My summer communications and policy internship here was eye-opening in more ways than I was initially expecting. I knew that the ACLU of Maine's staff of seven people was relatively small, and I knew that the ACLU cares about a seemingly endless list of issues and sub-issues related to civil liberties, but it had never really sunk in for me what that meant until I began interning here. Every time this summer when a civil liberties issue came up in the state, I participated in staff meetings and did research so that the staff here could respond--whether it was about Voter ID or marriage fairness or solitary confinement.
I always knew that the ACLU was a guardian of civil liberties, yet my internship made me realize what an active role this was. Seemingly every time there was going to be a local news story about anything related to protecting people's rights, our phone would ring asking for comment. When I did legal intake -- taking phone calls or summarizing requests for legal assistance -- it made me realize that the work is about more than ideology; it's about making sure the Constitution's protections apply to everyone in practice as well as in theory.
I wrote blog posts about civil liberties issues like women's health care in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the problematic nature of making English our national language. With women's rights, my blog posts got to evolve as the issues themselves evolved. I posted about the contraception mandate within the ACA, and then several weeks later I spent a blog post elaborating on other provisions to the law that were going into effect for women that day. The blog posts were supplemented by other work I was doing in the office; while I wrote about racial profiling by the NYPD on the blog, I also was writing a memo about how a Supreme Court ruling striking down SB 1070 would be good for business. When I helped write educational materials about landmark Supreme Court cases, I ended up learning in more detail about the how our country has improved on some issues (most notably LGBT rights) even in the past 15 years.
Research for other issues was also quite interesting; I found and summarized reports about how solitary confinement is ineffective and unjust, and checked local laws about those growing medical marijuana. Sitting in on meetings, including the Freedom to Know Sub-Committee and strategy meetings about specific issues, has given me a much clearer idea of how things get done, and how decisions are made. This past week I spent time scheduling in-district meetings with staffers of elected officials, and learning about the policy objectives of those meetings. It's exciting to watch everyone here gear up for the next legislative session and the busy fall months, and as I head back to school in New York, I plan on closely following everything that going to be happening in Maine in the month's ahead.
Caitlin Lowell was a summer intern for the ACLU of Maine. She is a rising sophomore at Columbia who is pursuing a double major in political science and American studies.
