The 2014-2015 fiscal year was one marked by accomplishment on many fronts. Our efforts on marriage equality with Freedom Nevada and the Sevcik v. Sandoval suit, our push to expand as well as defend immigrant rights, our vigilance on police conduct, our education efforts and policy work in sex education, and the numerous victories of our legislative and legal teams made for a successful year.
Ongoing analyses of each school district’s sex education policies and curricula proved successful in rural counties such as Lyon, Douglas, and Lincoln. While success has been elusive in Clark County, we will not rest until all counties in our state teach age appropriate, medically accurate, comprehensive sex education. With the statewide review of every school district’s sex education policies and curricula we seek to ensure all children receive proper education about their own health.
Heading into the 2015 session of Nevada Legislature, we planned for an onslaught of legislation attacking civil liberties. These bills materialized almost daily, but we defeated bills that sought to promote religious proselytizing in schools, roll back reproductive choice, impose voter id requirements, make religious-based discrimination legal in places of public accommodation, and mandate a discriminatory bullying policy requiring transgender students to use a separate bathroom in schools.
With our legal department under new and talented direction, we have been building our legal docket to take on some of the most egregious cases that violate the principles of equality, liberty, and justice. In October we were victorious in Sevcik v. Sandoval in the Ninth Circuit, securing the right of all Nevadans to marry the person they love. We also prevented a racially inequitable and discriminatory voter suppression initiative.
However, there are still many issues requiring our attention and resources. Inaccurate, discriminatory, and archaic sex education is still being taught to the majority of Nevada’s students, those incarcerated are treated inhumanely by a corrections system with insufficient safeguards and policies of retaliation over rehabilitation. We continue to work on reforming our juvenile justice programs throughout the state by reducing/eliminating solitary confinement and transfering youth from adult facilities to youth facilities. The most vulnerable among us are locked away and mistreated, denied medical services, and rehabilitation and reintegration services. Immigrants are still profiled and singled out for harassment, detention, family separation, and displacement.
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Date
Thursday, February 12, 2015 - 1:00pm
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In 2016, the ACLU of Nevada celebrated 50 years of standing up for the people of Nevada, and defending their civil liberties and civil rights.
This impact report covers the 2015-2016 fiscal year and we are proud to report the progress we have made not only for this fiscal year, but also to mark the many achievements of the last 50 years.
Late in the summer of 2015, we filed a lawsuit to stop the State's new voucher law on the grounds that it violates Nevada's definition of church and state separation, it is unconstitutional, and it would funnel taxpayer money to private institutions, religious and otherwise, that discriminate against students and staff. The recent decision from the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed the unconstitutionality of voucher mfunding and we remain steadfast in our position that no public money should ever be spent for religious indoctrination or for state-sanctioned discrimination.
Over the last fiscal year, the staff at the ACLU of Nevada has contracted and grown again to meet the demands of the work that we do and the environment in which we operate. We now have a policy director and an outreach coordinator affecting change in public policy across the state through our outreach and advocacy campaigns and initiatives. The policy department is looking ahead and planning for the 2017 session of the Nevada Legislature; we will call on every member and supporter of the ACLU of Nevada.
Only together can we effectively defend our civil rights and expand our liberties.
The legal team is currently researching opportunities to defend the right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment, scrutinizing the health care and treatment of the incarcerated, and ensuring Nevada complies with the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, also known as the Motor Voter law. We were fortunate to host legal interns this summer from Boyd, Harvard, and Columbia law schools and their work contributed immensely to the work of the legal department.
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Date
Friday, February 12, 2016 - 10:45am
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2017 kept us on our toes and brought many new challenges for the ACLUNV staff and supporters. As soon as the inauguration ended, President Trump ushered in discriminatory policies against multiple minority communities. With his first Muslim Ban, we rallied at Nevada’s major airports to assist families caught up in the mess and tell the administration that we will not tolerate the hate they were sowing. We appeared at numerous community events to educate nervous constituents about standing up for their rights.
Then, starting in February, we successfully fought for the civil rights and liberties of all Nevadans at the 2017 Legislature, securing wins for women, LGBTQ youth, and juveniles in the criminal justice system. We tracked over 250 bills, providing testimony and educational materials, recruited volunteer speakers, and negotiated with opponents on laws we didn’t support. We defeated the discriminatory voucher bill. We had hoped to update Nevada’s public records law with our Silver State Sunshine Act, but we will try again in 2019.
We took on a number of important cases over the last year. We sued the state of Nevada over the deficient, unconstitutional public defense system in 11 rural counties, and we challenged an anti-immigrant ballot petition that would separate families and imperil public safety.
When the White House announced it was going to sunset the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the ACLU of Nevada organized public information meetings and assisted eligible Dreamers with their DACA applications. We also advocated for police accountability by expanding the state body camera law, and urging Clark County to update its Use of Force Matrix, and for transgender-inclusive school policies in Clark County.
While we faced new and overwhelming challenges in 2017, we managed to achieve meaningful changes in public policy, and defend the rights of Nevadans throughout the state. None of these wins would be possible without the contributions of our membership and supporters, which quadrupled to meet these new challenges. We look forward to continuing our fights against discriminatory policies no matter who initiates them.
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Date
Monday, February 12, 2018 - 2:30pm
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