Blog

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 California Court of Appeal recently ruled 3-0 that our client Evan Minton can pursue his discrimination case against the Sacramento-area hospital that in 2016 denied him access to surgery just because he’s transgender. Although this is an important victory for Evan, it also marks a big step in the broader journey toward justice in health care. Across the country, transgender people face bar... Read More

In a year when we’ve seen states throughout the South and Midwest move to ban abortion and restrict access to reproductive health, California could soon cement its reputation as a leader in reproductive freedom. This past week, the state legislature passed SB 24 to ensure that medication abortion is available to college students in public universities. Jessy Rosales, a UC student, struggled wit... Read More

Living in California is already expensive enough for working families – paying rent, paying for childcare, putting food on the table, etc. – without also having to pay to retrieve a towed car. But every year, California local governments push countless families that are struggling to make ends meet deeper into poverty by towing their legally parked cars. Hundreds of thousands of cars are towed eac... Read More

California families impacted by police violence, advocates, and allies just made history. Today, Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 392, the California Act to Save Lives, a bill to address police shootings – one of the most pressing forms of police violence afflicting Black and brown communities in the state. With this new law, California will go from having one of the deadliest, most permissive use ... Read More

After a parole board granted Richard Mireles his freedom earlier this year, he was shocked to learn that he still couldn’t cast a vote in California, the state he had lived in since he was born. Just three months shy of his 21st birthday, a court gave Richard a life sentence on his first felony case. In the two decades of his incarceration, Richard worked hard to change his life. He got sober, wor... Read More

Erica Smith was making a fresh start. After being forced out of her home by domestic violence, she had spent the last three years cycling between homelessness and jail for petty offenses. But with the help of reentry organization Starting Over Inc., she finally secured stable housing and a job helping women who had experienced challenges like hers. She found community support in the Riverside chap... Read More

The American Civil Liberties Union along with Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS), created “We Have Rights,” a national immigrant empowerment campaign to inform immigrant communities of what to do when interacting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The campaign centers around four animated videos available in seven languages: English, Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin, Russian, Haitian Creole... Read More

This Pride weekend, as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, let’s march, let’s celebrate, let’s party. But first let us remember today and always that the lives of Black trans people, and specifically the lives of Black trans women, matter. Let’s recognize and memorialize the great social, political, and civil rights gains achieved over the past 50 years by Black and Latin... Read More

Every four years when there is a presidential primary, many voters who decline to state a party preference are surprised when their mail-in ballot arrives and it is missing the presidential candidates. They then scramble to get a replacement, which can result in one voter receiving two ballots. Elections officials in Contra Costa and Santa Clara Counties have alleged that they discovered 191 ca... Read More

Two and a half years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, Black people in Galveston, Texas were told that they were free. Juneteenth is widely celebrated as “Freedom Day.” Yet is commemorating this date when Black folks belatedly got the news that they could legally no longer be enslaved really the best way to mark their freedom? I often struggle with what it means to be f... Read More

For nearly three decades, my former colleague Rep. John Conyers of Michigan would introduce H.R. 40, legislation seeking to establish a commission to study and develop reparation proposals. Though many thought it a lost cause, he believed that a day would come when our nation would need to account for the brutal mistreatment of African Americans during chattel slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and th... Read More