News & Commentary

I stumbled upon the ACLU’s National Advocacy Institute by total coincidence. A friend mentioned that she attended the institute in a previous year, and I happened to see a post about it on my Instagram feed. I took a chance and decided to apply, but never thought I would get in, let alone that it would spark in me a passion for organizing and advocating for my community in Austin, Texas. But now, two years after I attended the institute, I can see just how important this program is to building the next generation of civil rights leaders, advocates, and organizers. T

More than one year after the brutal murder of George Floyd at the hands of police, it is clear that international accountability is critical to complement and bolster domestic efforts to dismantle systemic racism in law enforcement in the United States. L

Earlier this week, Texas Democrats fled the state in a last-ditch effort to prevent the passage of a restrictive new voting law by the Republican-controlled legislature. At the same time, Hervis Rogers, a 62-year-old Black man, was recently charged with two counts of illegal voting in Texas. After waiting more than a year, the state now claims that Rogers voted in the 2018 and 2020 elections while he was still on parole. He faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted. T

With 233 mass shootings so far this year, the issue of gun violence in the U.S. is all too familiar. Tragic events like the Pulse nightclub and Parkland shootings go from being media spectacles to quotidian events at an alarming rate in a country that often heralds the Second Amendment above meaningful safety for all its citizens. The vigilantism of widespread gun ownership puts Black Americans in an especially vulnerable position given the brutality and human cost of discriminatory policing. T

In just 10.86 seconds, Sha’Carri Richardson made history when she crossed the finish line for the Women’s 100-meter dash at the U.S. Olympic track and field trial. In an instant, the 21-year-old became an overnight sensation as she set her sights on representing the nation in Tokyo. &

A year after the pandemic and resulting economic crisis shut down much of America, President Biden and Congress took an important step forward by passing the American Rescue Plan. The law rightly prioritizes those hit hardest by the pandemic, such as communities of color and people with low incomes, and begins to address some of the systemic inequities that COVID-19 only exacerbated — inequities that begin from the day a child is born. T

Across the country, lawmakers have enacted sweeping attacks on transgender people — particularly transgender youth. After initially focusing primarily on restroom restrictions, opponents of trans rights have switched their target to sports. This year, Arkansas went even further, passing a ban on gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth. Four transgender youth and two doctors joined with the ACLU to sue the state. A

I never thought I would be a cautionary tale. More than that, I never thought I’d have to explain to my daughters why their daddy got arrested in front of them on our front lawn. How does one explain to two little girls that a

Fifty years ago, as the U.S. began building the world’s largest infrastructure for human caging, many Americans envisioned a future without prisons. Prisons, in the eyes of many, were irrevocably broken and incompatible with democracy. A committee convened by Lyndon B. Johnson to study law enforcement wrote that “life in many institutions is at best barren and futile, and at worst unspeakably brutal and degrading” and lamented that many prisoners labored “under conditions scarcely distinguishable from slavery.” I