The Supreme Court’s decision last year to overturn a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in the US v. Windsor case was a milestone event for the LGBT community and a vindication of the ACLU’s position that sexual orientation should not limit equal access to participating in society. A New York Times editorial today underscores that very point in its analysis of last week’s Ninth Circuit Court decision which ruled that sexual orientation could not be used as a factor in jury selections. The Times editorial outlines how the Appellate Court decision, written by Judge Reinhardt, built on the ground breaking Windsor case and that the judge’s strongly worded opinion maintained that the precedent for equal dignity for all was tied to equal responsibilities, stating:

Jury service is one of the most important responsibilities of an American citizen.

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For many years, the ACLU and other groups have promoted Gay Straight Alliances (GSA) in public schools as a means of combating bullying and discrimination against LGBTQ youth in public schools. A new study finds that these programs work. The study shows that suicide rates among high schools teenagers are lower in high schools that have a well established gay-straight alliance (GSA)  group.

Teenagers in these schools, regardless of the sexual orientation, are 70 percent less likely to have suicidal thoughts or attempts than in schools without a program. Salon reports that the study, recently published in the International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies, confirmed that high schools with GSA programs in place for at least three years, have lower rates of homophobic discrimination and bullying and had healthier emotional environments for LGBT students and heterosexual students alike. The study underscored the need for GSA programs, which the ACLU of Illinois and the Safe Schools Alliance have actively promoted. According to Elizabeth Saewyc, a lead author of the study:

We know that LGBTQ students are at higher risk for suicide, in part because they are more often targeted for bullying and discrimination. But heterosexual students can also be the target of homophobic bullying. When policies and supportive programs like the GSAs are in place long enough to change the environment of the school, it’s better for students’ mental health, no matter what their orientation.

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The City of Urbana, Illinois recently created a task force in an effort to explore ways to address the ongoing racial disparity in traffic data, reported each year to the State Department of Transportation.

The issue of racial profiling is one of the highest priorities for the ACLU of Illinois. In 2002, the ACLU supported legislation, introduced by then state senator Barack Obama, which mandated the Department of Transportation to collect data about the race and ethnicity of every motorist stopped by police. The data indicates that race is often the determining factor as to whether or not a driver is pulled over not only in towns throughout central Illinois, but  across the state. The Urbana task force hopes that in-depth analysis of the state’s numbers on police traffic stops will bring the city and its police department closer to correcting the problem. The News-Gazette reports that other central Illinois towns, with similarly skewed numbers showing minorities are more likely to be stopped for traffic violations, are not ready to acknowledge that the numbers reflect racial profiling. However, Stephen Portnoy, ACLU Champaign County chapter president and professor emeritus of statistics at the University of Illinois, maintains:

"It's clearly a problem.“ ACLU members "feel that the discrepancy that is indicated clearly shows racial profiling," he said.

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