At Liberty

In 2018, Stacey Abrams ran for Governor of Georgia and lost by just 54,723 votes to Republican Brian Kemp, who was then serving as Georgia’s Secretary of State. Before Kemp entered the governor’s race, he purged 1.4 million voters and instituted many other policies to dissuade people from voting. It’s a story of the real-world impact of voter suppression. What happened in that race was egregious, but it was not unique. In the aftermath of the election, amidst calls for her to run for senate and even president, Stacey Abrams has devoted herself to voter protection. Now, with the presidential election underway, Abrams joins us on the podcast to share how her organization Fair Fight is educating, empowering, and motivating people to vote.

Abortion access is yet again under attack. Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in June Medical Services LLC v. Russo, a case that threatens to chip away at the constitutional right to a safe and legal abortion. The Court will decide whether or not a Louisiana law that requires abortion providers to have the ability to admit patients to a nearby hospital is constitutional. If allowed to go forward, that requirement would decimate access to abortion and open up the floodgates for similar laws in other states. On this week's episode, two lawyers from the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project, Brigitte Amiri and Andy Beck, join us from DC to share what they heard during yesterday’s oral arguments.

Since President Trump took office, his administration has waged a series of attacks on asylum in the United States. They are restricting the number of asylum cases heard in a given day, sending asylum seekers to other countries to await review, and even working to bar specific groups of people from the process entirely. Now, a case before the Supreme Court threatens the right of asylum seekers to have their day in court. The decision will impact not just the civil liberties of asylum seekers, but all of us. On this episode we speak with Lee Gelernt, Deputy Director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights project who will be arguing to protect this right before the Supreme Court.

This year, Hair Love, a story about a black girl and her dad navigating natural hairstyles, won the Oscar for animated short and three beauty pageant winners wore natural hairstyles under their crowns. But as more and more people step out into the world celebrating their natural hair, they are also being met with school and workplace dress codes that punish them under the auspice of "professionalism." Hair discrimination is a form of racial discrimination, but judges have been hesitant to say so because unlike skin color, people can change their hairstyles. But should they have to? On this episode of At Liberty, we speak with Mya and Deanna Cook, two students who faced and fought hair discrimination in their school and Ria Tabacco Mar, director of the ACLU's Women's Rights Project. For more, follow us on Twitter @ACLU and @EmersonSJSykes.

This Valentine's Day, we're re-running one of our favorite episodes. Melissa Murray, NYU Law professor and expert on the legal regulation of sex and sexuality joins us to discuss the legal institution of marriage as it has been used by and against marginalized people, and to consider the victories and setbacks in the fight for marriage – and non-marriage – equality.

The Supreme Court will soon hear arguments in a case that will decide whether nearly half of Oklahoma is legally an Indian Reservation. The Court’s decision could have massive implications for tribal sovereignty and subsequently, many other Native issues that are impacted by jurisdictional power. Our guest this week is Rebecca Nagle, an activist, writer, artist, and citizen of the Cherokee Nation, whose Crooked Media narrative podcast, “This Land” explains the process by which native people in Oklahoma lost their land and the court case that could help restore it. This live discussion took place at the Brooklyn Public Library’s Night of Philosophy and Ideas. For more follow: Rebecca Nagle: @RebeccaNagle Emerson Sykes: @EmersonSJSykes ACLU: @ACLU

The U.S. has a long history of detaining and incarcerating communities of color under the auspice of protecting its national security. Today, on Korematsu Day, we honor and celebrate the legacy of those who stood up against the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. On this episode, we speak with Linda Morris, an ACLU fellow and a descendant of Japanese American prisoners incarcerated in U.S. camps during WWII, who is engaging her own family history to stand in solidarity with immigrants currently detained by ICE. Looking for more? Follow us: @ACLU and @EmersonSJSykes on Twitter.

In 2017, Arkansas announced a plan to execute eight people in 10 days because the state’s lethal injection drugs were about to expire. The first person executed was Ledell Lee. He was convicted of the 1993 murder of Debra Reese and sentenced to death. But his trials and appeals were plagued by problems from the start. DNA and fingerprints found at the scene of the crime were never tested before his execution, and new analysis from the nation’s top forensic experts provides strong reason to believe he may have been innocent. Cassandra Stubbs, Director of ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project, joins the podcast to discuss a new lawsuit the ACLU is filing to finally uncover DNA evidence that could potentially exonerate Lee.

This weekend, we celebrate the ACLU’s 100th birthday. To commemorate the centennial, novelist and essayist Ayelet Waldman and her husband Michael Chabon edited an anthology of essays from today’s most prominent writers reflecting on landmark ACLU cases. The book is called Fight of The Century, and it features authors like Jesmyn Ward, Dave Eggers and Salman Rushdie, among many others. Waldman joins us to discuss the power of storytelling in both literature and litigation, and what compelled her to take on this project.

This week, we are bringing back a very special episode from 2019 featuring our former director of the Women’s Rights Project, Lenora Lapidus. Lenora passed away just a few months after the interview, having fought a long battle with cancer. She started as an intern in 1988, later served as legal director of the ACLU of New Jersey, and for nearly two decades led the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project, which was founded by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. During this memorable conversation, Lenora reflects on her own journey as a women’s rights advocate, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s lasting impact on the ACLU.

Surveillance technology is slowly encroaching on every part of our lives. With regulation at the federal level slow to materialize, local governments are taking action. Since this episode first ran in July, more American cities in California, Massachusetts, and Maine passed local laws to ban the use of facial recognition technology by police and other government agencies. Is local advocacy our best bet for keeping the surveillance state at bay? Kade Crockford, director of the Technology for Liberty Program at the ACLU of Massachusetts, discusses a growing local movement to protect privacy.

For a special year-end holiday episode, we decided to ask some ACLU staff to have a conversation with their kids about the work they do. On this episode, you’ll hear kids learn about gerrymandering, how we inform legislation, the Keystone XL Pipeline and what kinds of snacks we keep nearby. Thanks for all of your support in 2019! We have some great conversations to share in the new year.

At the ACLU, we receive lots of holiday mail, and not all of it brings tidings of comfort and joy. In this episode, we share a few letters that accuse the ACLU of being "anti-Christian" or "anti-religion.” To respond and dispel the falsehood, At Liberty spoke with Dan Mach, the director of the ACLU’s Program on Religious Freedom and Belief. Mach tells us about the uphill battle of protecting religious liberty, and how the separation of church and state serves people of all faith backgrounds.

This week, the ACLU's Women's Rights Project filed a pair of federal lawsuits against Frontier Airlines for discriminating against pregnant and breastfeeding employees. We talked to flight attendant Melissa Hodgkins and pilot Shannon Kiedrowski about their experiences working for Frontier, and senior staff attorney Galen Sherwin, about the lawsuit.

Mass incarceration in the U.S. is an indisputable fact, but most reforms focus on nonviolent offenses. As uncomfortable as it may be, we can't dismantle mass incarceration without changing the way we think about, talk about, and respond to violence. At Liberty spoke with Danielle Sered, who is doing just that with her organization Common Justice, and her book, Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair.