The ACLU of Maryland’s legal program works with residents and partners across the state to realize the promise of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, with a focus on using the courts to protect and expand the rights of Marylanders – especially those whose rights have not been respected in the past due to white supremacy ingrained in our justice system. Over the years, legal staff have worked to build a more just Maryland one lawsuit at a time, with cases ranging from challenges to racially discriminatory election systems, leading to election of the first Black candidates to state and local offices on the Eastern Shore; to spearheading an innovative state constitutional challenge to underfunding of Baltimore’s education system that steals the futures of Black and Brown children; to filing the nation’s first civil lawsuit challenging police racial profiling on America’s highways; to working with people imprisoned since childhood for a second chance at freedom, long-since earned. In all of our legal work, we center the voices and experiences of people and communities directly impacted by injustice.
Additionally, the ACLU responds annually to thousands of requests for legal advice and provides assistance short of litigation as we seek to ensure that every person in Maryland shares in the protections afforded by our Constitution and laws.
On March 7, 2019, a group of concerned parents, joined by the ACLU of Maryland and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., returned to court to file a petition for further relief in the historic Bradford vs. Maryland State Board of Education lawsuit.
For over a decade, Maryland’s DHS and SSA have failed to exercise adequate oversight of children in foster care who are given potentially dangerous psychotropic drugs.
A group of Baltimore County voters filed a federal lawsuit, Baltimore County NAACP et al. v. Baltimore County et al., challenging the racially discriminatory and unlawful redistricting plan approved by the Baltimore County Council.
The Maryland Coalition for Justice and Police Accountability (MCJPA) filed a motion to intervene in a dangerous legal effo
ACLU of Maryland filed a lawsuit challenging Calvert County Sheriff Evan's onerous use of fees to block our request for access to public policing records.
The Maryland Office of the Public Defender, the Talbot County Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), attorney Kisha Petticolas, and community activist Richard M. Potter joined with the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland and the Washington, D.C.
Police officers on Maryland's Eastern Shore killed Anton Black, a 19-year-old, on the afternoon of September 15, 2018.