News & Commentary

On Nov. 1, 2017, Ms. L. and her 7-year-old daughter, S.S., arrived at a United States port of entry near San Diego and presented themselves to border agents. Ms. L. had fled with her child from their home in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Ms. L. left in fear for her life. Now, the pair was finally in the United States, seeking asylum in a country where they thought they would be safe. Approximately four days later, Ms. L.’s young daughter was taken from her without any explanation or justi

On Nov. 1, 2017, Ms. L. and her 7-year-old daughter, S.S., arrived at a United States port of entry near San Diego and presented themselves to border agents. Ms. L. had fled with her child from their home in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Ms. L. left in fear for her life. Now, the pair was finally in the United States, seeking asylum in a country where they thought they would be safe. Approximately four days later, Ms. L.’s young daughter was taken from her without any explanation or justi

For years, Black and Latino residents of Milwaukee have protested the fact that they and their neighborhoods have been consistently and unfairly targeted for overzealous police stops. They were right to do so. New expert evidence unmasks the city’s stop-and-frisk program for what it is: a program that encourages routine stops of individuals that are without a sufficient legal basis and that are often based on the individual’s race or ethnicity. With this new evidence, Milwaukee joins a host of cities nationwide whose stop-and-frisk practices — as reflect

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On the night of Sept. 15, 2017, Edward Martins and Richard Hall, narcotics detectives with the New York Police Department, pulled over an 18-year-old woman and her two male friends for being in a park after dark. After finding marijuana in the car’s cup holder, they handcuffed the woman and told her friends to leave. The woman says that the detectives then put her in their unmarked police van with tinted windows and raped her as she cried and repeatedly told them “no.” Semen collected in a forensic evidence kit matched the DNA of both men. In November, Martins and Hall

Students around the country are turning last week’s heartbreaking school shooting in Parkland, Florida, into an inspiring and exemplary push for legislative change. In the last few days, many people have asked whether schools can discipline students for speaking out. The short answer? It depends on when, where, and how the students decide to express themselves. Plans for coordinated student walkouts have been

Sometimes legislators do something so discriminatory and full of hate that it’s hard to believe someone isn’t trying to pull your leg. But six Republican legislators in South Carolina last week introduced legislation that would define any marriage not between a man and a woman as a “parody marriage.” And they’re deadly serious. On Feb. 15, Reps. Steven Long, Bill Chumley, Mike Burns, John McCravy, Josiah Magnuson, and Rick Martin introduced

Reckoning with the prevalence of sexual harassment and gender-based violence in the wake of #MeToo has prompted many to reexamine the conditions that have allowed harassment and violence to flourish. One place to start is our public schools, where young people develop critical understandings about gender starting at an early age. For over a decade, the ACLU has been

Once again, an appeals court ruled that President Trump’s Muslim ban — now in its third iteration — violates the Constitution’s most basic guarantee of religious freedom. Earlier today, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit