At Liberty

Ten years ago this July, Opal Tometi, Alicia Garza, and Patrisse Cullors tweeted #BlackLivesMatter in the wake of Trayvon Martin’s death. The hashtag helped galvanize a movement calling out the racism that has deeply affected the lives and deaths of Black people in America since its founding. The Black Lives Matter movement calls for the reimagination of institutions like policing, housing, educat...

Another Supreme Court term has come to a close. This year, the court delivered major decisions on voting rights, free speech, Indigenous sovereignty, and racial justice, among other issues. The ACLU was involved in cases throughout the term and in many ways, our wins exceeded our expectations. However, in the last two days of the term, the court dropped decisions overturning affirmative action, co...

On Thursday, June 29, in the cases of Students for Fair Admissions. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, the Supreme Court — in a 6 to 3 decision — overturned affirmative action in higher education, restricting universities’ ability to fully address systemic racial inequalities that persist in higher education. Affirmative ac...

Nearly one year ago, on June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court released its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case concerning abortion access in the state of Mississippi. Instead of following decades of precedent set by decisions in other cases involving abortion access that had thus far kept Roe v. Wade intact, five justices broke from precedent, overturning Roe, and with it t...

This year has brought a new level of anti-democratic behavior, particularly in state houses and legislatures. In March, Rep. Mauree Turner from Oklahoma was censured for offering a protester the use of an office in the aftermath of an arrest. In April, two Tennessee state representatives, Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, were ousted for speaking up for their constituents protesting against g...

As legislatures across the country enact anti-LGBTQ bills, one group has taken center stage in our national conversation: trans youth. Of the 491 anti-LGBTQ bills that we are tracking in this legislative session, 118 are bills seeking to restrict or ban gender-affirming care for trans kids. In the midst of all of this we are losing sight of the big picture. Trans kids are simply kids. And they’d l...

On this podcast, we have covered book banning and education censorship a few times before, but the way we see it, bans and revisionist histories thrive in our silence. Despite the recent attention surrounding the onslaught of CRT bans, the suppression of certain histories isn’t new. Indigenous history and Indigenous issues have long been underreported and even erased, sidelining Indigenous folks a...

Today, we are celebrating the ending of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with a conversation with legendary drag performer Sasha Colby. For the last 20 years, Colby has been one of the most celebrated names in drag and last month, she added another accolade to the list: winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Colby’s win is historic, marking the first time a first trans woman of color and...

Today, we're focusing on Chicago — the country's third largest (and one of the most diverse) cities, and a city that has been a blueprint for housing segregation. While the discriminatory practice of racial redlining was officially outlawed in 1968, the practice still reverberates throughout the city today. For every dollar loaned by banks in Chicago’s white neighborhoods, they invest just 12 cent...

The social media platform TikTok has had a meteoric rise. The app has become a hub for educators, activists, and creatives to influence all aspects of culture. From launching dance trends, catapulting decades old books onto best sellers lists, to educating voters and organizing changemakers, TikTok has become key to how over 150 million users across the United States create, engage, and learn. But...

As soon as a week from today, the Biden administration could implement a policy that would force people to seek asylum and wait for an answer in Mexico, or another country they passed through, with limited exceptions. The proposed change is based off of a Trump-era policy that the ACLU fought in court, and which President Biden previously condemned. It also stands in direct violation of United Sta...

This 4/20, we want to talk about a tool that can be used to address the horrific consequences of the war on drugs: clemency. Throughout U.S. history, presidents, and governors have had the power to grant clemency, either by pardoning people of their crimes or reducing their sentences. Clemency can be used as a check on the criminal legal system, which often imposes unjustifiably harsh sentences an...

On Friday, April 7th, the Tennessee state legislature voted to expel two out of the three state representatives, Representatives Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, who protested on the chamber floor in the wake of a mass shooting that killed six people, including three nine-year-old children. Now, their expulsion was an unprecedented move, completely disregarding typical norms of democracy and also...

The U.S. is the only developed democracy that strips voting rights from its people on the basis of a criminal conviction. An estimated 4.6 million Americans across the country are barred from casting ballots. Now to give a sense of scope — this number is larger than the voting-eligible population of New Jersey. At the ACLU, we believe that when we suppress the voting rights of any group of people,...

This Friday, we celebrate International Transgender Day of Visibility, an opportunity to celebrate the many contributions trans people have made to society as well as raise awareness for the work that needs to be done to achieve gender equality for all.  We are currently witnessing a wave of anti-trans legislation across the country, but the criminalization of trans people is nothing new. For over...

Keeping kids safe is one of our greatest responsibilities as adults. But what if the main tool we use to protect children is actually preventing everyone from getting the resources they need? Every state in the nation has mandatory reporting laws that require professions such as teachers, coaches, nurses, and more to report any suspected or observed instances of child abuse to the state. While thi...

Today we are talking about one of the most revolutionary forces in America — teenage girls. Throughout history, teenage girls have consistently stood on the frontlines for change. At 16, Sybil Ludington outran Paul Revere in warning American troops of the impending threat of the British. At 15, Barbara Johns staged a school boycott that helped initiate Brown v. Board of Education. At 19, Heather T...

It’s March, which means it’s Women’s History Month. This month, we’ll speak with women about their activism and resistance to fight for their rights and those around them. Today, we’re talking about the very sexy idea of constitutional interpretation. The Constitution, like any text, is open to interpretation. Where this gets hairy is when different judges, or justices, have vastly different metho...

Housing is the bedrock of American society, and one of the major determinants for life outcomes like health, income, and educational opportunity. Because of its importance, housing has long been the site of discriminatory policies aimed at marginalizing Black and Brown people in America, be it through zoning, redlining, crime free housing ordinances, racial steering, and more. The Fair Housing Act...

Today, we’re digging into the archives and sharing one of our most celebratory episodes, because we all need a little joy, right? Please enjoy former ACLU staff attorney Lizzy Watson and her conversation with award-winning artist, Jon Batiste. You may have seen him on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” where he’s been the music director and bandleader since 2015. You may have heard him on the so...

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...