On April 22, the Supreme Court will hear the case of Johnson v. Grants Pass, the most significant court case about the rights of people experiencing homelessness in decades. At its core, Grants Pass will decide whether cities are allowed to punish people for things like sleeping outside with a pillow or blanket—even when there are no safe shelter o…

From the ACLU, this is At Liberty. I'm Kendall Ciesemier, your host.A month ago, we visited one of our favorite spots, the library. You know, at the ACLU, we love a good library. So much so that we even spent a recent Saturday night at the Brooklyn Public Library, along with some 5,000 others, for their annual enrichment event, Night in the Library…

Last December, Texas lawmakers passed Senate Bill 4, one of the most extreme pieces of anti-immigrant legislation to emerge from any state legislature. Under S.B. 4, local and state law enforcement can arrest people they suspect to have entered Texas without federal authorization. It also permits Texas judges, who are not trained in immigration law…

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that will determine if nationwide restrictions are imposed on access to mifepristone, a safe medication used in more than half of all U.S. abortions, and for miscarriage treatment. What the court decides later this year will have significant implications on our ability to access abortion,…

The United States is home to the largest immigrant population in the world, with hundreds of thousands more seeking asylum and citizenship. America would not be what it is today if not for immigration and the contributions of millions of those who have come here, bolstering the population, strengthening the economy, and weaving their cultures into …

The “American dream” has long been regarded as the pinnacle of success, rewarded to all who display hard work and pick themselves up by their bootstraps when life knocks them down. This might be our culture’s prevailing narrative, but it actually rarely bears out this way. The truth is that our system is full of inequities that put large swaths of …

At the end of 2023, migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border hit a record high of 250,000, with a surge of individuals and families entering cities like Chicago, Denver, New York, Houston, and Los Angeles. Despite this, politicians and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle continue to struggle to meet demands and refuse to compromise on border p…

On February 16, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children under state law, meaning the embryo has rights consistent with a person living in the United States. While this marks the first time a frozen embryo has been granted personhood, it is not the first time we’ve seen anti-abortion lawmakers elevate and amplify the idea of…

On August 10th, 2009, the North Carolina legislature passed the Racial Justice Act, or RJA. A first of its kind law that allows people on death row to challenge their sentences if they could show race played a factor at the time of their trial. This historic legislation allowed us at the ACLU to successfully bring claims on behalf of four people ba…

Since 1965, the Voting Rights Act (VRA) has been integral to protecting people of color at the polls. But in recent decades, the strength of the VRA has been diminished by decisions like Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, and the subsequent influx of voter restrictions imposed by states. Despite this, there are ways we can fight back in the courts. S…

Free speech on campus, book bans, education gag orders, the overturn of affirmative action, the resignation of former Harvard president Claudine Gay. All of these issues center on one hot-button topic: DEI.Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) has become a staple in national vocabulary after the so-called “racial reckoning” of 2020 brought demands…

As the gang conspiracy trial of rapper Young Thug and his famed rap collective, YSL, extends past 20 days in Atlanta, we’re bringing you a conversation about the use of rap lyrics in court.Despite a groundswell of activism and legal opposition against the legal admissibility of Young Thug’s lyrics, a judge ruled in November that lyrics from Young T…

This week, At Liberty is coming to you live from the 2024 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, hosting a discussion with queer and transgender storytellers. The conversation delves into the challenges they face while navigating an onslaught of bills targeting trans people nationwide and censoring their narratives. This dialogue follows a rece…

This year marks the 51st anniversary since the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Roe v. Wade, protecting the constitutional right to abortion in 1973. Unfortunately, this anniversary is marred by the overturn of Roe by the Supreme Court in 2022, resulting in the continued denial of the power to make personal medical decisions during pregnan…

Last year, states passed a record number of bills restricting health care, athletics, public accommodations, expression, and educational materials for trans people — trans kids, more specifically. With the turn of a new year, the situation continues to grow dire.Laws threatening access to gender-affirming care went into effect in several states on …

“Imagine that you, at age fifteen, have been sentenced to social death, life without parole, in a space nine feet by seven—the size of a freight elevator—where for twenty-two to twenty-four hours a day you are trapped; where in a deadly daily routine you sleep, wake up, shit, piss, eat—food slipped through a slot as if you were an animal, where you…

For a special year-end holiday episode, we’re bringing you our third edition of “ACLU kids take over At Liberty.” Kids of ACLU staff spoke to their parents about what they do at work and how they fight for civil rights and civil liberties. They also had some hot takes about how they can do better — at everything. We hope you enjoy it.…

2023 is coming to a close, and we have weathered so much this year. At the ACLU, we continue to fight for civil rights and civil liberties across the country. We’re prying open every opportunity for abortion access and reproductive health care following the overturn of Roe, blocking trans health care bans nationwide, filing lawsuits to curb the ris…

Free speech is one of the hallmarks of a functioning democracy and one of our fundamental constitutional rights. At the ACLU, we know that it's precisely in times of crisis and fear when free speech, open debate, and peaceful dissent are most important.Over the last few months, as the world continues to witness the catastrophe in Israel and Palesti…

On January 21, 2017, a day after the inauguration of former President Donald Trump, activist and journalist Raquel Willis approached the podium at the inaugural Women’s March in Washington, D.C. to share her story at what became one of the largest single-day marches in U.S. history. With this momentous platform, Willis was determined to galvanize t…

The holiday season is upon us. This week, we are revisiting our conversation with author and activist Glennon Doyle. In this conversation, Doyle and host Kendall Ciesemier discuss how to bring loved ones into our understanding of equity and justice through the use of storytelling, imagination, and conversation. It’s an episode fit for such a time a…

If you’re staying up to date with the news, you may have noticed that unions are having a moment. This summer alone, strikes by members of the WGA, UAW, SAG-AFTRA, UPS, Starbucks, Amazon, and Kaiser Permanente unions, among others, have made headlines and signaled solidarity between workers across the nation. Last year, public support for unions hi…

On Tuesday, people across the country took to the polls and made one thing crystal clear: abortion rights matter to voters.In Ohio, voters passed an amendment to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, making it the seventh state to protect abortion access through the ballot box. In Virginia, voters elected a full pro-abortion rights ma…

On October 24, Britney Spears released her tell-all memoir, “The Woman in Me.” In the book, she traces her journey from childhood stardom to living 13 years under the control of a conservatorship, a court-sanctioned arrangement that strips people with disabilities of their civil liberties.In Spears’ case, her dad, who she characterizes in the book …

On November 7th, Ohio voters will decide whether to pass Issue 1, which would protect their decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, miscarriage care, and abortion.The fact that this amendment is even on the ballot is a huge feat. Ohioans had to submit hundreds of thousands of signatures to get the reproductive freedom amendment on the ball…