ACLU Report to U.N. Details Racism in America, Highlights Systemic Discrimination in New York State

The American Civil Liberties Union today released a comprehensive analysis of the pervasive systemic racism in America. It addresses examples of racism that New Yorkers confront and the New York Civil Liberties Union combats every day, including racial profiling, racial disparities in education, drug-sentencing laws, and police brutality.

The report, Race & Ethnicity in America: Turning a Blind Eye to Injustice, is a response to the United States government’s report to the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) released earlier this year. The government’s report, which the ACLU called a “whitewash,” concealed the dramatic effects of widespread racial and ethnic discrimination in this country.

“Unlike the government’s report, the ACLU has provided a frank, thorough account of the status of race relations in the United States,” said Donna Lieberman, NYCLU executive director. “We strive for a society in which people are treated fairly regardless of their race or ethnicity. This report shows we have many hurdles to clear before we achieve that goal.”

The “shadow report” to the U.N. is based on information provided by ACLU affiliates in 20 states, including the NYCLU. It finds that discrimination in America permeates education, employment, the treatment of migrants and immigrants, law enforcement, access to justice for juveniles and adults, court proceedings, detention and incarceration, the death penalty, and the many collateral consequences of incarceration including the loss of political rights.

The report cites a sharp rise in racial profile in New York City, using NYPD stop-and-frisk data obtained by the NYCLU. According to the data, the NYPD stopped, questioned, and/or frisked 506,540 people in 2006, an increase from just 97,296 in 2002. More than 86 percent of those stopped were black or Hispanic, and 90 percent were neither arrested nor issued a summons.

New York’s Rockefeller Drug Laws are highlighted as a clear example of systemic racism in sentencing for drug-related crimes. The NYCLU is part of a coalition of organizations advocating for the drug laws’ reform. Enacted in 1973, the law mandate extremely harsh prison terms for the sale or possession of relatively small amounts of drugs. They have had a highly disproportionate impact on people of color while doing little if anything to stem the illegal drug trade. While blacks and Hispanics comprise 31 percent of the state’s population, they represent 93 percent of those incarcerated for drug felonies, even though drug selling and use is spread evenly throughout the population.

A section of the report on police brutality features the NYCLU’s work documenting the systemic failures of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, an independent agency established to investigate complaints of police misconduct in New York City. In September, the NYCLU released a report, Mission Failure: Civilian Review of Policing in New York City 1994-2006, which detailed how NYPD resistance, poor leadership, and a lack of resources have rendered the CCRB ineffective.

The NYCLU also figures heavily in the report’s discussion of the School to Prison Pipeline, a set of policies and practices that shuttles children from the classroom to the prison system. Criminalizing the Classroom: The Over-Policing of New York City Public Schools, a joint-report by the NYCLU and ACLU, showed how the massive police presence in city schools negatively affects students, especially students of color.

The report also chronicles racial tensions in Suffolk County and attempts by local legislators to ban Hispanic immigrant day laborers from working on county roads. The law would have harmed many people who rely on day labor to support their families. It was defeated in the county legislature.

“Sadly, this is not a complete list of the issues we deal with daily as we confront racism in New York,” Lieberman said. “Just this year, we have filed a lawsuit to force the state to reform its broken public defense system, which denies justice to thousands of people of color.”

December 10th is celebrated worldwide as International Human Rights Day. Today, the NYCLU is cosponsoring a forum with the Human Rights Project at the Urban Justice Center and the Women of Color Policy Network on the government’s responsibility to eliminate racial discrimination. The forum, which runs from 4-6 p.m., will be held on the second floor of the Puck Building at 295 Lafayette St.

A copy of the ACLU’s report on the U.S. government’s report to CERD can be found online at: http://www.aclu.org/cerd.