Trending news

In March, the Trump administration illegally arrested and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University and an advocate for Palestinian human rights. Khalil, a U.S. green card holder, was detained in New York while returning from an iftar dinner with his wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, who is currently nine months pregnant. He was later put on a plane and sent to a detention facility in Louisiana without notice to his attorney or family. Since Khalil's arrest, the administration has doubled down on its unlawful policy of revoking people's green cards and visas based on their political beliefs and advocacy. To be clear: The First Amendment does not allow the government to retaliate against anyone for their speech. Ripping someone from their home, stripping them of their immigration status, and detaining them solely based on political viewpoint is an unconstitutional attempt by President Donald Trump to silence dissent. Political speech – however controversial som...

Mikal Mahdi committed two tragic murders in 2004 when he was only 21. This Friday, more than two decades later, South Carolina plans to execute him for his crimes, despite serious constitutional and moral questions that call for the Supreme Court to stay his execution. If carried out, Mikal’s execution will be the third in South Carolina this year, and the 12th execution nationwide. Without a doubt, Mikal’s crimes caused irreparable harm, but justice requires a fair trial and sentencing. Mikal’s story is a tragic one of a child failed by everyone at every turn. As a toddler, Mikal witnessed his father routinely and viciously beat his mother. At age four, his mother fled, leaving Mikal and his brother to become the target of his father’s abuse. By age eight, Mikal was suicidal. At age 14, he was sent to juvenile detention for property crimes. After serving his time, however, his father failed to take him to required court and other program meetings. He was incarcerated again and thr...

As a Pawnee woman who is Deaf , I’ve long faced barriers to being evaluated fairly, not because I lack experience or qualifications, but because of systemic bias and technology that wasn’t built with people like me in mind. So when I was offered a job at Intuit, a financial software company, in late 2019 as a tax associate, I was thrilled. In this role, I helped customers with their tax questions and consistently received high ratings for my service. I took pride in being able to resolve customer concerns quickly and with empathy. My experience reflects a bigger problem: the systemic discrimination embedded in AI-powered hiring tools. But, during my first year, I was shocked to learn that one of my key performance indicator scores was unusually low. After meeting with my manager, I learned that Intuit’s artificial intelligence (AI) software—used to measure how closely employees followed call scripts—wasn’t accurately recognizing my speech because of my Deaf accent. Instead of ...

After President Donald Trump issued an executive order restricting access to gender-affirming medical care for transgender people under 19, many hospitals nationwide abruptly cut off treatment for trans youth. This sent thousands of families scrambling, with some even wondering if they needed to leave the country to protect their family’s future. If enforced, President Trump’s order will deny transgender youth access to medically-necessary care, like puberty blockers and hormone therapy, even as these same treatments remain readily available to their cisgender peers. The order also intends to cut or reduce federal funding for health care providers who refuse to prioritize the Trump administration’s political preferences over their patients’ medical needs. "politics and partisanship have no place in patient care and we all deserve the freedom to be ourselves." At the American Civil Liberties Union, we know that politics and partisanship have no place in patient care a...

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 s...

This piece originally appeared in The New York Review. 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 protect...

When I was a little girl, my family visited the Santa Cruz boardwalk and nearby beach. It felt familiar and safe to return here for college. My freshman year at UCSC was great. I joined woodshop, made friends, hiked, and worked at a children’s museum. I maintained good grades while working towards a double major in environmental studies and biology. I was just a regular, happy college student. Everything changed once the genocide in Gaza started, however. I couldn’t look away from what was happening. I joined fellow students in protesting, I attended UC Regents meetings, and I organized. I was hoping to see action from the school in solidarity with Palestine. Or, at the very least, I wanted the school to acknowledge what I and my fellow students were saying about the war. But numerous students, including myself, faced harsh punishment for this protest activity and were banned from campus for up to two weeks at the end of the quarter, when finals were happening. Following these eve...

As part of President Donald Trump’s attempt to remake the federal workforce, several directives have been issued to terminate recently hired employees and gut entire agencies. Many federal workers have also been urged to resign under the premise that they will be paid through September 2025. The federal workforce includes hundreds of thousands of well-qualified disabled employees who work at all levels of the federal government. Some disabled employees receive accommodations in the workplace, including an elevated desk that a wheelchair can fit under, interpreters for deaf and hard of hearing employees, or screen readers for people who are blind or low vision. The entire federal workforce is facing unprecedented fear and uncertainty, but disabled workers face additional struggles as executive orders and damaging rhetoric question their right to receive needed accommodations. At the ACLU, we know that directives from the Trump administration do not change the law. It is still illega...

