On March 2, the American Civil Liberties Union argued before the United States Supreme Court that former Attorney General John Ashcroft should be held responsible for the wrongful arrest and detention of a U.S. citizen under the material witness law. The ACLU brought the case against Ashcroft in 2005 on behalf of Abdullah al-Kidd, a U.S. citizen who was improperly arrested and detained in 2003 as a material witness. The ACLU’s lawsuit charges that al-Kidd’s arrest was part of a pattern of pretextual material witness arrests that occurred after September 11, pursuant to a nationwide policy instituted by Ashcroft.

In a recent press release, Lee Gelernt, Deputy Director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, who argued the case on behalf of al-Kidd, commented on the merits of the case.

In America, we don’t just arrest people and lock them up without probable cause to believe they violated the law. The government officials who turned that unlawful practice into official policy — in clear violation of the Constitution — must be held accountable.

Learn more about the case al-Kidd v. Ashcroft.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that students at Nequa Valley High School will be allowed to wear t-shirts expressing their views on homosexuality:

Neuqua Valley High School students would be allowed to wear “Be Happy, Not Gay” T-shirts under a ruling Tuesday by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The court had rejected Indian Prairie School District 204’s argument that school officials could prohibit students from wearing the shirts to prevent some students from having their feelings hurt.

In its opinion, the court said a “school that permits advocacy of the rights of homosexual students cannot be allowed to stifle criticism of homosexuality.”

“The school argued (and still argues) that banning ‘Be Happy, Not Gay’ was just a matter of protecting the ‘rights’ of the students against whom derogatory comments are directed,” the court said. “But people in our society do not have a legal right to prevent criticism of their beliefs or even their way of life.”

When this case was previously before the appellate court in 2008, the ACLU of Illinois filed an amicus brief that urged the court to balance two competing and equally important legal rights when determining whether public high schools can limit student speech that disparages other people on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation, and other protected identities. First, public high school students have the fundamental right to free speech, including the in-school expression of controversial and offensive messages. Second, students also have the fundamental right to freedom from discrimination on the basis of protected identities.

To reconcile these two fundamental rights, the ACLU urged the court to adopt a “harassment” standard, based on the standard developed in decades of anti-discrimination case law. Specifically, in-school expression by a public high school student is unprotected harassment only when it is reasonably forecast by school officials to be severe or pervasive enough to (1) significantly hinder a reasonable student in obtaining an education, or (2) significantly harm a reasonable student’s physical, mental, or emotional well-being. Application of this standard is fact-intensive and takes into account the age of the students among other factors. Under this test, some derogatory messages will be protected speech, and others will be unprotected harassment.

The ACLU concluded its amicus brief by applying this standard to the facts of this case. First, the school’s speech policy was unlawful on its face, because it broadly prohibited all speech that disparages protected identities, rather than carefully distinguishing protected speech from unprotected harassment. Second, the school in 2006 should have allowed two students on one day to wear the “be happy, not gay” t-shirts. The ACLU did not take a position regarding the students’ plans for future expression, because those plans were vague, which prevented application of the “harassment” standard.

In this “be happy not gay” controversy, the ACLU stood up for speech it vehemently disagrees with. We do so because the First Amendment will protect either everyone or no one. Notably, the First Amendment has played a critical role in ensuring that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students and their allies can form clubs that seek to promote understanding and tolerance of LGBT students, such as Gay Straight Alliances, and express themselves by, for example, identifying themselves as lesbian or gay or wearing a pro-tolerance T-shirt within public schools.

See You Have the Right to Be Yourself for more information on the rights of LGBT students and allies.

2011 has been a precarious year for women’s health care. Across the nation, political leaders seem determined to undermine the ability of women to access even the most basic health care – especially reproductive health care. The U.S. House recently voted to slash federal funding that provided more than 2 million breast cancer screenings and more than 2 million pap smears in the United States. In the same week, the House also slashed all funding for Planned Parenthood across America.

State legislatures have been equally egregious. Officials in some states have introduced legislation that apparently authorized the murder of some reproductive health care providers and broadly we are seeing some of the most onerous restrictions on reproductive health care offered in decades.

Illinois is not immune. In recent weeks, we have seen a spate of anti-choice bills introduced in Illinois, including:

• House Bill 1919 takes a very deceptive route to limit access to reproductive health care for women in Illinois. The bill mandates that every woman seeking an abortion in Illinois would be offered a viewing of her fetus on ultrasound and would have to attest in writing if they did not want to view the fetal image. This legislation adds nothing to safe abortion practice in the state and interferes with the physician-patient relationship, often in a manner that is harmful to women. Download the fact sheet.

• House Bill 1569 creates Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) as an insurance option for state employees. Then comes the damaging part. The legislation bars not only the use of state-contributed funds for abortion related expenses, but fails to assure that state employees can use their own contributions for abortions – even those that are medically necessary. House Bill 1569 unfairly penalizes those who have chosen a career in public service. Download the fact sheet.

• House Bill 3156 amends the Ambulatory Surgical Treatment Center Act to largely revoke the benefits of the longstanding Consent Decree in Ragsdale v. Turnock, under which abortion facilities have been safely and effectively regulated for the past 20 years. The bill will require facilities that offer safe, early abortions to comply with excessive requirements unrelated to patient health and safety at significant cost and will decrease access to abortion services in Illinois where 92 percent of the counties already do not have an abortion provider. Download the fact sheet.

We will keep watching this legislation. We will continue to oppose it – and other proposals – designed to substitute the judgment of Springfield politicians for the real-life experiences of women across our State. And, we will keep you updated on these proposals as the session moves forward.