Rights This Way

For more than seven years, 10,000 public school students — almost entirely children of color — in the East Ramapo Central School District just 40 miles north of New York City have had lead in their school water fountains. Students speak of going thirsty after gym glass, of mold collecting in the water coolers provided to replace drinking fountains, and of washing their hands next to hazard signs....

It’s a scenario that many parents across New York State, particularly in low-income areas, have come to fear: A knock on the door from a Child Protective Services caseworker. On this episode of Rights This Way, we delve into why the “child welfare system” is actually better understood as a family regulation or a family policing system. We’ll explore how a system ostensibly set up to “protect child...

Could one of the answers to fighting anti-Asian violence come in the classroom? That’s one of the ideas behind a new bill in the New York State legislature that would require public schools to teach Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander history. After a resurgence in attacks against Asian Americans in the wake of the pandemic, what students learn in the classroom could help extinguis...

In 2019, New York state lawmakers passed a raft of progressive legislation that strengthened reproductive and voting rights, made our criminal legal system fairer and much more. Since then there have been additional victories for civil rights and civil liberties, but the momentum for positive change has slowed significantly. In some instances, wins have actually been rolled back. What are the road...

What if many of the things you think about illegal drugs and drug use are wrong? What if many of the problems associated with drugs are actually caused by the fact that they’re criminalized as part of the decades-long, failed war on drugs? For years, Dr. Carl Hart has worked to destroy myths about drugs and to change drug policies in the United States. He joins us to speak about all of this and mo...

A View Inside Rikers from People Who Know it Best New York City’s Rikers Island houses one of the most violent, dysfunctional, and hellish jails in the country. Every day, thousands of people – most of whom are legally innocent and the vast majority of whom are Black and Brown – are subjected to incredibly harsh conditions. Some never make it out alive. We speak with two people who have covered th...

The title of this episode is the major question at the heart of a new book, “The Riders Come Out at Night: Brutality, Corruption, and Cover-Up in Oakland.” The book focuses on the Oakland Police Department, in Oakland, California. But the story it tells – of corruption, brutality, and stymied efforts at reform – is one that can be told about many police departments across New York, including the N...

In April, New York state lawmakers rolled back reforms to the state’s bail laws. If that sounds familiar, it’s because bail reform has now been rolled back three times as a continuous drumbeat of “tough on crime” rhetoric from the media and politicians has paved the way for more and more backsliding. Why does this keep happening? What role do narratives around bail and public safety play in creati...

New York’s legislative session kicked off last month and already there are political fireworks. Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and Democrats in the state senate clashed over the Governor’s pick to lead the state’s highest court. Judge Hector Lasalle was voted down by the Senate Judiciary Committee, making Hochul the first governor to lose her bid to appoint the state's top judge. This battle sets th...

Solitary confinement that lasts more than 15 consecutive days is recognized by the United Nations and various human rights organizations as torture. Even short-term stays can lead to permanent psychological damage and suicidal ideation. Despite these well-documented harms, New York has put thousands of people in solitary confinement in jails and prisons across the state – sometimes for years – wit...

There are more than 90,000 unhoused people in New York State on any given night, including more than 60,000 in New York City alone. Nearly half of renters in New York City are rent burdened, meaning they spent more than 30 percent of their income on rent. Meanwhile, rents across the state have skyrocketed and the number of people who face eviction is growing. Political leaders have not done nearly...

During President Trump’s time in office, immigrant rights were pushed front and center as the administration seemed to delight in finding new ways to inflict pain and cruelty on people fleeing persecution. When President Biden was elected two years ago, he promised to undo the harms caused by Trump and to usher in a more humane immigration system. But in many ways, the Biden administration has dou...

You could end up under police suspicion just for typing words into Google. And when you step outside, an array of cameras could be watching your every move, while a police drone hundreds of feet away zooms in for a closer look at what you’re up to. Meanwhile, at your child’s school, a camera outfitted with facial recognition technology is constantly scanning students’ faces as they walk through th...

In the wake of the police murder of George Floyd, New Yorkers took to the streets to protest police violence as part of the country’s largest civil rights movement in decades. In response, state lawmakers passed several bills meant to increase police transparency and accountability. Two years later, the political atmosphere is very different. Politicians in both major political parties are pledgin...

New York students face many challenges to achieving academic success, but here’s one you might not be aware of: the air they breathe. A recent NYCLU analysis found that about one-third of New York’s students go to school near a major highway. The vast majority of those students are people of color. And it turns out that the pollution students breathe has a major impact on their success and livelih...

Today, we talk about the regressive criminal legal system rollbacks that were passed in April by state lawmakers. In 2019, the state passed laws that improved New York's bail, speedy trial, and discovery laws in ways that made our state fairer and helped reduce mass incarceration.   But ever since then, these laws have been the target of a relentless, fear-driven backlash that continues to th...

This is our second episode on abortion rights and access in New York. In the first episode, we discussed a package of laws the state legislature passed in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision striking down Roe v. Wade . We also went into the effort to add an equal rights amendment to our state constitution and talked about efforts to fight hospital consolidation.   Today, we talk about th...

Welcome to Rights This Way, a new podcast by the New York Civil Liberties Union focused on the civil rights and liberties issues that impact New Yorkers the most. In today's episode, we discuss abortion rights in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and nearly half of U.S. states moving to totally ban abortion.   Access to abortion and other reproductive care was already none...