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For Immediate Release
November, 12 2008, 11:36am EDT
Contact:
Maria Archuleta, ACLU, (212) 519-7808 or 549-2666; media@aclu.org
Nikki Cox, ACLU of Alabama, (334) 265-2754 ext. 205
ACLU Warns Alabama School District That Its Mandatory Sex Segregation Program Is Illegal And Discriminatory
Boys And Girls At Hankins Middle School Not Allowed To Interact Even In School Hallways
MOBILE, AL
After
hearing from outraged parents of students who, without notice, were
involuntarily segregated by sex at Hankins Middle School in Mobile,
Alabama, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Alabama
sent a letter to the Mobile County School System today warning that
mandatory sex segregation in public schools is illegal and
discriminatory. The civil liberties organization also asked, under the
Alabama Open Records Act, that the school district make public any and
all documents relating to sex segregation policies in Mobile County
schools from the past two years.
"Mandatory sex segregation in public
schools is not only clearly against the law, it's also an empty promise
for failing schools," said Allison Neal, staff attorney with the ACLU
of Alabama. "Inevitably these experimental programs deny equal
opportunity to girls and boys and distract much needed time and money
from efforts that we know work like smaller classes, highly trained
teachers, sufficient funding and involved parents. Sex segregation
doesn't make public schools more like private schools. If some private
schools provide a better education, it's because of their resources,
not because they are single-sex."
Without notifying parents, Mobile
County School System segregated the entire student body of Hankins
Middle School by sex for the 2008-2009 school year and failed to
provide any coeducational option. In addition to segregating students
for all academic subjects, the sex segregation program goes so far as
to punish boys and girls who are caught speaking in the hallways.
The ACLU charges that mandatory sex
segregation in public schools violates Title IX of the Education
Amendments, the Equal Education Opportunities Act and the U.S.
Constitution.
Mark Jones, whose son, Jacob, is a
seventh grader at Hankins Middle School, is outraged that his son's
school was segregated by sex.
"Absolutely nothing good can come
from segregating our kids. It's an outdated mode of education that sets
gender equality back to the dark ages," said Jones. "I also worry how
our children are supposed to learn how to behave around the opposite
sex when schools like Hankins Middle School threaten them with
punishment if they so much as talk to each other."
Another parent, Terry Stevens, whose
son attends the eighth grade at Hankins Middle School, said, "I want my
son in a coed school to prepare him for the real non-segregated world.
It's simply not right that the public school system is forcing me to
send him to a sex-segregated institution."
According to Jones, the school
principal told him that the change was necessary because boys' and
girls' brains are so different that they needed different curriculums.
A recent review of existing data by
the U.S. Department of Education showed that there is no consistent
evidence that segregating students by sex improves learning by either
sex. Yet, school districts across the country are experimenting with
sex-segregated programs, which all too often rely on questionable
"brain science" theories based on outdated gender stereotypes that
suggest that teachers should treat boys and girls radically differently.
"There is no evidence that sex
segregation improves learning, but what we've seen is that sex
segregation in public schools denies equality to both boys and girls,"
said Emily Martin, Deputy Director of the ACLU Women's Rights Program.
"For example, if the best math class in the school happens to be the
girls' class, the boys are completely shut out simply because of their
sex."
The Mobile County School System has 30 days to respond to the ACLU's Open Records Request.
In addition to the ACLU,
organizations that have previously opposed the type of segregation at
Hankins Middle School include the national NAACP, the National
Education Association and the American Association of University Women.
Attorneys who worked on the open
records request include Neal from the ACLU of Alabama and Martin and
Lenora Lapidus from the ACLU Women's Rights Program.
The ACLU's open records request is available online at: www.aclu.org/womensrights/edu/37737lgl20081112.html
More information on the ACLU Women's Rights Project work on sex segregation is available at: www.aclu.org/womensrights/edu/34504res20080228.html
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
(212) 549-2666LATEST NEWS
After Claiming Maduro Was Its Kingpin, DOJ Now Admits in Court That 'Cartel De Los Soles' Isn't a Real Group
"They've been pretending that this made-up thing was real for a year. But now that they'd have actually to demonstrate its existence in court, they're going to cram it down the memory hole."
Jan 06, 2026
One of the central claims the Trump administration has used to justify the overthrow of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and describe his government as “illegitimate” is the allegation that he is the leader of a multinational narco-terrorist organization known as “Cartel de los Soles.”
But now that the Department of Justice (DOJ) must prove the allegation in court following the US military's kidnapping of Maduro last week, prosecutors are backing off the claim and, in effect, admitting what critics had long protested: that Cartel de los Soles is not, in fact, an organization at all.
