At Liberty

Over the past two years, we've seen a dramatic increase in the number of books being banned or challenged in school districts across the country. While here's a long history of book banning and censorship in America, over the 2021 to 2022 school year book banning reached an unprecedented high. What's even more worrying about this increased censorship is which stories are being censored. The majori...

Since the repeal of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, the fight for reproductive freedom has increasingly centered on medication abortion. The two pill regimen allows pregnant people to safely terminate pregnancies, with medicine alone. Since the FDA approved one of the medications used, mifepristone, in 2000, the method has grown to now account for 54% of abortions performed nationwide. For that reason,...

February marks Black History Month, an opportunity to celebrate the contributions Black Americans have made to society. And today, we're going to be celebrating that. But before that. Given the themes of this episode, we want to acknowledge the brutal murder of Tyree Nichols and the violence towards high schooler Tauris Sledge, both by police. This horrific violence only adds to the urgent call fo...

Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola Prison, is the largest maximum-security adult prison in the US. Angola is the perfect symbol for the criminal legal system’s ongoing legacy of racism. It’s transformed from a slave plantation to a camp for mostly Black laborers exploited by convict leasing, all before becoming a prison. For over a century, Angola has been a site of human rights ab...

January 22nd marks the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case that codified the right to an abortion. But this year on January 22nd, we’ll largely remember this anniversary as the one that wasn’t. For 49 years, Roe helped to allow people who could become pregnant decide what was best for them and their families, but on June 24th, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe in...

Last year, the LGBTQ community faced an onslaught of scrutiny and threats, from bills banning trans youth from participating in sports, to bans on gender-affirming care for trans youth. Towards the end of the year, another front for legislative and violent attacks emerged: drag shows. As drag reality competitions and drag brunches become increasingly popular, backlash in the form of armed protests...

Happy New Year. It's so good to be back with you. Often on At Liberty, we detail what is happening in the field of civil rights and public interest law, from an issue perspective. This week we're doing something a little different. We're highlighting the people behind that work, specifically the contributions of women and non-binary people to the movement of resistance law. Women weren't always al...

For this special holiday episode, we handed the reins over to the ACLU kids. Together, with their adults, they talk about what we do to fight for civil rights and civil liberties. You’ll hear from our ACLU family all across the country and they have some pretty interesting insights to share. We hope you enjoy!

As we near the end of the year, we are bringing you an episode of reflection. A lot has happened in the world, in our country and in our work at the ACLU. While we have weathered devastating losses like the overturn of Roe v. Wade this past summer, there are still meaningful victories we can celebrate this year and build on in the coming year. We’ve successfully fought back in courts all across th...

In August of this year, President Biden followed through on a campaign promise to help debt-drowning college students pay off their loans. He announced a loan forgiveness program acknowledging that the total cost of both four-year public and private college has nearly tripled over the last 40 years…and that’s after accounting for inflation. A variety of court cases have been brought against Biden’...

When Ice-T and his band, Body Count, released the song “Cop Killer” in 1992, it spurred outrage. At the time, Bill Clinton and George Bush were running for president, and condemning “Cop Killer” was among the handful of stances where they found common ground. Officials and police departments called for a complete boycott of Time Warner Inc. for refusing to halt the sales of the song. In response,...

This week as we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, we want to challenge our listeners to acknowledge and honor the day as a National Day of Mourning for indigenous people. The truth of this holiday isn’t that white people from Europe and the Wampanoag people in Plymouth, Massachusetts sat down to eat a nice meal together, celebrating a fall harvest. The true story of Thanksgiving is one of brutal...

This week, we are re-airing a conversation we had with Alok Vaid-Menon in early June, before we had the final Dobbs decision. Alok’s work is always salient but with the recent midterm election results showing an overwhelming affirmation of reproductive access, we believe their call for transformative thinking around gender essentialism and bodily autonomy is a way both to celebrate the wins at the...

This week, voters went to the polls to elect their representatives at every level of government. Most notably for us at the ACLU, the midterms are the first opportunity to get a national sense of where voters are sitting on abortion access since the June overturn of Roe v. Wade. We are also on guard watching for voting rights violations and are eager to make sure every ballot is counted. So far we...

The midterm elections are just around the corner. On Tuesday, November 8th, all across the country will vote for our representatives in Congress and in our state government. On the ballot, we have 435 House seats, 35 Senate seats, 27 secretary of state seats, and many more positions to vote for. We know that midterms can be hard to piece through. There's so much information. Down ballot races don'...

On November 9th, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Brackeen vs. Haaland. At the center of the case are the future of Indigenous rights and tribal sovereignty. The case involves the Indian Child Welfare Act, otherwise known as ICWA, an act that was passed in the 1970s to protect native children from removal from their community and culture and to keep families together. Texa...

The Supreme Court is set to hear a case this term that could upend the very foundation of our democracy: free and fair elections. In the case of Moore v. Harper, the Supreme Court will decide whether the North Carolina Supreme Court has the power to strike down the legislature’s gerrymandered congressional map for violating the state’s Constitution. The North Carolina legislators are arguing for a...

It’s October, which means it’s LGBTQ History Month, a time to remember, look back and celebrate the history of LGBTQ activism and the resulting progress. It’s also a time to acknowledge the work still to be done and understand the roots of systemic discrimination and inequality. To that end, our fight continues. On October 17th, the ACLU is headed to District court in Arkansas to argue the case of...

If you live in a state where abortions have been banned since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, accessing abortion is a huge challenge. But unfortunately, access is not the only challenge -- pursuing an abortion without leaving a trace poses another huge hurdle. If you search for resources online, if you get in your car and travel, who you text, if you ship pills to your house -- will the state find ou...

On October 4th, the Supreme Court is set to hear Milligan v. Merrill, a case that would undermine Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. At question is Alabama’s new congressional map, a map that underwent what is called racial gerrymandering or racial redistricting, diluting Black Alabamans’ voting power. The case’s outcome will determine the future of voting rights in America. Joining us today, our...

On August 2nd, voters in Kansas came out in droves to protect abortion access in the state through a ballot measure. It was the first opportunity for voters to cast their support for abortion access since the overturn of Roe v. Wade. For many, Kansas was proof in the pudding: Americans overwhelmingly support reproductive rights. This November, a slew of other states have ballot measures that will...

It’s back to school season! And, this week we are digging into the wild world of dress codes. Clothes, like most things, have the power we give them. Sometimes they are a way to craft or express identity and sometimes they are just pieces of fabric stitched together to help us get through our days. In school, certain kinds of clothes are given more power and more scrutiny than others. In school, c...

It’s September and we’re back! Did you miss us? We missed you. So happy to be back and bringing you a very timely episode for the back to school season. In August, the ACLU along with partner organizations, filed a challenge to Florida's Stop W.O.K.E. Act, a censorship law which restricts educators and students from learning and talking about issues related to race and gender in the classroom. Thi...

Last month, the California Reparations Task Force released an interim report detailing California’s history of slavery and its impact on the state. The task force was created in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. Its goal is to examine what a reparations program in the state could look like. The idea of reparations for slavery itself is not new. It stems from the value of enslaved labor, whic...

Today, we are bringing you a conversation celebrating Disability Pride Month, which is July. This conversation with actress and singer Ali Stroker was recorded last year, but we think it has the same resonance today. We talk to Ali about disability identity and representation in the media. We hope you enjoy the conversation. Roll the tape! Across the top 100 movies of 2019 only 2.3% of all speakin...