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Tuesday, 25 March 2025

ACLU: Five State and Local Entities Safeguarding Our Civil Rights

Five State and Local Entities Safeguarding Our Civil Rights

State and local officials play direct and crucial roles in shaping and safeguarding our civil rights and civil liberties, especially amid the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks. These offices and officials – governors, state legislatures, attorneys general, and mayors – influence countless parts of our daily lives but, most importantly, their decisions can determine voter access, life-saving healthcare, gender-affirming care, and other vital rights the Trump administration has threatened.

Below, we break down the offices and officials who can – and must – uphold our rights.

How Can Governors Combat Trump?

Governors sign bills into law, determine law enforcement priorities, and develop state budgets, all of which directly impact our civil rights. For example, they can enact laws that either protect or ban abortion, and advance or hinder voting rights. Governors also wield influence over the criminal justice system. They supervise state law enforcement agencies, appoint corrections officials, and can advocate for policies to reduce mass incarceration, address racial disparities in our justice system, and keep communities safe.

As part of the ACLU’s Firewall for Freedom campaign, we are asking governors to direct state agencies not to voluntarily share private information or otherwise collaborate with federal law enforcement seeking to violate civil rights and civil liberties. This doesn’t end with law enforcement — officials must safeguard student data, stop collecting information that could be weaponized against our communities, and enact policies to ensure students do not suffer discrimination and harassment at school.

What Role Do Attorneys General Play in Protecting Our Rights?

Attorneys general serve as the guardian for legal rights in the state, which covers all kinds of freedoms for millions of people. We’ve asked attorney generals to issue guidance addressing our firewall asks — but that’s just one step they can take.

As many states strengthen their anti-discrimination laws, attorneys general can proactively issue guidance affirming these protections against Trump administration threats. Their guidance can help protect undocumented communities, LGBTQ individuals, and protesters from politics that target them for discrimination or harassment. They can also challenge voter suppression laws in court and enforce protections for abortion providers. Already, a number of attorneys general have filed cases challenging Trump administration executive orders that roll back civil rights protections and threaten local resources that communities rely upon.

Why Are State Legislatures Critical to Our Rule of Law?

State legislatures write and pass laws that directly impact our freedoms. Most urgently, they must pass privacy laws to bar corporations and law enforcement from using unchecked data collection to track sensitive activities like seeking reproductive or gender-affirming care. Meaningful legislation — often called SHIELD laws — limit the data that companies can collect and share, reducing the risk of surveillance, discrimination, and exploitation of personal information.

State legislatures also must establish election laws that can make it easier for us to vote. Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, these legislatures have the power to protect abortion in their state. Their authority also extends to criminal justice reform in defining crime, response procedures, and sentencing. They must also limit cooperation with federal authorities’ immigration policy, and codify legal protections for LGBTQ individuals.

What Do State Treasurers and Others Do to Safeguard our Rights?

State Treasurers, comptrollers and controllers oversee the fiscal health of each state and hold authority over crucial financial decision making. They also do crucial work to keep legislatures informed about the true impact of federal decisions on resources to the state.

With federal funding under threat by the Trump administration — often coupled with disinformation about how state and local agencies are actually using those funds — state treasurers will play a crucial role to speak to the devastating impacts of rolling back funding authorized by Congress. These fiscal leaders will also play a truth telling role when faced with any sweeping mischaracterizations of the lifesaving and essential community programs that our federal money protects.

How Do Mayors Fight Trump Administration Abuses?

Similar to governors, mayors have direct authority over city policies, law enforcement, and social programs. They play a crucial role in reproductive rights by allocating funding to support clinics and protecting patients from government harassment. Mayors oversee local police departments, set public safety policies, and promote community-based policing reforms. Many mayors also shape immigration policies within their cities, able to enact sanctuary policies that limit cooperation with federal deportation efforts.

Why Are School Boards Vital to Students’ Rights?

School boards are instrumental in defining policies that impact students and parents’ civil rights . They promote civic education, sex education, and block efforts to ban books and censor teachers. When school boards implement restorative justice programs, they support criminal justice system reform and reduce punitive measures that disproportionately affect students of color. Additionally, school boards establish policies – such as anti-bullying protections and access to inclusive facilities — to support LGBTQ students.

Right now, the ACLU’s nationwide affiliates are asking their governors, attorneys general, mayors and other state and local officials to say no to Trump’s radical agenda. To support their work, the ACLU has a playbook primed to defend our fundamental freedoms, which includes comprehensive and necessary tools across reproductive rights, immigration, free speech, and more to uphold our rights in the states where we live.

