Yesterday, we filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Supreme Court in a case called United States Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, opposing the so-called "Anti-Prostitution Pledge." The Pledge is a requirement that public health organizations who wish government funding for their work combatting AIDS and other diseases make a formal statement "opposing prostitution."
Last month, we filed a complaint on behalf of Jennifer Maudlin, a single mother who was fired for becoming pregnant while unmarried. Jennifer's case is one of a growing number of challenges to employers who fire unmarried workers for becoming pregnant or for using reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization. Marital status discrimination against pregnant women and parents is widespread, and the number of Americans who may at some point be its targets is huge. According to the Census Bureau, about a third of pregnant women are unmarried, and the number of unmarried parents is over 13 million. Of unmarried parents who live with their children, women outnumber men by a factor of nearly 6. In addition, many parents, about 2 million, choose to raise their children together while unmarried.
Yesterday, a task force appointed by New York governor David Paterson issued its report on the state's juvenile justice system. The report acknowledges the findings of the ACLU's 2006 report, Custody and Control — which documents the abuse and neglect of girls incarcerated in New York — and calls for radical changes in how New York responds to delinquency.
Recently, a mother in South Carolina reached out to the ACLU for help. She was pregnant, and although she had had two prior cesarean surgeries, she wished to attempt a “trial of labor,” that is, to give birth naturally, rather than having a scheduled cesarean surgery. The mother’s wish made sense in light of her medical history, and according to professional standards set by obstetricians.
After meeting with visitors, prisoners in a Michigan prison are forced to remove all of their clothing and spread open their vaginal lips as a guard peers into their vaginal cavities.
In recent years, the number of public schools segregating their students by sex has ballooned, despite mounting evidence that single-sex programs don’t improve academic performance and instead perpetuate sex stereotypes. But things are changing. This week, yet another school district — this time in Tallapoosa County, Alabama — agreed to stop segregating its 350 middle school students by sex. The development in Alabama follows a string of similar turnarounds by school districts in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Louisiana.
Just outside the town of Ponce, on Puerto Rico’s southern coast, is a prison for girls. Although the place is named “Center for Detention and Treatment” (Centro de Detención y Tratamiento Social), little by way of “treatment” goes on there. Instead, the Ponce facility looks, feels, and functions in many ways like an adult prison. The buildings are topped with coils of razor wire. The girls wear prison uniforms and sleep on thin mattresses over beds of cement. While most of the workers wear civilian clothes, there is a uniformed corps of enforcers, called “custody staff.” These heavies carry pepper spray and metal handcuffs, and are called in to get physical if a child misbehaves. Children’s contact with their families is severely limited, and a sign in the visiting room declares: “Kisses, caresses, or any demonstration of affection that could attract the attention of those present are forbidden.” (“No se permiten besos, caricias o cualquier demostración de afecta que pueda atraer la atención de los presentes”).
Women's History Month and International Women's Day celebrate the strides toward dignity and equality that women have made around the world. They are also a chance to reflect on the work we still have to do, and the particular challenges faced by women at the margins, including those in the criminal justice system.
Today, an appeals court in New Jersey handed down a major win for the ACLU and its clients — a group of women prisoners who stood up against cruel and discriminatory prison conditions. The court's decision was also a rebuke to government officials who say whatever they can to escape liability, and to judges who won't hold officials accountable. What's more, the court also set out legal rules that, in its own words, help "afford access to the judicial process to persons who have little or no money with which to hire a lawyer," and add "substantive meaning to our commitment to the principle of justice for all citizens."
In December 2007, the New Jersey Department of Corrections (DOC) moved about 40 women prisoners from the state's sole women's prison to a unit within an enormous men's maximum security prison. In that prison-within-a-prison, the women suffered degrading and discriminatory conditions, including 22 hour lockdown, and denials of medical care, privacy, and basic sanitation. Even the little windows of the women's cells were painted over, making the cells into dim caves.
