2024 Spring/Summer Impact Report
As we are well into our three-year strategic framework, The Road Ahead continues to guide our efforts. In this impact report, you will get an inside look at our work in the courts, at the capitol, and in our communities. In this impact report you will read more about our continued work in our issue areas of Privacy and Liberty, where we worked to enhance biometric data privacy laws and uphold reproductive rights in Colorado and Systemic Equality, where we helped to strengthen renter’s rights and ensure equitable education for children across the state.
In this edition:
Ms. Johnson had been subjected to a Denver Police Department (DPD) SWAT team raid of her home without probable cause or proper investigation. The ACLU of Colorado filed the lawsuit in late 2022 under a new state law allowing civil enforcement for the violation of people’s rights under the Colorado Constitution.
Privacy and Liberty:
Enhancing Your Biometric Data Privacy
Biometric identifiers are a person’s most sensitive data. People’s fingerprints, DNA, facial mapping, the way we walk, and the way we think all make up who we are.
Protecting Reproductive Freedom
COLOR is proud to co-chair the Coloradans for Protecting Reproductive Freedom campaign. Abortion rights are essential to democracy. Guaranteeing equitable access to reproductive healthcare such as abortion, is necessary to ensure the well-being of our communities across our state — and our country.
Upholding Anti-Discrimination Laws
In February of this year, we filed a lawsuit against Children’s Hospital Colorado (CHCO), alleging that the hospital violated the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act when it stopped providing medically necessary surgeries to transgender patients over the age of 18.
Systemic Equality:
Colorado has an affordable housing crisis — and the heaviest burden falls on renters. In 2023, eviction filings in Colorado were at their highest level since 2008.
In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an historic decision in Brown v. Board of Education, ruling that placing children in separate public schools based on race was unconstitutional. This was a landmark case that would forever change education — or so we thought.
Smart Justice:
Late last year, Aurora City Council issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for a private law firm to replace the APDO. It did so despite objections from the ACLU of Colorado, which urged the city not to eliminate the public defender’s office on constitutional grounds, statutory grounds, and because of the financial hardship it would pose to taxpayers.