Want to take action alongside your officials? Our volunteer teams help mobilize and organize communities all across the country in defense of our civil liberties by making calls, sending texts, or writing letters

Published March 25, 2025 at 10:54PM
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ACLU: Five State and Local Entities Safeguarding Our Civil Rights

Five State and Local Entities Safeguarding Our Civil Rights

Below, we break down the offices and officials who can – and must – uphold our rights.

How Can Governors Combat Trump?

What Role Do Attorneys General Play in Protecting Our Rights?

Why Are State Legislatures Critical to Our Rule of Law?

What Do State Treasurers and Others Do to Safeguard our Rights?

How Do Mayors Fight Trump Administration Abuses?

Why Are School Boards Vital to Students’ Rights?

Published March 25, 2025 at 05:24PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/K4bNi5Y

Monday, 24 March 2025

ACLU: Anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday’ Marks Continued Fight for Voting Rights

Anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday’ Marks Continued Fight for Voting Rights

Sixty years ago, on March 7, 1965, hundreds of civil rights activists, also known as foot soldiers, marched from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to fight for the right to vote for Black people. As they marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, Alabama State Troopers brutally beat them. The violence these activists endured became synonymous with the struggle for Black enfranchisement.

The Edmund Pettus Bridge march, alongside three other marches in Alabama, helped Congress recognize the urgency with which it must pass voting rights legislation. Mere weeks after the Edmund Pettus march, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was presented to Congress on March 17, 1965. President Johnson signed the bill into law on August 6, 1965.

Since 1965, voting rights advocates have gathered in Alabama annually for the Selma Jubilee to mark the anniversary by marching the Edmund Pettus Bridge in remembrance. This was the first year the American Civil Liberties Union sponsored the Selma Jubilee, and I was lucky enough to travel to Alabama to witness the march firsthand.

A group of voting rights advocates at the annual Selma Jubilee, one of which is holding a sign that says," Voting Is A Right, Not A Privilege."

Early that morning, we gathered at the historic Brown AME chapel, which played a large role in the civil rights movement. Activists would gather here to plan protests and civil rights efforts, and this church was the original meeting place before the march.

On the steps of the chapel before the march to Selma, speakers from voting rights groups nationwide recognized the original marchers, also known as foot soldiers, while contextualizing the current state of voting rights.

Yasmin Cader speaking about racial justice at the the Selma Jubilee.

Yasmin Cader, the director of the ACLU Trone Center for Justice, kicked us off by reminding us how the current fights for voting rights and racial justice are intertwined.

A group of voting rights advocates marching over the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

We began to march toward Edmund Pettus Bridge, led by the ACLU of Alabama, holding signs and singing protest songs. The energy in the crowd was electric. While we are all different, we gathered in Selma because of our shared belief in the enduring power of justice.

As we approached the Edmund Pettus Bridge, everyone moved back to ensure the foot soldiers had the chance to cross the bridge first. Watching them march, I was struck by the history of the moment. These brave people were willing to risk everything for the right to participate in democracy.

As I marched across the bridge, I reflected on how we still have work to do to ensure that we live up to the promise of the Voting Rights Act. While the methods may change, the right to vote is still under attack nationwide. We’re fighting in court to ensure that states like Louisanna maintain voting districts that give black voters equal representation, and politicians are trying to pass bills like the SAVE Act that would make it more difficult to vote.

We honor the foot soldiers by continuing their fight.

Published March 24, 2025 at 04:59PM
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ACLU: Anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday’ Marks Continued Fight for Voting Rights

Anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday’ Marks Continued Fight for Voting Rights

Yasmin Cader, the director of the ACLU Trone Center for Justice, kicked us off by reminding us how the current fights for voting rights and racial justice are intertwined.

We honor the foot soldiers by continuing their fight.

Published March 24, 2025 at 10:29PM
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Friday, 21 March 2025

ACLU: Trump's Attempt to Deride NLRB Won't Stop Power of Collective Actions

Trump's Attempt to Deride NLRB Won't Stop Power of Collective Actions

On March 6, a federal judge ruled that President Donald Trump illegally fired former National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) chair Gwynne Wilcox. The judge ordered that she be restored and allowed to fulfill her duties as a duly-appointed member of the NLRB. With its quorum now re-established, the NLRB can resume its mission enforcing workers’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). President Trump has opposed this important work, as shown by his email purporting to fire Wilcox, who is the only Black woman to ever serve on the NLRB.

