Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Freedom Of Speech, Human Rights, Illegal Immigration, Immigration
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Court Watchers: Immigrant Solidarity Working Group Monitor Deportation Cases
In New York City, a quiet act of resistance is taking place every week inside the federal immigration courts. Members of the Professional Staff Congress—the union representing faculty and staff across the City University of New York—have been showing up not as lawyers or law enforcement, but as witnesses. They call themselves court watchers. Their goal: to stand beside immigrants facing possible deportation, document abuses, and assert the public’s right to observe what happens inside these halls of power.
The union’s Immigrant Solidarity Working Group launched this effort over the summer, after reports that armed ICE agents were making mass arrests in and around federal courthouses—even detaining people who had appeared voluntarily for hearings. For many PSC members, this was a line they couldn’t ignore. Each Friday morning in Foley Square, educators gather before entering the courthouse. They’re trained to document what they see, to provide moral support, and to help loved ones locate those taken into detention. Their presence sends a message: that New Yorkers will not turn away from injustice carried out in their name.
What began as an act of witness has become a form of civic education. Teachers who spend their days in classrooms are now learning new lessons about power, vulnerability, and courage. In the process, they’re showing their students—and the city—what solidarity looks like in action.
Guest – PSC Secretary Andrea Vásquez is an associate director of the American Social History Project at the CUNY Graduate Center, and a managing director of the New Media Lab.
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Defining Hate Crimes
Across the country, tensions are high as hate-fueled incidents make headlines almost daily. Just last month, a transgender woman in Washington State was assaulted by a mob yelling transphobic slurs while one attacker choked her. In this charged environment, politicians are weighing in — some pledging to crack down, others blurring the line between hateful speech and protected expression.
The Trump administration formed a Federal Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism and is targeting universities across the nation. Attorney General Pam Bondi has said the Department of Justice will “target” and “go after” individuals who threaten others with hate speech. But what does it mean when political figures invoke hate crime laws as tools of ideology rather than justice? And what are the real implications for free speech, civil rights, and public safety?
Guest – Zachary Wolfe, editor of Hate Crimes Law and a leading scholar on how the United States defines, prosecutes, and debates hate-motivated offenses. He’s here to help us understand how these laws are being used—and sometimes misused—in today’s polarized climate. Blog: profzwolfe.com
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Animal Rights, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, worker's rights
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Corporate Media Coverage Analysis of NYC Mayoral Race
The majority campaign of Zohran Mamdani in New York City is the most hopeful development on the left in America today. Mamdani is a charismatic 33 year-old Uganda born one time state legislator and a wholehearted supporter and member of the Democratic Socialists of America. He is challenging former governor Andrew Como, who was recently forced to resign in disgrace after being credibly accused by 13 women of sexual harassment.
Cuomo represents the establishment, the real estate, financial, and big tech interests in America’s largest city. He has the support of major media and even Donald Trump. Meanwhile, none of the leading Democratic Party figures in New York State except Governor Hochul have endorsed Mamdani.
Cuomo’s campaign is run on fear. Mamdani won the primary by a landslide. His support comes mostly from the young, Black people, Asians, and a white working class in neighborhoods throughout New York City. During the primary campaign 50,000 volunteers knocked on 1,500,000 doors with the message that their candidate will work to make their lives better. The major media in New York City have thrown their weight behind Cuomo. But New York City’s grassroots, newspaper, The Indypendent has covered the Mamdani campaign consistently, and extensively since it’s beginning.
Guest – John Tarleton is a co-founder and editor in chief of the Indypendent, a free monthly newspaper and website publishing in New York City since 2000. He’s the cohost of the independent NewsHour on WBAI in New York City.
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Animal Protection Laws Emboldened By Case Precedent
Humankind has, happily, made considerable progress in extending legal rights to the non-human animal world, but certainly from the point of view of animal rights advocates we’ve still got a long way to go. So today on Law and Disorder we’ll speak with an attorney whose practice includes animal rights law to discuss some of the recent pluses and minuses in the battle to secure legal protection for the animals with whom we share this planet.
Guest – Attorney Matthew Strugar was previously Director of Litigation for the PETA Foundation, or the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Matthew Strugar is now in private practice where, in addition to animal law, his practice includes handling civil rights cases, cases of police misconduct, the First Amendment, prisoners’ rights and the defense of political protesters.
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Criminalizing Dissent, Freedom Of Speech, Human Rights, police accountability, U.S. Militarism
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Defending My Enemy: Skokie and the Legacy of Free Speech in America
At the heart of Trump’s blizzard of chaotic, cruel, and corrupt attacks on our democracy is one of the most turbulent, disruptive, and consequential assaults on freedom of speech in American history. Trump and his obedient underlings have enlisted the full force of the federal government’s overwhelming criminal, civil, administrative, immigration, and national security apparatus to illegally crush protest, dissent, and free speech.
