News & Commentary

Our country has a long way to go in our relations with indigenous nations. We can start now in North Dakota by demilitarizing, ending the surveillance of the camp and water protectors, and starting to listen to the prayers of those who are protecting the water for us all.

Help us stand with Standing Rock. Sign our petition and tell Governor Dalrymple to demilitarize North Dakota’s response to peaceful protesters and protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Several thousand indigenous people from across the county have journeyed to a little-known pasture on the prairie just miles from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation to protect the land the tribes consider sacred and culturally significant as well as the water necessary for life. In response to the pipeline protests, North Dakota’s government suppressed free speech and militarized its policing by declaring a state of emergency and calling out the National Guard.

Eyewitness accounts and video footage of nonviolent pipeline protesters engaged in civil disobedience near Cannonball, North Dakota on Saturday, September 3, 2016, highlight the use of excessive force by Dakota Access, LLC (DAPL) private security personnel on protesters.

The curbing of peaceful protests at the site of the Dakota Access Pipeline construction is in violation of our core principles of free speech.

Over the past five years, it became harder for Americans to vote. States passed at least several dozen laws that suppress voters’ rights — specifically affecting students, people of color, and poor people.

The Supreme Court granted an “emergency” stay yesterday to stop Gavin Grimm, a 17-year-old transgender boy from Virginia, from using the boys’ restroom at school.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the Texas laws that severely restricted abortion access, the question left to be answered is what (if any) implications does the ruling have on existing restrictive abortion laws across the United States.