In his email, Trump at turns ignored and derided the agency’s work, further undercutting his claims to be pro-worker. As he admitted, his decision to remove Wilcox was because she is pro-worker, as shown in her support for a pro-worker ‘joint employer’ rule, which, as the American Civil Liberties Union has argued, is essential to holding employers accountable for their misdeeds. In his email, Trump did not mention the NLRB’s mission to safeguard workers’ right to collective action or the benefits of holding employers accountable for their treatment of workers. He expressed empathy for employers only, claiming without evidence that Wilcox’s decisions had “improperly cabined employers’ rights to speak on the subject of unionization[.]” Trump may have been alluding to the numerous unfair labor practices for which the NLRB found Tesla liable, including a threat to retaliate, which is not protected by the First Amendment, by Elon Musk when workers at Tesla began unionizing.

Though often overlooked compared to better-known rights, the NLRA-protected “right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection” are essential to the causes of racial and economic justice.

The right to engage in collective action to protest working or other conditions is a core human right. It is implicit in the First Amendment right to speech, association, and petition and is codified in Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Section 7 of the NLRA. Thanks to Section 7, most private sector workers in the U.S. have the express right to organize and form unions, to bargain collectively, and to engage in other forms of collective action to improve working conditions.

While these rights benefit all workers, low-income workers – disproportionately Black and Hispanic – stand to benefit the most. Unions negotiate for higher wages, improved benefits, reduced income equality, and workplace protections, as the federal government and others have documented.

The NLRB is charged with protecting these rights, which has led in recent years to wins for low-income workers and workers of color. Specifically:

The NLRB administered the election of Amazon warehouse workers in Staten Island, more than 60 percent of whom were Black or Latino, who voted to join the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), a culmination of the first successful organizing drive in Amazon history. The NLRB also went after Amazon after it committed numerous unfair labor practices against ALU.
The NLRB oversaw the unionization of thousands of Starbucks employees, more than 50 percent of whom identify as a racial or ethnic minority. The NLRBhas consistently prosecuted Starbucks when it has committed unfair labor practices against those workers.
Since 2021 petitions for union elections at the NLRB have more than doubled. Black workers have higher union membership rates than other racial and ethnic groups and, thus, are most likely to depend on the protections afforded by the NLRA.

Ultimately, if workers are to improve their lot, they must rely on each other. At their core, labor unions are vehicles for collective self-help that, when leveraged wisely, can help workers of all stripes but particularly low-income and other vulnerable workers – who alone can do little to improve their lot – effectuate their demands for better working conditions. Renowned civil rights leaders have recognized their potential. A. Phillip Randolph, who helped organize the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, recognized the potential of unions to help Black workers band together to oppose discrimination. Martin Luther King Jr. spent the last days of his life in Memphis in solidarity with striking sanitation workers seeking better pay and safer working conditions. Pedro Albizu Campos, famed nationalist leader of Puerto Rico, organized sugarcane workers in furtherance of this principle. Unions are a rare institution where people of all backgrounds, and across racial lines, can make common cause in furtherance of mutual aid.

"At their core, labor unions are vehicles for collective self-help that, when leveraged wisely, can help workers of all stripes but particularly low-income and other vulnerable workers..."

The NLRB’s reopening is cause for celebration and a step in the direction of economic and racial justice. Regardless of the NLRB, it’s on workers to organize to see their demands met. As former NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo (fired in the same email as Wilcox) observed in her outgoing statement: “if the Agency does not fully effectuate its Congressional mandate in the future as we did during my tenure, I expect that workers with assistance from their advocates will take matters into their own hands in order to get well-deserved dignity and respect in the workplace, as well as a fair share of the significant value they add to their employer’s operations.”

Published March 21, 2025 at 11:37PM
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ACLU: Trump's Attempt to Deride NLRB Won't Stop Power of Collective Actions

Trump's Attempt to Deride NLRB Won't Stop Power of Collective Actions

The NLRB is charged with protecting these rights, which has led in recent years to wins for low-income workers and workers of color. Specifically:

The NLRB administered the election of Amazon warehouse workers in Staten Island, more than 60 percent of whom were Black or Latino, who voted to join the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), a culmination of the first successful organizing drive in Amazon history. The NLRB also went after Amazon after it committed numerous unfair labor practices against ALU.
The NLRB oversaw the unionization of thousands of Starbucks employees, more than 50 percent of whom identify as a racial or ethnic minority. The NLRBhas consistently prosecuted Starbucks when it has committed unfair labor practices against those workers.
Since 2021 petitions for union elections at the NLRB have more than doubled. Black workers have higher union membership rates than other racial and ethnic groups and, thus, are most likely to depend on the protections afforded by the NLRA.

