Stories from the ACLU of Washington

Five years ago, a college sociology project on alternatives to incarceration led Caity Yates to Town Hall Seattle to listen to a talk by ACLU-WA Criminal Justice Director Alison Holcomb. She’s followed both Alison and the ACLU’s activities ever since. In the past few years, Caity has worked her way up to be co-manager of the Seattle Anne Taylor Loft store. She is very happy there, but she decided that she “wanted to get involved in something that made more of an impact than choosing what shirt to pair with what pants in a display.”

The ongoing hunger strike at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma has been a remarkable protest, with 750 detainees refusing to eat on its first day and immigrant rights activists rallying community support outside the facility. Veteran reporter Nina Shapiro provides an excellent overview of the issues that sparked it in the Seattle Weekly.

The ACLU of Washington has many wonderful interns who assist with our work. We would like you to meet some of them. University of Washington student Estella Jung had read about the ACLU in Political Science classes. Then a friend at UW Law School mentioned how much she had enjoyed her experience interning with the ACLU of Washington and recommended that Estella apply for an internship.  She did and now is an intern with our Policy Advocacy Group.

The US Department of Education has just released new data on school discipline and arrests.  

Secular Americans and many liberal people of faith have been horrified by the Right’s most recent ploy: “religious freedom” claims that would give conservative business owners license to discriminate. Until Arizona made the national spotlight, the need for lunch counter sit-ins had seemed like a thing of the past. But in reality, advocates for religious privilege have been circling toward this point for some time.