The New York Civil Liberties Union will join farmworkers, community and civil rights advocates, and religious leaders in Albany today to urge state lawmakers to enact the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act – legislation that will extend basic labor rights and protections to the state’s farmworkers. Even though they form the backbone of the state’s $4.7 billion agriculture industry, farmworkers are denied basic labor protections, including rights to overtime pay, to a day off per week, to workers’ compensation if they are injured on the job and to engage in collective bargaining.

Today the New York Women’s Equality Coalition announces a statewide ad campaign emphasizing the great need for the 10-point Women’s Equality Agenda. Television ads will be up on the air starting today in the first phase of a layered effort to raise awareness about the Agenda and urge lawmakers to bring it up for a vote. In this first phase, ads will begin running today on television stations in New York City, the Capital Region, Suffolk and Nassau counties.

In response to comments submitted by the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics announced this week that it would propose a rule change that would ease the standards for allowing controversial organizations to conceal who their donors are.

In response to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s announcement that she will not support the anti-profiling bill before the City Council as part of the Community Safety Act, the leadership of the New York Civil Liberties Union issued the following statement, attributable to NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman.

The New York Civil Liberties Union today commended a bipartisan group of eight U.S. senators for proposing comprehensive immigration reform legislation that would provide a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants living and working in the United States. "This proposal represents an important first step for many New York families that have for too long been forced into the shadows by a dysfunctional immigration system, but it creates problems that will threaten the privacy and liberty of immigrants and citizens alike," NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said.

In testimony delivered today at a New York City Council joint-committee hearing on school safety and student discipline, the New York Civil Liberties Union urged lawmakers to strengthen the reporting requirements in the Student Safety Act – a 2011 city law that requires regular reporting by the DOE and NYPD on school safety and disciplinary issues, including student suspensions and arrests. Specifically, the NYCLU asked council members to reduce the amount of redactions the city Department of Education (DOE) makes to suspension data released under the Student Safety Act.

A State Supreme Court justice has ordered Nassau County to comply with a 23-year-old unfulfilled charter mandate to establish an independent board charged with overseeing and reforming conditions at the Nassau County Correctional Center, where county officials have for years failed to meet their obligation to provide prisoners adequate medical and mental health care.

Attorneys for Edith "Edie" Windsor told the U.S. Supreme Court today that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unfairly forced Windsor to pay more than $363,000 in federal estate taxes after the death of her spouse, Thea Spyer, in violation of the equal protection principles guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

A federal judge has ruled that a New York City Transit Authority rule requiring people using the city’s transit system to carry ID is unconstitutional. The decision is a victory for the New York Civil Liberties Union, which filed a lawsuit in November, 2011 defending the public’s right to take photographs in the subway system without fear of being arrested or having to show identification to police.

A federal judge has ruled that allegations of constitutional violations in a lawsuit filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union and the law firm of Shearman & Sterling LLP challenging deplorable and inhumane conditions in Suffolk County’s two jails were sufficiently serious to state claims for violations of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The judge also ruled that, because the alleged constitutional violations affect all current and future detainees of the Suffolk County’s jails, the case should move forward as a certified class action.