"At their core, labor unions are vehicles for collective self-help that, when leveraged wisely, can help workers of all stripes but particularly low-income and other vulnerable workers..."

Published March 21, 2025 at 06:07PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/DaBkQe0

Thursday, 20 March 2025

ACLU: A Statement from Constitutional Law Scholars on Columbia

A Statement from Constitutional Law Scholars on Columbia

This piece originally appeared in The New York Review of Books.

We write as constitutional scholars—some liberal and some conservative—who seek to defend academic freedom and the First Amendment in the wake of the federal government’s recent treatment of Columbia University.

The First Amendment protects speech many of us find wrongheaded or deeply offensive, including anti-Israel advocacy and even antisemitic advocacy. The government may not threaten funding cuts as a tool to pressure recipients into suppressing such viewpoints. This is especially so for universities, which should be committed to respecting free speech.

At the same time, the First Amendment of course doesn’t protect antisemitic violence, true threats of violence, or certain kinds of speech that may properly be labeled “harassment.” Title VI rightly requires universities to protect their students and other community members from such behavior. But the lines between legally unprotected harassment on the one hand and protected speech on the other are notoriously difficult to draw and are often fact-specific. In part because of that, any sanctions imposed on universities for Title VI violations must follow that statute’s well-established procedural rules, which help make clear what speech is sanctionable and what speech is constitutionally protected.

Yet the administration’s March 7 cancellation of $400 million in federal funding to Columbia University did not adhere to such procedural safeguards. Neither did its March 13 ultimatum stipulating that Columbia make numerous changes to its academic policies—including the demand that, within one week, it “provide a full plan” to place an entire “department under academic receivership for a minimum of five years”—as “a precondition for formal negotiations regarding Columbia University’s continued financial relationship with the United States government.”

Under Title VI, the government may not cut off funds until it has conducted a

program-by-program evaluation of the alleged violations;
provided recipients with notice and “an opportunity for hearing”;
limited any funding cutoff “to the particular program, or part thereof, in which… noncompliance has been…found”; and
submitted a report explaining its actions to the relevant committees in Congress at least thirty days before any funds can be stopped.

These requirements aim to ensure that any withdrawal of funds is based on genuine misbehavior on the university’s part—on illegal toleration of discriminatory conduct, not just on allowance of First Amendment–protected expression. The requirements aim to make clear to recipients of federal funds just what behavior can form the basis for sanctions. And each of the requirements aims to make sure that the sanction fits the offense.

Yet here the sanction was imposed without any agency or court finding that Columbia violated Title VI in its response to antisemitic harassment or discrimination. Even to the extent that some protesters’ behavior amounted to illegal harassment of Jewish students, no agency and no court has concluded that Columbia illegally failed to reasonably respond to such discriminatory behavior—much less failed to act at a level justifying withdrawal of nearly half a billion dollars in funds. The government’s action therefore risks deterring and suppressing constitutionally protected speech—not just illegal discriminatory conduct.

And this danger extends beyond universities. The safeguards and limits that the administration has ignored are designed to protect all recipients of federal funding from unwarranted or excessive sanctions. They protect recipients of federal funding across the ideological spectrum, including K-12 schools, hospitals, nursing homes, and business and agricultural initiatives. The administration’s failure to honor the Title VI safeguards creates a dangerous precedent for every recipient of federal financial assistance.

The following individuals contributed to this letter:

Steven G. Calabresi
Clayton J. and Henry R. Barber Professor of Law, Northwestern Law School

Erwin Chemerinsky
Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law, Berkeley Law School

Richard Epstein
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, NYU School of Law

Owen Fiss
Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law, Yale Law School

Aziz Huq
Frank and Bernice J. Greenberg Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School

Pamela Karlan
Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law, Stanford Law School

Randall Kennedy
Michael R. Klein Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Genevieve Lakier
Professor of Law, Herbert and Marjorie Fried Teaching Scholar, University of Chicago Law School

Michael McConnell
Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law, Stanford Law School

Michael Paulsen
Distinguished University Chair and Professor, St. Thomas Law School

Robert Post
Sterling Professor of Law, Yale Law School

David Rabban
Dahr Jamail, Randall Hage Jamail, and Robert Lee Jamail Regents Chair in Law, University of Texas Law School

Geoffrey R. Stone
Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School

Nadine Strossen
John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita, New York Law School

Keith Whittington
David Boies Professor of Law, Yale Law School

Published March 20, 2025 at 11:53PM
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