Research & Publications

In this issue: Mass surveillance in the Trump era, history being erased, what keeps us in the fight for justice, updates on our legal advocacy work, and more.

The California Voting Rights Act of 2001 (“CVRA” or “Act”) is one of the state’s most significant civil rights laws and a powerful tool to combat vote dilution. Authored by then-Senator Richard Polanco and inspired by the vision of voting rights giant Joaquin G. Avila, the CVRA was enacted in 2002 to address the persistent harms of dilutive at-large election systems in California—systems that have long silenced the voices of political and racial minorities and blocked communities from translating political organizing into electoral victories.

How the ACLU won a court order blocking Border Patrol's racist arrests targeting Latinos, California rejects voter suppression, executive order explainer, and more.

In this issue: Defending civil rights from Trump's attacks, legislative updates from the California Capitol, families of people killed by Vallejo police demand justice, and more.

California's Native American students learn and grow amid a fundamental contradiction: while their families, cultures, and Tribes embrace education as central to their ways of life, California's school systems too often fail to provide them with an equitable and inclusive education.

Long before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the state must provide a lawyer to poor people charged with crimes, many counties in California already did so. Yet today, after years of neglect by the state, California is in the midst of a decades-long public defense crisis.

This report highlights the remaining barriers that conviction and incarceration impose with respect to bodily autonomy, family unity, and reproductive futures, and proposes solutions to these challenges.

In this issue: ACLU's 2024 election strategy, San Francisco Cracks down after U.S. Supreme Court homelessness decision, public records held for ransom in Shasta County, and more.

California’s immigration detention facilities are plagued by severe and ongoing human rights abuse.