This was originally published on Democracy Docket. There’s one trend election observers can be confident of year after year: Record turnout will always be swiftly followed by a tidal wave of voter suppression efforts. The 2008 election was the first …
Over the last year, the criminal legal system’s many injustices dominated mainstream discourse as people took to the streets to grieve and protest the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor by police, and COVID-19 took a devastating toll on people in …
The Capitol buildings and grounds are quintessential places for free speech and protest, accessible by people from all walks of life who gather there to express their views, demonstrate, picket, and hold vigils. But if those places are permanently fenced …
The New York Police Department is receiving a lot of attention for testing robot “dogs,” which it has deployed in several situations, including to deliver food in a hostage situation and to scout out a location where the police feared a dangerous gunman …
Deborah Archer’s earliest memory of protest came early in her childhood. Her Jamaican immigrant parents moved their family from Hartford, Connecticut, to the suburbs, where they felt they could give their children a better life and education. They were one …
Since the onset of the pandemic, COVID-19 has disproportionately devastated Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and Asian communities and now, these same communities are being left in the dust in the nationwide race to vaccinate. The racial disparities in …
Transgender athletes want to participate in school sports for the same reason as anybody else: to find a sense of belonging and social engagement, to be a part of a team, and to challenge themselves. But states and schools across the country are trying to …
Congress and President Biden have a mandate from the American people to fix our broken immigration system: It’s time to pass legislation that provides a pathway to citizenship and legal residency for the millions of people in this country who are our …
In November and January, voters across the country watched as the people of Georgia helped deliver both the presidency and the Senate to the Democrats this past election cycle, defying the perception of the state as a Republican stronghold. After Stacey …
Over 150,000 Black and Brown children, disproportionately children with disabilities, are handcuffed, restrained, referred to law enforcement, and arrested in schools across the nation each year. Placing police in our schools perpetuates a chilling pattern …
This month, the ACLU launched its Systemic Equality agenda — an initiative designed to center equity and attack our country’s legacy of systemic racism by addressing the imbalance of political power, challenging policies that ravage Black communities, and …
This op-ed was originally published by TIME Magazine and can be read in full here. On Jan. 6, 2021, millions watched, horrified, as agitators hellbent on overturning the election results and disenfranchising Black and Brown voters staged an insurrection on …
Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently deported a survivor of the 2019 Walmart massacre in El Paso, Texas, Rosa,* who was slated to testify at the suspect’s trial. So how did she end up in ICE’s custody? Before she was able to testify as a witness to …
When President Biden’s nominee for U.S. attorney general Merrick Garland begins his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday, the U.S. government will reach a critical inflection point. Following four years of failed policies at …
Imagine you’ve forgotten once again the difference between a gorilla and a chimpanzee, so you do a quick Google image search of “gorilla.” But instead of finding images of adorable animals, photos of a Black couple pop up. Is this just a glitch in the …
I have never had an ID that accurately reflects my gender. The closest I have come to achieving this was when I received my New York City municipal ID (IDNYC). Unlike my state ID, my city ID does not have any gender listed. When applying for my city ID …
Incarcerated people do not lose their First Amendment rights while locked up. Yet correctional facilities across the country routinely restrict materials that prisoners can access using unconstitutional, arbitrary rules governing everything from the item’s …
We have witnessed the death and devastation that COVID-19 has brought to millions of people across the country this past year. The pandemic revealed the flaws and cracks in our social safety net and the gaps in law and policy that left too many of us …
The Trump Department of Justice spent its final days putting thousands of people at greater risk of catching COVID-19 during the height of the pandemic. On Jan. 15, the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel issued a memo arguing the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) will be …
My ID is often the first thing people see about me. I could be at the grocery store, the DMV, or working my last job as a commercial driver. As a trans woman, if my gender marker doesn’t match my name, paperwork, or how I present, then it will determine …
