September, 02 2010, 12:09pm EDT
ACLU Launches 90th Anniversary Exhibit Celebrating Nine Decades Of Fighting For Freedom
In
celebration of the American Civil Liberties Union's 90th anniversary,
the ACLU launched a traveling nationwide exhibit today highlighting the
organization's rich history of defending constitutional freedoms. The
exhibit will be displayed in a number of states, including Nebraska,
Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Iowa,
Maine, New Jersey, Tennessee, Oklahoma, California, Kentucky,
Pennsylvania, Texas and Utah as well as Washington, D.C.
NEW YORK
In
celebration of the American Civil Liberties Union's 90th anniversary,
the ACLU launched a traveling nationwide exhibit today highlighting the
organization's rich history of defending constitutional freedoms. The
exhibit will be displayed in a number of states, including Nebraska,
Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Iowa,
Maine, New Jersey, Tennessee, Oklahoma, California, Kentucky,
Pennsylvania, Texas and Utah as well as Washington, D.C.
"When the ACLU began as a small group of passionate idealists, the Bill
of Rights had little practical meaning for ordinary people. Over the
last 90 years, we've led the way to make the Constitution a living
document in the everyday lives of people all across America. The ACLU's
tireless work protecting fundamental freedoms has become so ingrained in
our society that it is hard to imagine an America without it," said
Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "We are very excited
to share the story of the ACLU's past 90 years with people from all
walks of life. We are confident that after viewing the exhibit, visitors
will have a deeper appreciation of the positive impact that the ACLU
has had on the personal lives of individuals and on society as a
whole."
The traveling exhibit provides an historical overview of the ACLU's many
monumental achievements since its founding in 1920. The organization
was established in response to the notorious Palmer Raids in which the
Department of Justice, led by U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer,
began rounding up and deporting so-called radicals because of their
political views without warrants and without regard to constitutional
protections against unlawful search and seizure.
The exhibit includes the stories of some of the courageous people the
ACLU has represented, including John Scopes, a teacher accused of
violating a Tennessee state law against the teaching of evolution in the
1920s; Ozzie Powell, one of the "Scottsboro Boys" sentenced to death in
Alabama in the 1930s for allegedly raping a white woman, a crime he did
not commit; Mildred and Richard Loving, an interracial couple charged
in the 1960s with violating the state's "Racial Integrity Act"; and
Diane Schroer, an Army veteran whose job offer by the Library of
Congress was rescinded when it learned that Schroer was in the process
of changing gender.
The exhibit also highlights the ACLU's key role in the passage of major
pieces of legislation, including the Family and Medical Leave Act of
1993, guaranteeing eligible employees with up to 12 weeks of unpaid
leave for family responsibilities; the Americans with Disabilities Act
of 1990, prohibiting discrimination based on disability in employment,
public services, accommodations, transportation and technology; and the
periodic reauthorizations of several provisions of the Voting Rights Act
of 1965, protecting every American's constitutionally guaranteed right
to vote.
Other civil liberties milestones showcased in the exhibit include the
ACLU's work overcoming legal obstacles to marriage for lesbian and gay
couples, defending women's reproductive freedom, upholding free speech
and privacy on the Internet and its post-9/11 work battling government
secrecy, abuses of power and human rights violations.
"While not everyone agrees with us on every issue, Americans have come
to count on the ACLU for its unyielding dedication to principle," said
Susan Herman, President of the ACLU. "The ACLU has always understood
that once the government has the power to violate one person's rights,
whoever that person is, it can then use that power against everyone.
Many of the stories featured in our exhibit vividly illustrate our
dedication to defending the civil liberties of everyone, no matter what their political affiliation or popularity."
The ACLU has evolved over the past nine
decades from a small group of idealists committed to protecting
Americans' civil liberties into an organization with more than 500,000
members, hundreds of attorneys - both staff and volunteer - and a
presence in all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto
Rico. The exhibit showcases how the ACLU has used its unparalleled
infrastructure to litigate, educate and advocate at federal, state and
local levels.
"The times may change, but the need to vigilantly defend our individual
liberties does not," said Emily Tynes, ACLU Director of Communications.
"We hope that people will leave the 90th Anniversary Exhibit with a
deeper understanding of the phenomenal scope of the ACLU's work from
1920 to today and the assurance that we will continue to protect their
freedoms for generations to come."
More information about the ACLU's 90th anniversary is available at: www.aclu90.org
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.
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Critics Blast 'Reckless and Impossible' Bid to Start Operating Mountain Valley Pipeline
"The time to build more dirty and dangerous pipelines is over," said one environmental campaigner.
Apr 23, 2024
Environmental defenders on Tuesday ripped the company behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline for asking the federal government—on Earth Day—for permission to start sending methane gas through the 303-mile conduit despite a worsening climate emergency caused largely by burning fossil fuels.
Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC sent a letter Monday to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Acting Secretary Debbie-Anne Reese seeking final permission to begin operation on the MVP next month, even while acknowledging that much of the Virginia portion of the pipeline route remains unfinished and developers have yet to fully comply with safety requirements.
"In a manner typical of its ongoing disrespect for the environment, Mountain Valley Pipeline marked Earth Day by asking FERC for authorization to place its dangerous, unnecessary pipeline into service in late May," said Jessica Sims, the Virginia field coordinator for Appalachian Voices.
