News & Commentary

Tiras Johnson, age 23, was unarmed when he was shot and killed in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His family was devastated by his death, and they were struggling to pay for Tiras’ funeral. Like many victims’ families, Tiras’ mother applied for financial compensation through the Oklahoma Crime Victims Compensation Act in order to cover his funeral costs, but instead received a surprising response in the mail.  The letter, addressed to Tiras’ mother, Netarsha, explained that her claim was ineligible for funds because of implied contributory conduct -- th

Late Friday evening, the Supreme Court gave the Trump administration a temporary green light to begin construction of the border wall using military funds Congress denied. The order, while temporary and limited to specific wall projects where fencing already exists, threatens to permanently damage border communities, the environment, and our Constitution’s separation of powers. But it’s not the “big victory” President Trump quickly declared. The fight

I was in 8th grade when it happened. I’ll never forget the feeling of those cold, clanky pairs of metal constraints. I was being handcuffed in front of my friends and classmates. As a lot of middle school students do, I was fooling around with my friends outside

Since 2001, the Riverside County, California probation department has been needlessly funneling young people struggling with grades, behavior, trauma, and mental health into the criminal justice system. This direct line to the criminal system is the product o

Learn about what's happening across the most pressing civil liberties issues of our time, and what you can do.

It’s been more than three years since North Carolina lawmakers passed House Bill 2, the hateful North Carolina law that compromised the ability of transgender people like me to safely navigate our daily lives. As the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit the ACLU an

More than 250 million Americans, some 78 percent of the population, live in states with anti-boycott laws or policies. With the right to boycott under attack across the United States, some members of Congress are pushing back against these dangerous and unrelenting attacks.Last week, Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN), along with Representatives John Lewis (D-GA) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), introduced a resolution reaffirming the First Amendment right to participate in political boycotts as grounded in America’s history dating back to the days of Samuel Adams and the Boston Tea Party. Their recent legislative push stands in stark contrast to repeated attempts by oth

The state of Arkansas thinks you’re confused about whether a veggie burger comes from a cow. In fact, it thinks you’re so confused that it passed a law making it illegal for companies to use words like “meat,” “roast,” and “sausage” to describe products that are not made from animals. Under the law, it doesn’t matter if those words are modified by “vegan,” “veggie,” or “plant-based.” Rather than focusing on genuine consumer concerns — such as rising healthcare and education costs — Arkansa

Five years ago, I left the state of Idaho to become a resident of Washington, D.C. I now live in a vibrant community with people who work hard, not just as federal workers but also as teachers, doctors, mechanics, and small business owners. We raise families, go to church, enlist in the military, hang out with our neighbors, and volunteer in the community. And we pay taxes, a lot of taxes: more than the residents per capita than in any state. Just like you find in many states, some of my neighbors have lived in D.C. for generati