American Civil Liberties Union
This article may be Anthony Romero | |
Budget | $309 million (2019; excludes affiliates)[3] |
---|---|
Staff | Nearly 300 staff attorneys[4] |
Volunteers | Several thousand attorneys[5] |
Website | www |
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is an American nonprofit
In addition to representing persons and organizations in lawsuits, the ACLU lobbies for policy positions established by its board of directors. The ACLU's current positions include opposing the
Legally, the ACLU consists of two separate but closely affiliated nonprofit organizations, namely the American Civil Liberties Union, a
Organization
Leadership
The ACLU is led by a president and an executive director,
The leadership of the ACLU does not always agree on policy decisions; differences of opinion within the ACLU leadership have sometimes grown into major debates. In 1937, an internal debate erupted over whether to defend
Funding
In the year ending March 31, 2014, the ACLU and the ACLU Foundation had a combined income from support and revenue of $100.4 million, originating from grants (50.0%), membership donations (25.4%), donated legal services (7.6%), bequests (16.2%), and revenue (0.9%).[27] Membership dues are treated as donations; members choose the amount they pay annually, averaging approximately $50 per member.[28] In the year ending March 31, 2014, the combined expenses of the ACLU and ACLU Foundation were $133.4 million, spent on programs (86.2%), management (7.4%), and fundraising (8.2%).[27] (After factoring in other changes in net assets of +$30.9 million, from sources such as investment income, the organization had an overall decrease in net assets of $2.1 million.)[29][30] Over the period from 2011 to 2014, the ACLU Foundation, on average, has accounted for roughly 70% of the combined budget, and the ACLU roughly 30%.[31]
The ACLU solicits donations to its charitable foundation. The ACLU is accredited by the Better Business Bureau, and the Charity Navigator has ranked the ACLU with a four-star rating.[32][33] The local affiliates solicit their own funding; however, some also receive funds from the national ACLU, with the distribution and amount of such assistance varying from state to state. At its discretion, the national organization provides subsidies to smaller affiliates that lack sufficient resources to be self-sustaining; for example, the Wyoming ACLU chapter received such subsidies until April 2015, when, as part of a round of layoffs at the national ACLU, the Wyoming office was closed.[34][35]
In October 2004, the ACLU rejected $1.5 million from both the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation because the foundations had adopted language from the USA PATRIOT Act in their donation agreements, including a clause stipulating that none of the money would go to "underwriting terrorism or other unacceptable activities". The ACLU views this clause, both in federal law and in the donors' agreements, as a threat to civil liberties, saying it is overly broad and ambiguous.[36][37]
Due to the nature of its legal work, the ACLU is often involved in litigation against governmental bodies, which are generally protected from adverse monetary judgments; a town, state, or federal agency may be required to change its laws or behave differently, but not to pay monetary damages except by an explicit statutory waiver. In some cases, the law permits plaintiffs who successfully sue government agencies to collect money damages or other monetary relief. In particular, the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Award Act of 1976 leaves the government liable in some civil rights cases. Fee awards under this civil rights statute are considered "equitable relief" rather than damages, and government entities are not immune from equitable relief.[38] Under laws such as this, the ACLU and its state affiliates sometimes share in monetary judgments against government agencies. In 2006, the Public Expressions of Religion Protection Act sought to prevent monetary judgments in the particular case of violations of church-state separation.[39]
The ACLU has received court-awarded fees from opponents; for example, the Georgia affiliate was awarded $150,000 in fees after suing a county demanding the removal of a
State affiliates
Most of the organization's workload is performed by its local affiliates. There is at least one affiliate organization in each state, as well as one in
ACLU affiliates are the basic unit of the ACLU's organization and engage in litigation, lobbying, and public education. For example, in 2020, the
ACLU state affiliates | ||
---|---|---|
State | ACLU state affiliate | Notes |
Alabama | ||
Alaska | ||
Arizona | ||
Arkansas | ||
California | ACLU of Northern California ACLU of Southern California ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties |
|
Colorado | ACLU of Colorado | |
Connecticut | ||
Delaware | ACLU of Delaware | |
District of Columbia | ||
Florida | ACLU of Florida | |
Georgia | ||
Hawaii | ACLU of Hawaii | |
Idaho | ||
Illinois | ||
Indiana | ||
Iowa | ||
Kansas | ||
Kentucky | ||
Louisiana | ||
Maine | ACLU of Maine | |
Maryland | ||
Massachusetts | ACLU of Massachusetts
|
|
Michigan | ||
Minnesota | ||
Mississippi | ||
Missouri | ACLU of Missouri | |
Montana | ||
Nebraska | ||
Nevada | ||
New Hampshire | ||
New Jersey | American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey | |
New Mexico | ||
New York | New York Civil Liberties Union | |
North Carolina | ||
North Dakota | ||
Ohio | ||
Oklahoma | ||
Oregon | ||
Pennsylvania | ACLU of Pennsylvania | |
Puerto Rico | ACLU of Puerto Rico National Chapter | |
Rhode Island | ||
South Carolina | ||
South Dakota | ||
Tennessee | ||
Texas | ACLU of Texas | URL |
Utah | ||
Vermont | ||
Virginia | ACLU of Virginia | URL |
Washington | ||
West Virginia | ||
Wisconsin | ||
Wyoming | ACLU of Wyoming |
Positions
The ACLU's official position statements included the following policies:
- Affirmative action – The ACLU supports affirmative action.[49]
- contraceptive options. The ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project manages efforts related to reproductive rights.[50]
- Campaign funding – The ACLU believes the current system is badly flawed and supports a system based on public funding. The ACLU supports full transparency in identifying donors. However, the ACLU opposes attempts to control political spending. The ACLU supported the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. FEC, which allowed corporations and unions more political speech rights.[51]
- Criminal law reform – The ACLU seeks an end to what it feels are excessively harsh sentences that "stand in the way of a just and equal society". The ACLU's Criminal Law Reform Project focuses on this issue.[52]
- Death penalty – The ACLU is opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances. The ACLU's Capital Punishment Project focuses on this issue.[53]
- Free speech – The ACLU supports free speech, including the right to express unpopular or controversial ideas, such as flag desecration, racist or sexist views, etc.[54] However, a leaked ACLU memo from June 2018 said that speech that can "inflict serious harms" and "impede progress toward equality" may be a lower priority for the organization.[55][56]
- HIV/AIDS – The policy of the ACLU is to "create a world in which discrimination based on HIV status has ended, people with HIV have control over their medical information and care, and where the government's HIV policy promotes public health and respect and compassion for people living with HIV and AIDS". The ACLU's AIDS Project manages this effort.[60]
- Human rights – The ACLU's Human Rights project advocates (primarily in an international context) for children's rights, disability rights, immigrant rights, gay rights, and other international obligations.[61]
- Immigrants' rights – The ACLU supports civil liberties for immigrants to the United States.[62]
- adoption rights for LGBT couples.[63]
- National security – The ACLU is opposed to compromising civil liberties in the name of national security. In this context, the ACLU has condemned government use of spying, indefinite detention without charge or trial, and government-sponsored torture. The ACLU's National Security Project leads this effort.[64]
- Prisoners' rights – The ACLU's National Prison Project believes that incarceration should only be used as a last resort and that prisons should focus on rehabilitation. The ACLU advocates that prisons treat prisoners according to the Constitution and domestic law.[65]
- Confederate flag.[69]
- Religion – The ACLU supports the right of religious persons to practice their faiths without government interference. The ACLU believes the government should neither prefer religion over non-religion nor favor particular faiths over others. The ACLU is opposed to school-led prayer but protects students' right to pray in school.[70] It opposes the use of religious beliefs to discriminate, such as refusing to provide abortion coverage or providing services to LGBT people.[71]
- sexually-transmitted disease prevention alongside waiting to have sex.[72] The ACLU opposes segregation in sex education classes because it can lead to increased class size and perpetuate antiquated gender stereotypes.[73]
- Vaccination policy — The ACLU supports vaccine mandates for people using public facilities and businesses because there is no right to harm others by spreading infectious diseases. Hence, the ACLU states, mandates are "permissible in many settings where the unvaccinated pose a risk to others, including schools and universities, hospitals, restaurants and bars, workplaces and businesses open to the public".[74] The organization supports a public health-based approach to pandemic management and is opposed to criminalizing or jailing people with infectious diseases.[75] The ACLU is opposed to Vaccine passports.[76]
- Voting rights – The ACLU believes that impediments to voting should be eliminated, particularly if they disproportionately impact minority or poor citizens. The ACLU believes that misdemeanor convictions should not lead to a loss of voting rights. The ACLU's Voting Rights Project leads this effort.[77]
- Women's rights – The ACLU works to eliminate discrimination against women in all realms. The ACLU encourages the government to be proactive in stopping violence against women. These efforts are led by the ACLU's Women's Rights Project.[78]
Support and opposition
A variety of persons and organizations support the ACLU. There were over 1,000,000 members in 2017, and the ACLU receives thousands of grants from hundreds of charitable foundations annually. Allies of the ACLU in legal actions have included the
The ACLU has been criticized by
Conversely, it has been criticized by conservatives such as when it argued against official prayer in public schools or when it opposed the Patriot Act.[84][85]
The ACLU has supported conservative figures such as Rush Limbaugh, George Wallace, Henry Ford and Oliver North as well as liberal figures such as Dick Gregory, Rockwell Kent and Benjamin Spock.[22][86][87][88][89][90][91][92]
Major sources of criticism are legal cases in which the ACLU represents an individual or organization that promotes offensive or unpopular viewpoints, such as the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, the Nation of Islam, the North American Man/Boy Love Association, the Westboro Baptist Church or the Unite the Right rally.[93][94][95] The ACLU's official policy is "... [we have] represented or defended individuals engaged in some truly offensive speech. We have defended the speech rights of communists, Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, accused terrorists, pornographers, anti-LGBT activists, and flag burners. That's because the defense of freedom of speech is most necessary when the message is one most people find repulsive. Constitutional rights must apply to even the most unpopular groups if they're going to be preserved for everyone."[96][97]
Early years
CLB era
The ACLU developed from the National Civil Liberties Bureau (CLB), co-founded in 1917 during World War I by Crystal Eastman, an attorney activist, and Roger Nash Baldwin.[98] The focus of the CLB was on freedom of speech, primarily anti-war speech, and on supporting conscientious objectors who did not want to serve in World War I.[99]
Three
In 1918, Crystal Eastman resigned from the organization due to health issues.[102] After assuming sole leadership of the CLB, Baldwin insisted that the organization be reorganized. He wanted to change its focus from litigation to direct action and public education.[1]
The CLB directors concurred, and on January 19, 1920, they formed an organization under a new name, the American Civil Liberties Union.
During the first decades of the ACLU, Baldwin continued as its leader. His charisma and energy attracted many supporters to the ACLU board and leadership ranks.[103] Baldwin was ascetic, wearing hand-me-down clothes, pinching pennies, and living on a minimal salary.[104] The ACLU was directed by an executive committee and was not particularly democratic or egalitarian. New Yorkers dominated the ACLU's headquarters.[105] Most ACLU funding came from philanthropies, such as the Garland Fund.[104]
Free speech era
In the 1920s, government censorship was commonplace. Magazines were routinely confiscated under the anti-obscenity Comstock laws; permits for labor rallies were often denied; and virtually all anti-war or anti-government literature was outlawed.[106] Right-wing conservatives wielded vast amounts of power, and activists that promoted unionization, socialism, or government reform were often denounced as un-American or unpatriotic.[106] In one typical instance in 1923, author Upton Sinclair was arrested for trying to read the First Amendment during an Industrial Workers of the World rally.[107]
ACLU leadership was divided on how to challenge civil rights violations. One faction, including Baldwin, Arthur Garfield Hays, and Norman Thomas, believed that direct, militant action was the best path.[107] Hays was the first of many successful attorneys that relinquished their private practices to work for the ACLU.[108] Another group, including Walter Nelles and Walter Pollak, felt that lawsuits taken to the Supreme Court were the best way to achieve change.[108]
During the 1920s, the ACLU's primary focus was on freedom of speech in general and speech within the labor movement particularly.[109] Because most of the ACLU's efforts were associated with the labor movement, the ACLU itself came under heavy attack from conservative groups, such as the American Legion, the National Civic Federation, and Industrial Defense Association and the Allied Patriotic Societies.[110]
In addition to labor, the ACLU also led efforts in non-labor arenas, for example, promoting free speech in public schools.[111] The ACLU was banned from speaking in New York public schools in 1921.[112] The ACLU, working with the NAACP, also supported racial discrimination cases.[113] The ACLU defended free speech regardless of espoused opinions. For example, the reactionary, anti-Catholic, anti-black Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was a frequent target of ACLU efforts, but the ACLU defended the KKK's right to hold meetings in 1923.[114] There were some civil rights that the ACLU did not make an effort to defend in the 1920s, including censorship of the arts, government search and seizure issues, right to privacy, or wiretapping.[115]
Government officials routinely hounded the Communist Party USA, leading it to be the primary client of the ACLU.[116] At the same time, the Communists were very aggressive in their tactics, often engaging in illegal conduct such as denying their party membership under oath. This led to frequent conflicts between the Communists and ACLU.[116] Communist leaders sometimes attacked the ACLU, particularly when the ACLU defended the free speech rights of conservatives, whereas Communists tried to disrupt speeches by critics of the USSR.[116] This uneasy relationship between the two groups continued for decades.[116]
Public schools
Scopes trial
When 1925 arrived – five years after the ACLU was formed – the organization had virtually no success to show for its efforts.
