By Alex Berger, Legislative Assistant, ACLU at 4:59pm
Earlier this month, a high school honors student named Kiera Wilmot was charged with felony discharge of a weapon on school property. Her crime? Creating her own science experiment.
When Kiera mixed several household chemicals together in a plastic bottle, she caused a small explosion in her school's parking lot, hurting no one and causing minimal damage. But now she faces up to ten years in prison and a felony criminal record for a crime she had no intention or desire to commit.
By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 2:40pm
Sigh. As if we don’t have enough divisiveness in this country, a familiar subset of Congressional Republicans are trotting out yet another discriminatory bill papered over with hollow rhetoric about “unity,” “commonality” and shared national vision, which will be the subject of a hearing in the House Constitution Subcommittee today. (Here’s the ACLU’s statement, which focuses mainly on the civil rights and immigration issues in the bill; I’m just covering the First Amendment in this post.)
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.
By Chris Rickerd, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:24am
Border Patrol agents work in dangerous situations which can lead to tragic consequences like the shooting death and wounding of agents in Arizona this week. There is no justification for such violence targeting law enforcement officers. Yet there is also a crisis regarding use-of-force by Customs and Border Protection that is severely damaging the agency’s integrity (CBP is the Border Patrol’s parent and includes officers who work at ports of entry). The many recorded incidents of CBP fatalities and abuses demand a comprehensive, independent investigation of CBP policies and practices, as requested by members of Congress, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. A permanent, arm’s-length oversight commission for CBP must also be created.
In 19 states across the country, corporal punishment in schools is still legal. Sadly, in many states, children are better protected against physical discipline in detention facilities than they are in their own classrooms. That fact is a startling reminder that for the many children subjected to corporal punishment or the threat of it every day, school does not feel like a safe place.
Most Americans agree that corporal punishment in our schools is unacceptable. A recent poll indicates that only 23 percent of Americans approve of teachers using corporal punishment on our children. And yet, according to the latest available data from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, over 200,000 students are the victims of this practice every year.
Tomorrow, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights will hold a landmark hearing entitled, Ending the School-to-Prison Pipeline. It is the first time a congressional panel will look at this disturbing national trend where children are pushed out of public schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems because of an overreliance on punitive school discipline policies.
Imagine that someone assumes that you are a criminal based on your race, religion or ethnicity and treats you like one. Take the case of the Latino students at Hoover High School in Los Angeles who were rounded up during lunch, detained for two hours, frisked and interrogated about gang affiliations by Glendale and Los Angeles police officers, despite no evidence of wrong doing.
By Chris Rickerd, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 2:27pm
Secure Communities, the Obama administration's favored immigration enforcement program, has a track record that includes the unlawful detention of U.S. citizens. Antonio Montejano, for example, was held for four days after an arrest stemming from his children's handling of store merchandise. He remained in custody despite repeatedly proclaiming U.S. citizenship and arrived back home to his worried 8-year-old son, who asked "'Dad, can this happen to me too because I look like you?'"
By Laura W. Murphy, Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:04pm
I'm incredibly saddened by the passing of John A. Payton, head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF). Our nation has lost a brilliant warrior for justice, and I've lost a dear friend and colleague in the movement.
I first had the pleasure to meet John during the Clinton era. What I most remember about him is his great respect for humanity, his intensity in using the law to achieve justice and his unparalleled love for his wife.
