NEW YORK — The ACLU is challenging Alabama’s Department of Corrections (ADOC) policy to segregate all prisoners living with HIV. The policy also automatically excludes all prisoners living with HIV from a host of rehabilitative and vocational programs. In some prisons, those living with HIV are forced to wear a white armband day and night, a modern scarlet letter.

Starting Monday, the ACLU will be taking on Alabama’s HIV segregation policy in a month-long trial in federal court in Montgomery. The case, Henderson v. Thomas is a class-action lawsuit brought under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Pursuing the case will be Margaret Winter, Associate Director, ACLU National Prison Project, and Amanda Goad, staff attorney, ACLU AIDS Project, at the Frank M. Johnson, Jr. Federal Courthouse Complex, One Church Street, Montgomery, AL/

More information about this case can be found at: www.aclu.org/hiv-aids-prisoners-rights/henderson-et-al-v-thomas-et-al.