By Justin Hansford, Executive Director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center, Howard University School of Law

It is common for nations where mass atrocities have taken place to engage in the process of reparation and repair. This process happened in Germany after the Holocaust, South Africa after apartheid, and here in the United States, forty years after the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. As a result,  international human rights bodies have sought to lend their expertise to the process, often by holding hearings and publishing international guidelines on the steps necessary to effectively administer a program for reparations.

Now is time for those same human rights bodies to add their expertise to the ongoing conversation around reparations for descendants of African slaves in the United States. That’s the fundamental assumption that guided our decision to request today’s hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and other forms of structural racial discrimination, in the United States.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, founded in 1959 by nations across the Western Hemisphere, has specifically been involved in such work, holding hearings and publishing international guidelines on the steps necessary to effectively administer a program for reparations. It did so after mass human rights violations in Columbia and Chile, leading to both countries’ implementation of these initiatives. In March, the commission released  “Police Violence Against Afro-descendants in the United States,” a report that recommended reparations here in the United States to address the structure of the racial discrimination that underlies our current system of policing.

Toward the end of the event launching that report at Howard Law School, vice president of the commission Margarette McCauley, addressed the audience, reminding us that the commission has a long history of recommending reparations for severe violations of human rights. In fact, reparations programs recommended by the commission often call for far more than simply eliminating the consequences of human rights violations. Often, the recommendations emphasize meaningful restitution, rehabilitation and compensation. This means restoring community cohesion and improving the social circumstances of affected communities.

That commission suggested that the United States respond to the crisis elevated by the Black Lives Matter movement by “undertaking studies with the goal of creating guidelines for the reparation of historic and structural discrimination” and “provide appropriate reparation to those affected by the racially disparate impact of federal, state, and local laws and policies.” We should not have been surprised—the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent issued a similar recommendation in 2016.

Closer to home, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee’s (D-Texas) proposal for H.R 40 would bring the U.S. in line with both international law and practice in the issuance of reparations for human rights violations. The international human rights community has taken the position that reparations are the right remedy for racial injustice in the United States. It’s time that our country recognizes that.

By approaching the reparations debate using a human rights lens, we sidestep the limited vision of those with shortsighted domestic imaginations. For example, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) recently complained that slavery was too long ago and that people alive today are not responsible for slavery.

A human rights lens shows that McConnell’s arguments are far too constricted, both in defining the issues and in considering solutions. No international body has suggested that we limit reparations to the question of enslavement. Indeed, while the Inter-American Commission focused on police violence, others have focused on Jim Crow, lynching, segregation, and other methods of racial terror that people alive today have and continue to experience. These questions have not proved to be insurmountable in other countries and are not unconquerable here in the United States.

Take Canada, for instance. The racist practice of removing indigenous Canadian children from their families and placing them in schools that prohibited their native languages and cultural practices began in the 19th century. In 1991, the Canadian government established a special commission designed to explore the relationship between aboriginal peoples and the government.  Based on that commission’s recommendations and in conjunction with work done by the United Nations and other human rights advocates, the government issued an apology and, as of 2016, has provided approximately $2 billion federal dollars for a truth and reconciliation commission, as well as financial compensation for survivors under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.

Our problems and their solutions are more similar than one would think. One public school reform group found that there is presently a $23 billion gap in funding between white and nonwhite school districts. A reparations fund could be used to close that gap and help to end the school-to-prison pipeline in America’s public schools.

The upcoming IACHR hearing offers opportunities to learn about additional comparative examples of reparations efforts. We should use the information gleaned from these hearings to inform the current domestic debate on how to remedy our country’s history of racial injustice.

By Fiona Kaye, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project

Title X is a federally funded family planning program that guarantees low-income people can receive critical health care services for free or at a reduced cost. For decades it’s been one of the most effective federal health care programs, providing a wide range of vital reproductive and other services for millions of people across the country who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford them.

However, the Trump administration wants to undermine that success as part of an overall agenda that attacks people’s access to reproductive health care. Today, we are in the 9^th Circuit arguing that the program should be protected from their efforts to destroy it.

Services that are provided under Title X include contraceptive care and information, sexually transmitted infection testing and prevention, cancer screening, and pregnancy testing and counseling.  In 2018, Title X family planning care was provided to nearly four million patients.  Two-thirds of them had incomes at or below the federal poverty level, and more than half were people of color.  For many, the providers they see through Title X are their only ongoing source of health care and health education. 

The Title X program dates back to 1970 when, at President Nixon’s urging, a bipartisan Congress enacted it to improve access to family planning and to make birth control like “the pill” and IUDs available to all regardless of their income. For nearly five decades since then, the program has been a resounding success.

 Under Title X’s previous rules, any patient who tested positive for pregnancy was provided counseling about their options, along with referrals to other providers—including abortion providers—upon request. 

But the Trump administration’s new Title X rule allows providers to refuse to provide counseling that includes all pregnancy options for any reason, including if those options violate their religious beliefs. It also requires providers to refer all pregnant patients for prenatal care, even if the patient has decided to have an abortion, and blocks them from referring patients to abortion providers.

