Civil Rights

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Four former Minneapolis police officers charged with violating George Floyd's civil rights  are scheduled to be arraigned in federal court Tuesday at a hearing that could also address some pretrial motions. A federal grand jury indicted Derek... Read More

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday sued the state of Texas over a newly enacted law that prohibits nearly all abortions in the state. The move came just days after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block the... Read More

RICHMOND, Va. -- A statue of General Robert E. Lee that has held a prominent place in the former Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, for 131 years was taken down Wednesday morning. Disputes over whether the statue is a symbol... Read More

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department’s pledge on Monday to assist opponents of the new Texas ban on abortion is winning more and more supporters among some of the nation’s big name private corporations. The state law enacted in May empowers... Read More

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Republican states that have passed increasingly tough abortion restrictions only to see them blocked by the federal courts have a new template in an unusually written Texas law that represents the most far-reaching curb on... Read More

RICHMOND, Va. -- The Virginia Supreme Court ruled this week that a public school teacher must be reinstated after he was suspended for refusing to use transgender students’ preferred names and pronouns. The teacher, physical education instructor Tanner Cross, cited... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — A deeply divided Supreme Court is allowing a Texas law that bans most abortions to remain in force, for now stripping most women of the right to an abortion in the nation's second-largest state. The court voted... Read More

A Texas law banning most abortions in the state took effect at midnight, but the Supreme Court has yet to act on an emergency appeal to put the law on hold. If allowed to remain in force, the law would... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has opened investigations in five states to determine whether statewide prohibitions on the universal indoor wearing of face masks discriminates against students with disabilities. The five states that were... Read More

WASHINGTON -- The Department of Education will invoke its civil rights enforcement authority to prevent states from imposing universal bans on wearing face masks in classrooms, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said on Wednesday. The decision represents a dramatic escalation of... Read More

Four years after a White supremacist rally left three people dead in the home city of Founding Fathers Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam says there’s “still much work to do” when it comes to... Read More

WASHINGTON -- Reciting Thomas Paine’s The American Crisis from memory, Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., philosophized about fair weather patriots in America today during a discussion with Axios. Claiming that some people only “love the country when everything is going... Read More

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Fred Ware and his son were researching the history of the home he's owned in the Hartford suburbs since 1950 when they discovered something far uglier than they expected.  Tucked in a list of rules on... Read More

Biometric technology identifies you based on your biological characteristics: your fingerprint, your iris, your face.  It can even measure how you walk, your gait, said Steve Crown, vice president and general counsel at Microsoft, during Tuesday’s Center for Strategic &... Read More

WASHINGTON -- A new two-part study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a D.C.-based national security think tank, has said that civilian and judicial oversight will be crucial to limiting the potential human rights abuses from government use... Read More

WASHINGTON -- President Joe Biden celebrated the 31st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act Monday and announced new guidance suggesting long-term COVID-19 could be considered a disability in some cases under federal civil rights laws.  “For our nation, the... Read More

The American Civil Liberties Union on Monday sued the state of Texas to block “radical” new abortion restrictions currently set to take effect on Sept. 1. The ACLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of Texas abortion providers -- led by... Read More

A report from the U.S. voiced concern over ongoing human rights abuses, which the U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, at a press conference on Monday characterized as an attempt to apply international pressure to stop atrocities. In the 2021... Read More

COLUMBIA, S.C.- South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster and others have appealed a federal court’s preliminary injunction preventing them implementing a ban on the abortion of a fetus with a detectable heartbeat. McMaster signed the South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat and Protection... Read More

The court-appointed attorneys representing Britney Spears in her conservatorship case resigned Tuesday after the pop icon asked a judge for permission to hire her own counsel. The high-profile case is testing whether California's conservatorship laws protect the wealthy celebrities they... Read More

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court plans to hear a case in its next term that could expand rights of discrimination victims to collect compensation for "emotional distress." A ruling that allows the compensation could widely broaden the liability for... Read More

The hashtag “#freebritney” has recently been flooding social media channels after the pop sensation claimed her 2008 court-mandated conservatorship withheld her from removing her intrauterine device, hindering her ability to reproduce, an issue which has been at the heart of... Read More

The Labor Department has made $1.5 million available to all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to develop partnerships with community-based organizations and other non-profits seeking to empower women workers by strengthening their... Read More

MINNEAPOLIS - Former Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin was sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison on Friday for the widely publicized murder of George Floyd outside a Minneapolis bodega. The sentence, delivered by Judge Peter Cahill of... Read More

The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that a Pennsylvania school district violated the First Amendment by punishing a student over a vulgar social-media rant sent away from school grounds. The vote was 8 to 1, with Justice Clarence Thomas dissenting.... Read More

The future of the nation’s remaining symbols of the Confederacy could be decided at an upcoming POV roundtable hosted by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Facebook live event, whose date marks the sixth anniversary of the mass shooting at... Read More

WASHINGTON- The U.S. Department of Education confirmed Wednesday that Title IX protects students from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination based on sex in any educational activity or... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will take part in a remembrance of one of the nation's darkest — and largely forgotten — moments of racial violence when he helps commemorate the 100th anniversary of the destruction of a thriving... Read More

WASHINGTON — Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage month may be wrapping up, but the APPI community is pledging to come together to speak up, speak out, and be heard as perhaps never before.  There has been recognition of APPI heritage... Read More

WASHINGTON -- Civil rights attorneys advocated for an update to the federal Voting Rights Act Thursday as the uproar instigated by former President Donald Trump over fair elections continues to create turmoil in Congress. They blamed outdated language in the... Read More