News & Commentary

A case challenging the unconstitutional treatment of individuals with mental illness at the Montana State Prison can now move forward, after the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court decision that had dismissed the case. In its opinion issued today, the Ninth Circuit held that the case describes “horrific treatment of prisoners.”

The ACLU of Montana, Western Native Voice, and the Native American Rights Fund sent a letter to the Principal of Polson High School to provide some background on the law that ensures that Native students are not prohibited from wearing traditional regalia at graduation. The letter requested that the school adjusts its policy in a way that unequivocally allows Native American students to wear traditional regalia at graduation without any prior restraint or approval.

Today, the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of Clayvin Herrera, affirming that the Crow Tribe’s hunting rights under the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie remain valid.

Tuesday afternoon, Governor Bullock signed a bill that will end the harmful practice of suspending driver’s licenses of people who are unable to pay court debt.

In a win for Montanans, the state’s Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision on Friday April 26, blocking a law designed to restrict abortion access in the state. The law at issue prevents advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) from providing abortion care on threat of criminal prosecution. As a result of the court’s ruling, the law remains blocked for plaintiff Helen Weems, a certified nurse practitioner, and allows her to continue providing abortion care to her Montana patients. The Center for Reproductive Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana filed the lawsuitlast year.

At Liberty sits down with Meg Singer, the Indigenous Justice Program Manager here at the ACLU of Montana, and Lillian Alvernaz, the ACLU's first Indigenous Justice Legal Fellow, to discuss Indigenous justice and organizing for social change in Indigenous communities. To learn more about Meg and Lillian, and our Indigenous justice work go here. 

Around 9:20 p.m. on Sunday, April 23, 2017, Eugene Mitchell, Shayleen Meuchell, and their four-year-old daughter were in bed at their home in Lolo, Montana, when they heard a violent crash. “It sounded like a truck had driven straight into our house,” Mitchell later said. In a surreal flash, armed bounty hunters kicked in the front door, broke into the bedroom, pointed assault rifles and pistols at the family, and shouted at them not to move.

The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Montana, and Terrell Marshall Law Group today filed a lawsuit against private entities. Bail bondsmen, bounty hunters, and insurance companies profit off our country’s exploitative, for-profit bail system.

This week, investigators with the United States Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) are visiting with students and parents in Wolf Point to learn about their experiences with discrimination in the Wolf Point School District.