News & Commentary

Recently, the Roger Baldwin Foundation of the ACLU of Illinois spoke out on behalf of a concerned member of the Centralia community who learned that Centralia High School had a blanket policy compelling all students to stand during the morning recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. After the ACLU of Illinois was contacted, we sent a letter on February 2nd to the school district noting that compelling standing during the Pledge at the school is a violation of the First Amendment and runs counter to long standing case law on the subject. Read our letter to the high school officials.A few days after receiving the letter, the school

The government is preparing a first-ever study of housing discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people that will include data from Chicago and begin Thursday, according to the Huffington Post.Starting Thursday, the U.S. Housing an

It is time to end Illinois' flawed and expensive death penalty system. For more than a decade, Illinois has had a moratorium on the use of the death penalty. The moratorium was adopted after a serious of high-profile incidents, including an instance in which a man's execution was stayed a mere 48 hours before the sentence was to be carried out, and was later exonerated! To date, a total of 20 innocent people have been exonerated while on death row in Illinois.

The first full-body scanners will arrive next week at O'Hare International Airport, according to a Chicago Tribune article. In the article, Ed Yohnka, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois said the body scanners are an invasion of privacy: The full-body imaging mac

After a student at Oak Forest High School received a five-day out-of-school suspension for creating a Facebook fan page about his teacher at his home, the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois questioned the school's authoritative scope.According to a

The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois spoke out in favor of some of the reforms recommended Feb. 19 in the final report from Gov. Pat Quinn's task force on nursing home safety. The Associated Press said:The report also addresses how funds mi

Congratulations to ACLU client (and Olympic speedskater) Shani Davis for his victory in yesterday's men's 1,000 meter race! Davis is the first speedskater ever to win gold in the event twice in a row. Brian Hamilton of the Chicago Tribune writes:

Police Superintendent Jodi Weis said he wants to replace blue light cameras with covert cameras in Chicago, according to the Chicago Sun Times.Ed Yohnka, communications director and spokesman f

February is Black History Month. In honor of the celebration, the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois is remembering some cases in our long history of working for racial justice and fighting against race-based discrimination. Here is just a small sample of cases we have undertaken in pursuit of a fairer, more equitable society.Throughout the 1990s, the