At Liberty

Since 1965, the Voting Rights Act (VRA) has been integral to protecting people of color at the polls. But in recent decades, the strength of the VRA has been diminished by decisions like Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, and the subsequent influx of voter restrictions imposed by states. Despite this, there are ways we can fight back in the courts. Section 2 of the VRA prohibits voting practices and procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in certain language minority groups. It is the right of private individuals to challenge discriminatory voting practices and of organizations like the ACLU to support those who raise these challenges. But now, the right to bring these crucial cases before the courts is being threatened. On January 30, we received a decision from the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals that it will not rehear Arkansas State Conference NAACP v. Arkansas Board of Apportionment, a case which challenges the Arkansas House district map for unlawfully stifling the voting strength of Black Arkansas residents. This decision upholds a 2022 lower court ruling in the case that radically concluded that voters may not sue to protect their voting rights under Section 2. This is unprecedented—more than 400 Section 2 cases have been litigated in federal court in the past four decades to protect the voting rights of racial and language minorities, and private plaintiffs have brought the vast majority of them. In today’s episode, you’ll hear from Barry Jefferson, Dorothy Nairne, and Khadidah Stone, three plaintiffs from Section 2 cases. They’ll discuss their experiences challenging racially gerrymandered district maps in their respective states, what compelled them to take action, and how we can all be voting rights advocates. To learn more about redistricting, the cases we mentioned in this episode, and the ACLU’s efforts to protect voting rights, click here: https://www.aclu.org/redistricting/redistricting-101#slide2

Free speech on campus, book bans, education gag orders, the overturn of affirmative action, the resignation of former Harvard president Claudine Gay. All of these issues center on one hot-button topic: DEI. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) has become a staple in national vocabulary after the so-called “racial reckoning” of 2020 brought demands for racial justice to the top of institutional priorities. From schools to Fortune 500 companies to the film industry, DEI efforts had a steady surge…until they didn’t. The burgeoning anti-DEI movement, also coined the “war on woke,” has gone from a once-fringe conservative crusade to a political machine. Already this year, about three dozen bills restricting DEI efforts, like critical race theory, have been proposed in states across the country, with more likely to emerge. Need we again mention the overturn of affirmative action? But how did we go from a public seemingly-committed to DEI to one that denounces it in the span of just a few years? Joining us to help answer this question are Alvin B. Tillery, professor of political science at Northwestern University and director of the university’s Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy, and Leah Watson, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program. Together, we’ll trace the rise of the anti-DEI machine and its political ramifications for the year to come. For more context on the ACLU’s litigation efforts against education gag orders, check out Leah’s law review article: https://journals.law.harvard.edu/crcl/wp-content/uploads/sites/80/2023/09/HLC208_Watson.pdf

As the gang conspiracy trial of rapper Young Thug and his famed rap collective, YSL, extends past 20 days in Atlanta, we’re bringing you a conversation about the use of rap lyrics in court. Despite a groundswell of activism and legal opposition against the legal admissibility of Young Thug’s lyrics, a judge ruled in November that lyrics from Young Thug and other YSL artists can be used by the state against them as evidence pointing to the gang’s existence and the members’ attitudes towards the crimes they are charged with. We’re revisiting an episode from our archive about how the use of an artist’s creative work in court allows for implicit bias to run roughshod on rappers’ lives and lead to wrongful convictions. Joining us to discuss the evolution of this practice is Erik Nielsen, professor at the University of Richmond and co-author of the book “Rap on Trial: Race, Lyrics, and Guilt in America.” We are also joined by New Orleans rapper, songwriter, and former member of the 504boyz, Mac Phipps who experienced firsthand how the use of lyrics on trial can lead to a wrongful conviction.

This week, At Liberty is coming to you live from the 2024 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, hosting a discussion with queer and transgender storytellers. The conversation delves into the challenges they face while navigating an onslaught of bills targeting trans people nationwide and censoring their narratives. This dialogue follows a recent decision by the Utah state House to advance HB 257, a bill that would criminalize trans people for using the bathroom—a stark example of the many threats against the trans community that have surged in recent years. Nationwide, 22 states have banned gender-affirming care for trans minors, and over 300 new anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in 2024. We're fighting back in the legislatures and the courts, but this is also a fight in the public discourse, one that demands us to fight back in cultural organizing. We must own our narratives and tell our stories because the queer and trans community will not be invisible. In this episode, we're joined by Lío Mehiel, an actor, filmmaker, and multidisciplinary artist known for starring in the films “Mutt” and “In the Summers,” both of which premiered at Sundance. We’re also joined by Jules Rosskam, a filmmaker, artist, and educator who has directed several films including “Transparent,” “Against a Trans Narrative,” and the recent Sundance premiere “Desire Lines." Last, but certainly not least, we have Gillian Branstetter, our very own communications strategist for the ACLU's LGBT and HIV project. Together, we spoke about the efforts threatening queer and trans storytelling, and how we persist in spite of them. If you want to join us and the ACLU of Utah in fighting back against HB 257, sign this petition: https://secure.everyaction.com/Ql111CGWmUiOqyG_qjNrWw2

This year marks the 51st anniversary since the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Roe v. Wade, protecting the constitutional right to abortion in 1973. Unfortunately, this anniversary is marred by the overturn of Roe by the Supreme Court in 2022, resulting in the continued denial of the power to make personal medical decisions during pregnancy for millions of people in states across the country. In 2024, our fight for reproductive freedom continues. In the last several weeks, the Supreme Court announced that it would hear two abortion-related cases this term, potentially impacting access to medication abortion and whether people can receive care when facing medical emergencies. This fight requires all of us, and today we’re excited to speak with two advocates about what we can all do to advance reproductive rights in our communities. First up, we have actor and writer Busy Philipps, who is joining the ACLU as an artist ambassador for reproductive freedom. You may recognize Busy from shows like “Freaks and Geeks,” “Girls 5Eva,” and “Busy Tonight,” and the new remake of the movie “Mean Girls.” Offscreen, Busy has engaged in years of advocacy with the ACLU in states like Ohio and Texas. She joins us today to share her journey as an activist alongside J.J. Straight, the ACLU’s national campaigns director for reproductive freedom, who has led many of our state and nationwide fights for abortion access and been busier than ever since the overturn of Roe. Together, we’ll discuss what the new year has in store for reproductive freedom and our continued fight for bodily autonomy at large.

