ALERT Collective Blog

Today, we acknowledge the 30 th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act . The Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, was originally signed into law on July 26, 1990 and both prohibits discrimination based on disability and requires that employers and public services/spaces provide reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities. The act includes five titles to address situations of employment, public entities (including public transportation), public accommodations and commercial facilities (including the use of service animals and other aids), telecommunications, and other provisions such as anti-retaliation provisions. The ADA, as described by a person who drafted the bill, was “ a response to an appalling problem ” – not only were people with disabilities routinely denied access to public and private transportation, schools and educational resources, polling places, and many government and public buildings, but they were frequently prohibited from marrying (or...

Calls to defund the police have received both strong support and opposition, as well as great amounts of confusion. To some, it can sound scary – if you know the police as the people who keep you and your community safe and protected, then defunding them might seem like a step toward lawlessness or anarchy. So what does defunding the police really mean, and why are people demanding it? In literal terms, the goal is to “ divest from excessive, brutal, and discriminatory policing and invest in a vision of community safety that works for everyone .” The movement seeks to reduce the power of police by allocating state, city, and county funds away from the police force and toward programs that replace reactive/punitive actions (arrests, jail time, etc.) with non-violent alternatives and preventive measures like unarmed mediation or intervention teams, social workers, healthcare, mental health services, and a restorative justice system . To many people, this change means a smaller police fo...

During the 2019-2020 school year, at least nine Delaware school districts – Red Clay Consolidated, Christina, Milford, Cape Henlopen, Lake Forest, Woodbridge, Smyrna, Indian River, and Caesar Rodney – employed at least 30 school resource officers (SROs) throughout the state. While most of these school districts uneventfully renewed their SRO programs for the next year, both the Red Clay Consolidated School Districts and the Christina School District recently considered removing their programs. According to the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), SROs are “ sworn law enforcement officers responsible for safety and crime prevention in schools .” While their primary purpose is to respond to calls within their assigned school(s), document incidents, and make arrests if necessary, SROs are encouraged to also serve as emergency managers, informal counselors, and educators. Proponents of the current setup claim that SROs in Delaware schools help t...

What is a voter purge? Voter purges are supposed to update registered voter lists to remove people who have become ineligible. Common reasons people become ineligible are death, moving out of their voting district, or being incarcerated.  How are the huge voter purges being reported on right now different?   In recent years we have seen the mass removal of millions of voters from the rolls in states across the country, including many eligible voters erroneously removed without their knowledge.  Why purge so many voters?   Most proponents of large-scale voter purges cite the risk of voter fraud as the main reason to purge voter rolls. However, study after study has shown that voter fraud is incredibly rare, and when officials do allege that fraud has occurred, the majority of cases involve mistakes by voters or administrators rather than intentional fraud. Even the Trump administration’s own study found no evidence of significant voter fraud, despite the Preside...