Alabama

Hello, Alabama? Can You Hear Us Now?

By Elissa Berger, Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU at 1:58pm

On the front lines of the war on women, the people of Alabama have a battle cry: Enough is Enough.

ACLU Joins in Briefing Members of Congress on the Implications of Arizona v. U.S.

By Laura W. Murphy, Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:19pm

Today we let federal lawmakers know that Arizona’s racial profiling law, S.B. 1070, is about much more than just the state of Arizona and its immigrants. It’s about how we see ourselves as a nation.

Throwaway Kids?

By Tanya Greene, Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU at 1:41pm

Next week the United States Supreme Court will hear arguments in two historic cases. Incredibly, the cases — from Alabama, Miller v. Alabama, and Arkansas, Jackson v. Hobbs — concern the practice, unique to the United States, of imprisoning teenagers for the rest of their natural lives for crimes committed while they were still developing into adulthood. The U.S. stands utterly alone on this one — no other country in the world locks up its children for crimes committed before they could legally drive, join the military, vote or sometimes even get married.

Victory! Appeals Court Blocks Additional Provisions of H.B. 56, Alabama's Anti-Immigrant Law

By Cecillia Wang, ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project at 12:47pm

These provisions were intended "to attack every aspect" of Alabamians' lives and to expel them from the state.

The Verdict is Out: Why States Are Already Shifting Away from Alabama and Arizona's Failed Anti-Immigrant Experiment

By Jonathan Blazer, ACLU at 5:43pm

In state after state, legislatures that had vowed to adopt sweeping new immigration restrictions are now taking pause. What happened?

Alabama Under Siege: The Human Costs of H.B. 56

By Justin Cox, Immigrants' Rights Project at 4:17pm

Alabama's immigrant and Latino communities remain in a state of terror five months after some provisions of the law went into effect.

ACLU Client Scott Douglas on The Colbert Report

By Elizabeth Beresford, ACLU at 5:21pm

Last night on The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert interviewed Scott Douglas III, executive director of the Greater Birmingham Ministries. Douglas is a plaintiff in the ACLU and a coalition of civil rights groups’ lawsuit challenging H.B. 56, Alabama’s draconian anti-immigrant law.

In this video, Douglas talks about why he’s a plaintiff in our case:

Stopping South Carolina from Sharing Alabama's Fate

By Cecillia Wang, ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project at 7:37pm

The fate of civil liberties in South Carolina will be decided by year’s end. Today, a coalition of South Carolinians and civil rights organizations went to federal district court in Charleston to stop the last anti-immigrant law passed this year.

Like its shameful predecessors, Arizona’s SB 1070 and Alabama’s HB 56, South Carolina’s law would turn police officers and sheriff’s deputies into roving immigration agents who are authorized to demand papers from anyone they suspect of being an undocumented immigrant.

Turning the Tide Against Unlawful Sex Segregation in Public Schools

By Mie Lewis, Women's Rights Project at 12:32pm

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.

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