<- Back to Annual Report 2023 - Table of Contents
My friends,
This year at the ACLU of Washington, we truly embraced our “Dwell in Possibility” theme. In the face of opposition and the tug of despair, we honored our mission to stand up for civil rights and civil liberties for all.
We fought – and we won – in the courts, the Legislature and at the ballot box. We educated the public through the media, events and by distributing know-your-rights information.
We did not do this work alone. We built relationships with communities, advocates, and allied organizations and worked together to assure that everyone in Washington lives with dignity, equity, and freedom unimpeded by racial and economic injustice and other forms of oppression.
By dwelling in possibility, we chose hope and that hope led to action.
Here is sampling of our work this year:
I hope you find inspiration – as I do – from their dedication to turning possibilities into reality.
The challenges we face are undeniable and yet, although it may not always seem so, justice is prevailing.
Please join me to dwell in the possibility of a just and humane world in the coming year and beyond.
Onward to justice and freedom,
Michele Storms
Executive Director, ACLU of Washington
<- Back to Annual Report 2023 - Table of Contents
My friends,
This year at the ACLU of Washington, we truly embraced our “Dwell in Possibility” theme. In the face of opposition and the tug of despair, we honored our mission to stand up for civil rights and civil liberties for all.
We fought – and we won – in the courts, the Legislature and at the ballot box. We educated the public through the media, events and by distributing know-your-rights information.
We did not do this work alone. We built relationships with communities, advocates, and allied organizations and worked together to assure that everyone in Washington lives with dignity, equity, and freedom unimpeded by racial and economic injustice and other forms of oppression.
By dwelling in possibility, we chose hope and that hope led to action.
Here is sampling of our work this year:
- During the 2023 Legislative session, we successfully supported policies to make Washington a leader in protecting and expanding access to reproductive and gender-affirming health care.
- In collaboration with privacy and reproductive and gender affirming care advocates, we advanced groundbreaking legislation to protect consumer health care data from abuse – a particularly important safeguard in a post-Roe world.
- We continue to fight alongside people impacted by police violence on a groundbreaking effort to eliminate racially biased traffic stops, and we continue to call for accountability when we see police mocking people they’ve killed, targeting Black Lives Matter protestors, aligning with white supremacist extremists, and killing people who are just trying to walk home safe at night.
- With our partners, we successfully advocated to create a Medicaid-like program for undocumented people in our state and to enable undocumented people to buy health insurance on the government exchange. These new avenues to health coverage will save many lives.
- We worked with local activists in multiple communities to prevent the removal of materials covering racial justice and LGBTQIA2S+ issues from schools and libraries.
- We fought the criminalization of poverty by taking Seattle to court for policies that violate the constitutional rights of unhoused people.
- We fought systemic racism and mass incarceration by ending the practice of extending a person’s sentence if they have a juvenile record. And we will return to Olympia this session to make sure that it applies to those who are currently incarcerated – leaving no one behind and correcting the harms of the past.
I hope you find inspiration – as I do – from their dedication to turning possibilities into reality.
The challenges we face are undeniable and yet, although it may not always seem so, justice is prevailing.
Please join me to dwell in the possibility of a just and humane world in the coming year and beyond.
Onward to justice and freedom,
Michele Storms
Executive Director, ACLU of Washington
<- Back to Annual Report 2023 - Table of Contents
