News & Commentary

The United States is increasingly a multiracial society, with white students accounting for just over half of all students in public schools, down from four-fifths in 1970. Yet whites are still largely concentrated in schools with other whites, leaving the largest minority groups — black and Latino students — isolated in classrooms, according to a new analysis of Department of Education data.

SAN FRANCISCO—Today the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will rehear the ACLU of Northern California's challenge to a California law that mandates that DNA is collected from anyone arrested on suspicion of a felony, whether or not they are ever charged or convicted. Oral argument is scheduled for 10am in Courtroom 1 at the James R. Browning US Courthouse in San Francisco.

Facing severe criticism of his leadership, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca finds himself confronting his toughest political test since he took the helm of the nation's largest sheriff's department nearly 14 years ago.

By Ahilan Arulanantham, ACLU/SC Deputy Legal Director; Michael Kaufman, ACLU/SC Staff Attorney; Michael Tan, ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project Alejandro Rodriguez’s parents brought him from Mexico when he was a baby. Prior to his detention, Alejandro earned his green card and lived near his extended family in Los Angeles, working as a dental assistant to support his two U.S. citizen children. The two convictions that gave rise to his detention and deportation case were minor and non-violent— joyriding when he was 19, and a misdemeanor drug possession when he was 24. Alejandro posed no flight risk or danger to the community and yet, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) locked Alejandro up for more than three years without a bond hearing. Bond hearings are a basic and guaranteed principle of due process in the American judicial system, but thousands of immigrants like Alejandro are denied this fundamental right on a daily basis.

By Hector Villagra, Executive Director In his convention speech last week, President Obama included few rhetorical flourishes, but one stood out. He said: “When you take off the uniform, we will serve you as well as you've served us, because no one who fights for this country should have to fight for a job or a roof over their head or the care that they need when they come home.” Lofty language, to be sure, but it simply highlights the gap between rhetoric and reality.

By Brett Kaufman, Legal Fellow, ACLU National Security Project Today, ProPublica published an important and illuminating news article and accompanying interactive web feature that demonstrates just how duplicitous the government is being regarding the CIA’s targeted killing program.

The state's death penalty already effectively has been abolished. The question now is whether we should keep throwing away tax money on a broken system. By George Skelton SACRAMENTO — Officially, Proposition 34 is about whether to abolish the death penalty and replace it with life in prison. But that's not the pertinent question. The death penalty already effectively has been abolished in California. Capital punishment exists only in fantasyland. Condemned killers essentially have been living out their natural lives behind bars.

By Margaret Winter, National Prison Project Director and Peter Eliasberg, ACLU of Southern California Legal Director Gang-like cliques of sheriff’s deputies operating with impunity inside L.A. County jails. Department top brass encouraging a culture of violence and brutality against inmates. And a sheriff with his head in the sand.

By Allie Bohm, ACLU Nationwide It’s been over a year since 35 ACLU affiliates filed over 380 public records requests with state and local law enforcement agencies seeking information about their policies, procedures, and practices for tracking cell phones. And 13 months later (and in the wake of this front page article in the New York Times), we’re still handling responses. We’ve posted the latest batch of documents received on our interactive webmap; here are highlights: