News & Commentary

Day after day, night after night, protesters have been taking to the streets since the police killing of George Floyd. Led by local Black activists and grassroots groups, they’re chanting, singing, shouting, kneeling, marching, and even laying on the ground to demand justice for the many Black lives that have been taken by police. Everyone — from parents, grandparents, kids, and more — are showing up.But Donald Trump from day one has expressed extreme hostility towards the Black Lives Matter movement. He has called on NFL owners to retaliate against players who dared to kneel in protest, said it was “terrible” to ask why Black Americans are still dying at the hands of law enforcement in this country, compared police killing and injuring Black people to golfers who “choke,” and has called for law enforcement to “dominate” protesters demanding that our legal system value Black lives. He has even encouraged police to abuse people in their custody.As the movement and calls for change gain broader support from more Americans and people around the world, protesters are being met by even more brutality — in many cases by the same police departments whose racism and brutality they are protesting. Police and federal agents are spreading fear and panic in communities, threatening lives, and relentlessly attacking people simply exercising their First Amendment right to protest police racism and brutality. Law enforcement at all levels haven’t even spared U.S. military veterans, journalists, legal observers, and medics. This assault on the First Amendment has only escalated tensions, and emboldened white supremacists to spread terror and hate.The ACLU is taking to the streets, legislatures and courts nationwide to demand an end to police violence and accountability for rights violations. Here is just a partial running list of federal and local law enforcement abuses against individuals exercising their First Amendment rights in Portland, Oregon:

President Trump's rhetorical attacks on voting by mail and the USPS are an attempt to delegitimize democracy. Voting by mail will be the safest way for many people to vote in November, and has been a longstanding method of voting since the Civil War.

As the Democratic National Convention concludes, the nation’s focus came to not only the City of Milwaukee, but also Wisconsin, a place where racial segregation, economic inequality and police brutality against people of color has long since been a problem.

As the Democratic National Convention thrusts Milwaukee onto the national stage, America’s reckoning with police violence and racial injustice will be brought to bear on a city marked by profound racial inequality and oppression. During a time in which Americans are being forced to confront how centuries of white supremacy has shaped virtually every aspect of our lives, there may be no better case study for the present-day impact of systemic racism than the City of Milwaukee. 

The ACLU of Wisconsin has a team of legal observers who are trained to keep an eye on protests that happen outside the Democratic National Convention. The objective of our legal observers is to keep demonstrators and community members safe by documenting what happens between protestors and police and other law enforcement personnel. 

MILWAUKEE – All Voting is Local Wisconsin and the ACLU of Wisconsin today released a Ballots for All Toolkit that supplements their recently released report “Ballots for All: Ensuring Eligible Wisconsin Voters in Jail Have Equal Access to the Ballot”. The toolkit offers voting advocates strategies for urging county officials to adopt policies so every eligible voter in jail can vote. 

The state of Wisconsin has become ground zero for voter disenfranchisement in the United States. The last decade has seen the integrity of our democracy and elections tarnished by onerous voter ID laws, intense partisan gerrymandering, and an agenda deliberately designed to make voting more difficult and less accessible — one that specifically targets marginalized communities. 

If you have a negative interaction with a law enforcement agency or officer, you may want to make a complaint against that agency or officer. Here are some ways to do so.

After recent protests against social distancing requirements designed to combat the spread of COVID-19, some of our supporters have asked where the ACLU of Wisconsin stands on these demonstrations.