News & Commentary

Matthew Bentley was 14 years old in 1997 when he broke into a house he thought was unoccupied. While rummaging for valuables, he was confronted by the owner. That's when Matthew shot and killed her with a gun he found in the house.

We have about four months of scheduled legislative session, uninterrupted by hunting breaks or holiday breaks, until the Michigan legislature turns its full attention to the August 2016 primary election season and the political fate of Michigan’s House of Representatives. Generally, this is the period when our elected representatives position their favorite (read: most popular with base constituents) policy initiatives for maximum public visibility. For our law-reform work at the ACLU of Michigan, this often means that our most significant issues will be punted like the proverbial political football.

Today marks the 43rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade—the landmark Supreme Court decision that guarantees all women a constitutional right to an abortion in the United States. Yet for many reproductive rights advocates, Roe day has become a day of concern, not celebration.

What do Pennsylvania high school student Blake Robbins, Mississippi middle school student Richard Wade, Maryland Division of Corrections Officer Robert Collins, and Kim Kardashian-West all have in common? 

The Flint water saga has taken some wild twists in the past few weeks.

Michigan lawmakers will return to the Capitol this week seeking to make the second and final year of this 98th legislature one in which both they and their parties can claim political victory. 

Information is the currency of democracy. 

In a key victory for government transparency, a state appeals court this week ruled that Detroit Public Schools must disclose the number of student discipline cases that have been referred to the Detroit police or the district’s internal police department.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. detested violence. Nevertheless, during the month when we commemorate his birth, we must face the fact that black males between the ages of 15 and 34 were the victims of more than 15 percent of all deaths at the hands of police officers in 2015—even though they constitute only two percent of the total U.S. population.