Blog of Rights
Dena
Sher

Dena is legislative counsel at the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. Sher joined the ACLU in 2011, after four years as the the state legislative counsel with Americans United for Separation of Church and State. She worked with legislators, activists, and coalition partners on legislation, policy, and ballot initiatives that affected religious liberties, including school vouchers, healthcare refusals and religion in the workplace. She was also an Equal Justice Works fellow at Americans United. Her Equal Justice Works project investigated how programs funded under President Bush’s Faith-Based Initiative were implemented. Sher also worked on many of the cases litigated by AU during her fellowship.

Sher is a graduate of George Washington University Law School and Georgetown University.

 

06/21/2012
Anti-Muslim Bias

A Hearing on a Hearing: Rep. Peter King Prioritizes Navel Gazing

By Devon Chaffee, Legislative Policy Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:12pm

Yesterday Peter King (R-NY), Chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, brought congressional navel gazing to a new level by holding a hearing on his past hearings that have singled out and perpetuated dangerous stereotypes about the American Muslim community.  As advertised, the hearing—which may have been the first ever of its kind—focused not on how Congress could make the homeland more secure or on the nature and scope of real security threats, but on whether King’s own past hearings were justified.

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12/01/2011

Who’s Abusing Their Power? House Oversight Committee’s Show-Trial Takes HHS to Task for Helping Trafficking Victims

By Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Sarah Lipton-Lubet, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 6:28pm

In the upside-down, through-the looking-glass world we often find ourselves in, in our nation’s capital, today the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing “investigating” why Catholic organizations only received $650 million in grants from the Department of Health and Human Services over the last three years, instead of $650 million and change. Never mind that under this administration, as Rep. Gerry Connolly noted, Catholic groups have gotten $100 million more than under Bush. What brought on this investigation? A several million dollar grant to provide services for human trafficking victims that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops bid on, but did not receive. The bishops and their political allies are crying discrimination. As Rep. John Tierney noted this morning, I’m sure a lot of people would like to be discriminated against like that.

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11/04/2011

Special Exceptions for Religious Organizations Threaten Liberty

By Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Tyler Ray, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:35am

Last week, at a congressional hearing on “The State of Religious Liberty in the United States,” Rep. Jim Jordan asked a witness what the biggest threat to religious liberty is today. The response from Colby May, from the American Center for Law and Justice, a frequent opponent in our advocacy and litigation: whether or not religious organizations get special exceptions to laws designed to protect those who need government services. We agree with May that this is a critical issue. Needless to say, though, we take different sides.

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07/18/2011
Religious Discrimination

Obama Administration Can't Make the Case for Religious Discrimination

By Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Elayne Weiss, Washington Legislative Office at 4:38pm

What a disappointing, and frankly lame, response. Last month, the ACLU, along with more than 50 organizations, sent a letter to President Obama urging him to end taxpayer-funded hiring discrimination based on religion in government contracts. President George W. Bush had rolled back this civil rights protection, which was first established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1941. President Obama promised to change this policy, but so far nothing. Thus, the coalition wrote to the president to again ask him to restore the civil rights protection.

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06/23/2011
Hiring Discrimination

President Obama: Restore Civil Rights Protections!

By Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 2:03pm

Seventy years ago this week, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered all federal agencies to "include in all defense contracts hereafter negotiated by them a provision obligating the contractor not to discriminate against any worker because of race, creed, color, or national origin." This was the first action taken by the government to promote equal opportunity in the workplace for all Americans, and such fair employment protections were later expanded to include all government contracts and have been strengthened by nearly every president since.

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04/23/2012
Using Religion to Discriminate

White House Should Focus on the Constitution, Not the Bible

By Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 2:41pm

Last week, it was reported that the president of the American Bible Society is meeting with Joshua DuBois, the head of the President's Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, "to begin a dialogue on the importance of the Bible in the founding of the country." The American Bible Society president said, "It's impossible to separate the formation of our democratic republic from the foundation of Scripture." As we know, however, our Constitution is not based on biblical principles.

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02/17/2012
Contraception

Wanted: Women on Birth Control, Not Men on Ham Sandwiches

By Sarah Lipton-Lubet, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 6:17pm

Yesterday's House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on the new HHS rule that requires insurance plans to include birth control with no co-pay (except for those held by churches or religiously affiliated nonprofits like universities) has caused quite a stir. A few observations:

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12/07/2011

Looking for Simple Answers to Basic Questions on Faith-Based Hiring

By Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Tyler Ray, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:04pm

It’s been almost three years of silence from President Obama on the issue of whether religious organizations may discriminate when hiring for government-funded positions. Let’s take a walk down memory lane to find out where we have been. In 2008, then-candidate Obama promised to restore anti-discrimination protections and end policies put in place by the previous administration that allow the federal government to subsidize employment discrimination on the basis of religion. If only. Instead, his administration decided that hiring discrimination will be reviewed on a “case-by-case” basis.

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11/18/2011
Using Religion to Discriminate

Helping Trafficking Victims Isn’t Biased

By Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 9:44pm

Earlier this week, Michael Gerson, an op-ed writer for The Washington Post, penned a particularly troubling piece, accusing the Obama administration—and the ACLU—of anti-Catholic bias, because “the conscience protections of Catholics are under assault.”

The “conscience protections” he mentions are really a license for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, powerful lobbyists whose political agenda differs from lay Catholics sitting in the pews, who contracted with the government to provide services to victims of trafficking, to refuse to provide access to one set of critical services—the full range of reproductive health care, which includes contraception and abortion.

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08/10/2011

Since When Is the First Amendment an Afterthought?

By Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:03pm
"If your focus is first and foremost serving people in need, then there's not a tremendous amount of time left to debate the finer points of the church-state relationship."
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