News & Commentary
A Dangerous Precedent: Why Allow Racial Profiling at or Near the Border?
At a moment when the federal government is taking racial profiling seriously, it was gratifying to read that Attorney General Eric Holder "told colleagues that he believed that border agents did not need to consider race or ethnicity." Racial profiling is demeaning, offensive to American values, and ineffective. As today's revised Department of Justice (DOJ) guidance makes clear, "it is patently unacceptable...for law enforcement officers to act on the belief that possession of a listed characteristic [like race, religion, national origin, or ethnicity] signals a higher risk."
By Chris Rickerd, ACLU National Political Advocacy Department
Required Reading: Prequels to the Torture Report
As early as tomorrow, the long-awaited Senate torture report will finally see the light of day. If all goes as planned, the Senate Intelligence Committee will release the roughly 500-page executive summary of its 6,000-page report concerning the CIA's "rendition, detention, and interrogation" program. The report is said to be highly critical of the program.
By By Marcellene Hearn, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project
Believing Our Lying Eyes
We cannot allow Eric Garner's sadly prophetic words, "It stops today," to refer only to his life.
By By Dennis Parker, Director, ACLU Racial Justice Program
Aquellos que Obama dejó olvidados – y deportó sin una oportunidad de ser escuchados
Nydia ya tenía asilo en los Estados Unidos cuando fue deportada dos veces por agentes fronterizos de nuevo al peligro del cual ella huyó. Nydia, una mujer transgénero de México, dijo a los oficiales que ella tenía estatus y que había sido violada y atacada en México cuando regresó para el funeral de su madre.
By By Sarah Mehta, Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program
Treating School Kids Differently Based on Sex = Discrimination
It should be a foregone conclusion that treating boys and girls differently in school is sex discrimination. Except in many schools across the country that isn't the case. Hopefully that's about to change.
By By Galen Sherwin, ACLU Women's Rights Project
Pregnant Employees Have the Same Right to Light-Duty as Other Workers
Peggy Young worked for UPS delivering letters and packages. When she became pregnant, her doctor recommended that she avoid lifting more than 20 pounds. She requested a light-duty position so she would not have to lift heavy packages.
By By Lenora M. Lapidus, Women's Rights Project
ACLU Fights for Limits on Secret Phone Tracking
In March of this year, Robert Harrison had a cell phone with him while he was inside his home. Though he has kept and used a cell phone as long as any of us, this time, things were different.
By By Samia Hossain, William J. Brennan Fellow, ACLU Speech, Privacy, & Technology Project
Black and Blue: The All-Too-Often Toxic Relationship Between Communities of Color and Law Enforcement
Twenty-five years ago, Director Spike Lee released the film "Do the Right Thing" which illustrated with startling realism the racial tensions and uneasy relationship between police and the communities of color in Brooklyn's Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood. The film's message about the need to alter the fraught relationship between communities of color and law enforcement has assumed renewed importance with the events surrounding the tragic killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson this summer.
By By Dennis Parker, Director, ACLU Racial Justice Program
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