As I reflect upon Black History Month and how I ended up here at the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program, I realize that my path to the ACLU probably began before I was born.
I met my Uncle Harry John Bowie ten years after his initial participation in the civil rights movement. He was an Episcopal priest who became deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi beginning in 1964 (Freedom Summer). He inspired me throughout my life with stories about his work and his demonstrated forgiving, patient manner.
Like so many others, Uncle Harry worked to help Black Mississippians register to vote. As an advocate for racial justice and civil rights, he was targeted by the police for offenses, such as walking by the Governor’s Mansion. In those days in Mississippi, if you were a Black man trying to register other Black Mississippians to vote, that was called “inciting a riot,” “trespassing” or “loitering.” He was arrested throughout the state and was often represented by Al Bronstein, former director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project. Because of this, after meeting my uncle and learning — over the course of 25 years — about his work and the causes he championed, I had a deep respect for advocates for racial justice, the ACLU, and the central role that the ACLU plays in civil rights.
I grew up wanting to be a civil rights lawyer. The question people often ask is: Wasn’t the work accomplished when forms of explicit racism were made illegal? The answer is no. While my uncle and others were subjected to unfair charges from the government in 1964, children in Mississippi are still subjected to similar irrational and unfair government practices in Mississippi schools. For instance, I was one of the ACLU attorneys who represented a student who was accused of gang activity in 2009 and expelled from school after he took a picture of himself at home while dancing. The school police searched his cell phone at school and he was accused of “throwing gang signs” in the picture. The case of R.W. in Desoto County, Mississippi is an example of how innocent conduct by a Black student can still be characterized as criminal action.
R.W.’s case is just one portion of the work I now do with the ACLU, advocating against the school to prison pipeline, which includes addressing the subtle forms of racism that plague schoolchildren now. Zero tolerance policies, the use of the police in a school setting, subjective discipline categories like “gang activity” or “disruptive conduct,” and inappropriate special education classifications or services, are all ways that public schools can now limit the life chances for students of color and send them to jail. I know, given my family’s history, that “disrupting class,” “gang activity,” and “emotionally disturbed” are just the 2012 equivalent of “loitering,” “inciting a riot” and “trespassing.” Luckily, here at the ACLU, we are still fighting against such hypocrisy and advocating for racial justice.
This blog is one of several personal testimonials written by ACLU staff members to commemorate Black History Month.
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Racial Justice
ACLU Statement on House AI Task Force ReportACLU Statement on House AI Task Force Report
WASHINGTON — Today, the House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence (AI) issued its final report, marking an important step in recognizing the serious risks of discrimination and bias posed by AI systems — particularly in law enforcement’s use of facial recognition technology. The report recognizes that discrimination and bias may arise in AI systems due to their design, training data, or failures by end users. The report also investigates the complex considerations around deepfakes, open AI systems, and free speech, and urges Congress to pass narrow legislation to address concrete harms. In response to the House AI Task Force final report, Cody Venzke, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, issued the following statement: “The ACLU commends the Task Force for recognizing that AI systems are harming people right now through discriminatory outcomes and supercharged surveillance. Curbing those abuses of AI is not a partisan issue, and more concrete action is needed to protect civil rights, while maintaining states’ authority to build on those protections. The Task Force is appropriately cautious when wrestling with issues around deepfakes, open-source AI, digital identity, and other issues, recognizing that legislators should consider a wide array of tailored tools to address real, not speculative, harms while respecting civil rights and civil liberties.” The House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence report can be found here. -
News & CommentaryDec 2024
Racial Justice
Human Rights
Why the Fight for Racial Justice is a Human Rights IssueWhy the Fight for Racial Justice is a Human Rights Issue
On International Human Rights Day, the ACLU is advocating for a long-sought after reparatory justice to end the continued abuses against Black and brown communities. -
Press ReleaseOct 2024
National Security
+2 Issues
ACLU Warns that Biden-Harris Administration Rules on AI in National Security Lack Key ProtectionsACLU Warns that Biden-Harris Administration Rules on AI in National Security Lack Key Protections
WASHINGTON — The Biden-Harris administration today released its National Security Memorandum on Artificial Intelligence (AI), establishing guidelines for how the U.S. government uses AI in national security programs, such as counterterrorism, intelligence, homeland security, and defense. The use of AI to automate and expand national security activities poses some of the greatest dangers to people’s lives and civil liberties. Agencies are increasingly exploring the use of AI in decisions about who to surveil, who to stop and search at the airport, who to add to government watchlists, and even who is a military target. While the government’s policy includes some important steps forward — such as requiring national security agencies to better track and assess their AI systems for risks and prohibiting a subset of dangerous AI uses — it falls far short in other critical areas, leaving glaring gaps with respect to independent oversight, transparency, notice, and redress. The policy imposes few substantive safeguards on a wide range of AI-driven activities, by and large allowing agencies to decide for themselves how to mitigate the risks posed by national security systems that have immense consequences for people’s lives and rights. As we have repeatedly seen before, this is a recipe for dangerous technologies to proliferate in secret. “Despite acknowledging the considerable risks of AI, this policy does not go nearly far enough to protect us from dangerous and unaccountable AI systems. National security agencies must not be left to police themselves as they increasingly subject people in the United States to powerful new technologies,” said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project. “If developing national security AI systems is an urgent priority for the country, then adopting critical rights and privacy safeguards is just as urgent. Without transparency, independent oversight, and built-in mechanisms for individuals to obtain accountability when AI systems err or fail, the policy’s safeguards are inadequate and place our civil rights and civil liberties at risk.” For years, the American Civil Liberties Union has been urging far stronger safeguards and transparency about the AI tools that national security agencies are deploying, the rules constraining their use, and the dangers these systems pose to fairness, privacy, and due process. -
Press ReleaseOct 2024
Racial Justice
ACLU Comment on the Department of Labor’s AI Guidelines for Employers and VendorsACLU Comment on the Department of Labor’s AI Guidelines for Employers and Vendors
WASHINGTON — Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released a roadmap for artificial intelligence (AI) best practices, designed to ensure that emerging technologies such as AI enhance job quality, benefit workers, and comply with existing employment laws when they are used in the workplace. The best practices, pursuant to President Biden’s executive order on the development and use of AI, include recommendations for AI system developers and employers that prioritize workers’ experiences and empowerment throughout the entire AI lifecycle – from design to use and oversight. These practices also call on employers and developers to create standards and processes to identify and mitigate risks from AI systems, such as threats to health and safety, civil rights, privacy, fair labor rights, and labor organizing prior to a developer marketing them or an employer deploying them, and recommend turning to different systems when sufficient mitigation is not possible. “We applaud DOL for issuing best practices for use of AI that center workers’ empowerment, civil rights, privacy, and safety protections and call on developers and employers to adopt critical guardrails in developing, procuring and using AI systems. Employers and developers should take note, as many have been burying their heads in the sand on their risk of legal liability with respect to AI tools,” said Olga Akselrod, senior staff attorney of the ACLU Racial Justice Program. “Following these best practices for AI can help employers and developers ensure that they do not violate existing civil rights and other employment laws that protect workers.” The best practices also recommend transparency measures through conducting and publishing impact assessments, notice and recourse for impacted workers, and measures to minimize worker displacement. The DOL also stated that employers should minimize electronic monitoring and avoid unnecessary collection or retention of worker data.