Blog

One year ago Matthew Barrett was offered a job as a food services director at Fontbonne Academy, a college prep high school in Milton, Mass. With 20 years of work in the food services industry, Matthew was clearly well qualified. Read More

What does an 86-year-old art photographer have in common with a young man with a video game habit? Not just a proclivity for perfectly innocuous hobbies, unfortunately. These days, engaging in either activity can get the FBI on your case. Read More

There are children in cages along the U.S.-Mexico border right now. And more are showing up every day. Read More

Calaveras County Board of Supervisors passed a law to praise a local organization not just for its work in the community but also for its mission of “inviting” women in the community to “see for themselves the many blessings that can come from living the teachings of Christ.” They also failed to allow community members - many of whom were at the meeting to oppose this resolution - to speak out abo... Read More

This week’s unprecedented Hobby Lobby decision deserves the widespread criticism it has attracted: the Supreme Court decreed that corporations, which lack souls, have religious beliefs; even more jaw-dropping, it decreed that those anthropomorphic beliefs trump workers’ health, reproductive choices and equality. Read More

While immigration detention is supposed to be “civil” detention, as opposed to incarceration as punishment for a crime, the conditions that immigrants experience are anything but civil. People detained by ICE are bused daily to immigration court wearing jumpsuits and metal handcuffs, belly chains, and leg irons in San Francisco. Read More

Today, the Supreme Court struck down a Massachusetts law creating a 35 foot buffer zone around abortion facilities. The Court balanced two fundamental rights: freedom of speech on public sidewalks and women’s right to access reproductive health care. At the ACLU, we care deeply about both rights, and believe that in balancing rights in conflict the goal is to safeguard both. In our view, the Court... Read More

The United States Supreme Court unanimously acknowledged what common sense tells us and everyone who owns a cell phone (yes, that would be just about everyone) already knows: Our cell phones have a whole lot of private information about us. The Court therefore held that cops need a warrant to search a cell phone.In one of the best references to extraterrestrial life to appear in a recent (or perha... Read More

Growing up in any city it is easy to see the inequalities that permeate every-day life. Growing up in the Bay Area has provided me with so many opportunities to become aware and involved in challenging those inequalities. My time as an intern at the ACLU of Northern California helped me understand how to better do that. Read More

Today is Juneteenth and the United States just executed three black men from three southern states in 24 hours. This is outrageous.Here’s a Throwback Thursday for you. June 19, 1865: African American men, women, and children in Galveston, Texas, rejoiced and celebrated in the streets after hearing these words, “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Execu... Read More

Barely a generation ago, California’s schools were the greatest in the nation. Now, the state’s education is abysmal, ranking 49th in the nation on how much it spends on students.California is taking steps to change the way it invests in schools and students to turn this tide.The Local Control and Funding Formula is one of the ways that the state is supporting the students who need it the most. It... Read More

While we await much-needed federal immigration reform, dozens of counties are refusing ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) requests to detain immigrants in local jails. Read More