Arizona now has new rules regarding transgender school sports athletes.
Governor Doug Ducey signed Senate Bills 1138 and 1165 on Wednesday.
Read the full storyArizona Enacts Law Requiring School Athletes Compete as Their Biological Sex
Tag: American Civil Liberties Union
Federal Court Considers Whether to Count Undated Ballots in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania Election
A federal appeals court this week blocked certification of the election results for the contest between Republican David Ritter and Democrat Zachary Cohen for Lehigh County, Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas Judge.
Currently, Ritter is 74 votes ahead of Cohen, but the win would flip to the Democrat should the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decide to count 257 absentee ballots that lack handwritten dates on their return envelopes. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Pennsylvania is litigating on behalf of five of the voters who cast those ballots.
Read the full storyBorder Patrol Testing Robot Dogs to Police Southern Border
The U.S. Department of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is looking into the viability of autonomous robots resembling man’s best friend to traverse the Mexican border.
The department is working with the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate to expose the Automated Ground Surveillance Vehicles (AGSVs) to climate and terrain consistent with the southern border. In its Feb. 1 blog post, the department said initial testing in Lorton, Virginia, moved to El Paso, Texas, to give the machines a better taste of its potential work environment.
Read the full storyCommission Wants New Ohio Legislative Maps to Stay At Least Through General Election
The Ohio Redistricting Commission wants the Ohio Supreme Court to allow a second round of state legislative district maps to stand at least through this year’s elections.
The request comes as part of the commission’s response to challenges to the new maps that were forced to be redrawn after the court ruled the original maps illegally favored Republicans.
The commission asked for a decision by Feb. 11 or stay the issue until after the 2022 general election, allowing the revised plan to stay in effect until then.
Read the full storyGroups File Objections to Ohio’s Second Attempt at Legislative Maps
Several groups filed objections to the Ohio Redistricting Commission’s second attempt at redrawing state legislative maps, saying the commission failed to live up to reforms passed in 2018 and orders from the Ohio Supreme Court.
An 11:59 p.m. Tuesday deadline was in place to file legal claims with the Ohio Supreme Court, which declared the state’s first legislative district maps unconstitutional Jan. 12 and gave the commission 10 days to submit new ones.
Read the full storyCapitol Police Is Surveilling Americans’ Social Media Feeds: Report
The U.S. Capitol Police is running background checks and examining the social media histories of people meeting with lawmakers, Politico reported Monday.
Following the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, the Capitol Police adopted a new policy to dig into the social media feeds of individuals meeting members of Congress, Politico reported, citing three people familiar with the matter as well as internal Capitol Police documents and communications. Targets of the surveillance included congressional staffers as well as lawmakers’ constituents, donors and associates.
Julie Farnam, acting director of intelligence for the Capitol Police and former Department of Homeland Security official, directed analysts to run “background checks” on donors and associates of lawmakers, including instructions to “list and search all political opponents to see if they or their followers intend to attend or disrupt the event,” according to documents reviewed by Politico.
Read the full storyRuling in Pennsylvania Election-Investigation Lawsuit Expected to Come Soon
Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court is expected to soon issue a decision on whether the state Senate Republicans’ 2020 election probe may continue.
Specifically, the judges must determine whether delivery of information subpoenaed by the Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee would breach voters’ privacy rights as state Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D) and other plaintiffs maintain.
Read the full storyVirginia ACLU Sues Hanover School Board to Enforce Transgender Bathroom Law
Claiming that transgender children are “unsafe” using school bathrooms of their sex assigned at birth, the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia (ACLUVA) has filed a lawsuit against the Hanover County School Board.
“Today, the ACLU of Virginia filed a lawsuit in Hanover County Circuit Court against the Hanover County School Board on behalf of five families, due to the school board’s failure to adopt policies protecting transgender students in accordance with state law and the Virginia Department of Education’s model policies,” the group said in Thursday statement. “All plaintiffs have transgender children who attend public schools in Hanover County.”
Read the full storyAmerican Civil Liberties Union Says FBI Raid of Project Veritas Founder O’Keefe’s Home Threat to ‘Press Freedom’
The ACLU has weighed in on the recent FBI raid of Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe home in connection with the diary of Ashley Biden, daughter of President Joe Biden.