Last year, states passed a record number of bills restricting health care, athletics, public accommodations, expression, and educational materials for trans people — trans kids, more specifically. With the turn of a new year, the situation continues to grow dire. Laws threatening access to gender-affirming care went into effect in several states on January 1, 2024. The ACLU is calling on the Supreme Court to block a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming medical care for trans people under the age of 18, and to reject a case concerning a transgender student’s access to restroom facilities that correspond with their gender identity at an Indiana school. As this unprecedented surge in attacks on the trans community rages on, we need to stay vigilant in watching what’s happening and fighting back. Joining our host Kendall Ciesemier, to update us on what’s going on and what’s to come is Chase Strangio, the ACLU’s deputy director for trans justice with the LGBT & HIV Project.

“Imagine that you, at age fifteen, have been sentenced to social death, life without parole, in a space nine feet by seven—the size of a freight elevator—where for twenty-two to twenty-four hours a day you are trapped; where in a deadly daily routine you sleep, wake up, shit, piss, eat—food slipped through a slot as if you were an animal, where you are denied the possibility of human contact except as physical or mental abuse; where visual and sensory stimuli—the stuff of life—are only a memory or a dream; where who you are is defined only by your willingness or unwillingness to be disciplined and punished. Imagine life without hope in a brutal hellhole of sameness designed to break your spirit and challenge your sanity.” This is an excerpt from Ian Manuel’s 2022 memoir “My Time Will Come: A Memoir of Crime, Punishment, Hope and Redemption” where Manuel recounts his real life experience spending 26 years in prison—18 of those years in solitary confinement—before advocacy efforts from the Equal Justice Initiative led to his release in 2016. Since his release, Manuel has made waves as an activist, poet, and motivational speaker. His memoir recounts his journey from his teenage years to the present. He joins us today to talk about juvenile life without parole, solitary confinement, and restorative justice.

For a special year-end holiday episode, we’re bringing you our third edition of “ACLU kids take over At Liberty.” Kids of ACLU staff spoke to their parents about what they do at work and how they fight for civil rights and civil liberties. They also had some hot takes about how they can do better — at everything. We hope you enjoy it.

2023 is coming to a close, and we have weathered so much this year. At the ACLU, we continue to fight for civil rights and civil liberties across the country. We’re prying open every opportunity for abortion access and reproductive health care following the overturn of Roe, blocking trans health care bans nationwide, filing lawsuits to curb the rise in book bans and educational censorship, and advocating for racial equity after the elimination of affirmative action and continued attacks on voting rights. So today, we're highlighting some of the most notable episodes from the year, which also happen to be some of our favorites. We’ll chat about what we enjoyed, how they came to be, and where the issues we reported on stand today. We hope you enjoy it.

Free speech is one of the hallmarks of a functioning democracy and one of our fundamental constitutional rights. At the ACLU, we know that it's precisely in times of crisis and fear when free speech, open debate, and peaceful dissent are most important. Over the last few months, as the world continues to witness the catastrophe in Israel and Palestine, protests in support of Palestine are being silenced and censored on college campuses. In early November, the ACLU sent out an open letter to the administrative leaders of each state's public college system that reached over 650 colleges and universities, expressing our strong opposition to any efforts that stifle free speech on college campuses, and urging universities to reject calls to investigate, disband, or penalize pro-Palestinian student groups for exercising their free speech rights. In Florida, State University System Chancellor Ray Rodrigues already issued an order in consultation with Governor Ron DeSantis to deactivate Students for Justice in Palestine chapters in the state. In response, we and our partners at the ACLU of Florida and Palestine Legal are suing Governor DeSantis and Florida university system officials on behalf of the University of Florida’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine to block the deactivation order from taking effect. Joining our host, Kendall Ciesemier, to discuss this important lawsuit are Shaiba Rather, the Nadine Strossen fellow with the ACLU’s National Security Project and Tyler Takemoto, the William J. Brennan fellow with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.

On January 21, 2017, a day after the inauguration of former President Donald Trump, activist and journalist Raquel Willis approached the podium at the inaugural Women’s March in Washington, D.C. to share her story at what became one of the largest single-day marches in U.S. history. With this momentous platform, Willis was determined to galvanize the crowd to support liberation for all women, namely Black trans women like herself. Not even three minutes into her speech, after calling out the erasure of trailblazing women of color from feminist history, Willis’ microphone was cut off. Unfortunately, this silencing was something that she knew all too well through her work in supposedly progressive movements and newsrooms. This experience only fueled her fire to make intersectionality the baseline of all liberation efforts. Willis has made waves in her work as the former executive editor of Out Magazine and national organizer for the Transgender Law Center, demonstrating her dedication to uplifting the voices of transgender people of color. In her new memoir, “The Risk It Takes To Bloom: On Life and Liberation,” her voice takes center stage. The book explores Willis’ history and journey with identity, education, grief, community, and remembrance. Her recount honors not only her past and present, but that of the trans community worldwide. Today, Willis joins our host, Kendall Ciesemier, to shed light on her story and vision for the future of liberation.

The holiday season is upon us. This week, we are revisiting our conversation with author and activist Glennon Doyle. In this conversation, Doyle and host Kendall Ciesemier discuss how to bring loved ones into our understanding of equity and justice through the use of storytelling, imagination, and conversation. It’s an episode fit for such a time as this and we hope you enjoy.

If you’re staying up to date with the news, you may have noticed that unions are having a moment. This summer alone, strikes by members of the WGA, UAW, SAG-AFTRA, UPS, Starbucks, Amazon, and Kaiser Permanente unions, among others, have made headlines and signaled solidarity between workers across the nation. Last year, public support for unions hit a 57-year high, with 71% of Americans expressing a favorable opinion. However, unions themselves are not a utopia. At the ACLU, we’ve sided with and against unions to secure worker’s rights, specifically those of women and pregnant people. There’s still much work to be done to ensure that all workers are treated fairly, but one thing remains clear: unions can be a powerful force for securing civil rights and civil liberties. Journalist Kim Kelly is a firm believer in the power of organized labor. After years of reporting on the nationwide labor movement, she released “Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor.” The book chronicles historical labor movements across several industries, focusing on the people from marginalized groups who led them, along with their wins and their losses. Kelly joins us today to help us connect our past to our present and deepen our understanding of the ongoing fight for worker’s rights.

On Tuesday, people across the country took to the polls and made one thing crystal clear: abortion rights matter to voters. In Ohio, voters passed an amendment to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, making it the seventh state to protect abortion access through the ballot box. In Virginia, voters elected a full pro-abortion rights majority in their state General Assembly, and in Pennsylvania, voters maintained a pro-abortion majority in their state supreme court. As we look to 2024, abortion rights will continue to be on the ballot, meaning that anti-abortion opponents may continue to chip away at voting rights as a mechanism to block the will of voters, using tactics like racial gerrymandering and voter intimidation. All voters deserve an equal opportunity to exercise their rights and participate in democracy. Today, we’ll get an election results update from Jessica Arons, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, who has been working to secure victories for reproductive freedom at the ballot box. Then, we’ll speak with Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, to talk about how her team is using a recent voting rights victory at the Supreme Court to fight battles all across the country.

On October 24, Britney Spears released her tell-all memoir, “The Woman in Me.” In the book, she traces her journey from childhood stardom to living 13 years under the control of a conservatorship, a court-sanctioned arrangement that strips people with disabilities of their civil liberties. In Spears’ case, her dad, who she characterizes in the book as abusive and an addict, was able to gain legal rights over her life and her business when Britney was 26-years-old. This included forcing her to work, surveilling and controlling her daily life habits, and making all of her healthcare choices. Spears’ conservatorship initially made global headlines in 2021, catapulting conservatorship as a legal construct into public dialogue and calling into question its use in the lives of more than one million other Americans with disabilities. Britney’s success in terminating her conservatorship propelled the state of California to sign meaningful legislation into law, requiring courts to consider alternatives to conservatorship, and making it easier for others to terminate their own. Today, we are checking in with Zoe Brennan-Krohn, who we originally spoke to in 2021 when this case first made headlines. Zoe is a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Disability Rights Project who has worked on conservatorship for many years, including filing amicus briefs in support of Britney. We’ve read the memoir and we’re ready to discuss.

On November 7th, Ohio voters will decide whether to pass Issue 1, which would protect their decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, miscarriage care, and abortion. The fact that this amendment is even on the ballot is a huge feat. Ohioans had to submit hundreds of thousands of signatures to get the reproductive freedom amendment on the ballot this fall. Fearing that voters will take power into their own hands to protect reproductive rights, anti-abortion politicians forced a different amendment onto the ballot in August to raise the threshold for passing any future ballot measure from a simple majority to 60 percent of the vote. This thinly veiled attack on democracy and Ohioans' voting power to protect abortion failed by wide margins. Now, Ohioans will finally have the opportunity to weigh in directly on reproductive freedom in their state over the next several weeks. Early voting started on October 11th, and election day is on November 7th. As we approach the election, our friends at the ACLU of Ohio and Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights are engaged in efforts to get Ohioans to vote “yes” on Issue 1. Voting “yes” is imperative because there is so much on the line. Joining us today to share their campaign experience are Elizabeth Chasteen Day, statewide organizing director for the ACLU of Ohio, and Alexis Morrisroe, an educator and campaign volunteer.

October marks LGBTQ History Month, and this week on At Liberty we are honoring the legacy of LGBTQ activism throughout the AIDS epidemic. Throughout the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, AIDS claimed the lives of thousands of New Yorkers per year, with city, state, and national governments doing little to address the crisis. In response to government inaction and homophobia, a group of New York City activists founded ACT UP, a grassroots, queer-led protest movement to urge action, call for change, and stand in the gap as thousands of queer people died. Due to their dogged persistence, steadfast unity in diversity, and pointed demonstrations, ACT UP achieved lasting victories in medical treatment, health care access, and more. Today, in classrooms across the country, this history has largely gone untold. In our broader public discourse, the AIDS epidemic in the U.S. and the subsequent movement that rose to fight for LGBTQ lives is often overlooked. Enter Sarah Schulman, a novelist, journalist, playwright, and AIDS historian, who is fighting to ensure that we remember. Schulman is the author of 20 books, her latest being “Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP, New York 1987-1993,” which documents the people and tactics behind ACT UP’s success. Sarah is also the co-director of the ACT UP Oral History Project. She joins us today to share her expertise and remember the movement.

This May, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed SB 264, a law that restricts Chinese nationals from acquiring property in the state of Florida under the guise of protecting national security. But the issue is actually pretty clear — Chinese people are not the Chinese government, and conflating the two is just the latest iteration of anti-Asian land laws and anti-Asian discrimination that date as far back as the 1880s. Rather than protecting national security, the law will shatter the dreams of Chinese families, students, and business owners hoping to build a life in the Sunshine State. So we at the ACLU, along with our partners, are suing Florida over SB 264, arguing in Shen v. Simpson that the law legitimizes and expands housing discrimination against people of Asian descent and therefore violates both the Constitution and the Fair Housing Act. Joining us today to discuss the case are Bethany Li, legal director of the Asian American Legal Defense & Education Fund and one of our co-counsels in the case, and Echo King, an immigration lawyer and co-founder of the Florida Asian Americans Justice Alliance, a group which rallies the support of Floridians against this kind of discrimination.

Today’s young people have a lot to deal with. Pandemic interruptions, social isolation, climate change, political polarization, ever-changing technology — all on top of the typical turbulence of adolescence. Studies on youth mental health outcomes show increasing loneliness and hopelessness, illustrating one thing: the kids are not alright. We all want a silver bullet for the youth mental health crisis, and some lawmakers are claiming they have one: the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA for short. After failing to gain traction in 2022, this bipartisan bill has been revised and re-introduced by Congress — but like most solutions that claim to solve all our woes with the stroke of a pen, KOSA is too good to be true. If passed, KOSA would allow each state’s attorney general to individually decide what parts of the internet kids can and cannot access. In fact, KOSA proponents have even openly admitted that they plan to use KOSA to block kids from LGBTQ content online. We at the ACLU, along with other civil rights organizations and parents of queer and trans youth, have spoken out against the bill for all the ways it overreaches, suppresses our right to free information, and targets LGBTQ people. As anti-LGBTQ legislation continues to rise, KOSA is one of many censorship tools masquerading as a kids safety solution. Joining us today to explain the consequences this bill could have for us all are Evan Greer, director of the digital rights group Fight for the Future, and Cody Venzke, senior policy counsel at the ACLU.

