Publications
Control, Punish, Surveil: The Multi-Front Attack on Reproductive Rights
The headlines keep circling back to Trump—but we’re missing the bigger picture. This week, we’re zooming in on recent attacks on reproductive care at every level. As we’ve emphasized throughout our newsletter series, fascism isn’t just about an authoritarian President in Washington, nor does its reach only extend to the courts and Congress. Fascism also…
Read MoreTrump’s Longing for the Days of Jim Crow
The federal government no longer prohibits contractors from having segregated facilities. If you believe this statement is a typo from a bygone, shameful era, you are wrong. President Trump made this change in 2025. The pro-segregation order demonstrates Trump’s desire to return to an era of white supremacy, the days when the government actively fought…
Read MoreDemocracy Under Attack
Wren’s twice-monthly newsletter highlighting the ways the state and federal governments are undermining democracy and making us less safe.
Read MoreMessaging for Fighting Back
Wren’s regular guidance on effective messaging against the authoritarian and anti-democratic developments spreading around the country.
Read MoreContracted to Fail: How Flat-Fee Contracts Undermine the Right to Counsel in California
California was once the nation’s leader in public defense, home to the first ever public defender’s office, decades before Gideon v. Wainwright. Today, the state is in the midst of a public defense crisis and a main cause is the reliance on “flat-fee” contracts with for-profit private attorneys and firms, where lawyers are paid a set…
Read MoreGideon Turns 60: Advancing the Right to Counsel for Kids in Cuyahoga County
In “Gideon at Sixty: Advancing the Right to Counsel for Kids in Cuyahoga County,” Wren investigated juvenile defense in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Wren recommends that the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court appoint the public defender to represent all children facing delinquency charges, and that the public defender, rather than the court, determine when assigned counsel is needed.…
Read MoreGideon Turns 60: How the Cuyahoga County Jail Stifles the Right to Counsel
In “Gideon at Sixty: How the Cuyahoga County Jail Stifles the Right to Counsel,” Wren investigated the state of visitation at Cuyahoga County Jail. Wren recommends that the Cuyahoga County Jail bring back in-person visitation and cut off the prosecutor’s access to Securus’s surveillance. Both reforms would meaningfully improve the right to counsel for people who cannot afford…
Read MoreTrump’s Evergrowing Deportation Network
The Trump administration’s war on immigration and immigrants is escalating and expanding. Just this morning, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan, alleging that she helped an undocumented person “evade arrest” by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in the courthouse. Within hours, protesters had gathered outside Milwaukee’s federal courthouse.…
Read MoreCreating the Conditions for Violence
To change things up, we are starting with good news. Over the last several months in Louisiana, Governor Jeff Landry spent significant political capital trying to ram through four constitutional amendments, which, amongst other things, would have created statewide “specialty courts”–a move that could have removed cases from local jurisdictions, mirroring efforts across the south…
Read MoreThe Shrinking Frontier: Attacks on the First Amendment
There was nothing normal about Trump’s remarks at the Department of Justice a week ago. Not the venue–most other presidents before Trump have deliberately maintained a firewall between the agency and the presidency. And certainly not the words themselves–an hour-long tirade that meandered through a list of the president’s personal grievances. At the top of…
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