Blog of Rights
Rachel
Goodman
Rachel Goodman is a Staff Attorney at the Racial Justice Program of the American Civil Liberties Union. She litigates cases combatting racial profiling, discrimination in housing and lending, and the school-to-prison pipeline. Previously, she served as a Karpatkin Fellow on the Racial Justice Program and clerked for the Honorable Joseph A. Greenaway, III, on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. She is a graduate of New York University School of Law, where she was an Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties and Civil Rights Fellow, and of Yale College.
04/03/2013
Student Rights in School

YOLO: So Why Was a Texas Prankster Suspended When There Were Better Options?

By Rachel Goodman, Staff Attorney, ACLU Racial Justice Program at 1:28pm

Kyron Birdine, a high school junior in Arlington, Texas, didn't see much point to taking an extra standardized test...

Read More»
07/27/2011
Foreclosure

Growing Inequality Hobbles Communities of Color

By Rachel Goodman, Staff Attorney, ACLU Racial Justice Program at 7:51am

In an ideal world, a rising tide really would lift all boats. But we know it doesn’t work like that. And, as a new report shows, when the tide goes out, not every boat is equally likely to get stranded.

The median wealth of white households is now an unprecedented 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households, according to an analysis released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center. This staggering disparity is the largest since the government began tracking such data over a quarter-century ago.

Read More»
06/24/2011

Why Men of Color Aren’t Graduating From College

By Rachel Goodman, Staff Attorney, ACLU Racial Justice Program & Swati Prakash, Racial Justice Program at 7:17pm

Let’s be straight when we talk about why it is men of color aren’t graduating from college.

It’s true, as this week’s College Board report notes, that just one in four African-American or Native-American men, and one in five Latino men, hold an associate’s degree or higher. But how can we be surprised about this outcome when boys of color attend public schools more segregated today than they were in the 1960’s? Since Brown v. Board of Education officially ended racial segregation in schools, white flight to private schools combined with residential segregation has isolated children of color. The way we finance schools concentrates funding in wealthy communities, which dooms poor children, often children of color, to attend schools severely lacking in resources.

Read More»
Statistics image