Voting is a fundamental civil right and it shouldn’t be infringed upon, no matter your race or zip code. Although the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits racially discriminatory voting tactics and policies, including diluting the voting strength of racial minorities, Black people and communities of color in particular continue to face numerous obstacles to voting.

Let’s break down why equal access to voting is critical to the fight for systemic equality.

Having fair and equal representation is the cornerstone of American democracy. Every citizen should have equal access to the ballot box to choose those representatives who will fight for the issues and policies they care about. Having equal access to voting is a civil right that is recognized and protected by the Constitution. The Constitution requires states to apportion their congressional, state, and local electoral districts according to the “one person, one vote” principle, and state legislatures have an obligation to ensure fair and equal representation for all people. These obligations uphold the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection and comply with the requirements of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act (VRA) into law. The VRA was a monumental piece of legislation meant to end state and local voter suppression tactics designed to keep Black and Brown voters from casting ballots.

The Voting Rights Act

Since 1965, the Voting Rights Act (VRA) has protected minority voters at the polls.

Source: American Civil Liberties Union

For decades, the Voting Rights Act successfully protected Black, Brown, Indigenous, and other marginalized voters — but 10 years ago, the Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder struck down its core “preclearance” requirement, which mandated that jurisdictions with long records of racially discriminatory voting practices seek federal approval before altering their voting laws and practices. On top of this, eight years after Shelby, the Supreme Court weakened another provision of the VRA — Section 2, a nationwide ban on voting practices that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or language — making court challenges to discriminatory tactics even harder.

In the years since the Shelby Supreme Court case, states have unleashed a torrent of voter suppression laws that disproportionately impact voters of color. These discriminatory anti-voter efforts continue today and include unnecessary photo ID laws, restraints on voter registration, voter purges, cuts to early voting and vote by mail, documentary proof of citizenship requirements, and polling place closures. Voters across the country continue to face arbitrary restrictions on absentee voting, bans on providing water to voters as they wait in hours-long lines, dropbox limitations, gerrymandering, and other restrictive policies that disproportionately burden marginalized communities.

Every decade, states must redraw district lines at the federal, state, and local levels to balance population shifts. These lines influence who wins elections, which communities are represented, and whose votes can be influential. These district lines determine the electoral boundaries for representation in Congress, state legislatures, and in many county and municipal offices. This process is called redistricting.

The drawing of district lines can dictate not only who runs for public office and who is elected, but also how financial resources are allocated for schools, hospitals, roads and more. The representatives who are elected have the power to make decisions that greatly impact the communities they represent.

Sometimes, people talk about how redistricting can be used to “gerrymander” these electoral district lines. Gerrymandering is the practice of manipulating electoral boundaries to give an unfair political advantage to a particular political party or group. Legislators can gerrymander by cracking specific voters — spreading them thinly across multiple districts — or packing them into as few districts as possible. Those drawing the district lines can use gerrymandering to suppress the voting power of Black, Indigenous and other communities of color.

Communities of color have faced numerous obstacles to meaningful participation in the political process, including the redistricting process. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits the drawing of district lines that dilute the voting strength of communities of color in such a way that prevents them from participating in the political process on equal terms. However, the redistricting process in many states continues to result in district lines that crack and pack Black people and communities of color in ways that minimize their voting strength. As a result, they are not adequately represented in our democracy, perpetuating the systemic inequality many voters of colors already face.

Fifty-Seven Years After its Enactment, the Voting Rights Act is in Peril

On this anniversary of the VRA, the fight to secure the right to vote faces its greatest battles in over a generation.

Source: American Civil Liberties Union

Redistricting plans should fairly reflect the political strength of communities of color. As the Census data confirms, nearly all of the country’s growth over the past decade is attributable to the growth in our nation’s communities of color. Fair maps must adequately reflect that reality, and the right to vote should be equally accessible to everyone.

The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would restore and strengthen the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 to its full power after the Supreme Court eviscerated its core protections a decade ago. Since enactment, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been reauthorized and updated five times with large, bipartisan majorities. It is long past time for Congress to put voters first and return to this strong bipartisan tradition that protects every citizen’s right to vote and moves us closer to a democracy that works for all of us.

Had the Supreme Court not gutted the VRA, voters in states and localities with the worst history of voting discrimination would still be protected. These jurisdictions would have had to preclear changes to their voting laws or processes with the federal government, preventing discriminatory changes before they could be implemented and taint an election. The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would begin to root out racially-driven voting barriers. This legislation is vital to securing and preserving our fundamental right to vote without encountering racially discriminatory barriers.

Through litigation and advocacy, the ACLU is fighting back against attempts to curtail our right to vote and working to ensure the right to vote is equally accessible to everyone. As part of our ongoing work to ensure that legislatures accurately reflect their constituencies and to obtain more equal representation for Black voters, we’re advocating for fairer voting maps across six states in the South: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. We are continuing to advocate for the passage of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would help strengthen core voting rights protections for all. Additionally, we are fighting for the rights of disenfranchised citizens who live in Florida, Iowa, and Kentucky, states with extreme policies of disenfranchising people with certain felony convictions for life. These states are also among those that disproportionately suppress the voting rights of Black communities.

Florida’s Statewide Prosecution of Voting with a Past Conviction is Unlawful

The state’s confusing voter registration system sets people up to fail and further disenfranchises Black voters.

Source: American Civil Liberties Union

The ACLU will continue to fight to ensure the right to vote is equally accessible to everyone. But we can’t do it without you — become a Democracy Defender and join these fights with us.

As a father of two K-12 students, I understand how deeply every parent and school official worries about keeping our kids safe. That critical task means not only keeping them safe from those who may want to harm them, but also providing all the support we can to students who may wish to harm themselves.

Regretfully, I have watched over the years as schools have increasingly turned to student surveillance technologies to keep our children safe. These decisions haunt me because, as an ACLU senior policy counsel focused on privacy, surveillance, and technology issues, I know full well that surveillance does not deter bad conduct, and it certainly does not protect our students. This living surveillance nightmare becomes all the more disturbing when I think about the many proven interventions that schools choose not to invest in, instead spending their limited resources on student surveillance products that do not work.

Why do schools continue to invest in unproven surveillance interventions? Because their decisions far too frequently rely on the marketing materials of those looking to get rich off the sale of student surveillance products: the EdTech Surveillance industry. This over-reliance is somewhat understandable, because school districts have limited expertise in surveillance and have little time to become experts. Moreover, when student surveillance sales pitches are being presented and acquisition decisions are being made, the EdTech Surveillance industry’s salespersons and marketing materials are often the only other voice in the room.

My hope is that will finally stop today.

My cautious optimism is driven by today’s release of the ACLU research report “Digital Dystopia: The Danger in Buying What the EdTech Surveillance Industry is Selling,” which endeavors to definitively pull back the curtain on the EdTech Surveillance industry’s deceptive marketing practices. The report discusses at length how, despite the EdTech Surveillance industry’s assertions to the contrary, there is no reliable and verifiable research demonstrating student surveillance products have a broad, positive impact on improving students’ safety and well-being.

Digital Dystopia: The Danger in Buying What the EdTech Surveillance Industry is Selling

Digital Dystopia: The Danger in Buying What the EdTech Surveillance Industry is Selling, an ACLU research report, examines the EdTech Surveillance...

Source: American Civil Liberties Union

After stoking the fears of educators, parents, students, and other school community members, the EdTech Surveillance industry suggests — while doing their best imitation of a nonprofit — that their only objective is to improve school safety and that their products offer real hope. They engage in this by presenting opinion statements about their products’ efficacy as if they provided reliable, documented proof, and by sprinkling in exaggerated, unverifiable, and flat-out misleading efficacy claims and figures.

Of course, the EdTech Surveillance industry also conveniently fails to discuss the multitude of harms their products cause to students, especially those who are already vulnerable. Fortunately, the ACLU does not share their reluctance towards telling the truth. Instead, our report discusses these harms at length, giving voice to them by quoting researchers, academics, and most importantly, students themselves. From the loss of privacy and trust, to depriving students of their ability to learn, communicate, and associate with one another; student surveillance products are a disaster for positive student development, as well as their civil rights and liberties.

Ultimately, our report offers numerous, concrete actions school districts, elected officials, and community members can take to ensure decisions about student surveillance products are consistent, well-informed, and based on reliable, unbiased information about their highly questionable benefits and significant harms. We believe better decision making will not only result in the more frequent rejection of student surveillance technologies, but also in the selection of interventions that are better suited towards helping and supporting our children.

Piercing the marketing deceptions of a $3.1 billion industry is no small task, and accordingly our report is no small paper. But for responsible school district officials and others who read it, the reward will be a much clearer understanding of the shortcomings and unavoidable harms of student surveillance technologies. That, coupled with our report’s resources, will empower schools to make much better decisions about such technologies, and to ultimately do a better job of keeping our K-12 students safe.

It’s that time of year again: The U.S. Supreme Court will convene next week for a new term. While the last few terms have seen the court deliver seismic decisions on abortion, affirmative action, and voting rights, they’ve been tougher to read in another crucial area: criminal justice.

So, before the term begins on October 2, let’s try to break this down. Here’s a look at where the court stands on criminal law reform issues today, and two cases to keep an eye on.

