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The erosion of transparency surrounding immigrant deaths in ICE custody represents a profound moral failure. Until late last year, the agency published detailed three-page reports documenting each detainee death, including timestamps of medical observations, medications administered, and causes of death. Now, as deaths mount, those reports have shrunk to mere four-paragraph summaries, stripping the public and Congress of the information needed to hold the agency accountable.

Dr. Terence Keel, UCLA interdisciplinary scholar, joins the Know Your Rights Camp podcast to unpack how race, science, religion, and law intersect to structure power and justify inequality. Keel exposes race as a social construct, critiques how coroners obscure police violence by labeling in-custody deaths "natural," and calls for independent autopsy offices and systemic reform. Drawing from his books The Coroner's Silence and Divine Variations, he traces Christianity's role

The recent settlement involving Character.AI highlights growing concerns about how generative AI tools can impact young people’s mental health, concerns that may weigh especially heavy on Black and Brown communities, who research shows rely on these tools at higher rates. Character.AI agreed to resolve multiple lawsuits alleging its chatbot contributed to mental health crises and suicides among young users, including a case filed by Florida mother Megan Garcia following the d

It took far too long, but Virginia has finally done what should have been done decades ago. Governor Abigail Spanberger has signed into law a bill stripping tax exemptions from Confederate-related organizations, a move that represents the culmination of "a yearslong Democrat-led push" to reckon with the state's deeply uncomfortable past as the capital of the slaveholding Confederacy. The law's most significant target is the United Daughters of the Confederacy, an organizatio

NAACP Sues xAI, Elon Musk’s AI Company, Over Unpermitted Turbines. Between August and December 2025, xAI and its subsidiary MZX Tech, LLC installed and operated 27 natural gas-burning turbines in Southaven, Mississippi, "without an air permit or regard for the health and safety of people living nearby." That is not a regulatory technicality. That is a company choosing profit and pace over people, and doing so in a community that has historically had little political power t

In a brazen display of racial politics, Louisiana's Republican-controlled government is dismantling democracy to silence a Black exoneree whose election victory threatened their grip on power. Calvin Duncan spent nearly 30 years wrongfully imprisoned before being exonerated. Last November, the people of New Orleans, a predominantly Black city, gave him a resounding mandate, electing him Orleans Parish clerk of criminal court with 68% of the vote. His platform: fix the very s

Civil rights attorney Oliver Ma joins the Know Your Rights Camp Podcast to break down America's escalating constitutional crisis. From ACLU immigration raids in Kern County to the Los Angeles "No Kings" protest, where demonstrators faced tear gas, rubber bullets, and baton strikes, this episode exposes the collapse of institutional checks on executive power. Guests unpack the profit-driven detention system, the history of anti-Asian exclusion laws, housing injustice, and ho

From the perspective of those who care about Native safety and sovereignty, the Trump administration’s decision to remove the congressionally mandated Not One More Report is profoundly troubling. The report, created under the Not Invisible Act of 2020 and based on more than 250 testimonies, was designed to “provide tribes with solutions” to the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people and educate the public about an “epidemic of violence against Native women, Native p

Justice has finally caught up to a case that should have never stolen 21 years of Ralph Blaine Smith’s life. This week, the state of Ohio approved a $1.3 million settlement acknowledging the wrongful imprisonment of the Columbus man, who spent more than two decades behind bars for a home invasion and robbery that “perhaps never occurred.” While the compensation marks a formal recognition of harm, it cannot restore birthdays missed, family milestones lost, or the simple dignit

Maryland's Independent Investigations Division (IID) was established to bring accountability to police-involved fatalities. Instead, it has become a case study in institutional opacity. Of 39 completed investigations, charges have been brought in just two cases, one of which was dismissed, raising serious questions about whether the office is genuinely committed to transparency or merely performing it. The death of Dontae Melton Jr. crystallizes these concerns. Melton, experi

Jade Jones, a 17-year-old student from Ramon C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts, attended the Know Your Rights Camp in Los Angeles and found the finance session especially impactful. As she prepares for college, lessons on credit, budgeting, and long-term planning stood out, along with access to a free financial workshop via QR code. Jade, who aspires to become a director, values storytelling as a way to amplify overlooked voices. She believes the camp equips yo

The Alabama Supreme Court has issued a troubling 6-3 ruling that dramatically expands police authority to demand identification, a decision that sets a chilling precedent for civil liberties across the state. The case centers on Michael Jennings, a Black pastor arrested in 2022 simply for watering his neighbors flowers while they were on vacation. Officers were called because a neighbor reported seeing an "unfamiliar car" and a "young Black male" near a property. When police