The Scopes trial was a phenomenal public relations success for the ACLU.[120] The ACLU became well known across America, and the case led to the first endorsement of the ACLU by a major US newspaper.[121] The ACLU continued to fight for the separation of church and state in schoolrooms, decade after decade, including the 1982 case McLean v. Arkansas and the 2005 case Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.[122]
Baldwin was involved in a significant free speech victory of the 1920s after he was arrested for attempting to speak at a rally of striking mill workers in New Jersey. Although the decision was limited to the state of New Jersey, the appeals court's judgment in 1928 declared that constitutional guarantees of free speech must be given "liberal and comprehensive construction", and it marked a major turning point in the civil rights movement, signaling the shift of judicial opinion in favor of civil rights.[123]
The most important ACLU case of the 1920s was
Pierce v. Society of Sisters
After the First World War, many native-born Americans had a revival of concerns about the assimilation of immigrants and worries about "foreign" values; they wanted public schools to teach children to be American. Numerous states drafted laws designed to use schools to promote a common American culture, and in 1922, the voters of Oregon passed the Oregon Compulsory Education Act. The law was primarily aimed at eliminating parochial schools, including Catholic schools.[126][127] It was promoted by groups such as the Knights of Pythias, the Federation of Patriotic Societies, the Oregon Good Government League, the Orange Order, and the Ku Klux Klan.[128]
The
The case became known as
Early strategy
Leaders of the ACLU were divided on the best tactics to use to promote civil liberties. Felix Frankfurter felt that legislation was the best long-term solution because the Supreme Court could not (and – in his opinion – should not) mandate liberal interpretations of the Bill of Rights. But Walter Pollak, Morris Ernst, and other leaders felt that Supreme Court decisions were the best path to guarantee civil liberties.[131] A series of Supreme Court decisions in the 1920s foretold a changing national atmosphere; anti-radical emotions were diminishing, and there was a growing willingness to protect freedom of speech and assembly via court decisions.[132]
Free speech expansion
Censorship was commonplace in the early 20th century. State laws and city ordinances routinely outlawed speech deemed obscene or offensive and prohibited meetings or literature promoting unions or labor organizations.
The
The success prompted the ACLU to broaden their freedom of speech efforts beyond labor and political speech to encompass movies, press, radio, and literature.[134] The ACLU formed the National Committee on Freedom from Censorship in 1931 to coordinate this effort.[134] By the early 1930s, censorship in the United States was diminishing.[133]
Two major victories in the 1930s cemented the ACLU's campaign to promote free speech. In Stromberg v. California, decided in 1931, the Supreme Court sided with the ACLU and affirmed the right of a communist party member to salute a communist flag. The result was the first time the Supreme Court used the Due Process Clause of the 14th amendment to subject states to the requirements of the First Amendment.[135] In Near v. Minnesota, also decided in 1931, the Supreme Court ruled that states may not exercise prior restraint and prevent a newspaper from publishing, simply because the newspaper had a reputation for being scandalous.[136]
1930s
The late 1930s saw the emergence of a new era of tolerance in the United States.[137] National leaders hailed the Bill of Rights, particularly as it protected minorities, as the essence of democracy.[137] The 1939 Supreme Court decision in Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization affirmed the right of communists to promote their cause.[137] Even conservative elements, such as the American Bar Association, began to campaign for civil liberties, which were long considered to be the domain of left-leaning organizations. By 1940, the ACLU had achieved many of the goals it set in the 1920s, and many of its policies were the law of the land.[137]
Expansion
In 1929, after the Scopes and Dennett victories, Baldwin perceived that there was vast, untapped support for civil liberties in the United States.[133] Baldwin proposed an expansion program for the ACLU, focusing on police brutality, Native American rights, African American rights, censorship in the arts, and international civil liberties.[133] The board of directors approved Baldwin's expansion plan, except for the international efforts.[138]
The ACLU played a significant role in passing the 1932 Norris–La Guardia Act, a federal law that prohibited employers from preventing employees from joining unions and stopped the practice of outlawing strikes, marriages, and labor organizing activities with the use of injunctions.[138] The ACLU also played a key role in initiating a nationwide effort to reduce misconduct (such as extracting false confessions) within police departments by publishing the report Lawlessness in Law Enforcement in 1931, under the auspices of Herbert Hoover's Wickersham Commission.[138] In 1934, the ACLU lobbied for the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act, which restored some autonomy to Native American tribes, and established penalties for kidnapping Native American children.[138]
Although the ACLU deferred to the NAACP for litigation promoting civil liberties for African Americans, the ACLU engaged in educational efforts and published Black Justice in 1931, a report which documented
Depression era and the New Deal
In 1932 – twelve years after the ACLU was founded – it had achieved significant success; the Supreme Court had embraced the free speech principles espoused by the ACLU, and the general public was becoming more supportive of civil rights in general.[142] But the Great Depression brought new assaults on civil liberties; the year 1930 saw a large increase in the number of free speech prosecutions, a doubling of the number of lynchings, and all meetings of unemployed persons were banned in Philadelphia.[143]
The Franklin D. Roosevelt administration proposed the New Deal to combat the depression. ACLU leaders were of mixed opinions about the New Deal since many felt that it represented an increase in government intervention into personal affairs and because the National Recovery Administration suspended antitrust legislation.[144] Roosevelt was not personally interested in civil rights but did appoint many civil libertarians to key positions, including Interior Secretary Harold Ickes, a member of the ACLU.[144][145]
The economic policies of the New Deal leaders were often aligned with ACLU goals, but social goals were not.[145] In particular, movies were subject to a barrage of local ordinances that banned screenings deemed immoral or obscene.[146] Even public health films portraying pregnancy and birth were banned, as was Life magazine's April 11, 1938, issue, which included photos of the birth process. The ACLU fought these bans but did not prevail.[147]
The Catholic Church attained increasing political influence in the 1930s; it used its influence to promote the censorship of movies and to discourage the publication of birth control information. This conflict between the ACLU and the Catholic Church led to the resignation of the last Catholic priest from ACLU leadership in 1934; a Catholic priest would not be represented again until the 1970s.[148]
The ACLU took no official position on president Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1937 court-packing plan, which threatened to increase the number of Supreme Court justices unless the Supreme Court reversed its course and began approving New Deal legislation.[149] The Supreme Court responded by making a major shift in policy, and no longer applied strict constitutional limits to government programs, and also began to take a more active role in protecting civil liberties.[149]
The first decision that marked the court's new direction was De Jonge v. Oregon, in which a communist labor organizer was arrested for calling a meeting to discuss unionization.[150] The ACLU attorney Osmond Fraenkel, working with International Labor Defense, defended De Jonge in 1937 and won a major victory when the Supreme Court ruled that "peaceable assembly for lawful discussion cannot be made a crime."[151] The De Jonge case marked the start of an era lasting for a dozen years, during which Roosevelt appointees (led by Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, and Frank Murphy) established a body of civil liberties law.[150] In 1938, Justice Harlan F. Stone wrote the famous "footnote four" in United States v. Carolene Products Co. in which he suggested that state laws which impede civil liberties would – henceforth – require compelling justification.[152]
Senator
The ACLU's support of the NLRB was a significant development for the ACLU because it marked the first time it accepted that a government agency could be responsible for upholding civil liberties.[154] Until 1937, the ACLU felt that citizens and private organizations best upheld civil rights.[154]
Some factions in the ACLU proposed new directions for the organization. In the late 1930s, some local affiliates proposed shifting their emphasis from civil liberties appellate actions to becoming a legal aid society centered on store front offices in low-income neighborhoods. The ACLU directors rejected that proposal.[155] Other ACLU members wanted the ACLU to shift focus into the political arena and be more willing to compromise their ideals to strike deals with politicians. The ACLU leadership also rejected this initiative.[155]
Jehovah's Witnesses
The ACLU's support of defendants with unpopular, sometimes extreme, viewpoints has produced many landmark court cases and established new civil liberties.
The most important cases involved statutes requiring flag salutes.[157] The Jehovah's Witnesses felt that saluting a flag was contrary to their religious beliefs. Two children were convicted in 1938 of not saluting the flag.[157] The ACLU supported their appeal to the Supreme Court, but the court affirmed the conviction in 1940.[158] But three years later, in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, the Supreme court reversed itself and wrote, "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." To underscore its decision, the Supreme Court announced it on Flag Day.[158][159]
Communism and totalitarianism
The rise of
The ACLU leadership was divided over whether or not to defend pro-
In the late 1930s, the ACLU allied itself with the
The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was created in 1938 to uncover sedition and treason within the United States.[166] When witnesses testified at its hearings, the ACLU was mentioned several times, leading the HUAC to mention the ACLU prominently in its 1939 report.[167] This damaged the ACLU's reputation severely, even though the report said that it could not "definitely state whether or not" the ACLU was a Communist organization.[167]
While the ACLU rushed to defend its image against allegations of being a Communist front, it also protected witnesses harassed by the HUAC.[168] The ACLU was one of the few organizations to protest (unsuccessfully) against the passage of the Smith Act in 1940, which would later be used to imprison many persons who supported Communism.[169][170] The ACLU defended many persons who were prosecuted under the Smith Act, including labor leader Harry Bridges.[171]
ACLU leadership was split on whether to purge its leadership of Communists. Norman Thomas, John Haynes Holmes, and Morris Ernst were anti-Communists who wanted to distance the ACLU from Communism; opposing them were Harry F. Ward, Corliss Lamont, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who rejected any political test for ACLU leadership.[172] A bitter struggle ensued throughout 1939, and the anti-Communists prevailed in February 1940 when the board voted to prohibit anyone who supported totalitarianism from ACLU leadership roles. Ward immediately resigned, and – following a contentious six-hour debate – Flynn was voted off the ACLU's board.[20] The 1940 resolution was considered by many to be a betrayal of its fundamental principles. The resolution was rescinded in 1968, and Flynn was posthumously reinstated to the ACLU in 1970.[171]
Mid-century
World War II
Prior to U.S. entry into World War II, more Americans than ever viewed the Bill of Rights as a hallowed document, and numerous organizations promoted the principle of civil liberties.[173] Chicago and New York proclaimed "Civil Rights" weeks, and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced a national Bill of Rights day. Eleanor Roosevelt was the keynote speaker at the 1939 ACLU convention.[173] One of the most popular movies of that year, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington celebrated the importance of free speech as a check on tyranny. Although Americans increasingly praised the Bill of Rights, they also gave wide support for new anti-sedition laws, such as the Smith Act of 1940, which were criticized by many civil libertarians.
The ACLU had a decidedly mixed civil liberties record during World War II. While there were far fewer sedition prosecutions than in World War I, this did not mean that President Roosevelt was more tolerant of dissent than Wilson had been. The primary explanation was that prosecutors, working under similar laws, had fewer plausible targets because almost everyone rallied to the war effort after the attack on Pearl Harbor. [174]
Despite this, Roosevelt put constant pressure on Attorney General
Partly to appease the president, Biddle finally charged thirty much lesser-known individuals for violating the Smith Act. Although many of the defendants did not know each other, and most lived in scattered locations in the U.S., they were all tried at once in Washington, D.C. in the Sedition Trial of 1944 Despite efforts by Roger N. Baldwin, Norman Thomas, Thurgood Marshall, and others in the leadership to get the ACLU to go on record condemning the trial (Baldwin called it "monstrous,") the board of directors overruled them. [176]
The ACLU also had a mixed record on fighting wartime restrictions on the press. It was silent when the U.S. Post Office revoked the second class mailing privileges of
Japanese American internment
Two months after the
Baldwin criticized Roosevelt's plan but then qualified his comments by saying that Executive Order 9066 was "undoubtedly legal in principle." The Board of Directors settled into a long debate. It was divided between Roosevelt loyalists, such as Morris Ernst and Corliss Lamont, who did not want to challenge the administration, and more absolutist civil libertarians such as Baldwin, Thurgood Marshall, and Norman Thomas. [179]
The ACLU itself only sent a letter of protest to the president on March 20, 1942, more than a month after Executive Order 9066. Signed by Baldwin, it called on the administration to allow Japanese Americans to prove their loyalty at individual hearings but not challenge the constitutionality of the order.[180] > [181]
The suggestion for a loyalty hearings option went nowhere, and opinions within the organization became increasingly divided as the Army began the "evacuation" of the West Coast. In May, the two factions, one pushing to fight the exclusion orders then being issued, the other advocating support for the President's policy of removing citizens whose "presence may endanger national security", brought their opposing resolutions to a vote before the board and the ACLU's national leaders. They decided not to challenge the eviction of Japanese American citizens; on June 22, instructions were sent to West Coast branches not to support cases that argued the government had no constitutional right to do so.[180]
The ACLU offices on the West Coast had been more directly involved in addressing the tide of anti-Japanese prejudice from the start, as they were geographically closer to the issue and were already working on cases challenging the exclusion by this time. The Seattle office, assisting in Gordon Hirabayashi's lawsuit, created an unaffiliated committee to continue the work the ACLU had started, while in Los Angeles, attorney A.L. Wirin continued to represent Ernest Kinzo Wakayama but without addressing the case's constitutional questions.[180] Wirin would lose private clients because of his defense of Wakayama and other Japanese Americans;[182] however, the San Francisco branch, led by Ernest Besig, refused to discontinue its support for Fred Korematsu, whose case had been taken on before the June 22 directive, and attorney Wayne Collins, with Besig's full support, centered his defense on the illegality of Korematsu's exclusion.[180]
The West Coast offices had wanted a test case to take to court. However, they had a difficult time finding a Japanese American who was both willing to violate the internment orders and able to meet the ACLU's desired criteria of a sympathetic, Americanized plaintiff. Of the 120,000 Japanese Americans affected by the order, only 12 disobeyed, and Korematsu, Hirabayashi, and two others were the only resisters whose cases eventually made it to the Supreme Court.
