Human Rights

Amicus, Criminal Justice, Human Rights, Immigration, LGBTQ Rights, Poverty and Economic Justice, Racial Justice, Sex Equality

Pretrial Transformation and Abolition

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Carceral pretrial approaches lack evidence of effectiveness—in fact, research identifies that commonplace strategies such as money bail, detention, and even mandatory drug testing hamper pretrial success. In addition, these strategies are racially discriminatory while also contributing to harmful collateral consequences for individuals and communities. As jurisdictions across the country are beginning to confront these findings and explore alternatives, the pretrial space offers a unique opportunity for abolitionist transformations.

A woman in yellow sweater sitting at a table working from home.
Amicus, Human Rights, Labor and Employment

Remote Work as a Reasonable Accommodation: Implications from the COVID-19 Pandemic

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In Moncrief v. ISS Facility Services, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) argues that ISS Facility Services’ denial of an employee’s reasonable accommodation request to work remotely part-time violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”). Filed on September 7, 2021, Moncrief marks the EEOC’s first ever lawsuit claiming an employer violated the ADA by failing to provide accommodations related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Amicus, Criminal Justice, Human Rights, Policing and Law Enforcement

Pretrial Detention Has Become Exponentially More Deadly in the Pandemic

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Pretrial detention, or keeping a person accused of a crime in jail until their trial, is a common practice throughout the United States. Though the system is portrayed as a way to protect public safety and ensure people show up for their trials, most often it instead simply forces those who cannot afford bail to sit in jail, while those who are able to pay the fine roam free before their court date. Although some local governments have reduced jail populations by releasing detainees, it has not been enough to protect inmates from the spread of COVID-19 within jails.

Amicus, Congress, Criminal Justice, Executive Branch, Human Rights, Legislation, LGBTQ Rights, Policing and Law Enforcement, Poverty and Economic Justice, Racial Justice, Sex Equality

America’s War on Black Trans Women

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The message of our federal and state governments failing to protect (and sometimes actively harming) Black trans women is terrifying: if the government doesn’t care about Black trans women, then citizens don’t have to care either. In other words, because the law treats Black trans women with disregard and violence, it gives individuals a free pass to do the same.

Photo by Life Matters from Pexels
Amicus, Criminal Justice, Human Rights, Policing and Law Enforcement, Racial Justice

A Safe and Flourishing Future: One Law Student’s Case for Abolition

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If you are new to abolition, I do not expect you to fully embrace these values. Rather, I again ask you to be courageously curious. When presented with new ideas, people project their own wants and needs onto them to make them familiar. Because abolition is borne from Black radical imagination, most people’s projections evoke fear. Black radical imagination is completely counter to the standard we are told to orient towards. Even with more people discussing race issues, we as a collective are still taught to fear and criminalize Blackness, especially in law school where the golden standard is white male “objectivity.”

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