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Youth

All young people must have the opportunity to meaningfully participate in our society.  The ACLU Youth Policy project seeks to ensure that young people – particularly those who have been historically excluded or underserved – receive meaningful education and services in communities, instead of being pushed to a juvenile justice system that will undermine their ability to be successful as adults.  Our current focus is on reforming school discipline policies and practices, working to limit school-based referrals to the juvenile justice system, and decreasing the over-reliance on jails and prisons for young people in the juvenile and adult criminal law systems.

Resources

News Release, Published: 
Friday, November 20, 2009
The Lake Washington School Board in Redmond, WA has decided not to impose restitution or community service on three Eastlake High School students who created a Web site on which someone else posted a death threat last fall.
News Release, Published: 
Friday, November 20, 2009
Trevor Gilmore, a senior at A.C. Davis High School in Yakima, has been selected to receive one of ten National ACLU Youth Activist Scholarship Awards. For his work in starting the first Gay-Straight Alliance in Yakima, he is receiving a $4,000 college scholarship as part of a national ACLU program that recognizes youth who do exemplary work for civil liberties.
News Release, Published: 
Friday, November 20, 2009
A settlement between student Nick Emmett and Kent School District has ended the district’s attempt to punish the student because of a Web site created on his home computer. Under terms of the settlement negotiated by the ACLU, the suburban Seattle district will not pursue disciplinary action against Emmett over the Web site and will pay his attorney fees.
News Release, Published: 
Friday, November 20, 2009
All student-initiated clubs have the right to speak on campus and circulate leaflets or underground newspapers at school. However, the ACLU believes that no student-initiated club has a legal right to force the school to give official endorsement and money to the group if the school does not wish to sponsor it.
News Release, Published: 
Friday, November 20, 2009
In the first legal action of its kind in Washington, two sets of parents of Wahkiakum High School students filed a lawsuit on Dec. 17, 1999 challenging Wahkiakum School District’s policy of suspicionless urine testing for students who participate in extracurricular athletic activities.
News Release, Published: 
Friday, November 20, 2009
The U.S. Supreme Court heard two cases on Dec. 4 – including one from Seattle – involving desegregation programs in public schools. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the cases.
News Release, Published: 
Friday, November 20, 2009
In the latest ACLU case backing student rights in cyberspace, Thurston County Superior Court Judge Thomas McPhee today ruled that public school officials cannot punish a student for free speech outside of school.
News Release, Published: 
Friday, November 20, 2009
Mount Vernon High School has opened its formerly all-female cheerleading squad to all students, regardless of gender, after the ACLU intervened on behalf of a male transgender student who was denied a full opportunity to participate.
News Release, Published: 
Friday, November 20, 2009
For the second straight year, the first week of school brought the ACLU a plea for help from a student in trouble for refusing to stand for the flag salute.
News Release, Published: 
Friday, November 20, 2009
The ACLU has filed a suit challenging a plan for suspicionless drug testing of students at Cle Elum-Roslyn High School, because it violates students’ privacy and interferes with parental rights.

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