On an unprecedented scale, directly and indirectly, Trump is violating the First Amendment rights of every person in the United States to express and receive information and ideas free of government censorship. He is going after the Voice of America, the Smithsonian Museum, the Associated Press, NPR, PBS, ABC, CBS, the Library of Congress, local public libraries, foreign and domestic students, immigrants, colleges and universities, elected officials, law firms, and judges. And by silencing all of these voices, he is denying the constitutional right of every American to hear what those voices have to say.
The United States is in a constitutional crisis. It is imperative that we vigorously defend our rights. The reissuance of the seminal book Defending My Enemy: Skokie and the Legacy of Free Speech in America by Aryeh Neier could not have come at a better time to remind us of the importance of defending the essential freedom upon which all others depend – freedom of speech.
Defending My Enemy was originally published in 1979. At that time Neier was the national executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which agreed to represent the Nazis in the Skokie controversy. Defending My Enemy was a brave book when it was originally published, and almost 50 years later it remains an indispensable guide to help us navigate today’s convulsive debates over free speech on American campuses and throughout our society.
This edition of Defending My Enemy is enhanced by a new foreword by Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, a new afterword by Nadine Strossen, president of the ACLU from 1991 to 2008, and an extensive new chapter by Neier himself offering his views on the contemporary challenges facing free speech in America. In addition to previously serving as Executive Director of the ACLU, Neier co-founded Human Rights Watch, and is President Emeritus of the Open Society Foundations, where he remains active in their work. He has written seven books and over three hundred articles and op-eds on civil and human rights.
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National Guard Occupy The Streets Of DC
Soldiers in uniform are still patrolling the streets of Washington, D.C. They’re not just on guard duty — they’ve been spotted picking up trash, spreading mulch, and even posing with tourists. And now their mission has been extended indefinitely. The Army has ordered nearly a thousand National Guard members to remain on active duty through November 30, 2025. Donald Trump could end it sooner, or push it even further, but for now the deployment is open-ended. Another 1,300 Guard troops from states like Louisiana and Ohio are also staying through December.
The official line is they are tackling “out of control” crime. But many residents and local officials see something else: a military force filling civic space, performing chores that look more like public relations than public safety. Ward 1 Commissioner Peter Wood called the outreach “uncomfortable and concerning,” stressing that soldiers patrolling civilian neighborhoods creates more fear than comfort.
This isn’t just about crime or clean-up crews — it’s about what kind of country we want to be when soldiers become part of daily civic life.
Guest – Attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard from the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund and the Center for Protest Law and Litigation in Washington, DC. Mara is one of the nation’s leading litigators defending protesters and winning numerous reforms in police practices at mass assemblies and demonstrations.
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Censorship, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Freedom Of Speech, Human Rights, Supreme Court
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The First Amendment Heavily Tested Under Trump Administration
The First Amendment is being tested in many arenas not only in response to various Executive Orders which Donald Trump has issued in his second term, but also in state legislatures which are experimenting with how far the government can go in restricting freedom of speech.
In Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, the US Supreme Court upheld a Texas law requiring age verification for access to Internet porn sites. In 2024, Mississippi enacted House Bill 1126 after a Mississippi teen became the victim of sextortion on Instagram and died by suicide. That law requires young people to obtain their parents’ consent before they can create social-media accounts. On August 13, the US Supreme Court issued a brief unsigned order allowing that law to go forward despite a lower court injunction.
Meanwhile, South Park is savagely ridiculing Donald Trump, CBS capitulated when Trump sued them over a 60 Minutes segment, and a conservative federal appeals court struck down an injunction for an on-campus drag show. There’s a lot going on when it comes to free speech.
Guest – Robert Corn Revere has been a First Amendment litigator for more than four decades. He is Chief Counsel for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression or FIRE. He is the author of The Mind of the Censor and the Eye of the Beholder: The First Amendment and the Censor’s Dilemma, which explores how free expression became a part of America’s identity. FIRE filed an amicus brief in support of Net Choice in one of the cases we’re discussing today.
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Chambers v. Florida and the Criminal Justice Revolution
In 1933, four young Black farm workers in Pompano, Florida, were arrested for the murder of a white shopkeeper. With no lawyers and no meaningful due process, for a week they were held, beaten, threatened with lynching, and ultimately forced to sign confessions. Their convictions and death sentences seemed almost certain in the Jim Crow South. But 7 years later, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed those verdicts in a unanimous ruling, declaring that confessions obtained under psychological coercion rendered them involuntary and violated the 14th Amendment.
In Chambers v. Florida and the Criminal Justice Revolution, author Richard Brust vividly revisits this often-overlooked case. Chambers opened the door to the Warren Court’s criminal procedure revolution, laying the foundation for decisions such as Miranda v. Arizona. The book also highlights the lawyers and communities behind the case. Jacksonville attorney Simuel McGill, one of Florida’s few Black lawyers, kept the appeals alive until the case reached Washington.
Guest – Richard Brust is a journalist and historian whose work focuses on law, politics, and American history. He was a longtime editor for the American Bar Association’s ABA Journal and has written extensively about the courts and the evolution of U.S. legal culture.
