News

SACRAMENTO – Today, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 24 (Leyva), groundbreaking legislation that will require student health centers at all 34 California public universities to offer medication abortion. The bill, also known as the College Student Right to Access Act, is the first of its kind in the nation, and has widespread support across the state. At the signing ceremony, Governor News... Read More

SAN FRANCISCO – Today, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed a discrimination complaint under the Uniform Complaint Procedures (UCP), on behalf of two black Bullard High School students in the Fresno Unified District, for failure to comply with the California Education Code and Fresno Unified School Board’s requirements pertaining to racially hostile environments and bullying. The UCP c... Read More

SACRAMENTO — Today, the Repeal Ineffective Sentence Enhancements (RISE) Coalition celebrated Governor Gavin Newsom’s signature on SB 136: The RISE Act. The legislation, authored by Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), dismantles a cruel, expensive, and ineffective sentence enhancement that adds an extra year to an individual’s base sentence for each prior prison or felony jail term they already... Read More

SACRAMENTO — California Governor Gavin Newsom today signed historic legislation to permanently bar county jails and state prisons from charging incarcerated Californians copays and other fees for medical and dental services. AB 45, state legislation introduced by Assemblymember Mark Stone (D-Monterey Bay), goes into effect January 1, 2020, making California the first state in the country to abolis... Read More

SACRAMENTO — Today, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed landmark legislation making California the largest state in the country to block law enforcement agencies from using facial recognition and other biometric tracking technology in connection with officer body cameras. Assemblymember Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) introduced AB 1215: The Body Camera Accountability Act earlier this year in l... Read More

SACRAMENTO – Today, California Governor Newsom signed SB 72, legislation introduced by State Senator Thomas J. Umberg (D-Santa Ana) to allow all eligible Californians to register to vote and cast a ballot at all polling sites on Election Day. California now joins 13 other states and the District of Columbia in making Election Day registration available at polling sites to voters. In response, R... Read More

SAN FRANCISCO — Today in an unforeseen move, Mayor London Breed appointed her favored candidate, Suzy Loftus, to be the interim San Francisco District Attorney following the premature resignation yesterday of DA George Gascón who is not seeking a third term. Gascón will leave his post on Oct. 18th, just weeks before what would have been the first open District Attorney race in San Francisco in 100... Read More

SAN FRANCISCO — Today, federal authorities announced that they would not bring civil rights charges against the police officers who shot and killed Stephon Clark, who was unarmed, in his grandmother’s backyard on March 18, 2018. The announcement marks this as the third law enforcement agency to fail to hold the officers accountable. Kathleen Guneratne, Senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU-NC, had ... Read More

SAN FRANCISCO — The Court of Appeal on Tuesday confirmed that it is illegal discrimination for a hospital to deny someone care simply because they’re transgender, allowing a lawsuit filed against Dignity Health to move forward.  Plaintiff Evan Minton was scheduled to receive a hysterectomy at Mercy San Juan Medical Center, a Sacramento-area Catholic hospital in the Dignity Health chain. Two day... Read More

SAN FRANCISCO — The ACLU is set to argue before the Court of Appeal in San Francisco Tuesday on behalf of Evan Minton, a man who was denied health care because he is transgender. Minton was scheduled to receive a hysterectomy at Mercy San Juan Medical Center, a Sacramento-area Catholic hospital in the Dignity Health chain. Two days prior to the appointment, a nurse called to discuss the surgery... Read More

SACRAMENTO — Groundbreaking legislation that would require all on-campus student health centers at public universities in California to offer medication abortion services passed in the California Assembly today with an initial vote of 44 to 15. Now, Senate Bill 24, also known as the College Student Right to Access Act, goes back to the Senate for concurrence before it heads to Governor Gavin Newso... Read More

SACRAMENTO–The California Legislature today sent State Assemblymember Phil Ting’s Body Camera Accountability Act (AB 1215) to Governor Newsom, positioning California to become the largest state in the country to block law enforcement agencies from adding facial recognition software to officer-worn body cameras. In response to the bill’s passage, Matt Cagle, Technology and Civil Liberties Attorn... Read More