Last month, a district court judge in Montana ruled in favor of 16 youth plaintiffs in a landmark climate lawsuit. In Held v. Montana, young Montanans ranging from ages 5 to 22 sued the state, arguing that lawmakers have consciously prioritized the development of fossil fuels over the well-being of Montana’s residents and the protection of natural resources. This case marks the first time that a U.S. court has declared a government’s constitutional duty to protect people from climate change. Not only does this case model how young people can engage with the legal system, it also sets precedent for similar lawsuits, proving state constitutions as a viable pathway to scoring seemingly unlikely civil rights victories. Joining us today is Mat dos Santos, an attorney for Our Children’s Trust, the legal nonprofit group that brought the case on behalf of the youth, and Claire Vlases, one of the plaintiffs. They’ll explain what it took to get this case off the ground and what implications it could have for the future.

“The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why?” That’s the question that underscores Pulitzer Prize-winning sociologist Matthew Desmond’s new book, “Poverty, by America.” America is a country that purports equality as one of its highest values. Economic opportunity and the long touted American dream have driven millions to emigrate and settle here for centuries. In reality, however, gross economic inequality undergirds every facet of American life: education, the criminal legal system, health care, and housing. Affordable housing is foundational to American life. Because America is rife with poverty, it’s also rife with housing inequality. This is Desmond’s focus of study. Desmond’s work at Princeton University’s “Eviction Lab” and his 2016 book, “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City,” continue to shape the conversation about housing and poverty today. His new book takes his exploration one step further, seeking to examine and address the roots and responses to housing insecurity and its threat to American life. Today, we are running a conversation between Desmond and the ACLU’s Sandra Park, senior staff attorney for the Women’s Rights Project, who also works on these issues. Together, they’ll break down the complexities of American poverty and how poverty as a societal force threatens the accessibility of our civil rights and civil liberties.

We’re continuing to feature major stories impacting students as the back-to-school season is underway. Today, we confront one troubling question: Why are students being fined by police in schools? Across the nation, students are being disciplined through tickets with shocking frequency, burdening them with hefty fines and subjecting them to the juvenile justice system, all of which greases the skids on the school-to-prison pipeline. The state of Illinois has become a hotbed for ticketing in schools, to such an extent that legislators and activists have proposed a House bill to end the practice. But as we await the passage of this law, students continue to pay the price. Last year, the Chicago Tribune and ProPublica published an investigation on this issue, finding that nearly 12,000 tickets were written to Illinois students over three school years, with Black students twice as likely to be ticketed compared to their white peers. 20-year-old Amara Harris is one of those students. She’s entering her senior year at Spelman College, finally free from an alleged theft fine that she received as a high school student in Naperville, Illinois. Now, the state is considering legislation to end fees and fines in schools on the backbone of cases like Amara’s. She joined us to explain how a misunderstanding over a pair of lost AirPods led to a trial four years in the making. Then, Ghadah Makoshi, advocacy and policy strategist with the ACLU of Pennsylvania, discusses her research on ticketing in Pittsburgh public schools and how we can disrupt school-based pathways to the juvenile justice system.

Back-to-school season is upon us and here at the ACLU we’ve been following the nationwide campaign to censor education, be that the censorship of important historical and social context in curriculums, or the recent rise in book bans. All of these efforts threaten students' right to learn. As we chart this issue, our eyes are on Texas. The state is banning more books than any other, eliminating libraries, and through these decisions, targeting low-income students of color. This year, some students in the Houston Independent School District — the largest district in Texas — may be heading to schools with no libraries or librarians. In August, the state announced plans to convert libraries into disciplinary centers, eliminating librarian positions at 28 elementary and middle schools. Another 57 schools are being assessed for the same outcome, with the goal of addressing low academic performance in certain schools. This alarming change comes as part of a sweeping reform program led by the HISD’s new superintendent Mike Miles, and a new state-imposed school board, both of which replaced the district's former elected school board and superintendent in the spring. We're joined by Becky Calzada and Deborah Hall, two Texas librarians who are advocating for students and the future of their profession. Then, we hear from ACLU of Texas attorney Chloe Kempf, to help explain how the rise in education censorship infringes on students’ civil rights.

Across America, 68 percent of incarcerated people with a medical condition go without care in local jails. Put simply, incarcerated people are often denied life sustaining and life-saving health care treatment. To make matters worse, carceral facilities are increasingly used as a response to “treat” those with mental and physical illnesses. But, in reality, they are doing the opposite. After an arrest, those who can’t immediately post bail can spend days on end without medical services. Until they can gather enough money to buy freedom, incarcerated people can suffer from poor health care with dire consequences, including in some cases death. Nothing reveals this experience more than the story of 54-year-old Dexter Barry. Last year, in November of 2022 Dexter was experiencing a renewed sense of health and stability in his life. This was all thanks to a heart transplant that he received after waiting for an organ for 12 years while battling ongoing heart complications. That month, Barry got into a verbal dispute with his neighbor in Jacksonville, Florida. The incident resulted in a misdemeanor arrest that kept him in jail for two days without anti-rejection medication for his transplant, despite several pleas for it. Three days after he was released from jail, he died from cardiac arrest that was caused by an acute rejection of his heart. Dexter’s story is reflective of sweeping failures in the carceral system. Unfortunately, his story is one of many. We’re joined by his children Janelle King and Dexter Barry Jr., who are amplifying their dad’s story to get justice and prevent what happened to him from happening to anyone else.

On Tuesday, June 27, more than a decade after its first introduction in a congressional committee, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act went into effect, changing the landscape of work for all pregnant people. Before this law, many pregnant workers had to decide between protecting their jobs and protecting their health. While there have been efforts in the past to protect pregnant workers, employers have always found loopholes to avoid providing accommodations. Against their judgment and against their doctors’ judgment, pregnant workers have had to lift heavy objects, stand for hours on end, and expose themselves to hazardous chemicals. This will no longer be the case thanks to national advocacy efforts, including those from us here at the ACLU. Today, we’re speaking with Vania Leveille, senior legislative counsel in the ACLU’s National Political Advocacy Department, who will share more about the mammoth undertaking that moved the law to its passage, and Gillian Thomas, senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project, who will detail what the act looks like in practice.

Ten years ago this July, Opal Tometi, Alicia Garza, and Patrisse Cullors tweeted #BlackLivesMatter in the wake of Trayvon Martin’s death. The hashtag helped galvanize a movement calling out the racism that has deeply affected the lives and deaths of Black people in America since its founding. The Black Lives Matter movement calls for the reimagination of institutions like policing, housing, education, and health care, with the hope of redressing the harms done to historically marginalized communities and building a more just country for all. As we look back on the last 10years since the movement began, and three years since its resurgence following the murder of George Floyd, we want to better understand the history of Black Lives Matter and how it continues to shape American life. We are joined by Wesley Lowery, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, who is widely regarded as the nation’s leading reporter on the Black Lives Matter movement. Wesley has been covering BLM since the year it began and has written two books on race in America. His latest, American Whitelash: A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress, is a timely account of white Americans’ backlash against evolving discourses on race, identity, and equity. We are excited to speak with him about Black Lives Matter’s evolving legacy, the fervent backlash against it, and where the movement stands today.

Another Supreme Court term has come to a close. This year, the court delivered major decisions on voting rights, free speech, Indigenous sovereignty, and racial justice, among other issues. The ACLU was involved in cases throughout the term and in many ways, our wins exceeded our expectations. However, in the last two days of the term, the court dropped decisions overturning affirmative action, codifying discrimination in the name of “free speech,” and blocking President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan. Here to help us reconcile our wins and losses and break down the term is returning favorite, David Cole, ACLU’s national legal director.

On Thursday, June 29, in the cases of Students for Fair Admissions. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, the Supreme Court — in a 6 to 3 decision — overturned affirmative action in higher education, restricting universities’ ability to fully address systemic racial inequalities that persist in higher education. Affirmative action in higher education has been in place since the 1960s. This decision is the latest in the Supreme Court’s move to break with decades of precedent and undo long-held civil rights. Joining us to unpack the decision is ReNika Moore, director of the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program.

Nearly one year ago, on June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court released its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case concerning abortion access in the state of Mississippi. Instead of following decades of precedent set by decisions in other cases involving abortion access that had thus far kept Roe v. Wade intact, five justices broke from precedent, overturning Roe, and with it the federal constitutional right to abortion. For 49 years, Roe granted foundational access to abortion, allowing people who could become pregnant to choose what’s best for them and their families. Since its overturn, states across the country have quickly moved to ban abortion, leaving so many without access. In the last year, we’ve lived the consequences. Losing the right to a legal abortion is calling much of our lives into question, forcing tens of millions of us to contend with a new reality. A few weeks ago, we at the ACLU asked you to share how your life has been impacted by the overturn of Roe and the abortion bans that followed. We received hundreds of submissions from folks all across the country. Your lives have changed in innumerable ways since just this time last year.

This year has brought a new level of anti-democratic behavior, particularly in state houses and legislatures. In March, Rep. Mauree Turner from Oklahoma was censured for offering a protester the use of an office in the aftermath of an arrest. In April, two Tennessee state representatives, Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, were ousted for speaking up for their constituents protesting against gun violence. And then in May, Rep. Zooey Zephyr was censured for her vocal opposition to a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors. The retaliation experienced by these elected officials hints at the growing vulnerability of the right to express dissent in politics and government, a worrying trend. The rise in bans attacking the LGBTQ community is being met with protest, the foundational American mechanism we have for showing disapproval and standing up for our values in our representative democracy. When that right to dissent is threatened, we all are threatened, and the LGBTQ community is put even further at risk. Joining us today to talk about this silencing effect are Rep. Zooey Zephyr from Montana and Rep. Mauree Turner from Oklahoma.

As legislatures across the country enact anti-LGBTQ bills, one group has taken center stage in our national conversation: trans youth. Of the 491 anti-LGBTQ bills that we are tracking in this legislative session, 118 are bills seeking to restrict or ban gender-affirming care for trans kids. In the midst of all of this we are losing sight of the big picture. Trans kids are simply kids. And they’d like everyone else to let them be that. They don’t want to have to grow up fast, or be thrust into the spotlight. They want to manage their cheer team, build robots in their bedrooms, and go to homecoming with their friends. So today, we’re passing them the mic, because well, the adults are talking too much and need to sit down and listen.

On this podcast, we have covered book banning and education censorship a few times before, but the way we see it, bans and revisionist histories thrive in our silence. Despite the recent attention surrounding the onslaught of CRT bans, the suppression of certain histories isn’t new. Indigenous history and Indigenous issues have long been underreported and even erased, sidelining Indigenous folks and their experiences from the national conversation. This is one of the most active mechanisms of oppression of Indigenous Americans — erasure — erasure of history, culture, and language. Make no mistake, CRT bans are just the latest euphemisms — and violent tools — for cultural genocide. This story is playing out across the country, especially in South Dakota where the governor and state legislature of South Dakota have introduced multiple bills over the last two years aiming to dramatically dilute Indigenous history and culture in the school curriculum. Today, we will be hearing from Wyatt Hunter, a recent high school graduate from South Dakota and Sarah White, Founder & Executive Director of the South Dakota Education Equity Coalition (SDEEC), about the fight for Indigenous education in South Dakota.

