August 2, 2019 -
As the alarming number of murders of transgender people, particularly women of color, mounts, Southern lawmakers have continued to push measures that discriminate against the transgender community. But in North Carolina, a federal judge recently approved a settlement that reverses controversial restrictions on transgender rights.
August 2, 2019 -
Responding to the Fight for $15 movement, the U.S. House recently voted to raise the federal minimum wage, and a number of states have also raised minimum wages. But progress at the local level has been blocked in some places by state laws preempting such wage hikes — and now labor advocates are taking aim at those laws.
July 31, 2019 -
A recent study found that judges in North Carolina and two other states hand down longer sentences during their re-election campaigns. It also confirmed that judges in some states treat black defendants more harshly, with the disparity most pronounced in Alabama.
July 19, 2019 -
This week the Democratic-controlled U.S. House passed the Raise the Wage Act to gradually increase the hourly minimum wage to $15. The proposal now awaits action in the Republican-controlled Senate, where the bill sits in a committee chaired by Tennessee's Lamar Alexander, who thinks there should be no minimum wage laws at all.
July 19, 2019 -
The Emmy-nominated docudrama "When They See Us" sparked a national conversation about wrongful convictions and how they disproportionately steal the freedom of Black and Brown people. However, most exonerations don't come about by chance meetings but by the hard work of nongovernmental innocence organizations and a growing number of conviction integrity units in prosecutors' offices.
July 18, 2019 -
A judge recently ruled that the North Carolina legislature lost its power to amend the state constitution after federal courts ruled that it was unconstitutionally gerrymandered by race. Now new evidence suggests that lawmakers misled judges to buy time to pass the amendments.
July 17, 2019 -
Religious organizations posing as licensed health facilities, so-called "crisis pregnancy centers" peddle misinformation to discourage people from seeking abortion. Yet some Southern states are funding these fraudulent clinics with taxpayer money — and now the North Carolina legislature wants to give them even more.