Korematsu v. United States proved to be the most controversial of these cases, as Besig and Collins refused to bow to the national ACLU office's pressure to pursue the case without challenging the government's right to remove citizens from their homes. The ACLU board threatened to revoke the San Francisco branch's national affiliation. At the same time, Baldwin tried unsuccessfully to convince Collins to step down so he could replace him as lead attorney in the case. Eventually, Collins agreed to present the case alongside Charles Horsky; however, their arguments before the Supreme Court remained based on the unconstitutionality of the exclusion order Korematsu had disobeyed.[180] The case was decided in December 1944, when the Court once again upheld the government's right to relocate Japanese Americans,[185] although Korematsu's, Hirabayashi's and Yasui's convictions were later overturned in coram nobis proceedings in the 1980s.[186] Legal scholar Peter Irons later asserted that the national office of the ACLU's decision not to challenge the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066 directly had "crippled the effective presentation of these appeals to the Supreme Court".[180]
The national office of the ACLU was even more reluctant to defend anti-war protesters. A majority of the board passed a resolution in 1942 that declared the ACLU unwilling to defend anyone who interfered with the United States' war effort.
During his 1944 visit to Tule Lake, Besig had also become aware of a hastily constructed stockade in which Japanese American internees were routinely being brutalized and held for months without due process. The national ACLU office forbade Besig to intervene on behalf of the stockade prisoners or even to visit the Tule Lake camp without prior written approval from Baldwin. Unable to help directly, Besig turned to Wayne Collins for assistance. Using the threat of habeas corpus suits, Collins managed to have the stockade closed down. A year later, after learning that the stockade had been reestablished, he returned to the camp and had it closed down for good.[189][190]
End of WWII in 1945
When the war ended in 1945, the ACLU was 25 years old and had accumulated impressive legal victories.[191] President Harry S. Truman sent a congratulatory telegram to the ACLU on the occasion of their 25th anniversary.[191] American attitudes had changed since World War I, and dissent by minorities was tolerated with more willingness.[191] The Bill of Rights was more respected, and minority rights were becoming more commonly championed.[191] During their 1945 annual conference, the ACLU leaders composed a list of important civil rights issues to focus on in the future, including racial discrimination and separation of church and state.[192]
The ACLU supported the African-American defendants in Shelley v. Kraemer, when they tried to occupy a house they had purchased in a neighborhood with racially restrictive housing covenants. The African-American purchasers won the case in 1945.[193]
Cold War era
Anti-Communist sentiment gripped the United States during the Cold War beginning in 1946. Federal investigations caused many persons with Communist or left-leaning affiliations to lose jobs, become blocklisted, or be jailed.[194] During the Cold War, although the United States collectively ignored the civil rights of Communists, other civil liberties – such as due process in law and separation of church and state – continued to be reinforced and even expanded.
The ACLU was internally divided when it purged Communists from its leadership in 1940, and that ambivalence continued as it decided whether to defend alleged Communists during the late 1940s. Some ACLU leaders were anti-Communist and felt that the ACLU should not defend any victims. Some ACLU leaders felt that Communists were entitled to free speech protections and that the ACLU should defend them. Other ACLU leaders were uncertain about the threat posed by Communists and tried to establish a compromise between the two extremes.[195] This ambivalent state of affairs would last until 1954, when the civil liberties faction prevailed, leading to most anti-Communist leaders' resignations.[21]
In 1947, President Truman issued
Also in 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) subpoenaed ten Hollywood directors and writers, the
The federal government took direct aim at the US Communist Party in 1948 when it indicted its top twelve leaders in the
In a change of heart, the ACLU supported the party leaders during their appeal process. The Supreme Court upheld the convictions in the Dennis v. United States decision by softening the free speech requirements from a "clear and present danger" test to a "grave and probable" test.[202] The ACLU issued a public condemnation of the Dennis decision, and resolved to fight it.[202] One reason for the Supreme Court's support of Cold War legislation was the 1949 deaths of Supreme Court justices Frank Murphy and Wiley Rutledge, leaving Hugo Black and William O. Douglas as the only remaining civil libertarians on the Court.[203]
The Dennis decision paved the way for the prosecution of hundreds of other Communist party members.[204] The ACLU supported many Communists during their appeals (although most of the initiative originated with local ACLU affiliates, not the national headquarters), but most convictions were upheld.[204] The two California affiliates, in particular, felt the national ACLU headquarters was not supporting civil liberties strongly enough, and they initiated more cold war cases than the national headquarters did.[203]
The ACLU challenged many loyalty oath requirements across the country, but the courts upheld most loyalty oath laws.[205] California ACLU affiliates successfully challenged the California state loyalty oath.[206] The Supreme Court, until 1957, upheld nearly every law which restricted the liberties of Communists.[207]
The ACLU, even though it scaled back its defense of Communists during the Cold War, still came under heavy criticism as a "front" for Communism. Critics included the American Legion, Senator Joseph McCarthy, the HUAC, and the FBI.[208] Several ACLU leaders were sympathetic to the FBI, and as a consequence, the ACLU rarely investigated any of the many complaints alleging abuse of power by the FBI during the Cold War.[209]
In 1950,
Organizational change
In 1950, the ACLU board of directors asked executive director Baldwin to resign, feeling he lacked the organizational skills to lead the 9,000 (and growing) member organization. Baldwin objected, but a majority of the board elected to remove him from the position, and he was replaced by Patrick Murphy Malin.[213] Under Malin's guidance, membership tripled to 30,000 by 1955 – the start of 24 years of continual growth leading to 275,000 members in 1974.[214] Malin also presided over an expansion of local ACLU affiliates.[214]
The ACLU, controlled by an elite of a few dozen New Yorkers, became more democratic in the 1950s. In 1951, the ACLU amended its bylaws to permit the local affiliates to participate directly in voting on ACLU policy decisions.[215] A bi-annual conference, open to the entire membership, was instituted in the same year; in later decades, it became a pulpit for activist members, who suggested new directions for the ACLU, including abortion rights, death penalty, and rights of the poor.[215]
McCarthy era
During the early 1950s, the ACLU continued to steer a moderate course through the Cold War. When singer Paul Robeson was denied a passport in 1950, even though he was not accused of any illegal acts, the ACLU chose not to defend him.[216] The ACLU later reversed their stance and supported William Worthy and Rockwell Kent in their passport confiscation cases, which resulted in legal victories in the late 1950s.[217]
In response to communist witch-hunts, many witnesses and employees chose to use the fifth amendment protection against self-incrimination to avoid divulging information about their political beliefs.[218] Government agencies and private organizations, in response, established policies which inferred communist party membership for anyone who invoked the fifth amendment.[219] The national ACLU was divided on whether to defend employees who had been fired merely for pleading the fifth amendment, but the New York affiliate successfully assisted teacher Harry Slochower in his Supreme Court case, which reversed his termination.[220]
The fifth amendment issue became the catalyst for a watershed event in 1954, which finally resolved the ACLU's ambivalence by ousting the anti-communists from ACLU leadership.
McCarthyism declined in late 1954 after television journalist Edward R. Murrow and others publicly chastised McCarthy.[228] The controversies over the Bill of Rights that the Cold War generated ushered in a new era in American Civil liberties. In 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned state-sanctioned school segregation, and after that, a flood of civil rights victories dominated the legal landscape.[229]
The Supreme Court handed the ACLU two key victories in 1957, in Watkins v. United States and Yates v. United States, both of which undermined the Smith Act and marked the beginning of the end of communist party membership inquiries.[230] In 1965, the Supreme Court produced some decisions, including Lamont v. Postmaster General (in which the plaintiff was Corliss Lamont, a former ACLU board member), which upheld fifth amendment protections and brought an end to restrictions on political activity.[231]
1960s
The decade from 1954 to 1964 was the most successful period in the ACLU's history.[232] Membership rose from 30,000 to 80,000, and by 1965 it had affiliates in seventeen states.[232][233] During the ACLU's bi-annual conference in Colorado in 1964, the Supreme Court issued rulings on eight cases involving the ACLU; the ACLU prevailed on seven of the eight.[234] The ACLU played a role in Supreme Court decisions reducing censorship of literature and arts, protecting freedom of association, prohibiting racial segregation, excluding religion from public schools, and providing due process protection to criminal suspects.[232] The ACLU's success arose from changing public attitudes; the American populace was more educated, tolerant, and willing to accept unorthodox behavior.[232]
Separation of church and state
Legal battles concerning the separation of church and state originated in laws dating to 1938, which required religious instruction in school or provided state funding for religious schools.[235] The Catholic church was a leading proponent of such laws, and the primary opponents (the "separationists") were the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the American Jewish Congress.[235] The ACLU led the challenge in the 1947 Everson v. Board of Education case, in which Justice Hugo Black wrote "[t]he First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state.... That wall must be kept high and impregnable."[235][236][237] It was not clear that the Bill of Rights forbid state governments from supporting religious education, and strong legal arguments were made by religious proponents, arguing that the Supreme Court should not act as a "national school board", and that the Constitution did not govern social issues.[238] However, the ACLU and other advocates of church/state separation persuaded the Court to declare such activities unconstitutional.[238] Historian Samuel Walker writes that the ACLU's "greatest impact on American life" was its role in persuading the Supreme Court to "constitutionalize" so many public controversies.[238]
In 1948, the ACLU prevailed in the McCollum v. Board of Education case, which challenged public school religious classes taught by clergy paid for by private funds.[238] The ACLU also won cases challenging schools in New Mexico that were taught by clergy and had crucifixes hanging in the classrooms.[239] In the 1960s, the ACLU, in response to member insistence, turned its attention to the in-class promotion of religion.[240] In 1960, 42 percent of American schools included Bible reading.[240] In 1962, the ACLU published a policy statement condemning in-school prayers, observation of religious holidays, and Bible reading.[240] The Supreme Court concurred with the ACLU's position when it prohibited New York's in-school prayers in the 1962 Engel v. Vitale decision.[241] Religious factions across the country rebelled against the anti-prayer decisions, leading them to propose the School Prayer Constitutional Amendment, which declared in-school prayer legal.[242] The ACLU participated in a lobbying effort against the amendment, and the 1966 congressional vote failed to obtain the required two-thirds majority.[242]
However, not all cases were victories; ACLU lost cases in 1949 and 1961 which challenged state laws requiring commercial businesses to close on Sunday, the Christian Sabbath.[239] The Supreme Court has never overturned such laws, although some states subsequently revoked many of the laws under pressure from commercial interests.[239]
Freedom of expression
During the 1940s and 1950s, the ACLU continued its battle against censorship of art and literature.
Cities across America routinely banned movies because they were deemed to be "harmful", "offensive", or "immoral" – censorship which was validated by the 1915
The ACLU defended
The ACLU lost an important press censorship case when, in 1957, the Supreme Court upheld the obscenity conviction of publisher Samuel Roth for distributing adult magazines.[251] As late as 1953, books such as Tropic of Cancer and From Here to Eternity were still banned.[243] But public standards rapidly became more liberal through the 1960s, and obscenity was notoriously difficult to define, so by 1971, obscenity prosecutions had halted.[234][243]
Racial discrimination
A major aspect of civil liberties progress after World War II was the undoing centuries of racism in federal, state, and local governments – an effort generally associated with the
In 1954, the ACLU filed an
Police misconduct
The ACLU regularly tackled police misconduct issues, starting with the 1932 case Powell v. Alabama (right to an attorney), and including 1942's Betts v. Brady (right to an attorney), and 1951's Rochin v. California (involuntary stomach pumping).[231] In the late 1940s, several ACLU local affiliates established permanent committees to address policing issues.[255] During the 1950s and 1960s, the ACLU was responsible for substantially advancing the legal protections against police misconduct.[256] In 1958, the Philadelphia affiliate was responsible for causing the City of Philadelphia to create the nation's first civilian police review board.[257] In 1959, the Illinois affiliate published the first report in the nation, Secret Detention by the Chicago Police which documented unlawful detention by police.[258]
Some of the most notable ACLU successes came in the 1960s when the ACLU prevailed in a string of cases limiting the power of police to gather evidence; in 1961's Mapp v. Ohio, the Supreme court required states to obtain a warrant before searching a person's home.[259] The Gideon v. Wainwright decision in 1963 provided legal representation to indigents.[260] In 1964, the ACLU persuaded the Court, in Escobedo v. Illinois, to permit suspects to have an attorney present during questioning.[261] And, in 1966, Miranda v. Arizona federal decision required police to notify suspects of their constitutional rights, which was later extended to juveniles in the following year's in re Gault (1967) federal ruling.[262] Although many law enforcement officials criticized the ACLU for expanding the rights of suspects, police officers also used the services of the ACLU. For example, when the ACLU represented New York City policemen in their lawsuit, which objected to searches of their workplace lockers.[263] In the late 1960s, civilian review boards in New York City and Philadelphia were abolished, over the ACLU's objection.[264]
Civil liberties revolution of the 1960s
The 1960s was a tumultuous era in the United States, and public interest in civil liberties underwent explosive growth.