Today, we are celebrating the ending of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with a conversation with legendary drag performer Sasha Colby. For the last 20 years, Colby has been one of the most celebrated names in drag and last month, she added another accolade to the list: winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Colby’s win is historic, marking the first time a first trans woman of color and a Native Hawaiian contestant has won the competition. Colby’s victory comes at a fraught time for the communities she proudly represents. Towards the end of 2022, lawmakers in six states proposed bills to ban drag in public or in the presence of minors. On April 1st, Tennessee became the first state in the country to ban drag performances anywhere in the presence of someone under 18 years old, which thankfully was temporarily blocked by a judge. So far in 2023, politicians across the country have introduced nearly 500 anti-LGBTQ bills overwhelmingly targeting trans people and trans youth specifically. All of these efforts rely on antiquated anti-LGBTQ ideas and tropes that are dangerous. Now more than ever, representation of trans people living and thriving is important, and Sasha has dedicated herself and her craft to this for nearly two decades. Sasha Colby joins us today to talk about what it means to be the first Native Hawaiian winner of Drag Race, her storied career, and what drag means in America right now.

Today, we're focusing on Chicago — the country's third largest (and one of the most diverse) cities, and a city that has been a blueprint for housing segregation. While the discriminatory practice of racial redlining was officially outlawed in 1968, the practice still reverberates throughout the city today. For every dollar loaned by banks in Chicago’s white neighborhoods, they invest just 12 cents in the city’s Black neighborhoods, and 13 cents in Latino areas, according to a 2020 study by WBEZ and City Bureau. A typical household’s wealth in the richest area of Chicago is 206 times higher than a typical household’s wealth in the poorest area. This continued inequity lies at the crux of the city’s ongoing struggles against gun and gang violence, unemployment, and homelessness, but are often overlooked. The system was designed to create these problems, and has worked as intended. Now, it’s time to learn how so many Chicagoans were set up to struggle, and how we can all be a part of undoing the legacy of racism that pervades the city’s maps. Here to talk to us about Chicago’s infamous housing history, ongoing consequences, and nationwide influence, is Mike Amezcua, associate history professor at Georgetown University and author of “Making Mexican Chicago: From Postwar Settlement to the Age of Gentrification.”

The social media platform TikTok has had a meteoric rise. The app has become a hub for educators, activists, and creatives to influence all aspects of culture. From launching dance trends, catapulting decades old books onto best sellers lists, to educating voters and organizing changemakers, TikTok has become key to how over 150 million users across the United States create, engage, and learn. But a new movement has risen to ban the app, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. Lawmakers at the state and federal level are growing concerned over the prospect of American users' data becoming accessible to the Chinese government. While data privacy is a concern across all social media apps, the singling out of TikTok out points to an anti-Asian sentiment that is racist. What’s more: The banning of a social media app would be a dangerous act of censorship on the free speech of so many Americans. Today, we will hear from three TikTok creators about what brought them to TikTok and why the platform has become a nexus of organizing, education, and entertainment for young Americans. Then Ashley Gorski, Senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU’s National Security Project will help us unpack the bans.

As soon as a week from today, the Biden administration could implement a policy that would force people to seek asylum and wait for an answer in Mexico, or another country they passed through, with limited exceptions. The proposed change is based off of a Trump-era policy that the ACLU fought in court, and which President Biden previously condemned. It also stands in direct violation of United States asylum laws and will lead people fleeing violence and persecution to face avoidable harm. President Biden campaigned on promises to restore and strengthen the asylum process. Instead of re-committing the United States to its promise of upholding international humanitarian practices, his administration plans to replace the inhumane Title 42 policy enacted under the Trump administration with a similarly dangerous one, taken straight from the Trump administration's playbook. Baine Bookey, legal director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, and Katrina Eiland, managing attorney for the ACLU’s Immigrants' Rights Project, join us today to unpack this rule, the harm it will cause thousands of people, and to explain what the asylum process should look like.

This 4/20, we want to talk about a tool that can be used to address the horrific consequences of the war on drugs: clemency. Throughout U.S. history, presidents, and governors have had the power to grant clemency, either by pardoning people of their crimes or reducing their sentences. Clemency can be used as a check on the criminal legal system, which often imposes unjustifiably harsh sentences and disproportionately criminalizes Black and Brown people, disabled people, and poor people. As Americans grapple with the racism and punitive spirit that fueled mass incarceration, more and more advocates have called on chief executives to use their power to confront racial injustice and end imprisonment that is no longer just or justified. Few issues highlight the importance of clemency more than the unequal treatment of drug convictions. Of the 1.9 million people who are currently incarcerated in the U.S.,191,000 are in jail or prison for drug related convictions. Today, many of these convictions would be erroneous, as many states adopt public health approaches to drug use and move towards legalizing marijuana in particular. Today, we are going to look at the redemptive hope clemency can provide, both to people and the criminal legal system as a whole. We are joined by Kemba Smith, who received clemency in 2000 and has been a prominent criminal justice reform advocate ever since, and Cynthia Roseberry, Acting Director of the ACLU’s Justice Division and key leader on Clemency 2014, a historic initiative of more than 4,000 lawyers who represented over 36,000 clients as they went through the presidential clemency process.

On Friday, April 7th, the Tennessee state legislature voted to expel two out of the three state representatives, Representatives Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, who protested on the chamber floor in the wake of a mass shooting that killed six people, including three nine-year-old children. Now, their expulsion was an unprecedented move, completely disregarding typical norms of democracy and also the will of voters. No Tennessee House member has ever been removed from elected office for simply violating decorum rules. This week, both Representative Pearson and Jones were reinstated to their elected seats in the State House, but the damage has been done. Here to unpack all that has happened in Tennessee this week. As Jeff Preptit, a staff attorney at the ACLU of Tennessee.

The U.S. is the only developed democracy that strips voting rights from its people on the basis of a criminal conviction. An estimated 4.6 million Americans across the country are barred from casting ballots. Now to give a sense of scope — this number is larger than the voting-eligible population of New Jersey. At the ACLU, we believe that when we suppress the voting rights of any group of people, our democracy weakens. In order to live up the full ideal of a constitutional democracy, everyone must be given the right and access to vote. The good news is that many states are starting to agree with us. In the last 10 years, we’ve seen states slowly improve access to those formerly or currently incarcerated and all of these movements, are victories worthy of celebration. That’s why today, we are taking a moment to recognize a big victory in Minnesota where the state passed the Restore the Vote bill just about a month ago, giving 55,000 Minnesotans the power to cast their vote in the next local, state, or federal election after they serve their time but before they finish their parole or probation. We are joined by Jennifer Schroeder, an advocate and plaintiff in an ACLU and ACLU of Minnesota lawsuit that challenged the previous voting restriction, and Julie Ebenstein, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, to discuss how this change has a meaningful positive impact on everyone.