In general, the Supreme Court’s recent criminal law decisions have been less polarized compared to other areas like abortion and affirmative action. Though the court often rules in favor of the government in criminal matters, it sides with defendants in a surprising number of cases.

There’s just one catch: The court tends to side with defendants under narrow circumstances, when their decisions won’t have a wide-ranging impact.

Take the 2020 case of Ramos v. Louisiana, which invalidated non-unanimous juries. The ruling required juries to reach unanimous guilty verdicts in trials for serious felony crimes. In so doing, the 6-3 majority acknowledged the roots of non-unanimous juries in the enforcement of Jim Crow. Blurring ideological lines, conservative justice Neil Gorsuch penned the majority opinion, joined by fellow conservatives Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas, while liberal justice Elena Kagan joined an opinion written by conservative justice Samuel Alito, along with conservative Chief Justice John Roberts. This decision could help prevent innocent defendants from being convicted and safeguard against decisions based on racial bias.

However, this ruling only affected Louisiana and Oregon, the last two states to maintain this practice. Further, due to excessively harsh sentencing laws and coercive plea bargaining tactics, jury trials have become a rarity. And the court ruled the very next term that its decision is not retroactive, so it can’t be applied to past felony cases; the states will be left to decide which older cases it applies to. The court went even further and held it would no longer apply new rules of criminal procedure retroactively at all.

The one consistent throughline in the court’s rulings involving the criminal legal system is its continued draconian interpretation of federal habeas law. For instance, in Jones v. Hendrix, the Supreme Court ruled that federally incarcerated people who are actually innocent — because the Supreme Court later found the conduct was not criminal — can still be held in prison without any ability to petition a court for release.

Basically, the Supreme Court used a strict interpretation of the federal Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). The law states that incarcerated people generally can’t challenge their conviction more than once. There are two exceptions: when new evidence demonstrating innocence emerges, or when a new rule of constitutional law is made retroactive by the Supreme Court. According to the court, Jones’ situation did not fit either exception. He fell into a gaping hole in federal habeas: Though he was actually innocent, it was because of a new legal ruling, not new evidence, and that ruling was based on a federal statute, rather than the Constitution. There were other ways to interpret the statute, but the court rejected them. So an innocent man sits in jail to this day, with no judicial recourse.

More broadly, the court has avoided answering important criminal procedural questions. For one, the court recently denied review of the ACLU’s case Hester v. Gentry. That lawsuit challenges the widespread practice in Alabama of detaining people prior to trial for weeks or months simply because they cannot afford cash bail. The case argues this practice is unconstitutional, in part because the right to pretrial liberty is fundamental, and cannot be denied unless the government has a compelling reason. The court has not ruled on these issues in nearly 40 years. In its silence, practices like those in Alabama have proliferated across the country.

The court has also generally declined to review cases challenging the qualified immunity doctrine, such as Novak v. Parma. Qualified immunity prevents government officials and law enforcement officers from being sued for money damages for violating someone’s rights. The ACLU has long called for the court or Congress to abolish this doctrine. After Ohio resident Anthony Novak was arrested for publishing a parody of the Parma Police Department’s Facebook page, he filed a civil lawsuit against the department for violating his First Amendment rights. By rejecting Novak’s appeal, the Supreme Court denied any remedy for this constitutional violation.

As the next term approaches, we’re unlikely to see any major changes in the Supreme Court’s stance on criminal justice issues. One case of interest is Pulsifier v. United States, in which the court will decide whether “and” means “and” or “or” under the 2018 First Step Act in determining whether a defendant qualifies for the “safety valve” provision under federal sentencing law. The safety valve allows federal judges to sentence defendants convicted of certain drug crimes below the mandatory minimum, an effort by Congress to mitigate some of the harms from the failed war on drugs. Though a favorable result maintaining broad access to the safety valve is uncertain, it is likely made more plausible by the fact that relief in the case would be narrow: Judges would not be required to sentence below the mandatory minimum; they would simply have the discretion to do so.

McElrath v. Georgia will likely follow a similar pattern. That case involves a law unique to Georgia that creates an exception to the Double Jeopardy clause, namely, by allowing a defendant to be prosecuted a second time for a crime of which they were previously acquitted. The question rests on whether the jury’s acquittal in the first prosecution was “repugnant,” meaning it was inconsistent with the same jury’s findings of guilt on related charges. The case invites the court to reaffirm the importance of both the Double Jeopardy clause and the right to a jury in criminal cases, which the court may well accept given a victory for the defendant would only directly impact a handful of individuals in a single state.

Wins in either of these cases, while welcome, will not change the fact that the court has staked out a conservative middle ground where it will only advance individual rights in cases with less of a ripple effect, while maintaining an inscrutable combination lock on the courthouse doors for defendants asserting these rights. We’ll be watching closely to see if this trend continues in the new term.