African-American protests in the South accelerated in the early 1960s, and the ACLU assisted at every step. After four African-American college students staged a sit-in in a segregated North Carolina department store, the sit-in movement gained momentum across the United States.[271] During 1960–61, the ACLU defended black students arrested for demonstrating in North Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana.[272] The ACLU also provided legal help for the Freedom Rides in 1961, the integration of the University of Mississippi, the Birmingham campaign in 1963, and the 1964 Freedom Summer.[272]
The NAACP was responsible for managing most sit-in related cases that made it to the Supreme Court, winning nearly every decision.[273] But it fell to the ACLU and other legal volunteer efforts to provide legal representation to hundreds of protestors – white and black – who were arrested while protesting in the South.[273] The ACLU joined with other civil liberties groups to form the Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee (LCDC), which provided legal representation to many protesters.[274] The ACLU provided the majority of the funding for the LCDC.[275]
In 1964, the ACLU opened up a major office in Atlanta, Georgia, dedicated to serving Southern issues.
In 1969, the ACLU won a significant victory for free speech when it defended
Vietnam War
The ACLU was at the center of several legal aspects of the Vietnam war: defending
David J. Miller was the first person prosecuted for burning his
The ACLU defended Sydney Street, who was arrested for burning an American flag to protest the reported assassination of civil rights leader James Meredith. In the Street v. New York decision, the court agreed with the ACLU that encouraging the country to abandon one of its national symbols was a constitutionally protected form of expression.[282] The ACLU successfully defended Paul Cohen, who was arrested for wearing a jacket with the words "fuck the draft" on its back while he walked through the Los Angeles courthouse. The Supreme Court, in Cohen v. California, held that the vulgarity of the wording was essential to convey the intensity of the message.[283]
Non-war-related free speech rights were also advanced during the Vietnam war era; in 1969, the ACLU defended a Ku Klux Klan member who advocated long-term violence against the government, and the Supreme Court concurred with the ACLU's argument in the landmark decision Brandenburg v. Ohio, which held that only speech which advocated imminent violence could be outlawed.[283]
A major crisis gripped the ACLU in 1968 when a debate erupted over whether to defend Benjamin Spock and the Boston Five against federal charges that they encouraged draftees to avoid the draft. The ACLU board was deeply split over whether to defend the activists; half the board harbored anti-war sentiments and felt that the ACLU should lend its resources to the cause of the Boston Five. The other half of the board believed that civil liberties were not at stake and the ACLU would be taking a political stance. Behind the debate was the longstanding ACLU tradition that it was politically impartial and provided legal advice without regard to the defendants' political views. The board finally agreed to a compromise solution that permitted the ACLU to defend the anti-war activists without endorsing the activist's political views. Some critics of the ACLU suggest that the ACLU became a partisan political organization following the Spock case.[22] After the Kent State shootings in 1970, ACLU leaders took another step toward politics by passing a resolution condemning the Vietnam War. The resolution was based on various legal arguments, including civil liberties violations and claiming that the war was illegal.[284]
Also in 1968, the ACLU held an internal symposium to discuss its dual roles: providing "direct" legal support (defense for accused in their initial trial, benefiting only the individual defendant) and appellate support (providing amicus briefs during the appeal process, to establish widespread legal precedent).[285] Historically, the ACLU was known for its appellate work, which led to landmark Supreme Court decisions, but by 1968, 90% of the ACLU's legal activities involved direct representation. The symposium concluded that both roles were valid for the ACLU.[285]
1970s and 1980s
Watergate era
The ACLU supported The New York Times in its 1971 suit against the government, requesting permission to publish the Pentagon Papers. The court upheld the Times and ACLU in the New York Times Co. v. United States ruling, which held that the government could not preemptively prohibit the publication of classified information and had to wait until after it was published to take action.[286]
On September 30, 1973, the ACLU became first national organization to publicly call for the impeachment and removal from office of President Richard Nixon.[287] Six civil liberties violations were cited as grounds: "specific proved violations of the rights of political dissent; usurpation of Congressional war‐making powers; establishment of a personal secret police which committed crimes; attempted interference in the trial of Daniel Ellsberg; distortion of the system of justice and perversion of other Federal agencies".[288] One month later, after the House of Representatives began an impeachment inquiry against him, the organization released a 56‐page handbook detailing "17 things citizens could do to bring about the impeachment of President Nixon".[289] This resolution, when placed beside the earlier resolution opposing the Vietnam war, convinced many ACLU critics, particularly conservatives, that the organization had transformed into a liberal political organization.[290]
Enclaves and new civil liberties
The decade from 1965 to 1975 saw an expansion of civil liberties. Administratively, the ACLU responded by appointing Aryeh Neier to take over from Pemberton as executive director in 1970. Neier embarked on an ambitious program to expand the ACLU; he created the ACLU Foundation to raise funds and created several new programs to focus the ACLU's legal efforts. By 1974, ACLU membership had reached 275,000.[291]
During those years, the ACLU worked to expand legal rights in three directions: new rights for persons within government-run "enclaves", new rights for members of what it called "victim groups", and privacy rights for citizens in general.
The ACLU initiated the legal field of student's rights with the Tinker v. Des Moines case and expanded it with cases such as Goss v. Lopez, which required schools to provide students an opportunity to appeal suspensions.[294]
As early as 1945, the ACLU had taken a stand to protect the rights of the mentally ill when it drafted a model statute governing mental commitments.
Before 1960, prisoners had virtually no recourse to the court system because courts considered prisoners to have no civil rights.[297] That changed in the late 1950s, when the ACLU began representing prisoners subject to police brutality or deprived of religious reading material.[298] In 1968, the ACLU successfully sued to desegregate the Alabama prison system; in 1969, the New York affiliate adopted a project to represent prisoners in New York prisons. Private attorney Phil Hirschkop discovered degrading conditions in Virginia prisons following the Virginia State Penitentiary strike and won an important victory in 1971's Landman v. Royster which prohibited Virginia from treating prisoners in inhumane ways.[299] In 1972, the ACLU consolidated several prison rights efforts across the nation and created the National Prison Project. The ACLU's efforts led to landmark cases such as Ruiz v. Estelle (requiring reform of the Texas prison system), and in 1996 US Congress enacted the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) which codified prisoners' rights.
Victim groups
During the 1960s and 1970s, the ACLU expanded its scope to include what it referred to as "victim groups", namely women, the poor, and homosexuals.[301] Heeding the call of female members, the ACLU endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment in 1970[302] and created the Women's Rights Project in 1971. The Women's Rights Project dominated the legal field, handling more than twice as many cases as the National Organization for Women, including breakthrough cases such as Reed v. Reed, Frontiero v. Richardson, and Taylor v. Louisiana.[303]
ACLU leader Harriet Pilpel raised the issue of the rights of homosexuals in 1964, and two years later, the ACLU formally endorsed gay rights. In 1972, ACLU cooperating attorneys in Oregon filed the first federal civil rights case involving a claim of unconstitutional discrimination against a gay or lesbian public school teacher. The US District Court held that a state statute that authorized school districts to fire teachers for "immorality" was unconstitutionally vague, and awarded monetary damages to the teacher. The court refused to reinstate the teacher, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that refusal by a 2-to-1 vote. Burton v. Cascade School District, 353 F. Supp. 254 (D. Or. 1972), aff'd 512 F.2d 850 (1975). In 1973, the ACLU created the Sexual Privacy Project (later the Gay and Lesbian Rights Project), which combated discrimination against homosexuals.[304] This support continued into the 2000s. For example, after then-Senator Larry Craig was arrested for soliciting sex in a public restroom in 2007, the ACLU wrote an amicus brief for Craig, saying that sex between consenting adults in public places was protected under privacy rights.[305]
The rights of the poor were another area that the ACLU expanded. In 1966 and again in 1968, activists within the ACLU encouraged the organization to adopt a policy overhauling the welfare system and guaranteeing low-income families a baseline income; but the ACLU board did not approve the proposals.[306] However, the ACLU played a key role in the 1968 King v. Smith decision, where the Supreme Court ruled that welfare benefits for children could not be denied by a state simply because the mother cohabited with a boyfriend.[306]
Reproductive Freedom Project
The ACLU founded the Reproductive Freedom Project in 1974 to defend individuals the government obstructs in cases involving access to abortions, birth control, or sexual education. According to its mission statement, the project works to provide access to reproductive health care for individuals.[307] The project also opposes abstinence-only sex education, arguing that it promotes an unwillingness to use contraceptives.[308][309][310]
In 1980, the Project filed Poe v. Lynchburg Training School & Hospital which attempted to overturn Buck v. Bell, the 1927 US Supreme Court decision which had allowed the Commonwealth of Virginia to legally sterilize persons it deemed to be mentally defective without their permission. Though the Court did not overturn Buck v.Bell, in 1985, the state agreed to provide counseling and medical treatment to the survivors among the 7,200 to 8,300 people sterilized between 1927 and 1979.[311] In 1977, the ACLU took part in and litigated Walker v. Pierce, the federal circuit court case that led to federal regulations to prevent Medicaid patients from being sterilized without their knowledge or consent.[312] In 1981–1990, the Project litigated Hodgson v. Minnesota, which resulted in the Supreme Court overturning a state law requiring both parents to be notified before a minor could legally have an abortion.[313] In the 1990s, the Project provided legal assistance and resource kits to those who were being challenged for educating about sexuality and AIDS. In 1995, the Project filed an amicus brief in Curtis v. School Committee of Falmouth, which allowed for the distribution of condoms in a public school.[314]
The Reproductive Freedom Project focuses on three ideas: (1) to "reverse the shortage of trained abortion providers throughout the country" (2) to "block state and federal welfare "reform" proposals that cut off benefits for children who are born to women already receiving welfare, unmarried women, or teenagers"[315] and (3) to "stop the elimination of vital reproductive health services as a result of hospital mergers and health care networks".[316] The Project proposes to achieve these goals through legal action and litigation.
Privacy
The
Related to privacy, the ACLU engaged in several battles to ensure that government records about individuals were kept private and to give individuals the right to review their records. The ACLU supported several measures, including the 1970 Fair Credit Reporting Act, which required credit agencies to divulge credit information to individuals; the 1973 Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which provided students the right to access their records; and the 1974 Privacy Act, which prevented the federal government from disclosing personal information without good cause.[321]
Allegations of bias
In the early 1970s, conservatives and libertarians began to criticize the ACLU for being too political and too liberal.[322] Legal scholar Joseph W. Bishop wrote that the ACLU's trend to partisanship started with its defense of Spock's anti-war protests.[323] Critics also blamed the ACLU for encouraging the Supreme Court to embrace judicial activism.[324] Critics claimed that the ACLU's support of controversial decisions like Roe v. Wade and Griswold v. Connecticut violated the intention of the authors of the Bill of Rights.[324] The ACLU became an issue in the 1988 presidential campaign, when Republican candidate George H. W. Bush accused Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis (a member of the ACLU) of being a "card carrying member of the ACLU".[325]
The Skokie case
In 1977, the
The Skokie case was heavily publicized across America, partially because Jewish groups such as the
Reagan era
The inauguration of Ronald Reagan as president in 1981 ushered in an eight-year period of conservative leadership in the US government. Under Reagan's leadership, the government pushed a conservative social agenda.
Fifty years after the Scopes trial, the ACLU found itself fighting another classroom case, the Arkansas 1981 creationism statute, which required schools to teach the biblical account of creation as a scientific alternative to evolution. The ACLU won the case in the McLean v. Arkansas decision.[334]
In 1982, the ACLU became involved in a case involving the distribution of
During the 1988 presidential election, Vice President George H. W. Bush noted that his opponent Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis had described himself as a "card-carrying member of the ACLU" and used that as evidence that Dukakis was "a strong, passionate liberal" and "out of the mainstream".[336] The phrase subsequently was used by the organization in an advertising campaign.[337]
1990s
In 1990, the ACLU defended Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North,[338] whose conviction was tainted by coerced testimony – a violation of his Fifth Amendment rights – during the Iran–Contra affair, where Oliver North was involved in illegal weapons sales to Iran to illegally fund the Contra guerillas.[339][340]
In 1997, ruling unanimously in the case of
In November 2000, 15 African-American residents of Hearne, Texas, were indicted on drug charges after being arrested in a series of "drug sweeps". The ACLU filed a class-action lawsuit, Kelly v. Paschall, on their behalf, alleging that the arrests were unlawful. The ACLU contended that 15 percent of Hearne's male African-American population aged 18 to 34 were arrested based only on the "uncorroborated word of a single unreliable confidential informant coerced by police to make cases". On May 11, 2005, the ACLU and Robertson County announced a confidential settlement of the lawsuit, an outcome which "both sides stated that they were satisfied with". The District Attorney dismissed the charges against the plaintiffs of the suit.[344] The 2009 film American Violet depicts this case.[345]
In 2000, the ACLU's Massachusetts affiliate represented the
21st century
Free speech
In 2006, the ACLU of Washington State joined with a pro-gun rights organization, the Second Amendment Foundation, and prevailed in a lawsuit against the North Central Regional Library District (NCRL) in Washington for its policy of refusing to disable restrictions upon an adult patron's request. Library patrons attempting to access pro-gun web sites were blocked, and the library refused to remove the blocks.[347] In 2012, the ACLU sued the same library system for refusing to disable temporarily, at the request of an adult patron, Internet filters which blocked access to Google Images.[348]
In 2006, the ACLU challenged a Missouri law prohibiting picketing outside veterans' funerals. The ACLU filed the suit in support of the Westboro Baptist Church and Shirley Phelps-Roper, who were threatened with arrest.[349][350] The Westboro Baptist Church is well known for its picket signs that contain messages such as "God Hates Fags", "Thank God for Dead Soldiers", and "Thank God for 9/11". The ACLU issued a statement calling the legislation a "law that infringes on Shirley Phelps-Roper's rights to religious liberty and free speech."[351] The ACLU prevailed in the lawsuit.[352]
The ACLU argued in an amicus brief to the Supreme Court that a decision on the constitutionality of a Massachusetts law required the consideration of additional evidence because lower courts have undervalued the right to engage in sidewalk counseling.[353] The law prohibited sidewalk counselors from approaching women outside abortion facilities and offering them alternatives to abortion but allowed escorts to speak with them and accompany them into the building.[354] In overturning the law in McCullen v. Coakley, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that it violated the counselors' freedom of speech and constituted viewpoint discrimination.
