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.

 

12/28/2012
Using Religion to Discriminate

The Sweeping License to Discriminate Hidden in the NDAA

By Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Ian S. Thompson, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 1:58pm

With Congress having recently approved this year’s NDAA, we think it is important to draw attention to a provision (Section 533(a)(1)), which, though hidden away, is unprecedented, sweeping, and could invite dangerous claims of a right to discriminate against not just lesbian, gay, and bisexual service members, but also women, religious minorities, and in the provision of health care.

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02/22/2013
Radically Wrong: A Counterproductive Approach to Counterterrorism

Radically Wrong: Misstated Threats - Terrorism isn’t an American-Muslim Problem

By Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:50pm

Despite evidence to the contrary, the government continues to embrace a theory that adopting radical ideas is a first step toward terrorist violence. Based on this discredited model, "preventive" policies are being pursued, resulting in discrimination, suspicionless surveillance of entire communities, and selective law enforcement against belief communities and political activists. The following is the second installment in the ACLU blog series "Radically Wrong," which highlights counterterrorism policies that are not only ineffective, but also undermine our constitutional rights.

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04/30/2013
Employment Discrimination

Why ENDA's Religious Exemption Must Be Narrowed

By Ian S. Thompson, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:21am

Remarkably, there are only 16 states that currently have workplace non-discrimination laws that are fully inclusive of LGBT people. This leaves LGBT people vulnerable to workplace discrimination in well over half of the country–an unacceptable situation that must be changed.

To address this, last week, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) was reintroduced in Congress. The legislation would prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in most American workplaces, a critically important step towards full equality for LGBT people.

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02/13/2013
Using Religion to Discriminate

Protecting Constitutional Principles — Even After Disasters

By Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Tyler Ray, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:47pm

This was cross-posted to the American Constitution Society blog. 

The impact Superstorm Sandy had on homes, businesses, nonprofits, and houses of worship across the Northeast was devastating. And still, in the wake of the storm, these institutions reached out to their communities to provide the help they could. At the same time, they began the process of their own rebuilding; for congregations, this meant repairing their sanctuaries and sacred spaces.

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04/16/2012
Religious Discrimination

A Look at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom

By Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:31pm

In 1998, Congress created the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom to draw attention to violations of religious freedom in other countries. The commissioners vote annually to list countries that are of particular concern or place others on a watch list of countries that should be monitored closely for religious freedom violations.

But, since its inception, the commission's been beset by controversy. People who watch the commission closely say it was created to satisfy special interests, which has led to bias in the commission's work. Past commissioners and staff have reported that the commission is "rife, behind-the-scenes, with ideology and tribalism." They've said that commissioners focus "on pet projects that are often based on their own religious background." In particular, past commissioners and staff reported "an anti-Muslim bias runs through the Commission's work."

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12/07/2011
Anti-Muslim Bias

Congress: Stop Targeting American Muslims and Protect Muslim Service Members

By Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Devon Chaffee, Legislative Policy Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 9:42am

Congress continues to target Muslims even though empirical studies show that violent threats cannot be identified by any religious, ideological, ethnic or racial profile.

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06/13/2012
LGBT Discrimination in the Workplace

ENDA Is Good, Could Be Even Better

By Ian S. Thompson, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:04pm

On Tuesday, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions held an important hearing on workplace discrimination experienced by those who are or perceived to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT). The hearing addressed the need for federal legislation, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), to create uniform protections for LGBT people in the workplace.   The sad reality remains that it is legal to fire or refuse to hire workers based on sexual orientation in 29 states and gender identity in 34 states.

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06/17/2011

Government-Funded Hiring Discrimination Is a Big Step in the Wrong Direction

By Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:54am

On Monday, we celebrated the 44th anniversary of an important civil rights milestone, the Supreme Court decision in the ACLU case Loving v. Virginia, which struck down state bans on interracial marriage. At an event at the Capitol, we screened The Loving Story (a terrific documentary) and hosted a panel discussion with the film's director and producer, Nancy Buirski, one of the Lovings' attorneys, Phil Hirschkop, and Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Bobby Scott (both of whom Laura Murphy—the director of ACLU's Washington Legislative Office and our moderator for the evening—rightly called our most stalwart defenders of the Constitution).

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08/01/2012
Employment Discrimination

Obama Promised to Stop Government-Funded Discrimination. Has He?

By Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:51pm

Four years ago last month, then-candidate Barack Obama promised to ensure that religious organizations that receive government funds to provide social services abide by the Constitution and are not allowed to discriminate with government funding. Today, we sent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the Department of Justice to follow up on that promise.

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09/19/2011

Now Hiring (Some Exclusions May Apply)

By Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Tyler Ray, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:29am

Right now, the White House is wholly focused on getting people back to work. That should be great news for the American people. Why is it then that the administration has a damaging policy that actually limits certain jobs to only certain people? By allowing religious organizations that receive taxpayer money to hire (or fire) for government-funded positions based on religion, the Obama administration is limiting the job pool for all Americans

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