Issues

For nearly 60 years, we have been working on a number of issues in defense of our civil liberties. Our current frontline items are gender equity and reproductive freedom, voting rights, free speech, immigrants' rights, and LGBTQ+ rights. Learn more about our work below.

Police Practices

The ACLU of Florida receives hundreds of complaints of police misconduct every year, ranging from verbal abuse, to racial profiling, to use of excessive force, to inappropriate use of lethal force. But that does not mean there has been no progress.

Privacy

The word “privacy” means many different things to different people. One widely accepted meaning, however, is “the right to left alone,” as it was described by former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis in the Harvard Law Review of 1890.

Racial Justice

The state of Florida has a shameful history of discrimination and bias against racial minorities. Though great strides have been made for equality during and since the Civil Rights Movement, racial minorities still face challenges and discrimination in our state.

Religious Liberty

Americans enjoy a degree of religious freedom unknown in most of the rest of the world. The United States is home to more than 1,500 different religious bodies and 360,000 churches, synagogues and mosques, and has a higher percentage of church attendance than anywhere else in the world.

Students & Youth Rights

The Florida Constitution calls for a “uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools.” The ACLU of Florida believes that schools are not constitutional dead zones, and yet students are often subjected to unreasonable searches, restrictions on their First Amendmen

Voting Rights

Nothing is more fundamental to our democracy than the right to vote. A system of fair and open elections in which all qualified citizens — regardless of gender, race, socioeconomic status or any other category — may cast a vote and have it accurately counted is the backbone of our democracy.