Friend –

What are you working on these days at the ACLU? I'm often asked this question by acquaintances at the dog park, over coffee with a friend, or during family visits. These days, here is how I answer:

Throughout the country, the ACLU is conducting the largest voter education and voting rights protection effort in our history. Here in Northern California, this work includes:

• Working to ensure the full implementation and enforcement of our robust voting rights;
• Offering a deeply researched endorsement guide and supporting our positions through voter education and get-out-the-vote efforts;
• Releasing a toolkit for voters to assess their local school board candidates on civil liberties issues; and
• Organizing a training series to prepare our communities to engage on civil liberties issues post-November 5 – regardless of the election results.

A major theme in this election and in our work more broadly is the swinging pendulum of criminal justice policy. Over the past fifteen years, California has been on the vanguard of reforms that have dramatically reduced jail and prison sentences while improving public safety. Coming out of COVID and in the face of the fentanyl epidemic, however, a number of prosecutors have seized on voter anxieties to roll back some of our hard-won gains. We are working to counter the rollback of criminal justice reforms on multiple fronts, including:

• Defending the rights of our unhoused neighbors as, in the wake of the Supreme Court decision in Grants Pass, state and local policymakers show no restraint in fining and arresting people who have no other option but to sleep on the streets;
• Urging voters to vote No on Proposition 36, which would increase incarceration and drain the funds available for alternatives to incarceration like drug and mental health treatment; and Please note: This link will take you to a third-party website, stopprisonscam.org.
• Opposing the recall of Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price: a cynical attempt to stop her reform-minded, holistic approach to public safety.

Another ascendant theme in our work is the array of civil liberties issues unfolding on high school and college campuses throughout our region. This work includes:

• Documenting and responding to universities' truly unprecedented reactions to protected free speech activity and civil disobedience – including filing a major lawsuit against UC Santa Cruz for its practice of banishing student and faculty protesters;
• Releasing a new guide to free speech and protest rights on campuses, including a video explainer;
• A comprehensive update of our My Schools My Rights website, which offers resources about California laws ranging from curricula and book bans to student discipline and LGBTQ students' rights; and
• Defending the rights of students to wear tribal and other cultural regalia at their graduation ceremonies. Our recent report documents the systemic violations of these rights as we call on school districts to publicize and enforce them.

As an Iranian American, I am constantly in awe of the multi-racial democracy that I am honored to be a part of and defend. I am filled with extra motivation when political leaders target the most vulnerable members of what Frederick Douglass called our "composite nation" – whether they be transgender youth or Haitian immigrants. Every one of us falls within the meaning of person, deserving and entitled to the rights of the Constitution of this composite nation.

I appreciate all you do to keep that vision alive.

Thanks for sticking with us,

Abdi Soltani
Executive Director, ACLU of Northern California