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.

 

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.

Waiting for the End of Taxpayer-Funded Hiring Discrimination

By Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:11pm

On July 1, 2008, on the campaign trail in Zanesville, Ohio, then-candidate Barack Obama promised to end hiring discrimination based on religion by organizations — such as the Salvation Army and World Vision — that receive government funding to provide social services. He declared, "If you get a federal grant, you can't...discriminate against...the people you hire...on the basis of their religion." In other words, no one should be disqualified from a taxpayer-funded job to help others because he or she doesn't pass a religious test.

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