In the months leading up to the illegal US invasion that plucked Maduro from power, the Treasury Department and State Department both designated Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization.
That allegation originated from a 2020 grand jury indictment of Maduro, drafted by the DOJ during Trump’s first term. The document described the Cartel de los Soles as a “Venezuelan drug-trafficking organization comprised of high-ranking Venezuelan officials.”
As the New York Times explained back in November:
There’s a big catch with the impression created by the Trump administration’s narrative: Cartel de los Soles is not a literal organization, according to a range of specialists in Latin American criminal and narcotics issues, from think-tank analysts to former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officials.
It is instead a figure of speech in Venezuela, dating back to the 1990s, for Venezuelan military officials corrupted by drug money, they say. The term, which means “Cartel of the Suns,” is a mocking invocation of the suns Venezuelan generals wear to denote their rank, like American ones wear stars.
It is for that reason that the DEA's annual National Drug Threat Assessment, which describes major trafficking organizations in detail, has never mentioned Cartel de los Soles. Nor has the annual “World Drug Report” by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Nevertheless, the claim that Maduro was at the helm of an international terrorist cartel was a core justification the Trump administration has used over the past year to legitimize pushing him out of power.
"Maduro is NOT the President of Venezuela and his regime is NOT the legitimate government," said Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a post on social media in July. "Maduro is the head of the Cartel de Los Soles, a narco-terror organization that has taken possession of a country. And he is under indictment for pushing drugs into the United States."
Such a portrayal was useful when attempting to drum up support for US aggression against Venezuela. But now, Maduro stands on trial in the Southern District of New York, where a jury will decide his guilt or innocence based on the evidence presented after he pleaded not guilty on Monday.
Elizabeth Dickinson, the deputy director for Latin America at the International Crisis Group, told the New York Times that the designation of Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terror organization was “far from reality,” but that “designations don’t have to be proved in court, and that’s the difference. Clearly, they knew they could not prove it in court.”
Following Maduro's abduction by US forces on Saturday, the DOJ released a new indictment. While it still accused Maduro of participating in a drug trafficking conspiracy, it totally abandoned the claim that any organization called "Cartel de los Soles" actually existed.
To the extent that any such group does exist, the indictment says it's not as a criminal organization, but as "a culture of corruption in which powerful Venezuelan elites enrich themselves through drug trafficking," and a "patronage system run by those at the top."
But even a day after the new indictment fatally undercut his claims, Rubio continued to insist on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Cartel de los Soles was a “transnational criminal organization” and that “the leader of that cartel,” Maduro, “is now in US custody and facing US justice in the Southern District of New York.”
"They've been pretending that this made-up thing was real for a year. But now that they'd have to actually demonstrate its existence in court, they're going to cram it down the memory hole," marvelled Derek Davison, a Washington-based researcher and writer on international affairs and American politics.
Ben Norton, editor of the Geopolitical Economy Report, wrote on social media that the administration's abrupt abandonment of one of its central justifications for war demonstrates that "the entire US war is based on lies."
While the initial phase of Trump’s ramp-up of military aggression against Venezuela was premised, with scant evidence, on the need to prevent alleged drug boats from reaching the US, President Donald Trump has now said explicitly that the administration’s goal is to take control of Venezuela’s massive oil reserves and hand them to US-based companies.
"It never had anything to do with drugs. Venezuela's role in the global cocaine trade is small and insignificant, and it has absolutely nothing to do with fentanyl (which is actually responsible for many drug-related deaths in the US, unlike cocaine)," Norton said. "The Trump administration's repeated invocation of the fake 'Cartel de los Soles' was its version of the weapons of mass destruction lie used by George W. Bush to try to justify his illegal invasion of Iraq."
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'Pretty Suspicious!' Was Trump Insider Behind Winning Polymarket Bet on Maduro Kidnapping?
A mysterious gambler raked in over $400,000 in profit from a series of bets placed shortly before the Trump administration bombed Venezuela and abducted its president.
Jan 06, 2026
A suspiciously timed and lucrative bet on the US abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro over the weekend has prompted speculation that the wager was placed with inside knowledge, possibly by someone within the Trump administration or its orbit.
The yet-unknown gambler placed a series of bets totaling nearly $34,000 between late December and January 3—the day of the US assault on Venezuela. All of the bets, placed on the cryptocurrency-based prediction platform Polymarket, were related to the probability of Maduro being removed from power and the US attacking Venezuela before the end of January.
