By Paige Fernandez, ACLU Policing Policy Advisor 

This OpEd first appeared on Cosmopolitan.

Almost exactly six years after NYPD officers murdered Eric Garner in New York City, Minneapolis police officers murdered George Floyd. Activists, advocates, and protestors are still screaming “I can’t breathe” and begging government officials for police reform that will end police violence in Black communities. But today’s demands are bigger and bolder: Now, protesters are advocating for systemic changes that require a complete reimagining of law enforcement in the United States.

American policing has never been a neutral institution. The first U.S. city police department was a slave patrol, and modern police forces have directed oppression and violence at Black people to enforce Jim Crow, wage the War on Drugs, and crack down on protests. When people ask for police reform, many are actually asking for this oppressive system to be dismantled and to invest in institutions, resources, and services that help communities grow and thrive. That’s why many protestors and activists, following in the footsteps of Black-led grassroots groups, are demanding immediate defunding of police departments.

The idea of defunding, or divestment, is new to some folks, but the basic premise is simple: We must cut the astronomical amount of money that our governments spend on law enforcement and give that money to more helpful services like job training, counseling, and violence-prevention programs. Each year, state and local governments spend upward of $100 billion dollars on law enforcement—and that’s excluding billions more in federal grants and resources.
 
Budgets are not created in a vacuum. They can be changed through targeted advocacy and organizing. We can demand that our local officials (including city council members and mayors) stop allocating funds for the police to acquire more militarized equipment and instead ask for that money to go toward community-run violence-prevention programs.

We can demand that our federal government redirect the money that funds police presence in schools to putting counselors in schools instead.

Funneling so many resources into law enforcement instead of education, affordable housing, and accessible health care has caused significant harm to communities. Police violence is actually a leading cause of death for Black men: A recent study found that 1 in 1,000 Black men can expect to be killed by police, and public health experts have described police violence as a serious public health issue. For a country like ours, which considers itself a modern democracy that pushes ideals of freedom and justice for all, that number should be truly shocking.

Much of the work police do is merely engage in the daily harassment of Black communities for minor crimes or crimes of poverty that shouldn’t be criminalized in the first place. Consider this: Out of the 10.3 million arrests made per year, only 5 percent are for the most serious offenses, including murder, rape, and aggravated assault. These are the ones that truly threaten public safety. The other 95 percent of arrests are for things like traffic violations, marijuana possession, unlawful assembly, and even removing a shopping cart from store premises. That means that police spend the most resources going after minor incidents that actually don’t threaten everyday life but do lead to mass criminalization and incarceration.

And as you know, some arrests are made for doing nothing at all beyond being Black.

We have little evidence, if any, to show that more police surveillance results in fewer crimes and greater public safety. Indeed, funneling police into communities of color and pushing officers to make arrests just perpetuates harm and trauma. Yet since the 1980s, spending on law enforcement and our criminal legal system has dramatically outpaced that in community services such as housing, education, and violence prevention programs. Those are the institutions that help build stable, safe, and healthy communities.
 
For example, Los Angeles’s budget gives police $3.14 billion out of the city’s $10.5 billion. Spending on community services such as economic development ($30 million) and housing ($81 million) pale in comparison to the massive LAPD budget. (On Wednesday night, after years of Black Lives Matter grassroots activists demanding a cut in LAPD’s budget, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced he would cut $100 million to $150 million from the LAPD budget and reinvest those funds in communities of color.) Similarly, in New York City, the government spends almost $6 billion on policing, which is more than it does on the Department of Health, Homeless Services, Housing Preservation and Development, and Youth and Community development combined.
 
By shrinking their massive budgets, we can help end decades of racially driven social control and oppression as well as address social problems at their root instead of investing in an institution that further oppresses and terrorizes communities.

In addition to divesting from police and reinvesting the savings in nonpunitive programs that benefit public safety and health, there are other critical steps we need to take to foster the systemic change people across the country are calling for:

1. End enforcement of minor offenses that drive street-level harassment. We can do this by repealing laws across the country that criminalize minor behaviors and passing laws that legalize activities such as marijuana possession and distribution.
2. End the presence of police in schools, which exacerbates racial inequalities, puts immigrant students at risk of deportation, and limits opportunities accessible to low-income students. (Minneapolis Public Schools just voted to end its contract with the city’s police department.)
3. Develop mobile crisis services, peer crisis services, and crisis hotlines and warmlines (where people can call when they just need to talk to someone who understands what it’s like to live with mental health problems) to support people who have a behavioral or mental health crisis.
4. Ban pretextual stops and consent searches that act as common mechanisms for police to engage in racial profiling and circumvent legal standards.
5. Implement common-sense, civilly and criminally enforceable legal constraints so there will be only rare instances in which officers are able to use force against community members.

