Defending liberty

Bay View Association near Petoskey owns more than 300 acres of land on Lake Michigan with 30 public buildings, 450 cottages, and two inns. Under Michigan law, Bay View is a unit of government vested with governmental powers, including the power to levy and collect taxes, the power to deputize law enforcement officials, and the power to make and enforce civil and criminal laws.

But Bay View allows only practicing Christians to own the cottages—thereby excluding Jews, Muslims, people of other faiths and all those not active in a church. In 2017 the ACLU of Michigan wrote to Bay View explaining that its discriminatory housing policy is unconstitutional and urged it, consistent with the will of the majority of Bay View residents, to open up home ownership to all.

The Association refused and the residents sued. In 2018 the ACLU filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the residents, explaining how the blatant discrimination at Bay View harkens back to a shameful period of housing discrimination in our country against Catholics, Jews and people of color. In July 2019 Bay View finally backed down, and the court approved a consent decree with federal oversight to ensure an end to religion-based housing discrimination in the community.

(Bay View Chautauqua Inclusiveness Group v. Bay View Association; National ACLU Attorneys Heather Weaver and Daniel Mach; ACLU of Michigan Legal Director Michael J. Steinberg.)

In Michigan, registered voters may vote without showing a photo ID if they do not have photo ID or if they did not bring one to the polls. All they have to do is sign a statement identifying themselves, and they can vote just like those with photo ID. 

Unfortunately, there is much confusion about this law, which differs from laws in some other states with strict voter ID laws. Each election, we receive complaints about false or misleading notices or posters at polling places stating or implying that people cannot vote in Michigan without picture ID. 

Shortly before the November 2016 election, the ACLU of Michigan, along with the Michigan State Conference NAACP and the Brennan Center for Justice, wrote a letter to hundreds of city clerks urging them to post accurate signs and educate their poll workers about the ability to vote without photo ID. Although most of the clerks complied and distributed accurate information, a few clerks still spread misleading information about photo ID. 

Among them was Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey whose jurisdiction has the most eligible voters without photo ID in the state. Ms. Winfrey actually gave TV interviews and produced a TV commercial suggesting that people without photo ID could not vote—which drew a sharply worded follow-up letter from the ACLU about how she was suppressing the vote in Detroit.

(ACLU Attorneys Michael J. Steinberg and Dan Korobkin; NAACP Attorney Khalilah Spencer; Brennan Center Attorney Adam Gitlin.)

When President Trump announced his Muslim ban, chaos erupted at airports and border crossings nationwide. People flying home to their families were detained at airports, lawful permanent residents were stranded outside the country, and the government’s interpretation of who was banned kept changing. After multiple federal courts across the country issued injunctions suspending the ban, reports surfaced that the government was flouting the court orders.

In February 2017 the ACLU of Michigan, along with 49 other ACLU affiliates, filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with local U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) offices to expose how Trump administration officials interpreted and executed the president’s Muslim ban at over 55 international airports across the country, acting in violation of federal courts that ordered a stay on the ban’s implementation.

After the government failed to respond to our FOIA requests, ACLU affiliates across the country, including in Michigan, brought 13 federal lawsuits to obtain the requested records. Under a production schedule ordered by Judge Judith Levy, CBP produced documents in our case that paint a detailed picture of the chaos and cruelty of the ban. The case settled in August 2019 when the government agreed to pay our attorneys’ fees.

(ACLU of Michigan v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security; ACLU Attorneys Miriam Aukerman, Michael J. Steinberg, Juan Caballero and Elaine Lewis; Cooperating Attorneys Gabriel Bedoya, Andrew Pauwels, and Andrew Goddeeris of Honigman.)