News

In Santa Clara County, people who want to voluntarily appear in court to address an outstanding arrest warrant must first go to jail if they are too poor to post bail. The ACLU Foundation of Northern California and Criminal Defense Clinic at Stanford Law School have sued Santa Clara County Superior Court over this unconstitutional policy that results in an unequal system of justice. Read More

The ACLU of Northern California, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area and Latham & Watkins LLP filed a brief in federal court asking a judge to appoint a special master to oversee the city of San Francisco's compliance with a December 2022 injunction barring the city from forcibly displacing unhoused people and destroying their belongings. Read More

In response to ACLU of Northern California’s Motion to Quash, a pharmaceutical magnate drops subpoena seeking identity of person who critiqued him online. Read More

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit that sought to force the Chico Unified School District to out students who use different names or pronouns at school than those they were assigned at birth. The ruling affirms California's policy of allowing trans, nonbinary, and other LGBTQ+ students to be their authentic selves at school. Read More

With the eyes of the world watching, California has released a historic report calling for reparations for the descendants of enslaved African Americans. A new ACLU of Northern California video connects the dots between the state's little known slavery past and its legacy of racist policies that have harmed Black people. Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California has launched the California Immigration Detention Database, a new tool to track formal complaints, also known as grievances, that immigrants detained in California detention facilities have filed to seek redress against the inhumane conditions of their confinement. Read More

In a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected constitutional challenges to the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) in Brackeen v. Haaland. ICWA preserves tribes' right to govern themselves and protects Native children from forced removal from their families, tribes, and culture. Read More

Seventy-one California police agencies in 22 counties must immediately stop sharing automated license plate reader (ALPR) data with law enforcement agencies in other states. Read More

Over eight years, more than 50,000 Kern defendants have pled guilty without lawyers at their first court appearance Read More

A lawsuit filed in California Superior Court claims that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) unlawfully discriminates against hundreds of people each year in its wholly voluntary efforts to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). CDCR refers people in its custody to ICE for detention and deportation after they have served their time in prison, contributing ... Read More

The lawsuit filed in 2022 challenged the legality of civil assessments imposed on low-income Californians. The courts used the unlawful late fees to raise revenue to fund operations. Read More

People detained at the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center in Bakersfield and the Golden State Annex in McFarland have put a pause on a month-long hunger strike protesting inhumane conditions at the two immigration detention facilities, as a result of being subjected to weeks of retaliation from ICE and GEO Group, the for-profit prison company that owns and operates the facilities. Read More