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FEATURES > Families Untied: Public Housing Banning Policy Tears Families Apart > Discrimination Against Muslim Women > Girls Confined to Youth Prisons in the United States > Sex-Segregated Schools: Separate and Unequal > Violation of Incarcerated Women's Civil Rights in NJ > Modern Slavery: Domestic Worker Abuse by Foreign Diplomats in the U.S. About the Women's Rights Project The Women's Rights Project (WRP) was founded in 1972 by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and since that time has been a leader in the legal battles to ensure women's full equality in American society, including as an active participant in virtually all major gender discrimination litigation in the Supreme Court. The goal of WRP is to secure gender equality and ensure that all women and girls are able to lead lives of dignity. WRP advocates on behalf of the most marginalized communities to end structural oppression for all women. The Women's Rights Project works to empower women and advance gender equality, through an integrated program that combines litigation, legislative advocacy, public education, and international human rights strategies. WRP advocates on behalf of poor women, women of color, and immigrant women who face discrimination and other barriers to equality, with a particular focus on equity in employment, equal educational opportunities, ending violence against women, and addressing the needs of women and girls in the criminal and juvenile justice systems. LEARN MORE > History of Women's Rights at the ACLU > Women's Rights on the Agenda > A Tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsburg > Leaders Through the Years > Project Reports:      2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 The Women's Rights Project focuses on four core areas: Employment WRP advocates on behalf of low-wage immigrant women workers, works to eliminate welfare disparities, and seeks to end workplace discrimination. Violence Against Women WRP is committed to advancing battered women's civil rights, assisting women in their efforts to keep themselves and their children safe, and challenging the housing and employment discrimination experienced by so many battered women, especially low-income and women of color. Criminal Justice WRP addresses the harms to women and girls caught up in the criminal and juvenile justice systems, including their conditions of confinement, and the impact of sentencing and incarceration policies on women and their children. Education WRP is dedicated to ensuring that public schools do not become sex-segregated, that girls and boys receive equal educational opportunities, and that girls and women are not deprived of equal educational opportunities because of sexual harassment or assault.

ACLU Files Lawsuit Challenging Illegal Sex Segregation In Louisiana Public School (9/8/2009)
LAFAYETTE, LA – The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Louisiana filed a lawsuit in a federal district court in Louisiana today challenging the Vermilion Parish School District’s illegal sex segregation policy. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a parent whose two children were placed in sex segregated classrooms without being offered equal coeducational options as required by law.

AMA, March Of Dimes And Others Support ACLU Challenge To Patents On Breast Cancer Genes (8/27/2009)
NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT), a not-for-profit organization affiliated with Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, filed a motion asking a federal court to rule that patents on two human genes associated with breast and ovarian cancer are unconstitutional and invalid. Several major organizations, including the American Medical Association (AMA), the March of Dimes and the American Society for Human Genetics (ASHG), are filing friend-of-the-court briefs in support of the motion for summary judgment. The groups charge that the patents stifle diagnostic testing and research that could lead to cures and that they limit women's options regarding their medical care.

American Civil Liberties Union Mourns Senator Edward Kennedy (8/26/2009)
WASHINGTON – The American Civil Liberties Union today mourned the passing of Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) who succumbed to brain cancer Tuesday night.

ACLU Ensures Equal Education For Girls And Boys In Vermilion Parish (8/21/2009)
The Vermilion Parish School Board has agreed to rescind an unlawful plan for mandatory sex-segregated classrooms, at the request of the ACLU of Louisiana. Rene A. Rost Middle School was slated to begin this school year with girls-only and boys-only classes, without obtaining parental consent or providing a coeducational education as required by law. Students at other Vermilion Parish schools were segregated by sex in previous school years, also without parental consent or choice. On August 20, the School Board decided to make single-sex classes optional and to provide coeducational classes at all levels and in all schools, as the law requires.

ACLU Files Lawsuit Challenging Latest Effort To Eradicate Equal Opportunity In Missouri (8/14/2009)
JEFFERSON CITY, MO – The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Eastern Missouri and the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri today filed a lawsuit challenging the latest attempt by a political operative to rewrite Missouri's state constitution to ban equal opportunity programs in the state.