News

The ACLU of Northern California has been named the Community Organization Grand Marshal for San Francisco Pride 2012. The ACLU has a decades-long history advocating equality for LGBT people. It brought its first LGBT rights suit in 1936 and over many decades helped what became a strong movement for LGBT equality. Today, the ACLU remains in the thick of the battle, fighting for the recognition of s... Read More

Today, parents and teachers in Dinuba, CA filed suit against the Dinuba Unified School District and the State of California, charging that the school district and state are violating students’ fundamental right to equal educational opportunity. The lawsuit seeks to stop this Central Valley school district from denying basic instruction in reading to 1st and 2nd grade English learners and from usin... Read More

Three organizations concerned with civil rights and civic participation are asking the California Supreme Court to clarify and protect the voting rights of 85,000 Californians before the October 22, 2012 voter registration deadline. Read More

Today, the California State Assembly unanimously approved AB 2530 authored by Assembly member Toni Atkins. A straight-forward bill that would prohibit the most dangerous forms of shackling of pregnant incarcerated women, AB 2530 has garnered support from Republicans and Democrats alike. Read More

With students across California being suspended and expelled at alarming rates – and with no evidence that this severe discipline actually makes schools safer – Assemblymember Tom Ammiano has introduced AB 1729, a bill to encourage effective school discipline. The bill will be heard in Assembly Appropriations on Wednesday, May 16. Read More

Today, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC) and the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild demanded that the Oakland Police Department explain if it plans to abandon its Crowd Control Policy, in favor of vague standards that fail to provide specific guidance to officers in the field and that invite a repetition of last fall’s botched handling of... Read More

Download the Spring 2012 ACLU of Northern California Newsletter and read about our latest events and initiatives. Read More

Download the ACLU-NC 2011 Year in Review.

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While other states and Congress are moving to restrict reproductive health care, in California nursing and medical organizations, reproductive health advocates and women's rights groups have come together to support legislation that would increase access to comprehensive reproductive health care in this state. Read More

For several years, the FBI's San Francisco office conducted a "Mosque Outreach" program that collected and illegally stored intelligence about American Muslims' First Amendment-protected beliefs and religious practices, according to government documents released today by the American Civil Liberties Union from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the ACLU of Northern California, Asian L... Read More

The decisions counties are making right now about how to implement realignment will have dramatic and long-lasting impacts on public safety and on local taxpayers. In a new 100-page report, Public Safety Realignment: California at a Crossroads, the ACLU of California finds that many counties have yet to embrace a central charge of the realignment legislation: to implement evidence-based ... Read More

Three organizations concerned with voting rights have filed a lawsuit in the First District Court of Appeal to clarify that people who have been sentenced for low-level, non-violent offenses under the state’s historic reform of criminal justice known as Realignment are entitled to vote in the 2012 elections and beyond. The suit asks the Court of Appeal to clarify the voting rights of more than 85,... Read More