News & Commentary

Meet our new executive director, Mike Lee!

As the ACLU of Pennsylvania continues working to decriminalize sex work, we want to take a moment to acknowledge International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.

The ACLU of Pennsylvania categorically condemns threats of violence, as well as bigotry directed at any group. We also stand, as we always have, on the side of free and unfettered political speech, even when that speech seems intolerable to some.

A few months ago, we introduced you to Andrew Burgess, who has been teaching for 16 years in the Central Bucks School District. He finds teaching to be a joyful experience and takes tremendous satisfaction when his “students find inspiration, find their voice, and begin to take ownership and pride in their work.” 

Law enforcement and prosecutors already have all of the tools necessary to protect public safety. But over the last four decades, the Pennsylvania General Assembly has become a bipartisan offense factory, churning out hundreds of new bills each legislative session that duplicate existing law or add unnecessarily harsh new criminal penalties to our already bloated criminal code. This is the statehouse-to-prison pipeline.The ACLU of Pennsylvania tracks all criminal laws proposed or passed by lawmakers in Harrisburg for our biennial report More Law, Less Justice: Pennsylvania's Statehouse-to-Prison Pipeline. Late last month, we released our latest edition for the 2021-2022 legislative session.Mass incarceration begins at the statehouse. The purpose of this report is to highlight the role and responsibility of the Pennsylvania General Assembly in fueling our state’s ongoing mass incarceration crisis.

Here we go again. For the second time in less than a year, the ACLU of Pennsylvania has taken legal action against Central Bucks School District because of the district’s discriminatory and punitive policies against LGBQ&T students and their allies.

Despite what you might hear from some candidates for mayor and city council in Philadelphia, one policing tactic that has proven a failure time and again in bolstering public safety is so-called stop-and-frisk.

After more than a decade, Pittsburgh Public Schools and the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police have reached an agreement about how city police interact with students.

Reggie Shuford reflects on 26 years at the ACLU