News & Commentary

Throughout his presidential campaign, then-candidate Joe Biden promised to “revitalize our national commitment to advancing human rights and democracy around the world.” More than a year after the election, however, his administration hasn’t gone far enough to significantly move the needle on human rights. T

When Texas banned nearly all abortions, it showed us that what happens on the state level can reach far beyond state lines. Just as starkly, it has shown the grim reality that when reproductive freedom comes under threat, people of color and those on the economic margins will undeniably bear the brunt of the harms caused by abortion restrictions. F

Since the nation’s founding, Black, Indigenous, and other people of color have faced disenfranchisement. As redistricting begins, we’re watching to make sure our political leaders don’t continue to disenfranchise these same communities. E

Although Congress outlawed pregnancy discrimination in 1978, far too many employers still routinely deny pregnant workers the temporary job modifications they need to keep working and have a healthy pregnancy. These requests for “accommodations” — such as more frequent breaks, schedule changes, and reassignment of hazardous tasks — often are denied to pregnant workers, and can result in severe consequences for their health and financial security. Nobody should have to choose between a healthy pregnancy and a job. T

Our country is in the midst of a modern-day reckoning with its identity and its history of racialized oppression. Triggered in part by the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others, our communities are grappling with the long history of inequality and hatred that continues to rear its head — more recently, in what must be understood as the lynching of Ahmaud Arbery. T

With multiple abortion cases at the Supreme Court and a continuing onslaught of anti-abortion restrictions sweeping the states, abortion is likely to come up in conversations about the news — including among friends and family during the holidays. H

In 2018, Dijon Sharpe, a Black civil rights activist in North Carolina, was the passenger in a car that got pulled over by two police officers. Having previously experienced a violent beating by police officers during a traffic stop, he began livestreaming the interaction on social media. The officers on the scene told him he wasn’t allowed to livestream, and tried to physically obstruct the stream by seizing his phone from his hand. Mr. Sharpe filed a lawsuit arguing that the officers had violated his First Amendment right to record and livestream the police. T

Congress has mandated that starting later this decade, all cars must have a built-in ability to detect drunk drivers and to disable their cars. However, Congress left the Department of Transportation wide latitude to figure out how best to implement such a technology, creating a very real potential that we’ll end up with a system that could be a privacy disaster. T