By Dennis Parker, Director, ACLU Racial Justice Program at 9:55am
Assessing the legacy of the Fair Housing Act on its 45th Anniversary.
As we celebrate the 45th anniversary of the landmark Fair Housing Act, it is easy to forget how close we came to being denied the benefit of that landmark legislation. After Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1965 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, civil rights supporters were met with fierce Congressional opposition to extend federal anti-discrimination protections to housing. That years-long resistance was only overcome by the anger and frustration that followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King and the growing sense of unfairness that Americans of color could be asked to die in Vietnam but could not rely on the promise of fair housing back in the United States.
An international human rights body is set to question the United States on its obligations under a key human rights treaty. The U.N. Human Rights Committee, an independent body of experts tasked with monitoring compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), this week released its list of issues, which will serve as the basis for its upcoming review of U.S. compliance with the treaty. The U.S. ratified the ICCPR in 1992 and is obligated to submit to periodic reviews of its treaty implementation efforts.
By Chandra Bhatnagar, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Human Rights Program at 10:34am
On this day in 1960, white police officers in Sharpeville, South Africa, opened fire on a peaceful anti-apartheid demonstration killing 69 black South African protestors...
By Brian Stull, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 10:44am
Welcome to March Madness at the ACLU! We know you usually turn to other sources for this kind of coverage, but we've got something important to add. As you're filling out winning brackets, imagine this scenario: the tournament selection committee decides that squads who fly blue as a team color are three times more likely to be invited to the tournament than non-blue teams. Duke, Kansas, and Michigan are likely in, but say goodbye to most of these powerhouses: Louisville (red & black), Indiana (red & white), Miami (green & orange), and Michigan State (green & white).
By Robert Hunter, Legal Assistant, ACLU, Racial Justice Program at 12:38pm
To illustrate its cover story about the housing market’s recovery in Phoenix, last week’s Bloomberg Businessweek cover depicted four black and Latino caricatures with obscenely exaggerated features, celebrating in a house filled with cash. You might wonder why an article about a tentative economic upturn should be represented by such alarmingly racist stereotypes—as though it’s a problem that people of color to have access to credit. After intense blowback, Bloomberg Businessweekresponded, asserting “Our cover illustration last week got strong reactions, which we regret. Our intention was not to incite or offend. If we had to do it over again we’d do it differently.” However, their “apology” and its focus on their “intention” misses the larger point: Reducing complex economic systems to a caricature, particularly when it is done with an agenda, obscures the real sources of inequality and unfairly blames the victim.
By Robyn Greene, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:25pm
On Friday, The New York Times published an excellent report about the FBI's failure to investigate two 2007 hate crimes that was based on FBI documents the ACLU of Northern California, the Asian Law Caucus and the San Francisco Bay Guardian uncovered through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on the FBI's Racial Mapping program.
