Blog of Rights
01/27/2011

Wal-Mart Supreme Court Case Highlights Difficulty of Challenging Pay Disparities

By Lenora M. Lapidus, Women's Rights Project at 5:07pm

Today, business and advocacy groups filed briefs in the Supreme Court in a lawsuit brought by women employees of retail giant Wal-Mart.

In 2001, a group of women brought a lawsuit against the retailer charging that the company engaged in systemic sex discrimination, paying women in stores less than men and discriminating against women in promotions to jobs as managers. Federal trial and appellate courts have ruled that the women may bring their claims as a class, because Wal-Mart's practices — such as leaving many pay and promotion decisions up to the unfettered discretion of store managers, with little objective guidance or oversight — were uniform across the company and may have led to the pay and promotion gaps for women.

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05/20/2008

U.N. Expert on Racism Arrives for Tour of U.S.

By Laleh Ispahani, Racial Justice Program at 10:06am

Yesterday, at the invitation of the United States government, the United Nations' foremost expert on race issues — the Special Rapporteur on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance — arrived in the U.S. The Special Rapporteur, Mr. Doudou Diène, has come here for three weeks to gather first-hand information on these issues, as they manifest themselves in the U.S. During his visit, Mr. Diène will meet with federal and local officials, lawmakers and judicial authorities, and civil society organizations in Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago, Omaha, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Miami, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Mr Diène, a Senegalese lawyer, will report his findings to the U.N. Human Rights Council next year.

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03/06/2013
Solitary Confinement

ACLU, in Geneva, Advocates Against Death Penalty, Solitary Confinement

By Allison Frankel, ACLU Human Rights Program at 10:32am

One year ago, the ACLU's Amy Fettig stood before the United Nations Human Rights Council to condemn the use of solitary confinement in the United States. In a written statement also submitted to the Council last year, the ACLU expressed serious concern over the imposition of the death penalty across the nation. Sadly, we find ourselves this year once again at the same body, imploring the U.S. to live up to its human rights obligations with regard to these practices.

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12/10/2012
Universal Human Rights

Making Human Rights Reality

By Katie Haas, ACLU Human Rights Program at 12:07pm

Today is Human Rights Day and the 64th anniversary of the United Nations’ adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As one of the first documents to present the world with a comprehensive vision of human rights, the declaration is fundamental to the work of social justice movements around the world, and to our work at the ACLU. It lays out universal standards for human dignity that all nations should uphold, and its almost unanimous adoption by the General Assembly in 1948 was a landmark moment for human rights defenders everywhere.

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07/27/2012
Children's Rights

A Decade in Detention for Former Child Soldier

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 11:39am

Today marks a decade in U.S. custody for Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen who is Guantánamo’s youngest prisoner. Even though he has been eligible for transfer back to Canada for almost nine months pursuant to his October 2010 plea deal, he is still detained at Guantánamo. Khadr is the only one of the 168 remaining detainees who was a juvenile when transferred to Guantánamo.

Khadr has grown up at Guantánamo. Now 25, the full beard Khadr has grown since his imprisonment in 2002 obscures the fact that he was only 15 when he was shot and captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

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06/26/2012
U.S. Torture

ACLU Launches Torture Database in Recognition of International Day in Support of Victims of Torture

By Alex Abdo, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 4:41pm
In recognition of the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, we launched the Torture Database, a compilation of over 100,000 pages of documents related to the Bush administration’s rendition, detention, and interrogation policies and practices. The database is our effort to provide meaningful public access to the primary documentation of torture and abuse during the years following September 11, 2001.
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06/25/2012
Juvenile Life Without Parole

ACLU Lens: Supreme Court Rules Against Mandatory Life Without Parole for Children

By Tanya Greene, Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU at 1:56pm

A message for Alabama, Arkansas, and the entire United States: a sentencing scheme of mandatory life in prison without the possibility of parole for juvenile homicide offenders (JLWOP) is cruel and unusual punishment. That’s what the Supreme Court said today when it ruled in Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Hobbs that such sentencing schemes violate the Eight Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

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03/20/2012
Juvenile Life Without Parole

Podcast: Irredeemable at 14?

By Dan Korobkin, ACLU of Michigan at 2:26pm

Matthew Bentley was a teenager when he was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Hear his story in a new podcast.

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03/06/2012
Corporal Punishment in Schools

ACLU Lens: New York Times Highlights Data Showing Harsh Discipline for Minority Students and Students with Disabilities

By Sandhya Bathija, Washington Legislative Office at 12:21pm

Today, the Department of Education will release crucial civil rights data exposing discipline practices in our country's public schools and certain juvenile justice facilities.

In a story published this morning, The New York Times provided a glimpse into this data, which shows that African-American students face harsher discipline measures than other groups. Overall, African-American students were 3 1/2 times as likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers, the Times revealed. And research suggests African-American students are often punished more severely for the same infractions.

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09/29/2011

The Right to Life Denied: Death Penalty Violates the Constitution and International Law

By Avinash Samarth, ACLU National Security Project at 3:51pm

Yesterday, in Warsaw, Poland, Jamil Dakwar of the ACLU Human Rights Program delivered a statement to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) addressing the continued use of capital punishment in the United States.

The OSCE is the world's largest security-oriented intergovernmental group. The 56 countries that make up the organization's membership include the United States, Russia and Canada, along with every European nation. The United States and Belarus are the only two countries in the OSCE that still practice state executions. Since 2009, Belarus has executed 6 people, while the United States has executed 135. In fact, our frequency of executions is matched only by Saudi Arabia, Yemen, North Korea, Iran, and China.

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