News & Commentary

Freedom of speech is being threated this week by a criminal prosecution brought by the State of Michigan against Nheru Littleton, a Detroit man being charged with making a “terroristic threat” for statements he posted on Facebook last year in the tense period following the fatal police shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile and the subsequent attack on Dallas officers during a protest there. If convicted, Littleton could face up to 20 years in prison, simply for posting his opinion online. The ACLU of Michigan has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case urging the court to dismiss criminal charges that are based solely on Mr. Littleton’s Facebook posts.

Michigan’s emergency manager law is once again being fingered as a primary culprit in the lead poisoning of Flint’s water supply.

Recently the ACLU of Michigan brought together more than 400 lawyers and law students to tackle the monumental—and growing—task of defending civil liberties in the age of Trump.

On the same day that Gov. Rick Snyder gave short shrift in his State of the State speech to the ongoing Flint crisis his administration created, U.S. Reps. Brenda Lawrence, D-Mich., and Elijah Cummings, D-Md., continued applying pressure in an attempt to hold accountable those responsible for the poisoning of a city’s water supply.

Because enslaved Africans were known to attack their masters, burn plantation crops, destroy farm equipment and organize insurrections, laws governing their conduct called “slave codes” placed severe limits on when they were allowed to congregate. The very idea of Africans meeting in groups of three or more for purposes other than religious worship terrified the slave-owning class.

As we honor Martin Luther King, Jr and his legacy this week, it’s important to examine the intersection of two issues that he devoted energy and attention to: race relations and economic equality. Though his fight for economic equality of the United States’ black citizens occurred decades ago, countless examples let us know the disparities still persist. One such example is in Michigan.

By Kimberly Buddin-Crawford

Once broken, trust can be almost impossible to repair.

In November, President-elect Donald Trump chose conservative Michigan billionaire Betsy DeVos--a woman with a long history as an advocate for voucher schemes and for-profit charter schools--as his nominee for U.S. Secretary of Education. DeVos' confirmation hearing has been set for Jan. 17. To help get a clearer picture of the nominee ahead of the hearing, the ACLU of Michigan has put together this exhaustive look at DeVos,