Talking Liberties with the ACLU of Illinois

On April 4 Illinois will hold elections for local elected offices – like school board, city council, mayor and more. In this episode we were joined by Khadine Bennett, Director of Advocacy and Intergovernmental Affairs at the ACLU of Illinois to discuss how these local offices are important to protecting rights and civil liberties for your community, and how each vote counts.

In 2023 Illinois will end the use of a money bond system - a system that prioritizes wealth when making decisions about who awaits trial in county jail. The new system relies on individualized assessments about public safety to make this critical decision. On this episode of Talking Liberties we were joined by Lake County States Attorney Eric Rinehart, Cook County Public Defender Sharone Mitchell, and ACLU of Illinois Director of Criminal Justice Policy Ben Ruddell to discuss how this new law will reform the pretrial system in Illinois.

As the 2022 Midterm Election approaches on November 8 many voters are still deciding on whom to vote for – or whether to vote at all. The reality is that our civil liberties are on the ballot at every level and in every race. In this episode we were joined by Khadine Bennett, Director of Advocacy and Intergovernmental Affairs at the ACLU of Illinois to discuss how a range of offices up for election in 2022 have a real impact on your civil rights and liberties.

Efforts to ban books in public and school libraries across the country has more than doubled in the past year. In this episode we were joined by Deborah Stone-Caldwell, director of the Office of Intellectual Freedom at the American Library Association, and Rebecca Glenberg, Senior Supervising Attorney at the ACLU of Illinois to discuss the threats to challenged books across country and in Illinois, and what each of us can do to fight back against these threats in our own communities.

In 2018, ICE conducted a series of controversial raids across the Chicago area using traffic stops and other techniques to detain hundreds of individuals for immigration violations. In this episode, we are joined by Antonio Gutierrez, an organizer with Organized Communities Against Deportations (OCAD)and Mark Fleming, a lawyer from the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) to discuss those raids, the lawsuit filed in response to the arrests, and how the settlement will change ICE practices in Illinois and across the country.

Illinois currently has one of the most restrictive laws name change laws in the country – a law that bans people from being able to change their names for at least ten years. On this episode we discussed the harms that this law imposes and efforts in Springfield to remove this unjust restriction. We were joined by advocates Eisha Love, a transgender activist, and Avi Rudnick a lawyer and the Director of Scattered Site Housing at Chicago House and a Board member of the Transformative Justice Law Project of Illinois Name Change Mobilization which helps transgender people change their names.

Even as Roe hangs by a thread, there are countless barriers to make abortions difficult, even impossible for people to access. On this episode we were joined by Representative Jan Schakowsky, Megan Jeyifo and Aalap Bommaraju from the Chicago Abortion Fund, and Ameri Klafeta from the ACLU of Illinois to talk about how the stigmatization of abortion has allowed for policies like the Hyde Amendment and PNA to continue to restrict access to abortion – and the consequences of that here in Illinois and across the country.

Illinois has  a new law updating and adding to the standards for how personal health and sexual health education is taught in this state. We sat down with Scout Bratt, Outreach & Education Director at Chicago Women's Health Center and Chelsea Diaz, our Advocacy Associate to find out more about what the Keeping Youth Safe and Healthy Act includes, and what more we can do to ensure comprehensive and inclusive sex education is taught in Illinois.

In 2019, Jaylan Butler – an innocent college student returning from a swim meet on his team’s bus – was taken to the ground and had a gun held to his head by police officers in Illinois. Jaylan bravely filed a lawsuit against those officers to hold them accountable for their actions, and that case was recently resolved. We speak with Jaylan about his story, and with ACLU of Illinois Police Practices Staff Attorney Rachel Murphy on how traumatic police interactions continue to harm communities of color throughout Illinois and our country.

We all want young people to be able to talk to their parents about important life decisions. However, the idea that the government can force healthy family interactions ignores reality for many youth and the lasting injuries that result from enforcing these laws. That is why the Parental Notice of Abortion Act (PNA) is dangerous in Illinois and must be repealed. We are joined by Emily Werth, ACLU of IL Women's and Reproductive Rights Project Staff Attorney, as well as two experts who have seen the harms of PNA up close: Dr. Rebecca Commito, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Chicago, and Retired Judge Susan Fox Gillis. You can also learn more about SB 2190 and take action by going to: https://www.aclu-il.org/en/legislation/sb-2190-repeal-pna