News & Commentary

Each year, thousands of Californians are kept in jail awaiting trial simply because they can't afford to post bail.

President-elect Donald J. Trump tweeted that anyone who burns a flag should be jailed or even stripped of their U.S. citizenship. The idea that the government could use citizenship as a punishment for political speech is not simply unconstitutional, but fundamentally un-American.

On opening day of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in D.C., I crossed the threshold with a memory deeply embedded in my psyche.

On January 20, President Obama will hand Donald Trump the keys to the surveillance state. What can you do to protect against government spying?

My mother was seven years old when she and her family were evacuated from the West Coast and forced to live in an Army barrack behind barbed wire in an internment camp in Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Born in Los Angeles, she had been taught in school to be a proud and loyal American citizen, so the wholesale exclusion and relocation of her community was both terrifying and confusing. On the journey to Wyoming, the prisoners were ordered to keep their shades down when the train passed through towns; my mother thought this must be because people hated her and her community so much that they didn’t want to see their faces. She was incarcerated at Heart Mountain for three years before she and her family were permitted to return to their home in Los Angeles.

As a matter of organizational policy, the ACLU doesn't take a position supporting or opposing presidential or judicial nominations. We do, however, educate the American people and the Congress about nominees’ records and past positions.

Over the summer, new mom Jessica Campbell registered for her daylong veterinary licensing exam at a Prometric testing facility. She found out that during the seven-and-a-half-hour test, she would only be given 45 minutes of break time. Normally, this time can be distributed throughout the day for lunch, restroom breaks, and studying. But as a breastfeeding mom, Jessica would have to set aside a large chunk of it to pump breast milk. Even with medical grade equipment, the process can take 30 minutes, leaving breastfeeding test takers with only 15 minutes for all of the other necessary break activities.

Since Election Day, the ACLU has seen a renewed sense of urgency from hundreds of thousands of Americans to protect civil liberties.

Rallying in response to the news of Donald Trump’s election? Read, print, and share our new demonstrators’ rights wallet cards.