In 2009, the ACLU filed an
In 2012, the ACLU filed suit on behalf of the Ku Klux Klan of Georgia, claiming that the KKK was unfairly rejected from the state's "Adopt-a-Highway" program. The ACLU prevailed in the lawsuit.[358]
Move towards identity politics
Some have claimed the ACLU is reducing its support of unpopular free speech (specifically by declining to defend speech made by conservatives) in favor of identity politics, political correctness, and progressivism.[359] Instead, critics contend that the organization has instead become a progressive advocacy organization intensely focused on identity politics.[360]
One basis of these allegations was a 2017 statement the ACLU president made to a reporter after the death of a counter-protester during the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Virginia, where Romero told a reporter that the ACLU would no longer support legal cases of activists that wish to carry guns at their protests.[361] Another basis for these claims was an internal ACLU memo dated June 2018, discussing factors to evaluate when deciding whether to take a case. The memo listed several factors to consider, including "the extent to which the speech may assist in advancing the goals of white supremacists or others whose views are contrary to our values."
Some analysts viewed this as a retreat from the ACLU's historically strong support of First Amendment rights, regardless of whether minorities were negatively impacted by the speech, citing the ACLU's past support for certain KKK and Nazi legal cases.[362][363][364][365][56] The memo's authors stated that the memo did not define a change in official ACLU policy, but was intended as a guideline to assist ACLU affiliates in deciding which cases to take.[366] Former ACLU director Ira Glasser stated that "the ACLU might not take the Skokie case today."[367] In the 2020 documentary Mighty Ira, which chronicles Glasser's life and career at the ACLU, Glasser says he would defend the ACLU's decision to take the Skokie case again today if needed.[368][369]
In 2021, the ACLU responded to the criticisms by denying that they are reducing their support for unpopular First Amendment causes and listing 27 cases from 2017 to 2021 where the ACLU supported a party holding an unpopular or repugnant viewpoint. The cases included one which challenged college restrictions on hate speech; a case defending a Catholic school's right to discriminate in hiring; and a case that defended antisemitic protesters who marched outside a synagogue.[370]
In 2024, the National Labor Relations Board sued the ACLU in an unfair labor practice case after the ACLU fired an Asian attorney for criticizing her Black bosses. The ACLU contended that the employee's use of phrases like "the beatings will continue until morale improves" was racially coded and that it "caused serious harm to Black members of the A.C.L.U. community." According to Jeremy W. Peters of The New York Times, critics of the ACLU saw the firing as "a sign of how far the group has strayed from its core mission — defending free speech — and has instead aligned itself with a progressive politics that is intensely focused on identity."[360]
LGBTQ issues
In March 2004, the ACLU, along with
In 2010, the ACLU of Illinois was inducted into the
In 2011, the ACLU started its
On January 7, 2013, the ACLU settled with the federal government in Collins v. United States that provided for the payment of full separation pay to servicemembers discharged under "don't ask, don't tell" since November 10, 2004, who had previously been granted only half that.[376] Some 181 were expected to receive about $13,000 each.[377]
In 2021, the ACLU tweeted a quote by Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the subject of pregnancy, replacing gender-specific words with bracketed gender-neutral words.[378] The president of the ACLU later apologized for the changes to the quote, explaining that it was a good-faith mistake by the ACLU's media team, attempting to address the fact that there are people who seek abortions who do not identify as women.[379]
In 2021, the ACLU filed a brief siding with a school district that had a policy of using preferred pronouns for transgender students. Some analysts felt this was a retreat from the ACLU's historical defense of the First Amendment because the ACLU was opposing the teachers who were disciplined for refusing to use the preferred pronouns.[380][381]
Second amendment
In light of the Supreme Court's Heller decision recognizing that the Constitution protects an individual right to bear arms, ACLU of Nevada took a position of supporting "the individual's right to bear arms subject to constitutionally permissible regulations" and pledged to "defend this right as it defends other constitutional rights".[382] In 2021, the ACLU supported the position that the Second Amendment was originally written to ensure that Southern states could use militias to suppress slave uprisings, and that anti-Blackness ensured its inclusion in the Bill of Rights.[383][384][385]
Anti-terrorism issues
After the September 11 attacks, the federal government instituted a broad range of new measures to combat terrorism, including the passage of the Patriot Act. The ACLU challenged many of the measures, claiming that they violated rights regarding due process, privacy, illegal searches, and cruel and unusual punishment. An ACLU policy statement states:
Our way forward lies in decisively turning our backs on the policies and practices that violate our greatest strength: our Constitution and the commitment it embodies to the rule of law. Liberty and security do not compete in a zero-sum game; our freedoms are the very foundation of our strength and security. The ACLU's National Security Project advocates for national security policies that are consistent with the Constitution, the rule of law, and fundamental human rights. The Project litigates cases relating to detention, torture, discrimination, surveillance, censorship, and secrecy.[386]
During the ensuing debate regarding the proper balance of civil liberties and security, the membership of the ACLU increased by 20%, bringing the group's total enrollment to 330,000.[387] The growth continued, and by August 2008 ACLU membership was greater than 500,000. It remained at that level through 2011.[388]
The ACLU has been a vocal opponent of the Patriot Act of 2001, the PATRIOT 2 Act of 2003, and associated legislation made in response to the threat of domestic terrorism. In response to a requirement of the USA PATRIOT Act, the ACLU withdrew from the Combined Federal Campaign charity drive.[389] The campaign required ACLU employees to be checked against a federal anti-terrorism watch list. The ACLU has stated that it would "reject $500,000 in contributions from private individuals rather than submit to a government 'blacklist' policy".[389]
In 2004, the ACLU sued the federal government in American Civil Liberties Union v. Ashcroft on behalf of Nicholas Merrill, owner of an Internet service provider. Under the provisions of the Patriot Act, the government had issued national security letters to Merrill to compel him to provide private Internet access information from some of his customers. In addition, the government placed a gag order on Merrill, forbidding him from discussing the matter with anyone.[390][391][392]
In January 2006, the ACLU filed a lawsuit,
The ACLU and other organizations also filed separate lawsuits against telecommunications companies. The ACLU filed a lawsuit in Illinois (Terkel v. AT&T), which was dismissed because of the
The ACLU represents a
The ACLU has also criticized targeted killings of American citizens who fight against the United States. In 2011, the ACLU criticized the killing of radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki on the basis that it was a violation of his Fifth Amendment right not to be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.[403]
On August 10, 2020, in an opinion article for USA Today by Anthony D. Romero, the ACLU called for the dismantling of the United States Department of Homeland Security over the deployment of federal forces in July 2020 during the George Floyd protests.[404] On August 26, 2020, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of seven protesters and three veterans following the protests in Portland, Oregon, which accused the Trump Administration of using excessive force and unlawful arrests with federal officers.[405]
Trump administration
Following
In response to Trump's order, the ACLU raised more than $24 million from more than 350,000 individual online donations in two days. This amounted to six times what the ACLU normally receives in online donations in a year. Celebrities donating included Chris Sacca (who offered to match other people's donations and ultimately gave $150,000), Rosie O'Donnell, Judd Apatow, Sia, John Legend, and Adele.[410][411] The number of members of the ACLU doubled in the time from the election to end of January to 1 million.[411]
Grants and contributions increased from US$106,628,381 reported by the 2016 year-end
Miscellaneous
During the 2004 trial regarding allegations of Rush Limbaugh's drug abuse, the ACLU argued that his privacy should not have been compromised by allowing law enforcement examination of his medical records.[86]
In June 2004, the school district in Dover, Pennsylvania, required that its high school biology students listen to a statement that asserted that the theory of evolution is not fact and mentioning intelligent design as an alternative theory. Several parents called the ACLU to complain because they believed that the school was promoting a religious idea in the classroom and violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The ACLU, joined by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, represented the parents in a lawsuit against the school district. After a lengthy trial, Judge John E. Jones III ruled in favor of the parents in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District decision, finding that intelligent design is not science and permanently forbidding the Dover school system from teaching intelligent design in science classes.[414]
In April 2006, Edward Jones and the ACLU sued the City of Los Angeles, on behalf of Robert Lee Purrie and five other homeless people, for the city's violation of the 8th and 14th Amendments to the US Constitution, and Article I, sections 7 and 17 of the California Constitution (supporting
In 2009, the Oregon ACLU opposed changing state law to permit teachers to wear religious clothing in classrooms, citing the separation of church and state principles.[419] The ACLU's efforts were not successful.[420]
In 2018, the ACLU conceived and ghostwrote an op-ed in The Washington Post in which Amber Heard accused her ex-husband Johnny Depp of domestic abuse, leading Depp to sue Heard for defamation over the op-ed in the 2022 trial Depp v. Heard. The ACLU testified in the trial that they wrote the op-ed in exchange for a $3.5 million donation pledge from Heard, and timed its release to capitalize on the press from Heard's newly released film Aquaman.[421][422][423] The ACLU demanded $86,000 from Depp for the cost of producing documents for the case.[424] At the end of the trial, the jury ruled that Heard had defamed Depp with actual malice in all three counts related to the Washington Post op-ed.[425][426]
In June 2020, the ACLU sued the federal government for denying Paycheck Protection Program loans to business owners with criminal backgrounds.[427]
See also
- American Civil Rights Union
- British Columbia Civil Liberties Association
- Canadian Civil Liberties Association
- Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)
- Institute for Justice
- Liberty, a British equivalent[428]
- List of court cases involving the American Civil Liberties Union
- National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee
- New York Civil Liberties Union
- Political freedom
- Southern Poverty Law Center
Citations
- ^ a b c d Walker, p. 47.
- ^ David Weigel (July 5, 2018). "The ACLU's Membership Has Surged and It's Putting Its New Resources to Use". Fortune.
- ^ "ACLU Annual Report 2019 p. 18".
- ^ "ACLU History," first section, paragraph 3. American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved March 3, 2017.
- ^ "ACLU History," section: "And how we do it," paragraph 3. American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved March 3, 2017.
- ^ "FAQs". American Civil Liberties Union.
- ^ "ACLU History," section: "And how we do it," paragraph 1. American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved May 9, 2015.
- ^ Cooley, Amanda Harmon (2011). "American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)." Encyclopedia of Social Networks. Ed. George A. Barnett. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications. Vol. 1. pp. 26–27.
- ^ "Homeless veterans: whose responsibility? | ACLU of Southern California". www.aclusocal.org. October 8, 2012. Retrieved September 28, 2023.
- ^ "Why We Must Rethink the Way We Treat People Convicted of Sex Offenses | New York Civil Liberties Union | ACLU of New York". www.nyclu.org. April 27, 2022. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
- ^ "ACLU and ACLU Foundation: What Is the Difference?". American Civil Liberties Union web site. ACLU. Archived from the original on September 6, 2007. Retrieved September 5, 2007.
- ^ Krehely, Jeff (2005). "Maximizing Nonprofit Voices and Mobilizing the Public" (PDF). Responsive Philanthropy: 9–10, 15. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 4, 2016. Retrieved March 10, 2015.
- ^ "Annual report fiscal year 2007" (PDF). American Civil Liberties Union. p. 2. Retrieved March 10, 2015.
- ^ "ACLU, for first time, elects Black person as its president", Associated Press, February 1, 2021, Retrieved February 2, 2021.
- ^ "Anthony D. Romero". American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved March 23, 2024.
- ^ "Officers & Board of Directors". American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved March 23, 2024.
- ^ Bylaws of ACLU, Inc., Organizational Policy No. 501 (undated). Article V. Officers, Section 5 (President) and Section 15 (Executive Director). American Civil Liberties Union website (www.aclu.org/financials, "Related Information"). Retrieved May 9, 2015.
- ^ Croghan, Lore (February 28, 2005). "ACLU is high on Lower Manhattan". New York Daily News. Retrieved March 10, 2015.
- ^ a b c d e Walker, pp. 102–03.
- ^ a b Walker, pp. 132–33.
- ^ a b Walker, pp. 176, 210.
- ^ a b c Walker, pp. 284–85.
- ^ Walker, pp. 292–94
- ^ Sherman, Scott, "ACLU v. ACLU" Archived December 4, 2018, at the Wayback Machine, The Nation, January 18, 2007.
- ^ IRS Forms 990, part VIII, Line 1 – "Contributions, Gifts, Grants and Other Similar Amounts"
— for ACLU for periods ending March 31 of 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022
— for ACLU Foundation for periods ending March 31 of 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022
—(text labels in graph rounded to nearest million). - ^ Stack, Liam (January 30, 2017). "Donations to A.C.L.U. and Other Organizations Surge After Trump's Order". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 31, 2017. Retrieved September 18, 2018.
- ^ a b American Civil Liberties Union ... Consolidated Financial Report, March 31, 2014. American Civil Liberties Union website, "Financials" section, under: "Audited Financial Statements." See also pie chart on ACLU "Finances" page. Retrieved May 9, 2015.
