Racial profiling is law enforcement and private security practices that disproportionately target people of color for investigation and enforcement. The ACLU works on behalf of individuals who have been victims of racial profiling by airlines, police, and government agencies. Our work also encompasses major initiatives in public education and advocacy, including the creation of essential resources, lobbying for the passage of data collection and anti-profiling legislation, and litigation of airline and highway profiling cases.
By Alex Berger, Legislative Assistant, ACLU at 3:35pm
Just over a year ago, the Senate Judiciary Committee held its first hearing on racial profiling in over a decade on the heels of the murder of 17-year-old Florida resident Trayvon Martin.
His death gave a face to the terrible practice of racial profiling and brought new media scrutiny to the issue.
Over the years, many of our political leaders have recognized the injustice that results from racial profiling. President Obama and President Bush have both urged an end to this discriminatory practice. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft said racial profiling "needs to stop [because] every American has a right to look to law enforcement officials to protect their rights." These sentiments were echoed by Attorney General Eric Holder in 2009 in his testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee.
By Alison Silveira, Paralegal, Racial Justice Program, ACLU at 3:01pm
Five dollars is apparently all it takes to land a 7-year-old in handcuffs in a New York City public school these days.
Parents across New York City awoke Wednesday morning to the news that Bronx third-grader Wilson Reyes was pulled out of class, handcuffed and interrogated over the course of 10 hours at his elementary school, and later, at a local precinct. Reyes was charged with robbery after someone said he grabbed $5 that a classmate had dropped on the floor, causing a scuffle among several boys.
It’s been more than a year since I was pulled off that Frontier flight at the Detroit airport for reasons I can only ascribe to discrimination and racial profiling. It was the end of a long trip home for me, but the beginning of a life-altering experience that has ultimately led me to shine a light on this great injustice. We often think of racial profiling as a problem that impacts other people. I am proof that racial profiling hurts us all.
By Kara Dansky, Senior Counsel, ACLU Center for Justice at 11:19am
President Obama is the first sitting president in recent history to speak out against criminal justice policies that hurt inner city and rural communities. This is a big deal.
By Laura W. Murphy, Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:18pm
Why can’t President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder do more to ban racial profiling in the United States? Surely, more so than any of their predecessors, they can understand the injustice and humiliation racial profiling victims feel when they are treated as suspect because of the color of their skin.
Yet, after four years in office, they’ve made no revisions to the Justice Department guidance regarding the use of race in federal law enforcement issued by Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2003. Ashcroft’s guidance was deficient: though it expressly banned racial profiling by federal law enforcement agencies, it left broad exemptions for national security and border integrity investigations.
On December 16, 2010, West High School officials in Salt Lake City, Utah invited the Metro Gang Task Force into the school to conduct a gang sweep. Students identified, searched and interrogated by the police were mostly Latino/a or, in the case of Kaleb Winston, African-American. He was targeted by his school and by the Task Force as a potential gang member, searched and accused of being a tagger. As an artist, Kaleb had a notebook full of drawings in a backpack manufactured to look like it had been spray-painted. But because graffiti is loosely defined, if at all, the police decided Kaleb was a “gang tagger” despite his denials. Kaleb was then forced to hold up a sign with the words “My name is Kaleb Winston and I am a gang tagger.” Law enforcement officers told him that this information was being placed into a database and that the information would be removed if he did not get into trouble for two years. Kaleb was emotionally devastated by the experience. He is not and has never been in a gang. Yet, his attendance at school that day, not bad behavior, made him the subject of intense police scrutiny and he now lives with the fear that the police view him as a suspect.
For 19-year-old Hugo Carrillo Escobedo, SB1070 is about more than just “showing your papers.” After “squealing” his tires, Hugo wound up in immigration detention for eight hours. Hugo’s story is particularly compelling because he was initially just given a citation for the traffic violation and immediately released. But the police officer later showed up at his house, saying: “Do you know about SB1070? If I don’t report you, I could lose my job.”
