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After more than a month of threats, a government shutdown, and bipartisan action by Congress, President Trump has finally declared a national emergency to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on his border wall obsession. In response, the ACLU will file a lawsuit early next week challenging this blatantly illegal executive action. Let’s get something straight upfront: There is no emergency. Membe... Read More

SAN FRANCISCO — A settlement has been reached in J.I. v. United States, a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Northern California on behalf of a woman who was sexually assaulted by a U.S. border patrol agent when she was 17 years old. In July of 2016, two sisters, then 19 and 17, lost their way while traveling to the US from Guatemala, and encountered U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers ... Read More

NEW YORK — The American Civil Liberties Union, Sierra Club, ACLU of Texas, and ACLU of Northern California today filed a lawsuit challenging President Trump’s emergency powers declaration to secure funds to build a wall along the southern border. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition and was filed in the Northern District of California. ... Read More

SACRAMENTO - Today the ACLU of California joined a diverse coalition of privacy, civil rights, economic equity, and children’s advocacy organizations to announce support for AB 1760, Privacy for All, a bill introduced by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland). Privacy for All puts Californians in control of the personal information that companies collect and share about them. As the technology ind... Read More

SACRAMENTO – Today, Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert announced that her office will not press charges against the officers who shot and killed Stephon Clark in his grandmother’s backyard on March 18, 2018. Clark was unarmed, holding a cell phone, at the time he was killed.  Lizzie Buchen, legislative advocate for the ACLU of California’s Center for Advocacy and Policy, had this ... Read More

There is a national, statewide, and local pattern of police using excessive force against people of color during routine encounters. The video and reports provided by the San Mateo County District Attorney related to the death of Chinedu Okobi in Millbrae on Oct. 3 have all the earmarks of racial profiling. If crossing the street made Okobi the object of police attention and attempted detention – ... Read More

Data about school counselors had been required previously, but this report provides the first state-level student-to-staff ratio comparison for these other school-based mental health personnel, along with school counselors. A key finding of the report is that schools are under-resourced and students are overcriminalized. Read More

SACRAMENTO – Today, California Attorney General Becerra announced that the state Department of Justice would not bring criminal charges against the police officers who shot and killed Stephon Clark, who was unarmed at the time, in his grandmother’s backyard on March 18, 2018. The announcement comes after days of protests in Sacramento following the decision by the county’s District Attorney who al... Read More

MADERA, CA — The ACLU Foundation of Northern California today filed a lawsuit against Chawanakee Unified School District and Minarets High School administrators on behalf of two students for censoring the students’ speech celebrating their LGBTQ identities in violation of their free speech rights and right to be free of anti-LGBTQ bias in California schools. Steven Madrid and Mikayla Garaffa, t... Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California and the law firm Rukin Hyland & Riggin LLP filed a lawsuit on March 21, 2019 on behalf of Oliver Knight, a 29-year-old transgender man who was denied health care based on the hospital’s religious views, which do not recognize gender-affirming care. On August 30, 2017, minutes before Mr. Knight was scheduled t... Read More