This Friday, we celebrate International Transgender Day of Visibility, an opportunity to celebrate the many contributions trans people have made to society as well as raise awareness for the work that needs to be done to achieve gender equality for all. We are currently witnessing a wave of anti-trans legislation across the country, but the criminalization of trans people is nothing new. For over 20 years, Louisiana’s Crime Against Nature by Solicitation law (or CANS for short) made offering certain sexual acts for money a felony, with penalties including up to 5 years in prison, hard labor, and mandatory registration on the sex offender database. These harsh penalties never applied to the state’s other anti-sex work laws, and were specifically designed to target queer people, especially Black trans women. Louisiana strengthened CANS in 1992 and by 2011, 40 percent of people on the New Orleans sex offender registry were convicted under CANS. Of that, 75 percent were women, and 79 percent were Black. Our guests today have been fighting to make New Orleans a safer place for transgender and gender non-conforming people in the face of this pernicious law that targets and criminalizes them. In addition to building spaces for Black trans women to rest, learn, live and thrive, Wendi Cooper and Milan Nicole Sherry have dedicated their lives to repealing the law that once threatened their own lives. A recent documentary, "CANS Can’t Stand," highlights Wendi, Milan, and others’ fight against CANS and efforts to build community for trans women in New Orleans and beyond. We are so excited to speak with them all about their tenacious activism and the experience of releasing “CANS Can't Stand” at a time of such backlash against LGBTQ rights and representation.

Keeping kids safe is one of our greatest responsibilities as adults. But what if the main tool we use to protect children is actually preventing everyone from getting the resources they need? Every state in the nation has mandatory reporting laws that require professions such as teachers, coaches, nurses, and more to report any suspected or observed instances of child abuse to the state. While this sounds logical, its application has effectively made a surveillance apparatus out of educators, health care, and social workers, which leaves the families most in need of help afraid to ask for it, at the risk of opening an investigation. The pitfalls of mandatory reporting are especially evident in Pennsylvania. In the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal, Pennsylvania lawmakers passed sweeping reforms expanding mandatory reporting and the definition of child abuse to include low-level neglectful circumstances that often arise from poverty. Since reforms were implemented in 2014, reports have skyrocketed, but recent studies have shown that this increase has not turned up any additional victims of child abuse but has rather over-stretched the system. Within the first five years of the reforms, one million calls were made to the state’s child abuse hotline. 800,000 regarded low-level neglect allegations stemming from poverty, and nine in ten were dismissed following traumatic housing searches and family questioning that disproportionately target Black and brown families. Here to help explain the mandatory reporting system and its consequences are Director of Client Voice at Philadelphia’s Community Legal Services, April Lee, who experienced firsthand how mandatory reporting can traumatize families, and Anjana Samant, Senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project

Today we are talking about one of the most revolutionary forces in America — teenage girls. Throughout history, teenage girls have consistently stood on the frontlines for change. At 16, Sybil Ludington outran Paul Revere in warning American troops of the impending threat of the British. At 15, Barbara Johns staged a school boycott that helped initiate Brown v. Board of Education. At 19, Heather Tobis tried to help herself and other girls around her navigate a pre-Roe world by starting Jane — a clandestine network that connected young women with access to safe abortions. Never heard of these girls? Yeah, neither had we. The achievements and contributions of girls and young women are often under-recorded and dismissed. A new book, "Young and Restless: the Girls who Sparked America’s Revolutions," by Mattie Kahn interrupts this cycle of erasure. Mattie brings to the forefront girls' and young women’s trail-blazing activism, from the labor movement of the late 19th century to the fight against climate change now. Author, writer, and editor Mattie Kahn joins us today to talk about the revolutionary power of girls, the challenges they face, and how they rise up consistently to meet the moment.

It’s March, which means it’s Women’s History Month. This month, we’ll speak with women about their activism and resistance to fight for their rights and those around them. Today, we’re talking about the very sexy idea of constitutional interpretation. The Constitution, like any text, is open to interpretation. Where this gets hairy is when different judges, or justices, have vastly different methods of interpretation, typically based on their own bias, education, and lived experience. Where it gets even hairier is when women’s rights are on the line, and when one certain theory of constitutional interpretation is applied — one in which women aren’t even people in the eyes of the law. It’s called originalism. Originalism dictates that present day readings of the Constitution should be dependent on the document’s “original public meaning,” meaning that we have to look back to the time of the Constitution’s writing and ratification to interpret its intent. The problem is that only certain people at that time had civil rights at all: white, land-owning men. While initially this was a fringe theory, originalism has grown to become a dominant legal framework, one followed by five of the nine justices on the Supreme Court. Many legal scholars are alarmed at its increased use because the stakes are so high. In decisions across the country, originalism is being used to threaten the safety of women and bodily autonomy at large. As our guest Madiba K. Dennie wrote, “American law has not historically been good to women, and whatever progress there once was is now vulnerable to regression.” Madiba K. Dennie, former counsel at the Brennan Center’s Democracy program, recently explored the consequences of using the Constitution in this way in an article for The Atlantic, “Originalism is going to get women killed.” She joins us today to discuss.

Housing is the bedrock of American society, and one of the major determinants for life outcomes like health, income, and educational opportunity. Because of its importance, housing has long been the site of discriminatory policies aimed at marginalizing Black and Brown people in America, be it through zoning, redlining, crime free housing ordinances, racial steering, and more. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 aimed to address this history and outlaw discrimination, but vague guidelines and weak enforcement mechanisms have left a lot unaddressed. In January, the Biden administration reinstated the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule, which adds federal heft to the Fair Housing Act and mandates that localities submit plans for actively addressing segregation and proposes that cities and states that fail to meaningfully work towards their stated goal could face loss of funding. Throughout her career in civil rights law, ACLU President Deborah Archer has studied housing discrimination and infrastructure. She’s the Associate Dean and Co-Director of Clinical and Advocacy Programs, Professor of Clinical Law, and Co-Faculty Director of the Center on Race, Inequality and the Law — all at the NYU School of Law. We’re excited to have her here today to give us a primer on housing discrimination and explain why it’s part of the ACLU’s push for equitable systems across so many facets of society.

