American Civil Liberties Union

Today, April 12, 2011, is Equal Pay Day – the day into 2011 that a woman has to work, on average, to make the same as a man did in just 2010 alone. As I write on this year’s Equal Pay Day, I cannot help but reflect on the fact that only a few days ago we avoided a government shutdown just in the nick of time. An estimated 800,000 federal workers would have been affected by the shutdown—leaving many incredibly worried, particularly about what that meant for their pay. Living in Washington, D.C., there was a lot of talk about getting by with less and how to manage if income was reduced. The stress over the possibility of not getting paychecks was palpable. However, just a few minutes before midnight last Friday, a collective sigh of relief rolled over this city, when a deal was struck.

Yesterday, the House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Healthy Families and Communities conducted a hearing seeking to address the problems stemming from corporal punishment in public schools — the first Congressional hearing on this important issue since 1992. The ACLU and Human Rights Watch (HRW) submitted a statement for the record that discussed the ongoing corporal punishment of American public school children and its impact on their educational success.

(Originally posted on Huffington Post.)

As a society, we adhere to the basic premise that, in the proper setting, children will learn what they are taught. And it follows that in learning to become positive and involved adults, children need to be encouraged and supported in their school environments.

(Originally posted on Daily Kos.)

As the Supreme Court has indicated, "[n]o right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live. Other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined." Unfortunately, in America today, millions of citizens work, pay taxes, live in our communities and bring up families, yet they are without a voice. According to a 2008 ACLU/Brennan Center report, an estimated 5.3 million citizens cannot vote as a result of a felony conviction, and nearly 4 million of those citizens have been released from prison and are living and working in the community.

Worse still, felony disfranchisement laws are rooted in the Jim Crow era and were intended to bar minorities from voting. The impact of these laws continues today. Nationwide, 13 percent of African American men have lost the right to vote — a rate seven times the national average. Latino citizens are also disproportionately disfranchised because they are over-represented in the criminal justice system. In turn, this has impacted the families of those who are disfranchised and the communities in which they reside by reducing their collective political voice.

States have vastly different approaches to allowing those with criminal convictions to vote, which often compound the problems further. For example, some states disfranchise some, but not all, citizens with criminal convictions, while others allow voting after a sentence is completed or after release from prison. Two states, Virginia and Kentucky, permanently disfranchise citizens with felony convictions unless the state approves individual rights restoration; two states, Maine and Vermont, allow all persons with felony convictions to vote, even while incarcerated; all other states fall somewhere in between.