News & Commentary

Today, ACLU-WV joined 20 other legal, social justice, labor and faith groups in calling on Gov. Jim Justice, Commerce Secretary Ed Gaunch, and Workforce WV to use their emergency and regular powers to protect workers from losing unemployment if they or family members are at risk due to COVID-19 and they decline to immediately return to work when their employers reopen.

Under the executive order put into place by Governor Justice on April 29, the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia was able to resume full patient services, including abortion care without delay.

By Eli Baumwell

As we continue to work to reduce jail populations amid the COVID-19 emergency, ensuring that parole-eligible people are being released in a timely manner is more important than ever.

The American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia joined other ACLU affiliates across the country in sending letters to local elected officials urging them to issue or expand statewide moratoria against evictions and utility shut-offs, and commit to preventing mass evictions after these moratoria end.

Today, the ACLU and ACLU-WV filed public records requests with the West Virginia Department of Corrections and the Trump administration that seek information on what the Bureau of Prisons and Governors and Department of Corrections knew about the potentially catastrophic impacts of COVID-19 on their prisons and the communities surrounding them. The records request follows the release of a first-of-its-kind epidemiological model that shows that as many as 200,000 people could die from COVID-19 — double the government estimate — if the federal government and states fail to release people from jails as part of the public health efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19. To date there has been one infection and no deaths in West Virginia correctional facilities, according to officials. In response to the ACLU model, a Trump administration spokesperson refused to comment. The ACLU is now filing these FOIA requests to find out what the administration knew and when it knew it, as COVID-19 has begun to infect and kill people incarcerated in and working in federal and state prisons and jails as well as the surrounding communities. We are seeking records that will:  

Technology provides us an opportunity to help students overcome the closure of their schools, but remote learning is not a sufficient remedy unless all students have access to the tools they need to participate fully and equally.

With the confirmation of COVID-19 in our corrections system, it is time for the state to begin offering universal testing to all who are incarcerated or work within this system.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of West Virginia, and the law firm of WilmerHale took emergency legal action today on behalf of the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia and its patients to prevent the state from using the guise of the COVID-19 crisis to prevent people from obtaining abortion care.