- ^ Membership income for the year ending March 31, 2014, was 5.5 million (25.4% of the total ,0.4 million). On its website, under "History," and on 990 Forms, 2010–2013 (part III, 4b, on p. 2; retrieved May 10, 2015) the ACLU states only a rough membership figure of 500,000. Using this rounded figure, the average donation per member for 2014 comes to ,1. Membership fee is not fixed – members donate an amount of their choosing.
- ^ American Civil Liberties Union ... Consolidated Financial Report, March 31, 2014, p. 4.
- ^ American Civil Liberties Union Annual Report 2014, p. 30. Retrieved May 10, 2015.
- ^ Based on total expenses reported on the 990 forms of the Foundation and the Union, respectively; see 990 Forms, 2010–2013, American Civil Liberties Union website, "Financials" section.
- ^ "Charity Report – American Civil Liberties Union Foundation – give.org". bbb.org. Archived from the original on December 29, 2011. Retrieved January 8, 2012.
- ^ "Charity Navigator Rating – American Civil Liberties Union Foundation". Charity Navigator.
- ^ Nickerson, Gregory (April 1, 2015). National office closes Wyoming ACLU chapter. Wyofile: People, Places & Policy [Wyoming news service]. See paragraph 5. Nickerson mentions the Puerto Rico office, and a single office for North and South Dakota, as other examples of smaller offices receiving subsidies. Retrieved May 10, 2015.
- ^ American Civil Liberties Union ... Consolidated Financial Report, March 31, 2014, p. 10, Note 1. Organization: "Although the ACLU plays no direct role in the governance of ... the affiliates, the organizations jointly fund-raise and work together on certain programs and the ACLU, through either the Union or Foundation, as appropriate, at its sole discretion provides targeted financial and other support to the affiliates."
- ^ Stephanie Strom (October 19, 2004). "A.C.L.U. Rejects Foundation Grants Over Terror Language". The New York Times.
- ^ See Kaminer, pp. 68–70, for a discussion of an internal scandal in which Romero was accused of attempting to accept the funds without disclosing the terms to the ACLU board.
- ^ "Title 42, Chapter 21, Subchapter I, § 1988. Proceedings in vindication of civil rights".
- ^ Report No. 109-657, H.R. 2679, available at GPO.
- ^ ACLU Georgia Press Release, "Barrow County to Remove 10 Commandments Display" Archived December 22, 2005, at the Wayback Machine, July 19, 2007 (last visited January 6, 2008).
- ^ ACLU Georgia, "2007 Litigation & Advocacy Docket" Archived December 26, 2005, at the Wayback Machine (last visited January 6, 2008).
- ^ "State pays ACLU $121,500 in Ten Commandments fight".
- ^ Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, The Ten Commandments: Developments: Year 2002 Archived January 2, 2006, at the Wayback Machine, ReligiousTolerance.org
- ^ "Local ACLU Affiliates". American Civil Liberties Union web site. ACLU. Archived from the original on August 19, 2010. Retrieved August 20, 2010.
- ^ "Giving to the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation: What Is the Difference? | American Civil Liberties Union". action.aclu.org. Retrieved March 22, 2021.
- ^ "ACLU vs. ACLU Foundation". ACLU Pennsylvania. February 28, 2019. Retrieved March 22, 2021.
- ^ "History". ACLU of Georgia. February 9, 2016. Archived from the original on March 14, 2021. Retrieved March 22, 2021.
- ACLU-NJ. March 1, 2021. p. 12. Retrieved August 28, 2022.
- ^ "Affirmative Action". ACLU. Retrieved June 26, 2013.
- ^ Reproductive Freedom Retrieved January 6, 2012.
- ^ Campaign Finance Reform Retrieved January 6, 2012.
- ^ .Criminal Law Reform Retrieved January 6, 2012.
- ^ Capital Punishment Retrieved January 6, 2012.
- ^ Free Speech Retrieved January 6, 2012.
- from the original on June 21, 2018. Retrieved June 21, 2018.
- ^ a b Sykes, Michael (June 21, 2018). "Leaked memo reveals ACLU debate on defense of free speech". Axios. Archived from the original on June 22, 2018. Retrieved June 22, 2018.
- ^ "Second Amendment". ACLU. American Civil Liberties Union. January 17, 2013. Archived from the original on March 29, 2013. Retrieved February 24, 2013.
- ^ Blumenthal, Ralph (April 5, 2007). "Unusual Allies in a Legal Battle Over Texas Drivers' Gun Rights". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 8, 2007.
- ^ "The Plum Line". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on April 21, 2013.
- ^ HIV/AIDS Retrieved January 6, 2012.
- ^ Human Rights Retrieved January 6, 2012.
- ^ Immigrant Rights Retrieved January 6, 2012.
- ^ LGBT Rights Retrieved January 6, 2012.
- ^ National Security Retrieved January 6, 2012.
- ^ Prisoners' Rights Retrieved January 6, 2012.
- ^ Technology and Liberty Retrieved January 6, 2012.
- ^ "Privacy & Technology". American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved March 15, 2024.
- ^ Racial Justice Retrieved January 6, 2012.
- ^ A Test of Free Speech and Bias, Served on a Plate From Texas, New York Times, March 22, 2015
- ^ Freedom of Religion and Belief Archived March 24, 2015, at the Wayback Machine – Retrieved January 6, 2012.
- ^ "Using Religion to Discriminate". American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved June 22, 2018.
- ^ Abstinence-Only Curricula | American Civil Liberties Union Archived April 7, 2022, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved on April 7, 2022.
- ^ Single-Sex Education | American Civil Liberties Union. Aclu.org. Retrieved on May 24, 2014.
- ^ Civil Liberties and Vaccine Mandates: Here's Our Take – Retrieved December 5, 2021.
- ^ "Pandemic Preparedness: The Need for a Public Health – Not a Law Enforcement/National Security – Approach" (PDF). American Civil Liberties Union. January 2008. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022. Retrieved June 1, 2022.
- ^ Stanley, Jay (March 31, 2021). "There's a Lot That Can Go Wrong With 'Vaccine Passports' - ACLU". ACLU.
- ^ Voting Rights Retrieved January 6, 2012.
- ^ Women's Rights Retrieved January 6, 2012.
- ^ Finan, Christopher M. (2007), From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: a history of the fight for free speech in America, Beacon Press, pp. 158–59. (Robeson)
- ^ a b Walker, pp. 323–31.
- ^ "The Heckler's Veto". December 26, 2014.
- ^ Mark Joseph Stern (August 27, 2018). "Who Does the ACLU Fight For?". Slate. The Slate Group. Archived from the original on August 28, 2018. Retrieved May 23, 2023.
- ^ David Cole (August 24, 2018). "New York State Can't Be Allowed to Stifle the NRA's Political Speech". ACLU. American Civil Liberties Union. Archived from the original on September 4, 2022. Retrieved May 23, 2023.
- ^ Walker, pp. 219–20 (prayer in school).
- ^ Kittle, M.D. "Survey highlights 'nonpartisan' ACLU's liberal biases". Watchdog.org. Retrieved February 10, 2018.[dead link]
- ^ a b Donaldson-Evans, Catherine (January 12, 2004), "ACLU Comes to Rush Limbaugh's Defense" Archived January 15, 2013, at the Wayback Machine, Fox News
- ^ Walker, p. 242 (Wallace).
- ^ Walker, p. 103 (Ford).
- ^ Walker, p. 375 (North).
- ^ ACLU list of successes (Gregory).
- ^ a b c d Walker, p. 82.
- ^ Walker, p. 200 (Kent).
- ^ "ACLU Statement on Charlottesville Violence and Demonstrations". American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved February 25, 2018.
- ^ Biskupic, Joan. "ACLU takes heat for its free-speech defense". CNN. Retrieved February 25, 2018.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the originalon January 1, 2022. Retrieved February 25, 2018.
- ^ "Free Speech". Archived from the original on August 3, 2022.
- ^ In 2000, the ACLU responded to such criticism by stating "[i]t is easy to defend freedom of speech when the message is something many people find at least reasonable. But the defense of freedom of speech is most critical when the message is one most people find repulsive." from ACLU Statement on Defending Free Speech of Unpopular Organizations, August 31, 2000. Retrieved January 19, 2012.
- ^ Walker, pp. 17, 20.
- ^ Walker, pp. 23–24, 30.
- ^ Walker, p. 26.
- ^ Walker, p. 27.
- ^ Walker, p. 30.
- ^ Walker, p. 66.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 70.
- ^ Walker, p. 67.
- ^ a b Walker, pp. 51–52.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 52.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 53.
- ^ Walker, p. 55
- ^ Walker, p. 57.
- ^ Walker, p, 58.
- ^ Walker, p. 59.
- ^ Walker, p. 60.
- ^ Walker, p. 61.
- ^ Walker, p. 68.
- ^ a b c d Walker, p. 63.
- ^ Walker, p. 71.
- ^ University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, "Tennessee v. John Scopes: The 'Monkey Trial' (1925)" Archived February 9, 2015, at the Wayback Machine, Famous Trials in American History, last updated April 25, 2005 (last visited January 7, 2008).
- ^ "The Evolution-Creationism Controversy: A Chronology". Archived from the original on April 9, 2004.
- ^ Walker, p. 73.
- ^ Walker, p. 75. The newspaper was the St. Louis Post Dispatch.
- ^ Berkman, Michael (2010), Evolution, Creationism, and the Battle to Control America's Classrooms, Cambridge University Press, pp. 100–01.
- ^ Walker, pp. 78–79. The case was in New Jersey, State v. Butterworth. Decision quoted by Walker.
- ^ Walker, p. 79.
- ^ Walker, p. 80.
- ^ 268 U.S. 510 (1925)
- ^ "Pierce v. Society of Sisters". University of Chicago Kent School of Law. Retrieved June 28, 2013.
- ^ a b Kauffman 1982, p. 282.
- ^ Kauffman 1982, p. 283.
- ^ Alley 1999, pp. 41–44.
- ^ Walker, p. 81
- ^ Walker, p. 82. The cases included Gitlow (1925), Whitney (1927), Powell (1932), and Patterson (1935).
- ^ a b c d Walker, p. 86.
- ^ a b c d Walker, p. 85.
- ^ Walker, p. 90
- ^ Walker, p. 91.
- ^ a b c d Walker, p. 112
- ^ a b c d Walker, p. 87.
- ^ Walker, p. 88.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 89.
- ^ The Margold Report was named after its principal author, Nathan Ross Margold, a white attorney.
- ^ Walker, p. 92.
- ^ Walker, p. 95.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 96.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 97
- ^ Walker, p. 100.
- ^ Walker, pp. 99–100.
- ^ Walker, p. 98.
- ^ a b Walker, pp. 105–06.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 106.
- ^ Court decision quoted by Walker, p. 106.
- ^ a b c Walker, p. 107.
- ^ Wagner, p. 101.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 103.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 104.
- ^ The ACLU was not the primary legal representative; the Witnesses had their own legal team, led by Hayden C. Covington during this era.
- ^ a b c Walker, p. 108.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 109.
- ^ Justice Robert Jackson quoted by Walker, p. 109.
- ^ Walker, p. 115.
- ^ Walker, pp. 116–17.
- ^ a b c Walker, p. 117.
- ^ Walker, pp. 117–18.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 118.
- ^ Walker, p. 119.
- ^ Walker, p. 120.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 121.
- ^ Walker, p. 122.
- ^ Walker, p. 123.
- ^ The Smith Act was ruled unconstitutional in 1957.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 133.
- ^ Walker, p. 128.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 140.
- ISBN 978-1598133561.
- ^ Beito, p. 211-213.
- ^ Beito, p. 244-250.
- ^ Beito, p. 215-234.
- ^ Walker, p. 137.
- ^ Beito, p. 183-184.
- ^ a b c d e f g Niiya, Brian. "American Civil Liberties Union". Densho Encyclopedia. Retrieved September 24, 2014.
- ^ Beito, p. 184-185.
- ^ Walker, p. 142.
- ^ Walker, p. 138.
- ^ Walker, p. 145.
- ^ Walker, pp. 146–47
- ^ Chin, Steven A. When Justice Failed: The Fred Korematsu Story, Raintree, 1992, p. 95.
- ^ Walker, p. 157.
- ^ Niiya, Brian. "Ernest Besig". Densho Encyclopedia. Retrieved September 26, 2014.
- ^ Yamato, Sharon (October 21, 2014). "Carrying the Torch: Wayne Collins Jr. on His Father's Defense of the Renunciants". Discover Nikkei. Archived from the original on July 28, 2018. Retrieved September 30, 2018.
- ISBN 978-1597144360.
- ^ a b c d e f g Walker, p. 186.
- ^ Walker, pp. 168–69.
- ^ Walker, p. 164.
- ^ Walker, pp. 173–75.
- ^ Walker, pp. 175–76.
- ^ walker, p. 176.
- ^ Walker, p. 177.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 179
- ^ a b Walker, p. 181.
- ^ Walker, p. 183.
- ^ a b c Walker, p. 185.
- ^ a b Walker, p 187.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 195.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 188.
- ^ Walter, pp. 188–89.
- ^ Walker, p 190. The case was Speiser v. Randall.
- ^ Walker, photo caption of Flynn, page following 214.
- ^ Walker, pp. 193, 195–96.
- ^ Walker, pp. 191–93.
- ^ "Raymond L. Wise, 91, Dies; Former Director of A.C.L.U." New York Times. July 8, 1986. Retrieved April 1, 2017.
