News & Commentary

For almost a year, Kris Kobach, the secretary of state of Kansas, has struggled to hide the truth about his efforts to lobby the Trump administration to make it much harder for Americans to vote. Part of that struggle ended today when a federal court ordered excerpts of Kris Kobach’s testimony disclosed along with other documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union in our challenge to his restrictive voter registration regime. The unsealed materials confirm what many have suspected: Kobach has a ready-made

Last night was the first night in a month that I was able to fall asleep without worrying about whether Jane Doe would get the medical care she needs. Jane, a 17-year-old unaccompanied immigrant minor, received her abortion yesterday after being held hostage by our federal government for over a month. But while the legal drama and Jane’s plight captured the country’s attention, her battle is part an overall war being waged by the Trump Administration against reproductive rights and immigrants’ rights. Jane crossed the U.S. border on her own in September. She was det

In September, the Trump administration brutally up-ended the lives of some 800,000 young people who have lived in America since they were children. After months of telling Dreamers they “should rest easy” about being allowed to stay, President Trump’s promises turned out to mean nothing. The administration announced the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which for years has permitted young undocumented immigrants who came to this country as children to live and work here without fear.As a result, starting next March, scores of Dreamers will begin losing their status as their DACA and work permits expire, at a rate of1,400 people a day. Yet even on the day of the announcement, President Trump told Dreamers they had “nothing to worry about” — DACA’s protections would stay in place for six months while Congress worked on a legislative solution. That promise has proved to be empty again and again. Just th

Each year, doctors around the United States perform medically unnecessary, irreversible surgeries on children and infants with intersex traits to “normalize” their bodies. The procedures are done before it is possible for the individual child to consent or even communicate their gender to medical providers making legal and medical sex assignments for them. Justified by parents, doctors, and others, at least in part, by a desire to forcibly avoid the future stigma of a perceived nonconforming body, these surgeries can lead to a lifetime of trauma for the intersex infants on whom they are performed. On this Intersex Awareness Day, I urge my fellow trans advocates to c

October 24 should have marked the end of President Trump’s 120-day ban on refugees entering the United States, a lesser known but no less damaging part of the Muslim ban executive order from March 6. Instead, it will be remembered as a new low in the Trump administration’s response to the world’s growing refugee crisis. Under the guise of furthering national

Ever since I can remember, wrestling has been a central part of my life and my identity. My brother started wrestling when I was a preschooler, and I joined him on the mat when I was five. My relationship with the sport has impacted so many other aspects of my life and development — it’s made me mentally tougher, physically stronger, and more resilient. When I enrolled in college at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, the wrestling coach an

Seventy years ago this week, the oldest civil rights organization in the world, the NAACP, submitted a petition to the newly established United Nations demanding accountability for human rights violations against African Americans in the United States. The 96-page petition was written over the course of a year under the editorial supervision of W.E.B. Du Bois. Its six chapters, each written by a leading expert, cover topics ranging from slavery and Jim Crow to voting rights, criminal justice, education, employment and access to health care – areas in which discrimination remains deeply rooted to this day. In view of this legacy, it will be interesting to see the Trump administration’s

On February 2, 2017, 50 ACLU affiliates submitted FOIA requests seeking information about Customs and Border Protection’s on-the-ground implementation of the Muslim Bans at field offices around the country. When the government failed to respond in the time allotted, certain ACLU affiliates filed suit in April to get the requested records. Since then, the government has released three “partial” responses th

Five years ago, Dave Mullins and Charlie Craig walked into Masterpiece Cakeshop, a Lakewood, Colorado, bakery to purchase a cake for their wedding reception. But the bakery’s owner refused to serve them solely because they’re a same-sex couple. Colorado courts found that the bakery discriminated against