American Civil Liberties Union

JACKSON, Miss. — The ACLU of Mississippi, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, O’Melveny & Myers, and Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP announced a settlement in their cases against the City of Lexington, involving alleged unconstitutional and discriminatory policing practices by the Lexington Police Department and named officers, including its former chief of police.

JACKSON, Miss. – The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Mississippi, Legal Defense Fund (LDF), and NAACP moved to intervene on behalf of the DeSoto County NAACP and the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. in Foster v. Mississippi, a lawsuit seeking to eliminate the only majority-Black judicial district in DeSoto County, Mississippi. Black people make up about 36% of the county’s population, and that percentage has grown significantly in recent decades.

The ACLU of Mississippi's Back-to-School Resource Fair is a collaborative initiative between the Equitable Access to Social Services Project (EASSE) and the Mississippi Special Education Coalition (MSEC). This event is designed to address the interconnected social, economic, and educational challenges that many families face.

The Senate has passed SB 2588, the “SHIELD” (Safeguard Honesty Integrity in Elections for Lasting Democracy) Act, a piece of legislation that would impose new burdensome requirements related to voter registration processes and expand federal involvement in state election administration. The current language of this bill threatens to impede or even disenfranchise qualified Mississippi voters and likely violates the National Voter Registration Act. SB 2588 now heads to the Governor.

One morning between today and June, the Court will deliver an opinion on a case from Louisiana named Callais v. Landry. The Court will decide whether the Voting Rights Act can continue to protect minority voters from racial discrimination in redistricting. A majority of justices could very well dismiss the lived reality of discrimination faced by voters of color and strip away one of the last remaining protections against racially rigged maps.

Is Mississippi helping ICE expand its reach? In the past year, Mississippi has quietly, but efficiently, expanded its operations with the federal government’s law enforcement agencies. Using 287(g) agreements as a basis for partnership, several of Mississippi’s public officials have joined forces with Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE). The embattled agency has unleashed violence, which has spurred a wave of resistance, across the United States.

On January 5, 1975, white redeemers held a convention that marked the initial step to use violence, terror and fraud to overthrow Mississippi’s democratically elected government. Their coordinated effort came to be known as the Mississippi Plan and it set the precedent in how to overthrow democracy and end reconstruction.

BRANDON, Miss. – The ACLU of Mississippi and the Center for Constitutional Rights, with support from the American Civil Liberties Union’s State Supreme Court Initiative, today filed a public records lawsuit seeking information about the Rankin County District Attorney’s Office’s handling of criminal legal cases in which sheriff deputies had engaged in a pattern of misconduct and abuse for nearly two decades.

WASHINGTON, DC — The League of Women Voters, the Rural Coalition/Coalición Rural, the Center for Rural Strategies, the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), and Disability Rights Mississippi (DRMS), filed an amicus brief in the United States Supreme Court case Watson v. Republican National Committee. Amici urge the Court not to disrupt the states’ ability to determine mail-ballot receipt rules in their own state and depending on the needs of their voters.

This year has felt like a decade. The news can be overwhelming, but joy is an act of resistance. Join us as we close the year with reflection, gratitude, and celebration at our End-of-Year Wrap-Up on Tuesday, December 2, at 5:30 p.m. at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum. We’re honored to welcome Deborah Archer, ACLU National Board President, for an author talk on her book Dividing Lines: How Transportation Infrastructure Reinforces Racial Inequality.