Today, we’re digging into the archives and sharing one of our most celebratory episodes, because we all need a little joy, right? Please enjoy former ACLU staff attorney Lizzy Watson and her conversation with award-winning artist, Jon Batiste. You may have seen him on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” where he’s been the music director and bandleader since 2015. You may have heard him on the soundtrack of the Pixar-animated film “Soul” where he performed and composed the jazz portion of the score. Or you may have experienced his live performances in the streets of New York City with his band Stay Human during the pandemic lockdown, the protests of 2020, or during one of his “love riots” – a spontaneous show in the streets where the musicians stand among the crowd and exchange in the energy of the music and the moment. We’ll talk to him about his New Orleans roots, his most recent album “We Are,” and his commitment to creating music that celebrates his culture and aims to unite us all.

Over the past two years, we've seen a dramatic increase in the number of books being banned or challenged in school districts across the country. While here's a long history of book banning and censorship in America, over the 2021 to 2022 school year book banning reached an unprecedented high. What's even more worrying about this increased censorship is which stories are being censored. The majority of the books being targeted by these bans contain LGBTQ storylines and protagonists of color. Here today to talk with us about book banning and how we can all show up in the fight against censorship is George M. Johnson. Their memoir, All Boys Aren't Blue, explores themes of gender identity, sexual orientation and race. As Johnson shares their experience growing up black and queer in New Jersey and Virginia. All Boys Aren't Blue was published in 2020 and has become one of the top five most banned books in the country.

Since the repeal of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, the fight for reproductive freedom has increasingly centered on medication abortion. The two pill regimen allows pregnant people to safely terminate pregnancies, with medicine alone. Since the FDA approved one of the medications used, mifepristone, in 2000, the method has grown to now account for 54% of abortions performed nationwide. For that reason, anti-abortion advocates view it as a threat and are looking to take mifepristone off of shelves across in the U.S. That is the goal behind a lawsuit filed in November 2022 by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). The ADF is suing the FDA to rescind its approval of mifepristone. If the suit is successful, it could drastically limit access to medication abortion across the country and force millions of Americans seeking abortions to undergo operations, carry unwanted pregnancies to term, not have access to miscarriage care, and more. This nightmare is already playing out and causing pain and trauma for people who can get pregnant in the 12 states where abortion is banned, and this lawsuit could bring these realities to all 50 states. The stakes are so high. Here to talk with us about this dangerous lawsuit, the importance of mifepristone for reproductive healthcare, and how the ACLU is showing up to preserve reproductive care nationwide is Andy Beck, Senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project.

February marks Black History Month, an opportunity to celebrate the contributions Black Americans have made to society. And today, we're going to be celebrating that. But before that. Given the themes of this episode, we want to acknowledge the brutal murder of Tyree Nichols and the violence towards high schooler Tauris Sledge, both by police. This horrific violence only adds to the urgent call for alternatives to policing in America. And this conversation today is about imagining and realizing those alternatives. As it turns out, it's been done before, and Black Americans have always led the way. This conversation was recorded before recent events, so we don't address them directly, but we do dive into the possibility of a better vision for our country. Advocates are rightly calling for communities to slash police budgets and reinvest that funding into community health services. These calls have been met with varying degrees of buy in, with some claiming that they are too idealistic or even naive. But all we need to do is to look to Black history to prove that these naysayers are wrong. This has been done before. This is the story of our country's first ambulance service, an alternative to policing that became a model used across the country. Freedom House was founded in Pittsburgh's historically Black neighborhood, The Hill, in 1967. Back then, police were responding to all health emergencies, a service they were not effectively providing, particularly to Black communities at a time when the US was deeply segregated and reeling from the civil rights movement. Freedom House provided both life saving health care and career advancement for Hill residents who are both underserved and often overlooked by society. Here to talk with us about the Freedom House, its ongoing legacy, the importance of community based emergency response, and why alternatives to policing are both so important and so possible, are John Moon, former Freedom House EMT and retired assistant chief of Pittsburgh's Emergency Medical Service, and Brandon Buskey, director of the ACLU's Criminal Law Reform Project.

Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola Prison, is the largest maximum-security adult prison in the US. Angola is the perfect symbol for the criminal legal system’s ongoing legacy of racism. It’s transformed from a slave plantation to a camp for mostly Black laborers exploited by convict leasing, all before becoming a prison. For over a century, Angola has been a site of human rights abuses, which continue to this day. This fall, a new chapter of horror began on its grounds: the detention of children in the same cell block that once held incarcerated people awaiting the death penalty. In August, the ACLU and partner organizations filed a class action suit, Alex A v. Edwards, seeking to block the transfer of children to Angola. The lawsuit is pending, and in October, the state began moving children as young as 14 into Angola, a move that violates state and federal laws. Here to talk to us about how we got here and how the ACLU and community partners are continuing to fight the avoidable and unconstitutional detention of children in Angola are Gina Womack, executive director and co-founder, Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children, and Tammie Gregg, Deputy Director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project.

January 22nd marks the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case that codified the right to an abortion. But this year on January 22nd, we’ll largely remember this anniversary as the one that wasn’t. For 49 years, Roe helped to allow people who could become pregnant decide what was best for them and their families, but on June 24th, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. Since then, bans on abortion have taken effect in 13 states, and courts have blocked abortion bans in 9 others, according to the New York Times abortion ban tracker, though this is constantly changing. On this anniversary episode, we are going to look at the reality that people are facing in a post-Roe America, both those seeking care and those providing it. Without Roe, a key component of reproductive care has become illegal or restricted for more than 20 million people, throwing many into painful and life-threatening situations. We are joined by Community Organizer, Kaitlyn Joshua, who experienced firsthand how new restrictions on abortion endanger the lives and wellbeing of pregnant people and Dr. Jennifer Lincoln, an ob/gyn, reproductive health educator, author, and Executive Director of Mayday Health, an organization focused on providing information on abortion access and options for people, regardless of where they live.