News & Commentary

Douglass’s life and words continue to illustrate the struggle of being Black in America. In honor of his legacy and the movement he helped lead, we have asked members of our staff to read passages from his work and reflect on the meaning of his words.

Today, students across the country are responding to the pre-game protests by professional athletes, when players during the National Anthem have chosen to kneel, sit, or raise a fist against police violence and state oppression of African-Americans and other people of color. Inspired, students have bravely followed suit.

During the last four weeks of the 2016 election cycle, I was placed at a county Republican headquarters as part of a fellowship. While there, I witnessed firsthand how then candidate Donald Trump’s open contempt for the free press was mirrored and picked up on the ground by his campaign.

The ACLU has been fighting against censorship for nearly a century. April is National Poetry Month, so we’ve been thinking about a free speech case from sixty years ago that involved a small but powerful book of poetry.

It’s essential for people to be able to communicate about issues that they care about. That’s why it's alarming that AB 165 has been introduced in the CA Legislature that would gut essential protections in public schools.

The following Op-Ed by Alan Schlosser and Diana Tate Vermeire was originally published in the Daily Californian on Friday, February 10.

Last week, free speech suffered a blow when force and intimidation by some protesters prompted the University of California at Berkeley to cancel a speech by Milo Yiannopoulos, who had been invited by the Berkeley College Republicans and who advocates racist, sexist, and transphobic views. The cancellation should give no comfort to those who value equality and oppose these views; if anything it likely gave Mr. Yiannopoulos and his abhorrent messages more attention than if he had been allowed to speak.

Fifty-five years ago this January, the ACLU of Northern California was busy filling orders from across the country for copies of its recently produced film, “Operation Correction.” The film was a response to a piece of Red Scare propaganda, “Operation Abolition,” which was produced by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and depicted civil liberties activists in San Francisco as violent communist agents bent on destroying the fabric of America.

In the 2010 Citizens United decision, the US Supreme Court ruled that independent political expenditures by corporations and unions are protected speech. Citizens United became a flashpoint because Americans are increasingly concerned about the impact of economic inequality on our political system.

I'm one of these brothers that have been through the front gates of San Quentin and the front gates of the White House, and I can't necessarily say that was a short stroll. I wish I could say it was an easy thing to do.