For too long, the focus on police reform has been dominated by reforms that try to reduce the harms of policing rather than rethink the overall role of police in society. But six years after the Black Lives Matter movement rose to national attention, activists across the country are coming together to demand what many have known has been the solution all along: defund the police.

By James Esseks, ACLU Director

In a landmark win for LGBTQ people, the Supreme Court today ruled that firing employees because of their sexual orientation or gender identity is sex discrimination that violates federal law. Today’s decision clarifies for the first time that LGBTQ people are protected from employment discrimination from coast to coast, including in states and cities that have no express protection for LGBTQ people in their own laws.  

While this ruling is a groundbreaking advance for LGBTQ people, there are still significant gaps in federal civil rights law that Congress must fill by passing the Equality Act. 

Today’s ruling came in three cases raising related issues. Harris Funeral Homes, Inc. v. EEOC and Aimee Stephens, involved Aimee Stephens, who worked for six years as a funeral director at a funeral home in Detroit. Her boss knew her as a man, but Aimee knew since she was little that she was female. After decades of hiding who she really was, Aimee realized she had to come out to the world as her true self or she couldn’t go on living. Gathering enormous courage, Aimee told her co-workers and her boss that she was a woman. Her co-workers didn’t have a problem, but her boss fired her.  

Don Zarda was the plaintiff in another of the cases decided today, Altitude Express, Inc. v. Zarda. Don was a sky diver who found his dream job teaching sky diving on Long Island, New York. He loved introducing others to the sport. Don often took customers on tandem jumps, where they are strapped to him shoulder-to-shoulder and hip-to-hip before they jump from the plane. While preparing for a jump, Don told a female customer that he was gay in an effort to make her more comfortable with how close they were physically. He thought nothing of the remark, but his boss later fired him for sharing “inappropriate information” with a customer. Heterosexual people don’t get fired for telling people they’re straight, so Don understood this was discrimination.  

The third case was brought by Gerald Bostock, who was fired from his job as a social worker for at-risk youth after his employer learned he was gay.  

All three workers sued, asserting that it was sex discrimination to fire them for being gay or transgender. The Supreme Court agreed, holding that “An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.”

Indeed, it’s clear that each employee’s sex was central to the reason they were fired. If Don Zarda or Gerald Bostock had been women attracted to men, instead of men attracted to men, they wouldn’t have been fired. And there is no way to understand Harris Funeral Homes’ decision to fire Aimee without talking about her sex and her decision to transition her gender.  What else could this be other than a decision based on her sex?  

But even with this victory, our work is not done. Today’s decision should mean that LGBTQ people are protected from discrimination not only in employment, but in every context under federal law where sex discrimination is prohibited. In addition to employment, federal laws against sex discrimination cover housing, education, health care, jury service, and credit.  But there are important contexts where sex discrimination is still legal under federal law: businesses open to the public and recipients of federal grants, like soup kitchens and drug treatment programs. The Equality Act would plug those holes and protect LGBTQ people as well as all women from these kinds of discrimination. It would also update the range of businesses covered under the federal civil rights law so that forms of discrimination like racial profiling in stores and by ride-sharing services become illegal.  

Tragically, neither Aimee nor Don lived to see the decisions from the Supreme Court in their landmark cases. Aimee died last month from kidney failure that was exacerbated by her loss of health insurance when she was fired because she was transgender. Don died several years ago in a sky-diving accident.  

Today is not just a day to celebrate progress for LGBTQ people, it’s a day to thank Aimee, Don, and Gerald for putting themselves forward through these cases in order to help millions of people all across the country. And it’s a day to thank Aimee and Don’s families for continuing their cases in their honor. Without heroes like them, the protections in our legal system would not work.  

It’s also a day to tell Congress to finish this work, update the Civil Rights Act, and ensure comprehensive anti-discrimination protections for all of us nationwide.  

Stephen Eikelberger, President of the Board of Directors of the ACLU of Nevada, released the following statement: 

"After seven and a half years as Executive Director of the ACLU of Nevada, during which time the organization has been successful in several areas, Tod Story has left to pursue other opportunities. We thank him for his dedicated service to the organization and his commitment to protecting and advancing civil liberties in Nevada. 

"The board of directors has formed a transition committee to identify candidates to fill the Executive Director role, and is retaining a search firm for assistance. During the search process, Director of Finance and Administration Macy Haverda will serve as interim director in the Las Vegas office, and Policy Director Holly Welborn will serve as interim director in the Reno office. Any questions and operational business can be referred to them.

"We know the times are uncertain, but we also know that the ACLU of Nevada is prepared to meet this moment and any it may face in the future. Thank you for your continued support throughout this transition."