Across the country, right-wing groups are working to dismantle long-standing anti-discrimination protections and statutory mandates by targeting what they broadly refer to as diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA). These attacks on DEIA are not new. Rather, they’re part of a broader strategy to discredit DEIA and weaponize the term itself, expanding its definition to encompass any ideas right-wing politicians disagree with under the guise of opposing “identity politics.” Since the Supreme Court's blow to affirmative action in higher education admissions in 2023, state lawmakers have introduced more than 106 anti-DEIA bills . Now, President Donald Trump’s administration is working to eradicate DEIA initiatives and civil rights protections with executive orders that would reverse decades of federal anti-discrimination policies. We know that these policies and initiatives are essential to upholding civil rights, addressing discrimination, and ensuring all communit...

“What matters to me, as a former teacher and current litigator, is that students see themselves in what they learn and feel empowered to make change,” says Leah Watson, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Racial Justice Program. “It’s unacceptable to force students to accept the government’s talking points even when those views are not only inaccurate, but racist and sexist.” As a member of the ACLU’s Racial Justice Project since 2020, Watson’s work focuses on preventing the government from enforcing its discriminatory agenda. She has, understandably, been even busier since President Donald Trump was reelected and began to gut federally-supported diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and to coerce other entities – like universities or workplaces – into abandoning DEI entirely. Watson was ready for it. She’s been here before. Leah Watson Credit: Leah Watson Watson is a member of the legal team that challenged Florida’s Stop W.O.K.E Act — one of the broades...

President Donald Trump has nominated Harmeet Dhillon, an attorney, media personality, and Republican Party official, to lead the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ). If confirmed, Dhillon will lead the division of the DOJ charged with upholding core civil rights and liberties in many aspects of American life. Dhillon is known for her work supporting President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election as well as for her persistent attacks against transgender people, their rights, and their health care. She is founder of the Dhillon Law Group and the Center for American Liberty, a right-wing impact litigation organization. While the ACLU does not endorse or oppose executive branch nominees as a matter of organizational policy, we have spent more than 100 years holding power accountable. In line with that history, we are examining and publicizing nominees’ records on civil rights and civil liberties and urging senators to seek and obtain commitmen...

Congress is setting the stage to decimate Medicaid. The House of Representatives put forward a budget resolution that will lead to more than $880 billion in cuts from Medicaid. If approved, these cuts will eviscerate a critical source of health care and stability for 10s of millions of people. Most devastatingly, radical cuts to Medicaid will be catastrophic for people with disabilities for whom Medicaid is a lifeline. Why is Medicaid a Lifeline for Disabled People and Seniors? Medicaid is an essential program that provides a wide range of critical health care services and support to millions of people across the country. The impacts of these draconian cuts would be staggering. More than 10 million people with disabilities are enrolled in Medicaid, making it the largest provider of health care to people with disabilities, including people with mental health conditions. Beyond health care, Medicaid is the primary payer of home and community-based services (HCBS) for nearly 8 mil...

I live everyday in fear. My husband, Miguel, is undocumented and, despite what many believe, being married to a U.S. citizen does not protect him from Donald Trump’s unlawful efforts to deport millions of people. Miguel is my best friend. He is wonderful, kind, and humble. We have a beautiful life that includes a successful business, a home, two children and five grandchildren. It is truly the American dream that so many people in this country strive to build for themselves. Today, it terrifies me to know that everything we’ve worked so hard could be taken from us by cruel immigration policies that argue Miguel isn’t “good enough” to even attempt to become a U.S. citizen. Miguel has lived in this country for virtually his entire adult life. Even though Miguel has worked hard every day since he came to the states, because of how he entered the country, we’re struggling to find a path to citizenship for him. Miguel has paid taxes like any American despite never knowing if he might be...

President Donald Trump began February with a proclamation that Black History Month offered “an occasion to celebrate the contributions of so many Black American patriots who have indelibly shaped our nation’s history.” In the closing days of the month, he hosted a Black History Month reception at the White House where he promised he would fight for Black Americans . What he did not mention during his remarks was that the proclamation and reception came amidst a systemic crusade to dismantle the civil rights infrastructure that Black Americans helped build and that sustains our hopes for equal citizenship. One of the first moves Trump made after his inauguration was to issue a wide-ranging executive order ending the federal government’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and firing the public servants who lead that work. He has moved to end affirmative action programs in federal procurement. He has threatened colleges and universities, intimidated non-profit organizatio...