In 2023, Kansas enacted a law attempting to define “transgender” out of existence by restricting the definition of a “woman” to the biological function of producing ova. Not only does this definition negate the experiences of trans women and girls, but it also excludes entire categories of women who are not transgender, such as post-menopausal women, women experiencing reproductive challenges, and intersex women. Despite being passed under the dubious title “Women’s Bill of Rights,” this law has not been used to create any new protections for women, nor improve support for women’s initiatives ..read more

AI is nearly impossible for us to escape these days. Social media companies, schools, workplaces, and even dating apps are all trying to harness AI to remake their services and platforms, and AI can impact our lives in ways large and small While many of these efforts are just getting underway — and often raise significant civil rights issues — you might be surprised to learn that America’s most prolific spy agency has for years been one of AI’s biggest adopters. The National Security Agency (NSA) is the self-described leader among U.S. intelligence agencies racing to develop and deploy AI. It ..read more

The Supreme Court recently declined to hear a case, Mckesson v. Doe, that could have affirmed that the First Amendment protects protest organizers from being held liable for illegal actions committed by others present that organizers did not direct or intend. The high court’s decision to not hear the case at this time left in place an opinion by the Fifth Circuit, which covers Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, that said a protest organizer could be liable for the independent, violent actions of others based on nothing more than a showing of negligence. Across the country, many people have exp ..read more

Every year, thousands of asylum seekers from diverse corners of the world seek refuge in the United States. Many — like Indigenous people from Latin America and Africa — are fleeing persecution based on the languages they speak and their cultural, ethnic, and racial backgrounds. Their ability to access the asylum system has life-or-death consequences. Yet our government cuts off access to asylum and other fundamental rights based on language barriers alone. The federal government has a responsibility to ensure people with limited English proficiency (LEP) can reasonably access its services. Fa ..read more

For decades, the ACLU has fought against the war on drugs. The criminalization of cannabis has led to far too many unjust incarcerations, which waste critical resources and billions of dollars. According to numbers from our 2020 report, it also disproportionately affects Black Americans, who continue to be almost four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person, despite equal reported use rates. Explore more in our interactive data visualizer We’re fighting for not only the legalization of marijuana, but also for the repair of decades of past damage. Even as ..read more

My job is to sue prisons, and I love my work. My colleagues and I work to ensure the basic human dignity to people our society has locked up. But it is, more often than not, extraordinarily frustrating. Our clients, the human beings locked away in our criminal justice system, live in dire conditions. They are warehoused. Their medical and mental health needs are ignored. They are subjected to extreme physical violence. Just seeing and hearing about it is painful. And change comes all too slowly. At the ACLU, we take heart from the little victories. Just before we go to a prison to see our clie ..read more

The CIA is so known for its unabashed secrecy that, when it joined Twitter in 2014, its first tweet was: “We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet.” This non-response response is known as a “Glomar,” and while the intelligence community likes to poke fun at how often they invoke it, this inane phrase has allowed the CIA to skirt meaningful transparency and accountability for decades. In 1966, over the Johnson administration’s opposition, Congress enacted the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), giving all of us the right to ask the government for documents and have the govern ..read more

Cities all across the United States have been increasingly passing laws that punish people who are forced to sleep outside each night due a lack of available shelter and extreme housing shortages. The Supreme Court will soon decide if doing so violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, in a case that arose out of southern Oregon and is arguably the most significant case on homelessness in decades. The ACLU’s Scout Katovich explains how the case made its way to the highest court in the U.S. and breaks down the stakes – both for the hundreds of thousands of peop ..read more

State legislation can have an immense impact on your civil rights, for better or for worse. And even though state lawmakers are tasked with determining which bills get turned into laws, you hold a lot of power to make these decisions because you elect candidates into office. Take this quiz to learn about lawmaking at the state level, and how you can play a part in this process at the ballot box. Click to see Quiz ..read more

Across the country, our affiliates are challenging discriminatory policies and practices that disproportionately affect women, and particularly women of color. From housing discrimination in Illinois, to inhumane treatment of incarcerated pregnant individuals in North Carolina, and discriminatory dress codes in Texas schools, the ACLU and its affiliates are at the forefront of legal and advocacy efforts that promote gender equality and justice for all. Here are three ways our affiliates are stepping up: Illinois: Challenging Discriminatory Housing Policies The ACLU of Illinois recently joined ..read more