News & Commentary

Imagine being poor and being arrested by the police in Detroit. You are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but with no money, you will remain in jail for up to 3 days before you can see a judge called a magistrate.

SOUTHGATE, Mich. — The ACLU of Michigan sent a letter to Creative Montessori Academy, a public charter school, demanding that it revise its school enrollment process because it violates the constitutional rights of undocumented school-age children.

ACLU of Michigan Racial Justice Attorney Mark Fancher sent the new Michigan State Police Director Col. Joe Gasper a letter, making four recommendations, namely asking the MSP to hire an expert to analyze their traffic stop data, and put to rest whether their troopers are engaging in racial profiling.

March first marks the beginning of Women’s History Month; a month to celebrate and reflect on the bold, brave and innovative women who came before us, and the leaders of today who walk in their footsteps.

DETROIT – In response to voters overwhelmingly passing three progressive ballot initiatives last November (voting rights expansion, marijuana legalization, and anti-gerrymandering), the Republican-led legislature passed a law during its lame duck session that will make it extremely difficult to gather the petition signatures needed to get any future proposal on the statewide ballot. The most controversial provision in the new law, which Governor Rick Snyder signed, requires that no more than 15 percent of the signatures gathered for a ballot proposal can come from any one of the state's 14 congressional districts.

For centuries, black people have endured the brutal violence of racism and shouldered the burden of leading the fight against it. This fight includes fixing our criminal legal system, which is racist at its core, and anything but fair. The nation falls far short of a real “criminal justice” system.

The children impacted by the Flint water crisis have a safe place to turn for a free neurodevelopmental evaluation to understand the impact of the water crisis upon them. Lead can only be detected through a blood test in the first 20 to 30 days of exposure. This means a neurodevelopmental evaluation is necessary to determine where a child may be struggling, as well as to determine their strengths. 

On the day that America pauses to honor the memory and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the ACLU of Michigan asks the federal government to investigate and eradicate racial discrimination and harassment in a Western Michigan school district. In a complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), the ACLU accuses Paw Paw Public Schools of maintaining an educational environment that discriminates against students and others on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity and national origin.