The bettor, who went by username Burdensome-Mix on Polymarket, reportedly netted over $400,000 from the wagers in just 24 hours.
"Seems pretty suspicious!" wrote researcher Tyson Brody. "[US Defense Secretary] Pete Hegseth making some beer money on the side?"
NBC News reported Tuesday that the bettor "has already cashed out their Polymarket winnings in Solana, a type of cryptocurrency, through a major American exchange, with no indication they have tried to hide or launder the funds." The outlet added that "if any regulators or law enforcement went looking for the bettor, they’d likely have little difficulty locating them."
It was public knowledge that US President Donald Trump—who had said Maduro's days as the leader of Venezuela's government were "numbered"—was considering a direct attack on the South American country, and his administration had amassed a large military force in the region in recent months in preparation for such an assault.
But there was no publicly available information on the timing of any possible attack. The New York Times, which reportedly learned of the US assault and abduction operation shortly before it began, later revealed that Trump "had authorized the US military to go ahead as early as December 25, but left the precise timing to Pentagon officials and Special Operations planners to ensure that the attacking force was ready, and that conditions on the ground were optimal."
Trump gave the final go-ahead order late Friday night, according to the Times, and the attack began in the early hours of Saturday morning, Venezuela time.
Analysts have warned that the spread of prediction platforms like Polymarket—where gamblers can bet on a dizzying range of scenarios, including the timing of the second coming of Jesus Christ—could raise the likelihood of insiders trying to profit from confidential information.
It also increases the risk that people in positions of power and influence will try to push policy in a certain direction in order to cash in on their bets, said Demand Progress executive director Sean Vitka.
"And questions related to whether or not, and when, military action might be undertaken are especially vulnerable to such manipulation because the president frequently moves with discretion over the timing and (legally or not) without notice to the public or Congress," Vitka told The American Prospect.
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"Our country is not something that can be annexed or taken over simply because someone wishes to do so," said Greenland Premier Orla Joelsen.
Jan 06, 2026
Leaders of several European nations on Tuesday released a joint statement pushing back on US President Donald Trump's threat to seize Greenland from Denmark.
The statement, which was signed by the heads of state of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Denmark, and the UK, emphasized that security in the Arctic region must be "achieved collectively, in conjunction with NATO allies including the United States, by upholding the principles of the UN Charter, including sovereignty and the inviolability of borders."
While noting that the US is an "essential partner" in the NATO alliance, the leaders nonetheless said that "Greenland belongs to its people" and "it is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland."
In a separate statement released Tuesday, Greenland Premier Orla Joelsen thanked the European leaders for speaking up in defense of his people's independence and emphasized that Greenland is not an imperial trophy to be won by the US president.
"Our country is not something that can be annexed or taken over simply because someone wishes to do so," Joelsen said. "At a time when the president of the United States has once again stated that the United States is very serious about Greenland, this support from our allies in NATO is both important and unequivocal."
Trump and his allies have been making more aggressive statements in recent days about taking Greenland, which Trump has called essential to US national security.
Top Trump aide Stephen Miller on Monday night refused to rule out using military force to take Greenland during a Monday interview with CNN, and further claimed that "the future of the free world depends on America to be able to assert ourselves and our interests without an apology."
The Trump administration's bellicose rhetoric, combined with its illegal invasion of Venezuela and abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, has reportedly convinced European leaders to take the threat of US imperialism on their territories seriously.
Danish sources who spoke with The Atlantic on Monday said that the Venezuela invasion was a wakeup call showing them that Trump is deadly serious about seizing Greenland against the will of its own people.
"Western diplomats and security officials we spoke with were apoplectic," reported The Atlantic. "One told us that Denmark and its Nordic neighbors have been taking the president’s statements seriously for a year but have remained uncertain about how to interpret them and, especially, how to respond."
Nathalie Tocci, director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali in Rome, argued in a Tuesday column for The Guardian that European leaders' refusal to condemn Trump's ouster of Maduro would only make it more likely that he would attack their territories as well in the coming months.
"Even if European leaders are being more vocal in support of Denmark, their ambiguity over Venezuela signals submission to Trump," Tocci argued. "And the more European countries act as colonies, unable and unwilling to stand up to Trump, the more they’ll be treated as such."
Trump's threats against Greenland have drawn widespread condemnation from elected Democrats, as well as from Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who wrote in a Tuesday post on X that it was "embarrassing" that he even had to address Trump's decision to menace a NATO ally.
"Denigrating our allies serves no purpose and there is no up side," he said. "It weakens us by diminishing trust between friends, and Russia and China love it. So... stop the stupid 'we want Greenland BS.'"
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