The Fine Print Blog

By Beirne Roose-Snyder, Staff Attorney; Peggy Lee, Program Associate; and Catherine Hanssens, Executive Director 

Last week, CHLP launched the Positive Justice Project (PJP) to combat HIV-related stigma and discrimination against people with HIV by the criminal justice system. More than 40 individuals from legal, government, grant-making and community service and media organizations enlisted in this first coordinated national campaign to end a particularly vicious form of government-sponsored discrimination against people with HIV.

By Peggy Lee, CHLP Program Associate

In this cycling media attention on school administrators that do nothing about threats to LGBTQ youth, and queer teens killing themselves or being killed, what is the status of young LGBTQ teens who are in alternative settings, specifically the spaces often invisibilized to us and the media?

By Megan McLemore, J.D.,L.L.M.
Senior Researcher, Human Rights Watch
(originally posted at Salon.com)

With headlines like "Obama Administration Promoting the Transmission of AIDS" and "The Justice Department Wants You to Get AIDS and Die," there has been more heat than light in some of the responses to the news that the U.S. Department of Justice may sue the South Carolina Department of Corrections over its segregation of HIV-positive prisoners.  Why is the notion that HIV-positive prisoners should have the same housing and work release options as convicted murderers so controversial?  And why is the notion that HIV is a mark of extreme dangerousness and death still so widely accepted?

By Joanna Cuevas Ingram, CHLP Summer 2010 Legal Intern, U.C.- Davis School of Law, Class of 2012

CHLP hosted the very first U.S.-based electronic forum for HIV-positive women and their advocates last month, and learned a lot in the process.One thing we learned: the E-forum is a promising tool for getting more voices of people living with HIV into the mix that influences what advocates and government officials prioritize on their behalf.

By Catherine Hanssens
Executive Director, CHLP

Comprehensive reviews of the newly-released National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS) are still to come, although certain themes have emerged in the first reactions of national AIDS organizations. We consider what the NHAS has to say on several issues: criminalization of HIV, stepped-up enforcement of existing civil rights laws, expanded access to legal services to help with enforcement, and prisoners' rights. Not only are these issues a central part of fighting HIV in the US, at least one has the added benefit of costing little or nothing to address.
 

By Julie Turkewitz
Staff Writer, Housing Works

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's decision to use a state law allowing civil commitment of dangerous sex-offenders to keep Nushawn Williams in prison  — despite Williams' having served his full 12-year-term — has set off alarm bells for AIDS advocates and civil rights experts.

by Joseph Sonnabend, M.D.

One of the first physicians on the front lines of AIDS clinical care comments on the meaning and importance of informed consent in the push for earlier use of antiretroviral therapies, and laments the absence of activists who fought to safeguard it.

By Cynthia Knox
Deputy Director, HIV Law Project

When even an HIV-savvy person treats a partner's undisclosed HIV as grounds for a lawsuit, sex can be exceptionally risky for those living with HIV.

by Margo Kaplan
CHLP Director of Planning and Research

What distinguishes parents—and in particular women—living with HIV from other parents managing chronic medical conditions is not their illness, but rather an environment of stigma and discrimination that can compromise both their legal rights and their medical care.

by Catherine Hanssens
CHLP Executive Director

ABC may think they scored with yet another salacious tale of an AIDS monster ruining the lives of innocent women, but the true story is more complex; when it comes to public education and responsible, honest reporting, they utterly failed to make the grade.