“Unless the government had good reason to believe that Project Veritas employees were directly involved in the criminal theft of the diary, it should not have subjected them to invasive searches and seizures,” wrote senior American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney Brian Hauss.
Read the full storyAmerican Civil Liberties Union Sues Oklahoma over Statewide Ban on Critical Race Theory in Schools
The far-left American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit against the state of Oklahoma over a recently-signed law that forbids the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools, according to CNN.
The lawsuit represents a group of teachers and students who support CRT, and is supported by the ACLU, the Oklahoma NAACP, the American Indian Movement (AIM), and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The suit claims that the law infringes on the rights of freedom of speech guaranteed under the First Amendment of the Constitution.
Read the full storyACLU Wants College Athletes to Run Track, Not Play Golf, Calling it ‘Among the Whitest of Sports’
The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan is pressuring Central Michigan University to bring back their men’s track and field team, citing that the original decision as having “far-reaching racial implications.”
The ACLU of Michigan blasted CMU for eliminating the men’s track and field program, but then adding a golf program, which it contends is “among the whitest of sports,” Central Michigan Life reports.
Read the full storyOregon School Board Bans Educators from Displaying BLM and Gay Pride Symbols
A school board in Oregon is receiving backlash following its recent ban on educators displaying Black Lives Matter signs and gay pride symbols.
Newberg, which is situated just outside of Portland, now finds itself the site of the latest skirmish in a pitched struggle between traditional and woke approaches to education being waged in school systems across the country.
Read the full storyLawsuit Challenges Ohio’s New State Legislative Maps
Calling Ohio’s new state legislative district maps a flagrant violation of the Ohio Constitution and extreme partisan gerrymandering, the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit challenging maps it says give Republicans an unfair advantage.
The lawsuit, filed by the ACLU of Ohio, the ACLU and Burling LLP, was brought on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, the Ohio chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute and several individuals.
Read the full storyGovernor DeSantis Questioned About Cuban Protests and Anti-Riot Law
After multiple Cuban protests across the state of Florida made their way to the streets and highways, Governor DeSantis was questioned about the protesters who were breaking the “anti-riot” law.
At a news conference on Thursday, DeSantis alluded that the Cuban protesters broke the law but were not arrested because of the peaceful nature of the protests.
Read the full storyACLU Warns of ‘Unchecked Power’ After Facebook, Twitter Suspend Trump
A legislative counsel member from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Friday warned that the suspension of President Donald Trump’s social media accounts wielded “unchecked power” by large tech companies, Breitbart reported.
Kate Ruane, a senior legislative counsel at the ACLU warned in a statement that the decision to suspend Trump from social media platforms could set a precedent for big tech companies to silence less privileged voices.
Read the full storyNashville Officials Opt Not to Press Criminal Charges Against Justin Jones After Saturday’s Riots
On Thursday Nashville officials were about to press criminal charges against left-wing activist Justin Jones for alleged felony aggravated rioting — but later in the day they changed their minds.
A Twitter video showed a man during Saturday’s downtown riots jumping onto the hood of a police car while hundreds of protestors cheered him on. The man’s face is not visible to the camera. Seconds later a law enforcement officer tackled the man.
Read the full storyFederal Judge Blocks Pro-Life Laws In Arkansas
A federal judge last week blocked four new pro-life laws from taking effect in Arkansas. U.S. District Court Judge Kristine Baker of the Eastern District of Arkansas is considered an activist judge by the group National Right to Life. Leslie Rutledge, the state’s attorney general, has said she plans to appeal Baker’s ruling, reports the Associated Press. Three of the new restrictions were set to go into effect Tuesday before being blocked late Friday night by Baker’s preliminary injunction. The laws were challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of a Little Rock abortion provider. Among the new laws is the state’s Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act. Seven states– Kansas, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas–currently forbid dismemberment abortion. The procedure involves using “sharp metal clamps and scissors to crush, tear and pulverize living unborn human beings, to rip heads and legs off of tiny torsos until the defenseless child bleeds to death,” according to news editor Dave Andrusko of National Right to Life in a report for National Right to Life News Today. Another law imposes new restrictions on the disposal of the remains of aborted babies, and another…
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