Police officers have the vital and difficult job of protecting public safety – a job they must perform without trampling individuals’ civil liberties and civil rights. The ACLU works to ensure that police officers interact with the public on a race-neutral basis and with respect for individuals’ constitutional rights. Through policy advocacy and in court, we hold police officers and agencies accountable to the public that they serve.

The extent to which we protect the constitutional rights of young people strongly influences how much they respect and understand those rights as adults. As the Supreme Court noted in an early student rights case, “That [schools] are educating the young for citizenship is reason for scrupulous protection of Constitutional freedoms of the individual, if we are not to strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount important principles of our government as mere platitudes.” The ACLU works to educate young people about their rights and safeguard those rights in public schools and other settings.