News & Commentary

One night in 2015, several teenagers got together and burglarized two homes in Millbrook, Alabama. After being confronted by police, one of the teenagers, A’Donte Washington, engaged in a shootout with an officer and was killed during the gunfire. Lakeith Smith, another one of the teenagers, participated in the burglary. He did not have a gun and did not shoot at anyone, yet he was charged with the death of his friend.After rejecting a plea offer for 25 years and going to trial, he received 30 years for felony murder, a 15-year sentence for burglary, and two 10-year sentences for theft. In total, Smith was sentenced to 65 years in prison. He was 15 years old. The travesty in Smith’s case is at the intersection of a number of different issues targete

Last week, Maryland joined eleven other states and the District of Columbia in adopting automatic voter registration. Because of The Secure and Accessible Registration Act, eligible Maryland residents will be automatically registered to vote when they apply for or renew a driver’s license at the Department of Motor Vehicles, or interact with other state agencies such as the state’s health insurance exchange. Automatic voter registration is not only critical step to reaching hundred

Fifty years ago today, Congress passed the Fair Housing Act, which at long last protected Americans from discrimination when purchasing or renting a home. At least that was the plan. But for too many people,

For the third time in two years, the ACLU has sued Kentucky for blocking access to abortion. We’ve been here before. Once again, the Kentucky General Assembly passed a bill that limits abortion access and, once again, Gov. Matt Bevin signed it into law. The new law, signed yesterday, makes it a crime for doctors at

On Tuesday morning, President Trump reacted to the news that the FBI searched the office of his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, by tweeting “Attorney–client privilege is dead!” On Monday night, he called the search “an attack on our country.”  Nothing could be further from the truth. While all the facts are not yet known publicly, all indications thus far are that the search was conducted pursuant to the rule of law, and with sign-offs from Trump appointees.  We don’t say this lightly.  The ACLU is the nation’s premier defender of privacy, and w

The Supreme Court just ruled that a police officer could not be sued for gunning down Amy Hughes. This has vast implications for law enforcement accountability. The details of the case are as damning as the decision. Hughes was not suspected of a crime. She was simply standing still, holding a kitchen knife at her side. The officer gave no warning that he was going to shoot her if she did not comply with his commands. Moments later, the officer shot her four times. “Shoot first and think later

Stacie Ray knows firsthand how dangerous it can be to have ID documents that don’t reflect who she is, especially when they out you as transgender to other people. For instance, in 2016 Stacie attended a new job orientation along with 10 other new employees, and they we

Student organizing is gaining momentum across America — the National School Walkout is proof that a change is happening among young people, and it’s happening fast. High school students are making a difference on issues, and in communities, of all different sizes. In fact, students in

I first encountered Judge Stephen Reinhardt as a second-year law student at New York University, when he delivered the annual “Madison Lecture” on campus in 1998. I had heard of Judge Reinhardt and knew that he was an important liberal voice in an increasingly conservative federal judiciary — the “Chief Justice of the Warren court in exile,” as his former clerk Michael Dorf had described him. But I wasn’t at all prepared for the bluntness of his critique of current trends in jurisprudence. The Rehnquist Supreme Court, he said, would be remembered for having erected “arcane and almost impenetrable procedural rules” that elevated process over substantive rights, “especially those of racial minorities.” He continued: “One can only contemplate with dread the answer the current Court would have given had it been asked to overrule Plessy v. Ferguson.” I wanted to work for a judge like that — one who pulled no punches when publicly castigating his putative superiors