Through this rule change, the Trump administration is attempting to kick high quality providers out of the program and remake it into one composed of anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers that do not want to provide the most effective forms of birth control and which do not discuss—let alone refer for—abortion. This will have a catastrophic effect on low-income people who rely on Title X. Many people will lose access to high-quality family planning services along with their primary source of health care. In March, the ACLU filed a lawsuit to block the new rule on behalf of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA), which is a membership organization representing family planning providers across the country, including Cedar River Clinics, who we also represent in the case. 

We asked the district court to enter a preliminary injunction that would prevent the Trump administration’s new rule from going into effect.  We argued that the new rule violates the law and that if enforced, it would cause serious irreparable harm.  And we won. 

But the government appealed, asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to lift the injunction so that it could enforce the new rule while the case moves forward in the lower court.  The Ninth Circuit ruled in the government’s favor.  This means that the Trump administration has already started dismantling the Title X network by requiring compliance with the new rule, which has forced many long-time providers to leave the program.

Today we’re asking the Ninth Circuit to reinstate the injunction to prevent the Trump administration from further carrying out its anti-health agenda and robbing people of critical family planning care. 

Remaking the Title X program is just one piece of the Trump administration’s larger campaign to curb access to abortion and contraception at the federal level. Last year, for example, they tried to deny abortion care to immigrant minors in their custody until we stepped in, and they’re also trying to undo the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that employers and universities include insurance coverage for contraception in their health plans.These attacks, coupled with President Trump’s recent appointments to the Supreme Court, have emboldened hostile politicians to ratchet up their attacks on reproductive health care, including by taking direct aim at Roe v. Wade by passing draconian bans on abortion at the state level.

This is a concerted effort to take away people’s rights and block them from accessing reproductive health care. Taking family planning health care away from millions of people is downright cruel, and we won’t let them get away with it. We’re fighting back, and we hope you’ll join us.

By Galen Sherwin, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Women’s Rights Project & Vania Leveille, Senior Legislative Counsel

If you own a credit card or a bank account, use a ride-sharing service, made an online purchase, or work in corporate America, chances are you have signed a forced arbitration agreement: a promise that, if any disputes arise between you and your employer or the business, you won’t sue. Hidden in the fine-print of a contract you may not even remember signing is language that says you’ve agreed, in advance, to give up your right go to court.

But today, the House of Representatives passed the FAIR Act, legislation that would prohibit the use of forced arbitration in employment discrimination and consumer contract cases. In the wake of #MeToo, the practice is drawing increasing criticism—making the FAIR Act one of the most important reforms we can make to ensure workplace equality.

Little known to consumers and employees, the use of this sneaky practice is on the rise—it has doubled in scope between the 1990s, and currently impacts more than 60 million workers. These kinds of agreements are prevalent in female dominated industries – 57.6 percent of female workers are subject to the practice – as well as in low-wage fields and industries dominated by women of color.  One estimate shows that by 2024, forced arbitration will be in place in over 80% of workplaces, covering more than 85 million workers.

Forced arbitration has had the effect of slamming the courthouse doors in the face of victims of workplace harassment and discrimination, and is a huge boon to employers. By sneaking forced arbitration into contracts, employers and corporations are ensuring that even if you did notice what you signed, and have the foresight to imagine what you would prefer to do if a dispute were to arise in the future, you have very little choice but to sign.

Studies have shown that employees are less likely to pursue discrimination cases in arbitration, and that when they do, they are less likely to win and their monetary awards far lower than they would be in court. For example, one report showed that in 30 years, only 17 women on Wall Street had won sexual harassment claims in industry arbitration.  The  widespread use of forced arbitration agreements is one major reason that many valid sexual harassment cases, and other discrimination cases, never see the light of day — and repeat offenders are not held to account.

Companies claim that this method is more efficient and less costly than court proceedings. That can be true in some cases – and there is no doubt that it should remain an option, particularly if both parties agree to use it after a dispute has actually arisen.

But what they don’t tell you is that arbitration also lacks critical procedural safeguards — for example, permitting access to evidence from the other side that can be the key to proving your claims – particularly in discrimination cases, which often hinge on how the employer has treated other employees. The arbitrators may or may not be lawyers, and may or may not be trained in resolving discrimination cases. Results are secret, helping companies evade public accountability. The outcome is binding, and there is generally no right to an appeal.

How did we get into this mess? Congress initially blessed arbitration agreements as a tool to settle disputes between corporations, and passed a law favoring their enforcement. But a series of Supreme Court cases has since permitted the practice to spread unchecked, and to extinguish the right to go to court in a host of contexts it was never intended to reach. These include not only employment discrimination cases, but also cases brought by rideshare passengers who allege they were raped by inadequately vetted drivers; families whose loved ones were abused or neglected in residential care centers; customers who bought furniture online and discovered it was infested with bedbugs, and, most recently, in the context of class actions to improve working conditions. These cases are a far cry from what was originally intended.

But the FAIR Act could finally allow workers, consumers, and others to choose how they wanted to pursue their dispute.  This bill could solve one of the biggest problems most of us never knew we had (until it’s too late).

Forced arbitration agreements have to go.  The House has taken the first important step but our fight has just begun – the bill has little chance of passing the Senate, unless each of us takes steps to let them know how we feel about being snookered into these agreements. It’s past time to pry the courthouse doors back open again – and make antidiscrimination laws more than an empty promise.