At Liberty

For the last few months, we've been gathering your voting questions. Hundreds of you have sent in voice messages, videos and emails with your most pressing concerns. These submissions have informed our At the Polls episodes, but we couldn't answer each question with its own episode. This week, we have recruited the best experts to answer your varied questions about the upcoming election, your ball...

This week on Monday, October 12th, a growing number of states and cities across the country celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day. It comes as an important corrective after decades of celebrating the, quote, “discovery” of the Americas by Christopher Columbus each year. We know, of course, that no such discovery happened — what did happen was colonization and centuries of subjugation, murder, disenfr...

One in four American adults lives with a disability. And that doesn’t even include the fact that about 45% of Americans live with a chronic illness. During a global pandemic, that means that a huge portion of the electorate has health conditions that impact their ability to vote safely. A new act introduced in Congress has the potential to really help. It's called the Accessible Voting Act. In thi...

Over the last months, we’ve explored different conversations on the subject of policing: abolition, violence and accountability, protest and activism. Today, we’re exploring a topic that has gained more attention in the wake of Daniel Prude’s death in March at the hands of the Rochester Police Department: the startling connection between mental health 911 calls and police brutality. Studies show t...

American voting rates have hovered in the mid-50s for most of recent history. As these things go, that is not great. But it’s even worse with younger voters. In the 2014 midterms, less than 20 percent of voters under 30 cast a ballot. We saw a shift in the 2018 midterms and now the question is how do we sustain the influx of young voters? As of this year, millennials and Gen Z make up approximatel...

This past June, many breathed a sigh of relief when the U.S. Supreme Court rose above partisanship in controversial cases involving abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, the rights of DREAMERS, and the president’s tax returns. In those cases, conservative justices relied on legal reasoning, rather than party loyalty, to guide their decisions. But lurking in the shadows is a concerning new trend in the Supreme...

Ahead of this year’s election, we have seen an unprecedented amount of election litigation between both political parties. The Republican National Committee, at the direction of President Trump, has amassed a $20 million war chest for voting rights cases across the country. In every case, they are working to suppress votes. The litigation ahead of the election is setting the stage for how votes ar...

September is in full swing, and millions of students across the US are returning to school, though for many, this year looks like none other. As school districts across the country grapple with how to resume classes during a pandemic, many districts and their trans students are facing additional hurdles. The Department of Education is now threatening to withhold funding from Connecticut schools th...

It’s no secret that the postal service has been under attack. Earlier this year, President Trump appointed one of his supporters to serve as Postmaster General. Then, just a few months from the election, that appointee, Louis DeJoy, ordered changes to how the postal service operates. Here’s the problem: it appears those changes could be politically motivated and could impact our ability to access...

As many Americans stare down the end of their sixth month of social distancing, we are re-running a conversation we recorded back in April, that still has relevance to our lives today. For some people, the advent of social isolation came long before the coronavirus. At the ACLU, we work with many communities that deal with the long term impacts of social isolation. People living with disabilities...

For the launch of our podcast series, At the Polls, we are answering your questions about voting in the lead up to the election. Our first question is: What will election night look like in a global pandemic? Election night is a quintessential American tradition. The votes come in and television networks begin to report the results. Ultimately, well into the night, the election is called, one cand...

Immigrant communities are often asked to “get right with the law,” but is the law right in the first place? That’s what our guest Alina Das asks in her new book No Justice in the Shadows. She taps her experience as the daughter of immigrants and as an immigration attorney to ask whether immigrants who violate the law should be detained or deported. Too often, she argues, our immigration system is...

As the COVID-19 pandemic stretches on, people across the country face the economic devastation left in its wake. Along with staggering unemployment numbers, millions of renters now face eviction — a situation made even more dire by the global health crisis. Congress responded by instating an eviction moratorium for more than 12 million rental units across the country. But that moratorium expired o...

The golden arches. The happy meal. These are phrases that immediately mean something to most Americans. In fact, with more than 36,000 restaurants in 100 countries, McDonald's may well be one of the most recognizable brands in the world. But today, we're focusing on a much lesser-known side of the fast-food giant, looking at McDonald's role in Black America. Joining us to talk about how the strugg...

Sports have long been an arena where civil rights and civil liberties questions have taken center stage: Track and field star Tommie Smith raised his fist for racial justice on the 1968 Olympic podium. Tennis great Billie Jean King fought for equal pay for women. And, Olympic runner Caster Semana challenged intersex bigotry to be able to compete. But one group of athletes has often kept quiet duri...

We’re coming up on the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment which was ratified on August 18th, 1920 and then certified eight days later. The 19th Amendment inked women’s suffrage into American history, a culminating moment in an effort to win political power. But the ordained heroes of women’s suffrage – like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and later Alice Paul – often tossed out the...

In the last month, we’ve seen the Trump administration deploy federal law enforcement officers to Portland, Oregon. Those agents have been documented using sharpshooters to maim protesters, sweeping people away in unmarked cars, and attacking journalists, legal observers, and medics with tear gas. The federal government just agreed to withdraw most of the federal presence there, but simultaneously...

July 26th marked the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, or the ADA. The ADA is a federal law that requires businesses, employers, public facilities, schools, and transportation agencies to make accommodations for disabled people, and helps weed out basic discrimination. When President George HW Bush signed the ADA into law in 1990, it was one of the most comprehensive pieces...

Since the protests decrying the murder of George Floyd began in May, the institution of American policing has taken center stage. Activists are calling for change, and the phrase "defund the police" can be heard in cities across the country. As the concept of slashing police budgets and reinvesting those resources into Black and Brown communities goes increasingly mainstream, a more radical call i...

Recently, we've seen a reckoning in the culinary world around the whitewashing and co-opting of ethnic food. The industry has long been controlled by a certain few who have authored and then profited from the foods we eat and the stories we share. But the tide is turning. And our guest for this episode, Padma Lakshmi, is part of that and is part of that movement. You've likely seen her tasting and...

The Supreme Court term just came to a dramatic close. We saw wins for LGBTQ plus rights, DACA recipients, abortion rights, Native American tribal authority and a vindication that executive privilege is not absolute. But it wasn't all good news. The court issued a blistering rebuke on the rights of asylum seekers to have their day in court. We are here with ACLU legal director and experienced Supre...

The calls of activists have forced a national reckoning with the legacy of white supremacy in our country. That reckoning has led us to an examination of systems that exert control over Black lives, from policing to reproductive health care. There is a long history of the ways that reproductive freedom has been denied to Black women. And there is an important story of the ways that people of color...

In the last month, protests have erupted across the country calling for justice for Black lives, a wholesale restructuring of policing, and a greater racial reckoning across all facets of American society. It feels like change is in the air. But we’ve been here before: Eric Garner was killed by police in New York City in July 2014, followed weeks later by Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, ignit...

The Supreme Court decided in a 7-2 decision to deny certain asylum seekers their right to have their day in court. This decision follows the Trump administration’s relentless attacks against asylum seekers, including closing the border and other ports of entry during the COVID-19 pandemic. In March, Lee Gelernt, the ACLU’s Deputy Director of the Immigrants’ Rights Project argued the case of Depart...

President Trump’s financial records and tax returns have been a recurring focal point since his election. Both the Manhattan District Attorney and various House Committees are asking to see these records in order to conduct their investigations into potentially unlawful behavior. But the president and his attorneys claim both that Congress is overstepping its power in requesting that information,...