Latest From ACLU of Washington

Throughout the decade and well before, citizens have called for real accountability for the Seattle Police Department (SPD). City reports have been issued, committees have been formed, and recommendations made. But the City has still not seriously addressed the problems caused by a system that allows the police department to investigate itself.

Responding to advocacy by the ACLU-WA and local parents, Burlington-Edison School District has directed a teacher not to teach creationism in his science class. At its September meeting, the school board backed a decision by Superintendent Rick Jones that a science teacher could no longer teach creationism in the guise of "intelligent design theory" in biology lessons.

A federal court in Seattle has held that people have the same right to protest in cyberspace as they do on sidewalks. U.S. District Court Judge William Dwyer ruled that people cannot be barred from putting offensive material on the Internet unless a court has found it defamatory after trial.

The state supreme court in April ruled by a 5-3 vote that the Pierce County Sheriff's Department chaplaincy program does not violate the separation of church and state. The ACLU-WA had filed a lawsuit in 1991 challenging the program for violating constitutional prohibitions on government sponsorship of religious activities.