- ^ "Ethel Rosenberg". Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved March 30, 2023.
- ^ Roberts, Sam (September 23, 1983). "THE ROSENBERGS: NEW EVIDENCE, OLD PASSIONS". The New York Times. Retrieved March 30, 2023.
- ^ Walker, pp. 205–06.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 207.
- ^ a b c Walker, p. 208.
- ^ Walker, p. 199.
- ^ Walker, p. 200.
- ^ Walker, p. 201.
- ^ Walker, pp. 201–02.
- ^ Walker, p. 202. The case was Slochower v. Board of Higher Education of New York City, 350 US 551 (1956).
- ^ Walker, pp. 208–11.
- ^ Walker, p. 209.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 210.
- ^ Graham's proposal quoted in Walker
- ^ Walker, pp. 210–11.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 211.
- ^ Corliss Lamont, in particular, portrayed that era as a major lapse of principle.
- ^ Walker, p. 212.
- ^ Walker, pp. 213–14, 217–18.
- ^ Walker, pp. 240–42.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 246.
- ^ a b c d Walker, p. 217
- ^ Membership numbers are from 1955 and 1965.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 236.
- ^ a b c Walker, p. 219
- ^ Black quoted by Walker.
- ^ Black was paraphrasing Thomas Jefferson, who first employed the metaphor of a wall. Urofsky, Melvin, "Church and State", in Bodenhamer, p. 67.
- ^ a b c d Walker, p. 221.
- ^ a b c Walker, p. 222.
- ^ a b c Walker, p. 223
- ^ Walker, p. 224
- ^ a b Walker, p. 225.
- ^ a b c Walker, p. 227.
- ^ Walker, p. 229.
- ^ Walker, p. 230.
- ^ a b c Walker, p. 231.
- ^ Walker, p. 232.
- ^ Walker, p. 235.
- ^ Walker, p. 233.
- ^ Walker, pp. 232–33.
- ^ Walker, p. 234.
- ^ a b c d Walker, p. 238.
- ^ ACLU, ACLU Amicus Brief in Brown v. Board of Education, October 11, 1952 (PDF brief).
- ^ Walker, pp. 255–57.
- ^ Walker, p. 247.
- ^ Walker, pp. 246–50.
- ^ Walker, pp. 246–48.
- ^ Walker, pp. 248–49.
- ^ Walker, pp. 249–51.
- ^ Walker, pp. 252–53.
- ^ Walker, p. 250.
- ^ Walker, pp. 250–51.
- ^ Walker, p. 252.
- ^ Walker, p. 274.
- ^ a b Walker, pp. 257, 261–62.
- ^ Walker, pp. 262–64.
- ^ a b c Walker, p. 262
- ^ The count of affiliates is of affiliates with permanent staff.
- ^ Walker, p. 263. Characterizations by Samuel Walker.
- ^ Walker, pp. 263–64.
- ^ Walker, p. 261.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 263.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 264.
- ^ Walker, pp. 264–65.
- ^ Walker, p. 266.
- ^ Walker, p. 267.
- ^ Walker, pp. 268–69.
- ^ Walker, pp. 270–71.
- ^ Walker, p. 271.
- ^ ACLU list of successes; the case was Gregory v. Chicago, 394 US 111.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 280.
- ^ Walker, p. 280. Meredith, in fact, was not assassinated.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 281.
- ^ Walker, p. 286.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 285.
- ^ Walker, pp. 289–90.
- ^ Jones, Glyn (November 10, 1973). "ACLU Would Impeach Nixon". Greenfield Recorder. Deerfield, Massachusetts: Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association. #L06.052. Archived from the original on December 1, 2019. Retrieved October 16, 2019 – via Online Collection – Memorial Hall Museum.
- ^ Clack, Alfred E. (October 5, 1973). "A.C.L.U. Asks Impeachment of Nixon". The New York Times. Retrieved October 15, 2019 – via Times's print archive.
- ^ "Impeachment Book Offered By A.C.L.U." The New York Times. November 25, 1973. Retrieved October 15, 2019 – via Times's print archive.
- ^ Walker, p. 294
- ^ Walker, pp. 314–16.
- ^ Walker, p. 299. Key ACLU leaders in this effort were Ira Glasser and Aryeh Neier.
- ^ Raskin, James B. (2009), "No Enclaves of Totalitarianism", American University Law Review, Vol. 58:1193.
- ^ Walker, p. 307.
- ^ a b c Walker, p. 309.
- ISBN 978-1594035555. Retrieved October 3, 2014.
- ^ Note, "Beyond the Ken of Courts", Yale Law Journal 72 (1963):506. Cited by Walker, p. 310.
- ^ Walker, p. 310.
- ^ Walker, pp. 310–11. The ACLU was not involved in the Landman case.
- ^ Pullman, Sandra (March 7, 2006). "Tribute: The Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and WRP Staff". ACLU.org. Accessed November 18, 2010.
- ^ Walker, p. 299.
- ^ The ERA was passed by congress in 1972 but failed to be ratified by the states.
- ^ Walker, pp. 304–05.
- ^ Walker, p. 312.
- ^ State Of Minnesota. (PDF). Retrieved on May 24, 2014.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 313.
- JSTOR j.ctt32bqj0.7.
- ^ "Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood, ACLU File Challenges to Abortion Restrictions in Three States". Center for Reproductive Rights. September 27, 2013. Archived from the original on July 9, 2017. Retrieved May 1, 2017.
- ^ "For Women's Reproductive Freedom, a Chill Wind Blows". The American Prospect. Archived from the original on May 2, 2017. Retrieved May 1, 2017.
- ^ "Abstinence-Only Education in the Courts". Retrieved May 2, 2017 – via ProQuest.
- ^ Wong, Elizabeth (January 11, 2013). "A Shameful History: Eugenics in Virginia". ACLUVA. Retrieved August 16, 2021.
- ^ "About the ACLU reproductive freedom project". Retrieved August 23, 2021.
- ^ "Hodgson v. Minnesota, 497 U.S. 417 (1990)". Justia Law. Retrieved August 23, 2021.
- ^ Biskupic, Joan (January 9, 1996). "Court Spurns Challenge to Condom Policy". washingtonpost.com. Retrieved August 21, 2021.
- JSTOR 25774248.
- ^ "ACLU of PA: Clara Bell Duvall Reproductive Freedom Project – Philadelphia". Philadelphia.pa. Archived from the original on February 28, 2018. Retrieved May 1, 2017.
- ^ Walker, pp. 300–01
- ^ Walker, p. 302.
- ^ Walker, p. 303.
- ^ Walker, p. 303. The ACLU did not participate directly in Roe v. Wade, but did lead the effort in the companion case Doe v. Bolton.
- ^ Walker, p. 308.
- ^ Walker, p. 317.
- ^ Bishop, Joseph W., "Politics and the ACLU", Commentary 52 (December 1971): 50–58. Bishop cited by Walker. Bishop was a professor of law at Yale.
- ^ a b Walker, p. 318.
- ^ Walker, pp. 319, 363. Bush quoted by Walker.
- ^ Ed McManus, "Nazi March: What's It All About?", Illinois Issues, v.13, Nov. 1978 (available at Illinois Periodicals Online Archived September 8, 2006, at the Wayback Machine).
The federal appeal case was Smith v. Collin 447 F. Supp. 676. See also Supreme Court: Smith v. Collin, 439 US 916 (1978), and National Socialist Party v. Skokie, 432 US 43 (1977). - ^ 30,000 ACLU members resigned in protest.
- ^ Philippa Strum, When the Nazis Came to Skokie: Freedom for Speech We Hate (University Press of Kansas) (University of Kansas Press publisher's catalog description Archived August 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine).
- ^ "Membership woes hurt ACLU while others gain". Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved October 7, 2006.
- ^ "2d suit to block Nazis from Skokie march fails". Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved October 7, 2006.
- ^ "The High Cost of Free Speech: A.C.L.U. dilemma: defending "hateful and heinous" ideas". Time. June 28, 1978. Archived from the original on June 24, 2009. Retrieved May 18, 2009.
- ^ 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved February 29, 2024.
- ^ Walker, p. 239.
- ^ Walker, pp. 342–43.
McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, 529 F. Supp. 1255 (E.D. Ark. 1982) ("transcription" by Clark Dorman, January 30, 1996, at TalkOrigins). - ^ "Letter to Reps. Smith and Scott on H.R. 4623, the "Child Obscenity and Pornography Prevention Act of 2002"". ACLU.org. May 8, 2002. Archived from the original on December 14, 2007. Retrieved November 20, 2007.
- ^ "Debating Our Destiny: The 1988 Debates". PBS. Archived from the original on December 31, 2013. Retrieved August 24, 2017.
- ^ Randall Rothenburg (September 28, 1988). "A.C.L.U. Goes Hollywood in Countering Bush's Campaign of Derision". The New York Times. Retrieved September 28, 2008.
- ^ a b ACLU, "ACLU Statement on Defending Free Speech of Unpopular Organizations", August 31, 2000.
- ^ Walker, p. 375. The federal appeals court case is North v. United States 910 F.2d 843.
- ^ "The Iran-Contra Affair – 1986-1987". Washington Post. March 27, 1998. Retrieved March 7, 2012.
- ^ "521 U. S. 844 (1997)" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on November 14, 2017. Retrieved June 27, 2017.
- ^ Adam S. Marlin, "First Amendment is obstacle to spam legislation" Archived August 26, 2013, at the Wayback Machine, CNN, June 9, 2000.
- ^ ACLU, "Letter to the Senate Urging Opposition to S.877, the "Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003"", July 30, 2003 (last visited January 7, 2008).
- ^ ACLU, "In Wake of ACLU Civil Rights Lawsuit Settlement, African Americans Affected by Texas Drug Task Force Scandal Call for Reconciliation at Town Meeting ", June 2, 2005 (last visited April 10, 2009).
- ^ "American Violet".
- ^ ACLU, "U.S. Supreme Court Ruling that Boy Scouts Can Discriminate Is 'Damaging but Limited,' ACLU Says", June 28, 2000 (last visited October 26, 2009).
- ^ Bradburn et al. v. North Central Regional Library District Archived October 25, 2013, at the Wayback Machine (US District Court, Eastern District of Washington), "ACLU Lawsuit Seeks Access to Lawful Information on Internet for Library Patrons in Eastern Washington". November 16, 2006. Archived from the original on January 7, 2011. Retrieved January 7, 2011.
- ^ "Internet Porn is Subject of ACLU lawsuit", International Business Times, February 3, 2012.
- ^ Garance Burke, "ACLU Sues for Anti-Gay Group That Pickets at Troops' Burials", The Washington Post, July 23, 2006.
- ^ The ACLU challenged the Missouri law, which was similar to the federal Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act.
- ^ "ACLU of Eastern Missouri Challenges Law Banning Pickets and Protests One Hour Before or After a Funeral", ACLU, July 21, 2006.
- ^ "ACLU of Eastern Missouri Applauds Decision in Free Speech Case".
- ^ "McCullen v. Coakley". American Civil Liberties Union. September 18, 2013. Retrieved January 21, 2019.
- ^ "McCullen v. Coakley".
- ^ "Amicus Curiae Brief of the American Civil Liberties Union in Support of Appellant on Supplemental Question" (PDF). Citizens United V. Federal Election Commission: 24. July 29, 2009. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022. Retrieved April 1, 2012.
- ^ Goldstein, Joseph (January 24, 2010). "ACLU May Reverse Course on Campaign Finance Limits After Supreme Court Ruling". New York Sun. Retrieved March 1, 2019.
- ^ "The ACLU and Citizens United". ACLU. March 27, 2012. Retrieved April 1, 2012.
- ^ "Georgia: In Suing State, A.C.L.U. Defends Klan - The New York Times". The New York Times. September 15, 2012. Retrieved February 17, 2022.
- ^
- Soave, Robby (June 21, 2018). "Leaked Internal Memo reveals ACLU is wavering on free speech". Reason. Retrieved December 28, 2021.
- "Civil Rights v civil liberties at the aclu". The Economist. Retrieved December 28, 2021.
- Kirchick, James (May 24, 2016). "The Disintegration of the ACLU". Tablet. Retrieved December 28, 2021.
- Gillespie, Nick; Taylor, Regan (June 23, 2022). "As the ACLU Recedes From Its Core Mission, FIRE Expands To Fill the Void". Reason.com. Retrieved June 25, 2022.
- Bazelon, Lara. "The ACLU Has Lost Its Way". The Atlantic.
- ^ a b Peters, Jeremy W. (March 22, 2024). "The A.C.L.U. Said a Worker Used Racist Tropes and Fired Her. But Did She?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 22, 2024. Retrieved March 22, 2024.
- ^ "Why the ACLU is adjusting its approach to "free speech" after Charlottesville". Vox. August 21, 2017. Retrieved February 17, 2022.
- ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved June 22, 2018.
- ^ "Freedom of Expression – ACLU Position Paper". American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved June 22, 2018.
- ^ "Brandenburg v. Ohio 395 U.S. 444 (1969) | ACLU of Ohio". www.acluohio.org. Archived from the original on June 22, 2018. Retrieved June 22, 2018.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the originalon December 28, 2021. Retrieved October 29, 2021.
- ^ Robby Soave (June 21, 2018). "Leaked Internal Memo Reveals the ACLU Is Wavering on Free Speech". Reason.com. Retrieved February 17, 2022.
- ^ Hoffman, Jordan (October 2, 2020). "Film explores why a Jewish former ACLU head defended Nazi's right to free speech". The Times of Israel. Retrieved December 28, 2021.
