News & Commentary

ANCHORAGE -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska is supporting Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska effort to establish two programs supporting individuals releasing from prisons. The hollistic Juneau-based programs, Alaway Avenue and Allen Court transitional housing programs, will not only help fill this growing gap of necessary services for returning citizens to be successful, but also provide alternative housing options outside of the private prison industry, which derive their corporate profits by warehousing and caging people, and outside of the congregate emergency shelter model that is struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ACLU of Alaska filed a legal challenge to Governor Dunleavy’s latest veto of court system funding after he doubled down on his unprecedented 2019 attack on the judiciary in retaliation for a court ruling at odds with his own personal beliefs. 

ANCHORAGE – Today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that employers can’t unfairly fire or otherwise discriminate against LGBTQ+ people in the workplace. This decision alleviates the anxiety among gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer or transgender employees that they could be fired from their job — thereby losing their health care and the ability to take care of themselves and their family — just because of who they are. Today’s ruling by the Supreme Court has taken action to prevent life-threatening harm for millions of Americans. 

On Wednesday, May 7, 2020 ACLU of Alaska Policy Director Triada Stampas testified during a Matanuska-Susitna School Board meeting in support of rescinding the board's April 22, 2020 decision to remove books and teaching materials labeled “controversial” from the High School English Elective Curriculum and Reading List, Part I. 

This op-ed was origionally published in the Anchorage Daily News on May 5, 2020.

Failure to reduce jail population is the Achilles heel for the efforts to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Alaska is urging state leaders to improve the collection and reporting of aggregated race, ethnicity, and other demographic data of COVID-19 infections and deaths after several states revealed disturbingly dipropionate rates of death for Black individuals.

The ACLU of Alaska is attempting to work with the Alaska Department of Corrections (DOC) to reduce the risk of spread of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 in state jails and prisons. In a letter sent to Department Commissioner Nancy Dahlstrom, the ACLU of Alaska details a series of necessary steps corrections officials must take to ensure the health and safety of some of the state’s most vulnerable residents.

The Dunleavy Administration has attacked a woman’s constitutionally protected access to abortion TWICE this week. In addition to an abortion ban, he also submitted a second line-item budget veto to the Alaska Court System to continue to punish the Courts for defending a woman’s constitutionally protected right to choose.