ACLU won a significant victory in our challenge to the Trump administration’s arbitrary and illegal incarceration of nearly 1,000 asylum seekers who came to the U.S. fleeing persecution, torture, or death in their countries of origin. A federal judge has found that the government’s practice of locking up asylum seekers while they await rulings in their cases violates the Department of Homeland Security’s own official policy, which instructs that asylum seekers be released on humanitarian parole if they meet a series of strict requirements. All of our

When two patrons at a Starbucks cafe in Philadelphia were arrested while waiting for a colleague earlier this year, people in Pennsylvania and around the country saw on video what Black people have known for a long time — the mere act of going about our daily lives can lead to harassment, arrest, or worse. The stakes are ratcheted upward dramatically when we cross paths with law enforcement officers. Even

The first case I litigated before Justice Anthony Kennedy, who announced his retirement on June 27 after more than 30 years on the Supreme Court, was Texas v. Johnson, the 1989 case that established that the First Amendment protects flag-burning. Kennedy, a mild-mannered Reagan appointee, was no flag-burner. But he provided the crucial fifth vote to strike down Texas’s law. A few years later, I invited him to guest-teach my constitutional-law class at Georgetown. I said he could t

The Trump administration on Tuesday rescinded federal guidance, including guidelines created in 2011 to promote racial diversity in higher education and end the growing racial isolation in K-12 classrooms. The move reflects the administration’s latest attempt to retreat on the important progress made since Brown v. Board of Education prohibited school segregation 64 years ago and despite Supreme Court rulings protecting affirmative action. The move is particularly disturbing because the

This article and corresponding video were originally published at USA Today.    I crossed the border into the United States on March 13 in search of safety for

In response to its own nightmarish family separation and zero-tolerance policies, the Trump administration is claiming that in order to keep families together, it must jail them. This isn’t only untrue — it’s expanding a system that puts the health and welfare of immigrants at risk, according to an independent oversight agency. A new report