Archive

On April 4, 1968, I was 11 and growing up in Memphis when the news came that Martin Luther King had been murdered. My parents couldn’t hide how bad it was – they were angry. They were afraid. And most memorably to my childhood self, they were crying. I couldn’t articulate it at the time, but I know now that I was afraid that killing the dreamer could kill the dream.Exactly one year earlier, in a s... Read More

California legislators heard and responded to the community’s call for action by introducing landmark legislation to change the law governing deadly use of force by police, and to require the disclosure of information about investigations into police use of force and misconduct. Read More

Five years ago, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California and the National Center for Youth Law (NYCL) joined with California Indian Legal Services to file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR), asking that agency to investigate what the groups argued was ongoing racial and disability discrimination against Native American students by Lolet... Read More

Immigration and Customs Enforcement revoked guidance limiting the detention of pregnant women. Read More

Every year, thousands of Californians are jailed before even having their day in court — all because they can't afford to pay bail to buy their freedom. The effects of this unjust money bail system are wide-reaching, tearing apart families and communities across the state. Read More

Two Bay Area fathers who have been detained for over six months at the Contra Costa West County Detention Facility in Richmond, California sued the federal government today in a class action lawsuit challenging their unlawful and prolonged detention. Read More

Report offers parents, students, and the community tips on how to review district LCAPs, engage in the process, and offer input to ensure the money is properly spent. Read More

We learned last weekend that a trove of personal information from 50 million people — one in three U.S. Facebook users — was harvested for an influence and propaganda operation led by Cambridge Analytica, a company later used by the Trump campaign. Was Facebook hacked? Nope. All of this personal information was accessed through the Facebook “app gap,” a major privacy hole in Facebook’s app platfor... Read More

A report by the ACLU Foundations of California and Fresno Building Health Communities, “Is Funding for High-Need Students Actually Reaching Those Students? A Review of Fresno Unified’s Local Control Accountability Plan” details one school district’s attempt to improperly use state funds designated for high need students. In 2014, California passed the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), a law th... Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California joins Sacramento community members in their outrage around the killing of 22-year-old Stephon Clark, who was fatally shot by Sacramento police on Sunday. Read More