"MVP brazenly asks for this authorization while simultaneously notifying FERC that the company has completed less than two-thirds of the project to final restoration and with the mere promise that it will notify the commission when it fully complies with the requirements of a consent decree it entered into with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration last fall," she continued.
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Russell Chisholm, co-director of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR) Coalition—which called MVP's request "reckless and impossible"—said in a statement that "we are watching our worst nightmare unfold in real-time: The reckless MVP is barreling towards completion."
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Appalachian Voices noted that MVP's request comes days before pipeline developer Equitrans Midstream is set to release its 2024 first-quarter earnings information on April 30.
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David Sligh, conservation director at Wild Virginia, said: "Approving the Southgate project is irresponsible. This project will pose the same kinds of threats of damage to the environment and the people along its path as we have seen caused by the Mountain Valley Pipeline during the last six years."
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Others renewed warnings about the dangers MVP poses to wildlife.
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Apr 23, 2024
U.S. workers' rights advocates and groups celebrated on Tuesday after the Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 along party lines to approve a ban on most noncompete clauses, which Democratic FTC Chair Lina Khansaid "keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism."
"The FTC's final rule to ban noncompetes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market," Khan added, pointing to the commission's estimates that the policy could mean another $524 for the average worker, over 8,500 new startups, and 17,000 to 29,000 more patents each year.
As Economic Policy Institute (EPI) president Heidi Shierholz explained, "Noncompete agreements are employment provisions that ban workers at one company from working for, or starting, a competing business within a certain period of time after leaving a job."
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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has suggested it plans to file a lawsuit that, as The American Prospectdetailed, "could more broadly threaten the rulemaking authority the FTC cited when proposing to ban noncompetes."
Already, the tax services and software provider Ryan has filed a legal challenge in federal court in Texas, arguing that the FTC is unconstitutionally structured.
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"The pervasive use of noncompete clauses limits worker mobility, drives down wages, keeps Americans from pursuing entrepreneurial dreams and creating new businesses, causes more concentrated markets, and keeps workers stuck in unsafe or hostile workplaces," she said. "Noncompete clauses are both an unfair method of competition and aggressively harmful to regular people. The FTC was right to tackle this issue and to finalize this strong rule."
Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project, praised the FTC for "listening to the comments of thousands of entrepreneurs and workers of all income levels across industries" and finalizing a rule that "is a clear-cut win."
Demand Progress' Emily Peterson-Cassin similarly commended the commission "for taking a strong stance against this egregious use of corporate power, thereby empowering workers to switch jobs and launch new ventures, and unlocking billions of dollars in worker earnings."
While such agreements are common across various industries, Teófilo Reyes, chief of staff at the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, said that "many restaurant workers have been stuck at their job, earning as low as $2.13 per hour, because of the noncompete clause that they agreed to have in their contract."
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Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) executive director Mike Pierce pointed out that the FTC on Tuesday "recognized the harmful role debt plays in the workplace, including the growing use of training repayment agreement provisions, or TRAPs, and took action to outlaw TRAPs and all other employer-driven debt that serve the same functions as noncompete agreements."
Sandeep Vaheesan, legal director at Open Markets Institute, highlighted that the addition came after his group, SBPC, and others submitted comments on the "significant gap" in the commission's initial January 2023 proposal, and also welcomed that "the final rule prohibits both conventional noncompete clauses and newfangled versions like TRAPs."
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One plaintiffs' attorney said the ruling "makes our democracy better and ensures that North Carolina is not able to unjustly criminalize innocent individuals with felony convictions who are valued members of our society."
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Democracy defenders on Tuesday hailed a ruling from a U.S. federal judge striking down a 19th-century North Carolina law criminalizing people who vote while on parole, probation, or post-release supervision due to a felony conviction.
In Monday's decision, U.S. District Judge Loretta C. Biggs—an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama—sided with the North Carolina A. Philip Randolph Institute and Action NC, who argued that the 1877 law discriminated against Black people.
"The challenged statute was enacted with discriminatory intent, has not been cleansed of its discriminatory taint, and continues to disproportionately impact Black voters," Biggs wrote in her 25-page ruling.
Therefore, according to the judge, the 1877 law violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.
"We are ecstatic that the court found in our favor and struck down this racially discriminatory law that has been arbitrarily enforced over time," Action NC executive director Pat McCoy said in a statement. "We will now be able to help more people become civically engaged without fear of prosecution for innocent mistakes. Democracy truly won today!"
Voting rights tracker Democracy Docket noted that Monday's ruling "does not have any bearing on North Carolina's strict felony disenfranchisement law, which denies the right to vote for those with felony convictions who remain on probation, parole, or a suspended sentence—often leaving individuals without voting rights for many years after release from incarceration."
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According to Forward Justice—a nonpartisan law, policy, and strategy center dedicated to advancing racial, social, and economic justice in the U.S. South, "Although Black people constitute 21% of the voting-age population in North Carolina, they represent 42% of the people disenfranchised while on probation, parole, or post-release supervision."
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As similar battles play out in other states, Democratic U.S. lawmakers led by Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont in December introduced legislation to end former felon disenfranchisement in federal elections and guarantee incarcerated people the right to vote.
Currently, only Maine, Vermont, and the District of Columbia allow all incarcerated people to vote behind bars.
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