Henderson et al. v. Bentley
In 2011, the ACLU National Prison Project and the AIDS Project, along with the ACLU of Alabama, sued the Alabama Department of Corrections for discrimination against inmates living with HIV.
Alabama is one of only two states that continues to segregate inmates living with HIV in separate housing assignments, and otherwise restricts their access to prison programs including work release, drug rehabilitation programs, and other highly coveted privileges such as housing in the honor or faith-based dorms. After years of advocacy with the Alabama Department of Corrections failed to eliminate this policy, we filed suit in federal district court in March 2011, challenging the Alabama Department of Corrections' policy on behalf of all inmates living with HIV.
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The state of Alabama has moved to dismiss the case, arguing that an appeals court decision from 1999, which upheld the segregated housing policy because HIV was, in the court's words, an "invariably fatal disease" controls the outcome of the issue today, despite critical advances in medical treatment for HIV.
