Archive

SAN FRANCISCO – The ACLU of Northern California (ACLU NC), KQED, the California Historical Society, and the Equal Justice Society today launched “Gold Chains: The Hidden History of Slavery in California,” a public education campaign that exposes chapters of California’s history that may come as a surprise, if not an outright shock, to many people. Little known is the fact that, while California en... Read More

SAN FRANCISCO — The California Court of Appeal ruled today that Secretary of State Alex Padilla erred when he issued a directive to county election officials in 2017 that deprives tens of thousands of California voters of the language assistance to which they are entitled under state law. The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Northern California, Asian Americans Advancing Justice – ... Read More

A core aspect of human autonomy and dignity is to be able to make decisions about our own bodies. But each year, doctors around the country continue to perform medically unnecessary, harmful surgeries on intersex infants and children, just to “normalize” their bodies. What this means is that doctors are forcing infants and young children to undergo medically unnecessary genital surgery simply to f... Read More

When our oldest child came out to us as transgender, my wife and I faced a steep learning curve. As part of this learning process, we discovered that transgender adolescents have significantly higher rates of depression and suicide than other teens. Learning about the struggles of those with untreated gender dysphoria—the condition of experiencing a conflict between one’s assigned gender and ge... Read More

YUBA COUNTY — The ACLU of Northern California today sent a letter to Yuba Community College District and Tri-County Schools Insurance Group calling on them to immediately remove an illegal provision in the district’s employee health care plans that discriminates against transgender people with a blanket-exclusion for gender-affirming care. Our client Brian Condrey, an English Professor at Yuba ... Read More

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

The state of California just made it clear: Face recognition surveillance isn’t inevitable. We can — and should — fight hard to protect our communities from this dystopian technology. Building on San Francisco’s first-of-its-kind ban on government face recognition, California this week enacted a landmark law that blocks police from using body cameras for spying on the public. The state-wide law... Read More

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 covers alleged violation... 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