At Liberty

As homelessness steadily rises in America, so too does the willingness of state and local governments to use criminal laws against their homeless residents. Earlier this year, a federal appeals court found that laws making it illegal to sleep in public violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment when they're used against individuals without access to shelter. Maria F...

Almost 250 years after the adoption of the Declaration of the Independence, debates about founding principles like equality, rights, and representation are as fraught as ever. Jill Lepore, a Harvard history professor and New Yorker staff writer, discusses her latest book, “These Truths,” an ambitious exploration of the evolution of our nation from its earliest days.

The state of transgender equality is in rapid flux in state legislatures, in federal law, in the courts and at the ballot box. Progress is consistently met with backlash. In the past midterm election, Massachusetts voters staved off an effort to dismantle legal protection for trans individuals in public spaces. Yet the Supreme Court is poised to reconsider legal victories won by trans plaintiffs i...

In recent weeks, hundreds of Amazon employees have spoken out to oppose the company marketing its facial recognition software for use by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They join a chorus of voices — both in the tech world and outside of it — who are concerned about the use of artificial intelligence by law enforcement. We’re replaying a recent episode on the impact of A.I. on our civil liber...

Florida seems perpetually to be at the center of the national conversation and news cycle. The current recount to determine the results of Florida's Senate and gubernatorial races is just the latest in a series of high-profile elections and attention-grabbing cases in the Sunshine State. This week’s guest, Howard Simon, has had a front row seat to it all as the executive director of the ACLU of Fl...

The midterm elections made a lot of news, but one result particularly stands out: Florida's vote on Amendment 4. In a historic change, Floridians voted to amend their state constitution to restore voting rights to most people convicted of felonies once they've completed their full sentences. It sailed over the 60 percent threshold it needed to pass. The passage of Amendment 4 marks the largest sin...

With the midterm elections only a few days away, voting rights advocates have been working furiously to ensure that the result will be the product of a free and fair election where everyone eligible to vote is able to do so. Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, discusses the state of the vote in 2018 and the biggest challenges and opportunities for voting rights this election sea...

One year ago this month, the first bombshell allegations against Harvey Weinstein appeared in The New York Times and The New Yorker. Shortly thereafter, #MeToo went viral on social media. But the origins of this movement are at least a decade older. They lie with the work of Tarana Burke, a civil rights advocate devoted to fighting sexual harassment and violence. We talk to Tarana and actor and ac...

The 2018 midterm elections will determine the fate of governorships nationwide, the party that controls Congress, and the outcome of hugely consequential ballot questions in many states. The stakes are high, including for key civil rights and civil liberties. This week, At Liberty features Faiz Shakir, the ACLU’s national political director, who discusses what we can expect from next month's ballo...

Harvard University is facing a lawsuit alleging that its undergraduate admissions practices unlawfully discriminate against Asian American applicants. This suit is the latest salvo in the legal battle over whether and how schools can consider race as a factor in their admissions process. Jin Hee Lee, senior deputy director of litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, joins At Lib...

The nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court has turned into a full-blown national drama, amid credible sexual misconduct allegations against him. Late last week, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Kavanaugh assaulted her when they were both in high school. Kavanaugh denied her claims in a combative and emotional response. The ACLU does n...

More than 2,000 firefighters battling the blaze in California this summer came from inside the state’s prison system. They were part of a national workforce of incarcerated people, paid pennies per hour and sometimes nothing at all, for hourly labor benefiting the U.S. economy. Driven in part by demands for better working conditions and wages, incarcerated workers last month began a nationwide pri...

America’s response to the 9/11 attacks have dominated our foreign policy, military priorities, and human rights record for 17 years now. Perhaps no place on earth is a better symbol of that response than the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Today, 40 prisoners remain, as does the legacy of torture — in the bodies and minds of many of these men, and in the lingering stain on our legal system. Hina S...

More than a month ago, a federal court ordered the Trump administration to reunite immigrant children and parents it had separated at the U.S. border. Yet hundreds of children remain on their own in government custody, and many of their parents have already been deported. Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project and attorney for the separated families, just returned from...

The Supreme Court is meant to protect the rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution. Historically, however, it has repeatedly failed to live up to that promise. Can one justice change the course of the Supreme Court? Erwin Chemerinsky, a Supreme Court litigator and dean of Berkeley Law School, discusses the court’s history and the threats a Justice Brett Kavanaugh could pose to our const...

Many of the children who are presently gearing up for a new school year are also preparing to face police on a daily basis. The numbers of cops in schools is growing, which often means that instead of a detention or a time out, routine misbehavior can result in arrest and criminal charges — with children of color disproportionately impacted. The U.S. Department of Education recently released data...

President Trump often demonizes entire immigrant groups, referring to Mexican people as “rapists” and undocumented immigrants as “animals.” Yet statistics show that immigrants, both undocumented and otherwise, are actually less likely to commit crimes than the average U.S. citizen. How did our American political conversation start to conflate immigrants with criminality? And how has immigration po...

The United States sends more people to prison or jail than any other nation in the world. Donald Trump pledged to be tough on crime, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions has pushed to reinvigorate the war on drugs. They're contributing to the mass incarceration crisis, but they didn't create it. It's the result of decades of criminal policies enacted in every state in this country. Local prosecutors...

On August 12, 2017, a group of white supremacists gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia. The day was a disaster, with violence in the streets and Heather Heyer murdered by a man who drove his car into a crowd of anti-racist protesters. The ACLU of Virginia had represented Jason Kessler, the march organizer, in a First Amendment lawsuit when city officials attempted to move the location of the even...

It seems like artificial intelligence is everywhere these days — in our homes, in our cars, in our offices, and of course online. Government decisions, too, are being outsourced to computer code. In one Pennsylvania county, for example, welfare services use digital tools to assess the likelihood that a child is at risk of abuse. Los Angeles contracts with the data giant Palantir to engage in predi...

In recent months, Black Americans have had the cops called on them for things like waiting in Starbucks, entering their own dorm rooms, moving into their own apartments, and barbecuing in a public park. Why are these stories making waves now, and what do they say about being Black in America? Jeff Robinson, director of the ACLU Trone Center for Justice and Equality, discusses America’s history of...

The 14th Amendment, ratified exactly 150 years ago, promises equal protection to everyone. But it’s also used to strip the right to vote from millions of Americans who have been convicted of felonies. How did this happen, and who’s affected? Desmond Meade talks to At Liberty about his campaign that could restore voting rights to a huge number of Floridians. We also hear from the ACLU’s Dale Ho, ab...

On the eve of the five-year anniversary of the creation of Black Lives Matter, Patrisse Cullors discusses the life that led her to co-found one of the most consequential racial justice movements of our time. She talks about the evolution of the organization since its inception, what it’s like to live under surveillance, the books that inspired her, and more.

An eventful Supreme Court session just came to a close. This year, the court handed down major decisions on partisan gerrymandering, warrantless searches and seizures, union dues, the religious rights of business owners, and the Trump administration's notorious travel ban — to name a few. But the most consequential news from the court came once the session ended, with Justice Anthony Kennedy annou...

Lee Gelernt has been fighting Trump’s family separation policy since early this year, months before it became the subject of national outrage. Thousands of children remain separated from their parents, despite the president’s executive order purporting to end the practice. Just hours before taping this interview, a federal judge issued a decision calling for the government to take immediate action...