- ^ ""Mighty Ira:" A Documentary About The Man Who Defined American Civil Liberties". News. October 23, 2020. Retrieved April 11, 2023.
- ^ Hoffman, Jordan. "Film explores why a Jewish former ACLU head defended Nazis' right to free speech". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved April 11, 2023.
- ^ Cole, David (June 6, 2021). "Defending Speech We Hate". ACLU. Retrieved December 28, 2021.
- ^ "California Marriage Case", ACLU, retrieved June 28, 2009
- ^ "California's Prop 8 Update", ACLU, November 6, 2008.
- ^ "Federal Appeals Court Says California Marriage Ban Is Unconstitutional" Archived April 18, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, ACLU, February 7, 2012.
- ^ "Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame". glhalloffame.org. Archived from the original on October 17, 2015.
- ^ Lasar, Matthew (March 29, 2011). ""Don't filter me": ACLU fights schools that block LGBT websites". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on December 15, 2014. Retrieved December 14, 2014.
- ^ Geidner, Chris (January 7, 2013). "Servicemembers Kicked Out Under Military's Gay Ban Since '04 To Receive Full Separation Pay". Buzz Feed. Archived from the original on January 9, 2013. Retrieved January 7, 2013.
- ^ Muñoz, Carlo (January 7, 2013). "'Don't ask, don't tell' dischargees to receive full back pay from DOD". The Hill. Retrieved January 7, 2013.
- ACLU [@ACLU] (September 18, 2021). "With Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death, we lost a champion for abortion and gender equality. And on the anniversary of her death, the fight to protect abortion access is more urgent than ever. https://t.co/vIKadIHouN" (Tweet). Archived from the original on September 7, 2022. Retrieved December 13, 2022 – via Twitter.
- ^ Powell, Michael (September 27, 2021). "A.C.L.U Apologizes for Tweet That Altered Quote by Justice Ginsburg". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 28, 2021. Retrieved December 28, 2021.
- ^ Kaminer, Wendy (October 25, 2021). "The ACLU is now siding with the censors". Spiked Online. Retrieved December 28, 2021.
- ^ "BYRON TANNER CROSS, ET AL. V. LOUDOUN COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD, ET AL. (AMICUS)". ACLU of Virginia. October 13, 2021. Retrieved May 2, 2022.
- ^ "ACLU of Nevada Supports Individual's Right to Bear Arms". ACLU of Nevada. June 27, 2008. Archived from the original on June 29, 2008. Retrieved June 27, 2008.
- ACLU [@ACLU] (July 25, 2021). "Racism is foundational to the Second Amendment and its inclusion in the Bill of Rights. Learn more from experts Carol Anderson and Charles Howard Candler on this episode of the At Liberty podcast. https://t.co/9AjGALT1GH" (Tweet). Archived from the original on July 7, 2022. Retrieved December 13, 2022 – via Twitter.
- ^ "The Racist Origins of the Second Amendment". ACLU youtube channel. July 22, 2021. Archived from the original on November 15, 2021. Retrieved August 2, 2021.
- ^ "The gun violence epidemic continues to spark debate about the Second Amendment and who has a right to bear arms. But often absent in these debates is the intrinsic anti-Blackness of the unequal enforcement of gun laws, and the relationship between appeals to gun rights and the justification of militia violence. Throughout the history of this country, the rhetoric of gun rights has been selectively manipulated and utilized to inflame white racial anxiety, and to frame Blackness as an inherent threat." "Do Black People Have the Right to Bear Arms". American Civil Liberties Union. July 16, 2021. Retrieved August 2, 2021.
- ^ "National Security – Recent Court Cases, Issues and Articles". American Civil Liberties Union. September 11, 2001. Retrieved August 15, 2012.
- ^ Ron Kampeas (December 2, 2002). "ACLU has new constituency after 9/11". Associated Press via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Archived from the original on December 8, 2007. Retrieved November 20, 2007.
- ^ ACLU, "About Us" Archived October 31, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b ACLU, "Citing Government "Blacklist"; Policy, ACLU Rejects $500,000 from Funding Program ", July 31, 2004 (last visited January 7, 2008).
- ^ Hamblett, Mark (December 16, 2008). "2nd Circuit Requires Judicial Review Before Security Letter Gag Order". New York Law Journal. Retrieved November 8, 2010.
- ^ Zetter, Kim (August 10, 2010). "'John Doe' Who Fought FBI Spying Freed From Gag Order After 6 Years". Wired.com. Archived from the original on October 18, 2010. Retrieved November 8, 2010.
- ^ Doe, John (March 23, 2007). "My National Security Letter Gag Order". Washington Post. Retrieved November 15, 2010.
- ^ Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief ("NSA Spying Complaint"), ACLU v. NSA (E.D. Mich. January 17, 2006) (PDF of complaint available at ACLU website, "Safe and Free: NSA Spying" section of website).
- ^ Ryan Singel, "Judge Halts NSA Snooping", Wired, August 17, 2006.
- ^ Marks, Alexandra (April 3, 2007). "Privacy Advocates Fight for Ground Lost After 9/11". The Christian Science Monitor. p. USA2.
- ^ "Supreme Court Dismisses ACLU's Challenge to NSA Warrantless Wiretapping Law". American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved April 27, 2018.
- ^ "ACLU of Illinois Responds to Ruling in Terkel v. AT&T, ACLU, July 25, 2006, retrieved January 7, 2008
- ^ "ACLU Files Lawsuit in California Court Demanding End to Privacy Violations by AT&T and Verizon", ACLU, May 26, 2006, retrieved January 7, 2008
- ^ Egelko, Bob (August 11, 2006). "Surveillance lawsuits transferred to judge skeptical of Bush plan". San Francisco Chronicle.
- ^ Barnes, Robert (October 19, 2010). "Supreme Court to consider Ashcroft bid for immunity". The Washington Post. p. A2.
- ^ Rubin, Alissa J.; Rahimi, Sangar (January 17, 2010). "Bagram Detainees Named by U.S." New York Times. Archived from the original on January 1, 2022.
- ^ "US releases names of prisoners at Bagram, Afghanistan". BBC News.
- ^ ACLU criticizes killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen, calling it a 'dangerous' precedent | Need to Know. PBS (September 30, 2011). Retrieved on May 24, 2014.
- ^ Romero, Anthony D. (August 10, 2020). "Dismantle the Department of Homeland Security. Its tactics are fearsome: ACLU director". USA Today. Retrieved August 10, 2020.
- ^ Phillips, Kristine (August 26, 2020). "ACLU files lawsuit for Portland protesters, military veterans against Trump administration". USA Today. Retrieved August 28, 2020.
- ACLU [@ACLU] (November 9, 2016). "Should President-elect Donald Trump attempt to implement his unconstitutional campaign promises, we'll see him in court" (Tweet). Archived from the original on August 12, 2022. Retrieved December 13, 2022 – via Twitter.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the originalon January 1, 2022. Retrieved January 30, 2017.
- ^ "ACLU and Other Groups Challenge Trump Immigration Ban After Refugees Detained at Airports Following Executive Order". Speak Freely (blog). American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved January 30, 2017.
- ^ "Judge blocks deportations as Trump order sparks global outrage". Politico. Retrieved February 5, 2017.
- ^ Stelter, Brian (January 30, 2017). "ACLU racks up $24.1 million in donations over weekend". CNNMoney. Retrieved January 30, 2017.
- ^ a b "Outrage over Trump's immigrant ban helps ACLU raise more money online in one weekend than in all of 2016". USA Today. Retrieved February 18, 2017.
- ^ "ACLU Annual Report 2017".
- ^ Stahl, Leslie (March 10, 2019). "The ACLU's surprising new political strategy, modeled in part after the NRA." CBSNews.com. CBS News. Retrieved October 9, 2019.
- ^ "Judge Rejects Teaching Intelligent Design", The New York Times, December 21, 2005
- ^ "444 F.3d 1118". Bulk.resource.org. Archived from the original on May 17, 2010. Retrieved August 15, 2012.
- ^ Westwater, Brady (September 20, 2006). "Handing skid row to the drug dealers". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 15, 2012.
- ^ "LAPD Gentrifies Skid Row". Colorlines. October 3, 2007. Archived from the original on March 31, 2013. Retrieved August 15, 2012.
- ^ Fox, Margalit (December 1, 2011). "Articles about Skid Row". The Boston Globe. Retrieved August 15, 2012.[dead link]
- ^ The Oregonian Editorial Board (November 29, 2009). Saying goodbye to an ugly, lingering prejudice. The Oregonian. Retrieved January 27, 2022.
- ^ "Oregon Repeals KKK Ban on Religious Clothing for Teachers". April 3, 2010.
- ^ Helmore, Edward (April 29, 2022). "ACLU helped draft article at heart of Depp v Heard case for $3.5m donation, court hears". The Guardian. Retrieved May 11, 2022.
- ^ Maddus, Gene (April 28, 2022). "ACLU Says Amber Heard's Domestic Violence Op-Ed Aimed to Capitalize on 'Aquaman' Press". Variety. Retrieved May 11, 2022.
- ^ Chappell, Bill (April 29, 2022). "The ACLU says Amber Heard has paid less than half of her $3.5 million donation pledge". NPR. Retrieved May 11, 2022.
- ^ Nolan, Emma (June 2022). "Newsweek". Why the ACLU Is Asking Johnny Depp for $86,000 Ahead of Verdict. Newsweek. Retrieved June 3, 2022.
- Courthouse News. Retrieved June 2, 2022.
- ^ Rico, R. J. (June 1, 2022). "Explainer: Each count the Depp-Heard jurors considered". Associated Press. Retrieved June 2, 2022.
- ^ Brooks, Kristopher (June 17, 2020). "Civil rights groups sue U.S government over PPP loans". www.msn.com. Retrieved February 4, 2021.
- ^ "Victims suffer double indignity". Wilmington Morning Star. Vol. 109, no. 47. Wilmington, N.C. December 15, 1975. p. 3. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
General and cited references
- Alley, Robert S. (1999). The Constitution & Religion: Leading Supreme Court Cases on Church and State. Amherst, New York: ISBN 978-1-57392-703-1.
- ISBN 978-1598133561.
- Bodenhamer, David, and Ely, James, Editors (2008). The Bill of Rights in Modern America, second edition. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-21991-6.
- ISBN 0-88738-021-2.
- ISBN 978-0-8070-4430-8. A dissident member of the ACLU criticizes its post-9/11 actions as betraying the core principles of its founders.
- Kauffman, Christopher J. (1982). Faith and Fraternalism: The History of the Knights of Columbus, 1882–1982. Harper and Row. ISBN 978-0-06-014940-6.
- Lamson, Peggy (1976). Roger Baldwin: Founder of the American Civil Liberties Union. Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-395-24761-6.
- Walker, Samuel (1990). In Defense of American Liberties: A History of the ACLU. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-504539-4.
Further reading
- Klein Woody, and Baldwin, Roger Nash (2006). Liberties lost: the endangered legacy of the ACLU. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006. A collection of essays by Baldwin, each accompanied by commentary from a modern analyst.
- Krannawitter, Thomas L. and Palm, Daniel C. (2005). A Nation Under God?: The ACLU and religion in American politics. Rowman & Littlefield.
- Sears, Alan, and Osten, Craig (2005). The ACLU vs America: Exposing the Agenda to Redefine Moral Values. B&H Publishing Group.
- Smith, Frank LaGard (1996). ACLU: The Devil's Advocate: The Seduction of Civil Liberties in America. Marcon Publishers.
Archives
- American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California records. 754 boxes. UCLA Library Special Collections.
- American Civil Liberties Union of Washington. 1917–2019. 188.31 cubic feet (including 13 microfilm reels and 1 videocassette) plus 62 cartons and 2 rolled posters. Labor Archives of Washington. University of Washington Special Collections.
- American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan: Detroit Branch Records 1952–1966. This collection documents the early years of the Detroit ACLU branch. The collection contains documents related to academic freedom; censorship; church and state; civil liberties; police brutality; HUAC; and legal assistance to prisoners. Walter P. Reuther Library, Detroit, Michigan.
- American Civil Liberties Union of Oakland County, Michigan 1970–1984. This collection illustrates that the branch was formed to address Oakland County jail conditions, lie detector use, senior housing rights, and attempts to reinstate the death penalty. Walter P. Reuther Library, Detroit, Michigan.
Selected works sponsored or published by the ACLU
- Annual Report – American Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union, 1921.
- Black Justice, ACLU, 1931.
- How Americans Protest, American Civil Liberties Union, 1963.
- Secret detention by the Chicago police: a report, American Civil Liberties Union, 1959.
- Report on lawlessness in law enforcement, Wickersham Commission, Patterson Smith, 1931. This report was written by the ACLU but published under the auspices of the Wickersham Commission.
- Miller, Merle, (1952), The Judges and the Judged, Doubleday.
- ACLU organization records, 1947–1995. Princeton University Library, Mudd Manuscript Library.
- The Dangers of Domestic Spying by Federal Law Enforcement, American Civil Liberties Union, 2002.
- Engines of Liberty: The Power of Citizen Activists to Make Constitutional Law, David D. Cole, 2016
External links
- Official website
- American Civil Liberties Union Records, Princeton University. Document archive 1917–1950, including the history of the ACLU.
- Debs Pamphlet Collection Archived August 12, 2020, at the Wayback Machine, Indiana State University Library. An array of annual ACLU reports in PDF.
- List of 100 most important ACLU victories, New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union.
- De-classified FBI records on the ACLU