News & Commentary

The right to vote was by no means ensured to Black Americans throughout the country’s history. It took decades of demonstrations and activism in the face of violence and repression for people of color to achieve the same right to participate in democracy that their white counterparts were granted, and today, efforts to suppress the voting power of Black communities are still rampant. W

Misinformation is fueling an attack on trans youth in state legislatures. These attacks overwhelmingly focus on youth and schools. They try to make being trans shameful — but they won’t stop youth from being trans. They will only make it harder for kids to grow up at all and make it harder to access the support, education, and community that all young people deserve. W

Over 100 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a series of rulings known as the Insular Cases that still prevent millions of people — overwhelmingly, people of color — from accessing certain constitutional rights and protections. These rulings continue to uphold systemic racism today. I

The CEO of Delta Airlines recently wrote a letter to the Attorney General, asking the Department of Justice to support a “no-fly” list of people convicted of “an on-board disruption” during flights. According to the CEO, Edward H. Bastian, “the rate of incidents with unruly passengers on Delta has increased nearly 100 percent since 2019.” Other airlines have been reporting a similar trend, and the industry has been pushing Congress to enact this kind of list for months. The existing no-fly list is a civil liberties nightmare, and expanding it should be a non-starter. I

A face recognition and video analytics company has created a product that provides a stark reminder of the power of these technologies and how they are likely to be used over time by law enforcement, powerful corporations, and others, if we as a society allow it. T

In 2021, Arkansas passed a law banning gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth. This discriminatory law would not only prohibit healthcare professionals from providing or referring transgender youth for medically necessary health care, it would also allow private insurers to refuse to cover gender-affirming care for transgender people of any age. If it is allowed to go into effect, the law will have detrimental effects on the mental, emotional, and physical health of transgender people across the state. T

Last week, news that the IRS has started requiring people who want to set up an account to go through a private company called ID.me created an uproar. What it means is that when dealing with the IRS you may be forced to run a time-consuming, inaccessible, and privacy-invasive gauntlet in the name of “identity verification.” And the IRS is just the latest government agency to place this company as a gatekeeper between itself and the public it’s supposed to serve. During the pandemic, at least 27 U.S. states started using ID.me’s service to verify identity for access to unemployment benefits. The company is also being used by other federal agencies such as the Department of Veteran’s Affairs and the Social Security Administration. T

When I was a junior in high school, I was kicked out of class for asking the teacher when we were going to learn about Black history. It was Black History Month. I

In December, the federal Bureau of Prisons was court ordered to provide ACLU client Cristina Iglesias with gender-affirming surgery following a lawsuit filed in September 2020. The Bureau of Prisons failed to approve surgery by the court ordered deadline of January 26. I