Louder Than Words

By Thomas B. Harvey, Justice Project Program Director Nothing short of police abolition will end the continued abuses of a system of policing designed to systematically oppress Black people and maintain a white supremacist status quo. Credit: Life Matters Last month, police in Rochester, New York pepper sprayed, manhandled, handcuffed and arrested a nine-year-old Black girl in obvious mental health crisis. This horrifying violence triggered a familiar and morbid routine: news coverage of this police brutality was met with strongly worded condemnations from political leaders, whose calls to reform policing were centered in the conversation; meanwhile…

Advancement Project National Office applauds the re-introduction of the DREAM Act by bi-partisan members of the U.S. Senate. The DREAM Act would provide permanent protections for over two million immigrant youth and current Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients. The introduction of this bill is a testament to the power of immigrant youth and allies who have consistently pushed for meaningful legislation that protects our communities from criminalization. And although a step in the right direction, the introduction alone is simply not enough. There must be a specific roadmap to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented people in the…

Following recent police assaults of young people in Florida and New York, the call for #PoliceFreeSchools in Montgomery County is emphatic

Legal action taken in U.S. Court of Appeals works to ensure that students of color receive a meaningful, quality education that allows them to thrive

After a year of #PoliceFreeSchools wins in cities nationwide, Advancement Project National Office and Alliance for Educational Justice respond to recent #AssaultAtLiberty

“We acknowledge and commend the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to make racial equality a legislative priority and center piece to their agenda."

“The inauguration of Kamala Harris as the nation’s first Black and South Asian Vice President is the result of the tireless work of Black women."

Advancement Project National Office’s Immigrant Justice released its top priorities, in collaboration with Juntos, Puente Human Rights Movement, and Florida Immigrant Coalition, for the Biden-Harris Administration. These priorities and recommendations are rooted in Immigrant Justice’s vision of decriminalizing migration and the core beliefs that no one is disposable and all human beings are valuable and worthy of protecting. DOWNLOAD RECOMMENDATIONS (Graphic) DOWNLOAD RECOMMENDATIONS (PDF)…

By Jorge L. Vasquez, Jr., Program Director, Power and Democracy until every eligible voter has equal access to the polls and every voting age citizen is eligible to vote without unnecessary and unwarranted interference, there will always be citizens who, as Dr. King coined, “cannot live as a democratic citizen.” “So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind-it is made up for me. I cannot live as a democratic citizen, observing the laws I have helped to enact-I can only submit…

If this attack on the Capitol showed one thing, it’s that law and order only applies to Black and Brown people. By Marques Banks, Justice Project Staff Attorney As the nation watched white supremacists storm the United States Capitol, I thought about how police react in strikingly different ways to white protesters versus Black protesters. I am a lawyer who has supported protests over police murders from Mike Brown to George Floyd. I was in the streets and personally watched as my friends, colleagues, and other protesters were beaten, teargassed, and arrested in massive numbers for exercising their…