News & Commentary

While Donald Trump and Kris Kobach look for ways to disenfranchise Americans, People Power is launching the Let People Vote campaign to uphold, protect, and expand the right to vote. We have witnessed the impact of People Power activists in the ACLU’s ongoing

This term the Supreme Court will hear a case, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Charlie Craig & David Mullins, involving a Colorado bakery that refused to serve a same-sex couple who wanted to purchase a cake for their wedding reception. Colorado law prohibits discrimination in places of public accommodation

I was in the foster care system for 12 years, including 5 years in Michigan, until I was adopted at the age of 17.  One of the reasons I was in the system so long was the shortage of families that are willing and able to care for the children who most desperately need families — those of us who are older, part of a sibling group, or have significant emotional or medical needs.  I was placed in several different foster families that were unhealthy or otherwise inappropriate for me. Not surpr

The antagonistic “us versus them” culture that plagues many police departments with regard to their interactions with communities of color was on full, disturbing display this week in St. Louis. In response to protests by community members over the acquittal of police officer Jason Stockley in the killing of Anthony Lamar Smith, a group of St. Louis police officers provocatively chanted, “Whose streets? Our streets!” That’s right — in one of the nation’s

The fight to kill SB4, Texas’ unconstitutional anti-immigrant law, is not over yet. Following a

From the time I was in college, I knew two things: I wanted to be a nurse practitioner, and I wanted to be an abortion provider. As the stepdaughter of a Maine abortion provider, and then a patient advocate at a Maine abortion clinic, I’d seen firsthand the importance of high-quality, comprehensive reproductive health care. I saw the challenges and protestors, too, but that didn’t deter me—I couldn’t imagine a more fulfilling career. Today, I’m proud to say that I am a practicing nurse practitioner and that I

This piece originally appeared at In Justice Today.  In 1991, a jury in Jones County, Georgia, sentenced Keith Tharpe, a Bl

Legal abortion is one of the safest services in contemporary medicine, and the evidence is crystal clear that nurse practitioners and nurse-midwives can safely and effectively provide this care in the first trimester of pregnancy. But Maine law blocks these qualified providers from serving their patients, and, as a result, some rural women are being forced to travel hundreds of miles to get an abortion. That’s not just bad policy — it’s unconstitutional. So we’re going to court.

Like many other states, Michigan outsources child welfare services to private agencies. These agencies enter into contracts with the state to care for children in the foster care system — including finding them appropriate foster and adoptive families — and are paid with taxpayer dollars to do this critical work. Michigan has 13,000 children in the foster care system. Like most states, it doesn’t have enough families wil