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Human Trafficking, U.S. Militarism
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The Trump Administration and ACLU Legal Counteraction Strategy
The very day President Donald Trump returned to the White House on January 20, 2025, the American Civil Liberties Union celebrated the beginning of its 106th year. Based on its long experience combating repressive governments, the ACLU had been carefully planning for the possibility of Trump’s reelection. That day it announced that it was fully prepared for the threat Trump posed to our constitutional democracy.
The ACLU recalled that “Since first leaving office in 2020, Trump has threatened to enact policies that would endanger immigrant families, further restrict reproductive health, and weaponize the federal government against protesters and political opponents. Now that he has returned to the White House and will be buoyed by many allies in his cabinet and in Congress, these threats could become real.” And they certainly have.
During the first Trump’s administration, the ACLU took legal action more than 430 times. In the last six months, they have followed a clear playbook to fight back – and win – challenging a wide range of Trump’s policies that are aimed at destroying our civil rights and civil liberties.
Guest – Ben Wizner, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU, and Director of the ACLU’s Center for Democracy, which encompasses the organization’s work on free speech, privacy, immigrants’ rights, voting rights, human rights, and national security. For more than two decades at the ACLU, Ben has litigated cases involving the right to protest, freedom of expression online, government surveillance practices, airport security policies, targeted killing, and torture. Since July of 2013, he has been the principal legal advisor to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and advised Julian Assange. I’ve known Ben since he started at the ACLU of Southern California over 20 years ago. I witnessed how he devotes his keen legal mind and deep compassion to defending the people he represents who are struggle to vindicate their constitutional rights.
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The Mexican Reintegration Project
Immigration news continues to dominate headlines: from the approval of the bill that provides another $170 billion for immigration enforcement to the images of masked men in unmarked vehicles roaming around cities like Houston, Los Angeles, New York and Chicago… and arresting people from their homes, workplaces, or even just off the street.
Now, these controversial strong-arm tactics haven’t been a total success: court battles, community opposition, and even ICE officer burnout are throwing a wrench into the administration’s deportation goals. Yet still, for millions of noncitizens living in the US, it is impossible not to wonder: what happens if I — or my loved one – is taken from our family and home here without notice…. And transplanted to a country where we no longer have roots? Or community? Or safety?
Our guests today, Professors Luz Herrera and Nancy Plankey-Videla, are among a team of researchers who studied what happens when people are deported or otherwise return to Mexico after they’ve made their home in the US. Were they able to find work? Reunite with family? Find support?
Guest – Luz Herrera is an attorney and Law Professor at Texas A&M University Law School. Her roots are in Los Angeles: In 2005, she co-founded Community Lawyers, Inc. in Compton which – 20 years later – continues to provide access to justice and legal help to under-served communities.
Guest – Dr. Nancy Plankey-Videla is associate professor of sociology at Texas A&M University and currently coordinates the Latino/a and Mexican American Studies Program. She’s also the Director of Graduate Studies in the Sociology Dept. and has a joint appointment in the School of Law. Her research and teaching is informed by a global perspective on inequality and agency.
Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, War Resister
The Dual State: A Contribution to Theory of Dictatorship.
The German Jewish lawyer Ernst Fraenkel escaped from fascist Germany and settled in the United States. In 1941 he wrote an extremely important book which we’re going to discuss today. The book is titled The Dual State: A Contribution to Theory of Dictatorship.
The book explains how Hitler availed himself of two systems of law. The first Fraenkel called the normative state. This is your traditional law that regulates things like contracts and property. It was practiced in Nazi Germany and kept things stable. The second Fraenkel called the prerogative state. These are the arbitrary violence and unlawful actions taken by Hitler and the Nazis. These two systems of law existed side-by-side in Germany. This is what we see developing now in the United States of America.
Guest – Bill Mullen is professor emeritus of American studies at Purdue University and the co-founder of The Campus Anti-fascist Network. He’s also co-author of The Black Antifascist Tradition and We Charge Genocide: American Ashes and the Rule of Law. He’s a contributor to the just published Law And Disorder book From the Flag to the Cross: Fascism American Style.
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Gaza: Journalists Under Fire
There are so many horrendous consequences from Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza: the tens of thousands of lost lives, with who knows how many thousands still buried under the rubble of war, the intentional starvation of the Palestinian people, the vast destruction of their schools and hospitals and homes and places of business. And then there is the targeting of journalists in Gaza trying to report the news of the war. To date, more of them have already been killed by the Israeli military than were killed in the Civil War, First and Second World wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the war on Afghanistan combined!
So today we cover the story of Israel’s attempt to keep complete and accurate news coverage of the war from the rest of the world, and the costly results of its attempt to do so: the hundreds of lost lives of those brave journalists who are determined to report news of the war no matter what the personal risks and costs may be.
There is now a documentary film that tells the story of what is at stake for the journalists covering the news of the war in Gaza. It is called Gaza: Journalists Under Fire.
Guest – Director and producer Robert Greenwald is the founder of Brave New Films, a nonprofit social justice media organization, and the director of numerous long and short form documentaries including Uncovered: The War on Iraq, Unmanned: Americas Drone Wars, Rethink Afghanistan, and more.
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