Civil Rights

Many people agree that the legacy of the Johns Committee is a dark stain on Florida’s history; it was a Cold War-era group that cracked down on gay and lesbian state employees including professors at...

It pays to read the fine print…But by what authority are they “stacking the deck of justice?”  Did you know that on most credit card agreements, buried on a back page reads, “the company may...

By Rob Lorei For the last 50 years, The American Civil Liberties Union has been working in Florida to ensure freedom of speech and individual civil liberties. Over the last few decades the civil rights...

By Rob Lorei Hillsborough and Pinellas counties will soon be joining several South Florida counties in passing local ordinances aimed at protecting workers from wage theft. Wage theft is when employees are withheld  rightly owed wages or...

By Rob Lorei On today’s Radioactivity, we air the latest Florida This Week, a political talk show moderated by Rob Lorei that is broadcast on local PBS station WEDU on Friday nights. This episodes tackles the...

Last Friday afternoon U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visited Campbell Park Elementary, one of the South Saint Petersburg schools singled out in a Tampa Bay Times investigation noting severely underperforming schools. Outgoing US secretary...

This Saturday in downtown St. Petersburg’s Williams Park there will be music, poetry, art and local justice groups calling attention to peace, homelessness and social justice. Peace in the Park is being organized in part...

Some members of Tampa City Council want to go against the legal advice of the city’s attorney and create a civilian board to review actions of the police – or at least appoint more members...

On Monday the Rowan County, Kentucky clerk who had been in jail for refusing to issue marriage licenses returned to work. On MidPoint Monday we heard the statement Kim Davis gave as she began her...

The City of St. Petersburg will be part of an effort to restore a fading monument in Havana, Cuba that honors civil rights leaders Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X; Mayor Rick...

Concerned members of the public packed this morning’s Tampa city council meeting to sound off on what they feel is targeted use of red-light cameras, police brutality, and Mayor Bob Buckhorn proposal for a citizen...

Later this month Tampa City Council will workshop the idea of a citizen board to review police activity. That decision came Thursday afternoon in what started out as a citizen-driven call for oversight of the...