News & Commentary

As far back as the 1930s, the ACLU affirmed that economic justice was essential to achieving racial justice. In its 1931 Black Justice report, the organization’s first on the civil liberties of Black Americans, the ACLU reported that more than 3,555 Negroes had been lynched since 1882, averaging 74 per year or more than one per week. According to the forward, written by Broadus Mitchell of Maryland, Black Justice’s purpose was to answer “Why these gross discriminations against the Negro?” Mitchell replied to that crucial question with remarkable clarity: “The Negro has been oppressed because he has a low standard of living and little economic independence. And the other way around, he is economically servile because he has been oppressed.” 

Religious exemptions on steroids: That’s the only way to describe legislation being considered this week by lawmakers in Arizona, South Carolina, and Montana. Under the guise of protecting the ability to worship during emergency disasters, these bills could give religious organizations blanket immunity from all civil and criminal liability — as long as they claim to be exercising their faith while engaging in the unlawful conduct. G

This was originally published on Democracy Docket. T

Over the last year, the criminal legal system’s many injustices dominated mainstream discourse as people took to the streets to grieve and protest the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor by police, and COVID-19 took a devastating toll on people in jails and prisons. These events galvanized many people into action — in the streets, at statehouses, and online — inspiring them to join activists who have challenged the criminal legal system’s disproportionate and often tragic impact on communities of color. One of the organizations at the forefront of this movement is the Youth Justice Coalition (YJC), a grassroots organization based in Los Angeles led by activists who have been incarcerated or otherwise entangled with the criminal legal system. The ACLU is part of a coalition representing YJC and impacted individuals in a lawsuit against LA County for its failure to adequately address the COVID-19 crisis in jails and prisons, and in protecting the health of incarcerated people. 

The Capitol buildings and grounds are quintessential places for free speech and protest, accessible by people from all walks of life who gather there to express their views, demonstrate, picket, and hold vigils. But if those places are permanently fenced off, the public and our constitutional right to assemble and protest will be in jeopardy. 

The New York Police Department is receiving a lot of attention for testing robot “dogs,” which it has deployed in several situations, including to deliver food in a hostage situation and to scout out a location where the police feared a dangerous gunman might be lurking. The state police in Massachusetts have also experimented with these robots, as our ACLU colleagues there uncovered, and police in Hawaii have acquired one. What are we to think of these robots from a civil liberties perspective? T

Deborah Archer’s earliest memory of protest came early in her childhood. Her Jamaican immigrant parents moved their family from Hartford, Connecticut, to the suburbs, where they felt they could give their children a better life and education. They were one of just two Black families in their new neighborhood, and her white neighbors quickly made it clear they were not welcome. One morning, the family woke to find their new home vandalized, “KKK” spray-painted across their house and car. N

Since the onset of the pandemic, COVID-19 has disproportionately devastated Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and Asian communities and now, these same communities are being left in the dust in the nationwide race to vaccinate. The racial disparities in hospitalization and death rates among these groups are mirrored in early vaccination rate data. Black people are two to three times less likely than white people to be vaccinated. While statistics like these are disheartening, we can and must do better. States should push back against these disparities by prioritizing outreach and access to the vaccine in geographic areas with the most vulnerable people. T

In November and January, voters across the country watched as the people of Georgia helped deliver both the presidency and the Senate to the Democrats this past election cycle, defying the perception of the state as a Republican stronghold. After Stacey Abrams’ contentious loss in the 2018 race for governor, the effort to thwart voter suppression in the state and mobilize Black voters ramped up. As a result, Black Georgians showed up to the polls in droves and turned the state blue. O