Special Interest Groups

• WHAT IS ITS MISSION?
• HOW IS IT STRUCTURED?
• PRIMARY FUNCTIONS
• PROGRAMS
• BUDGET INFORMATION
• HISTORY
• CURRENT POLITICAL ISSUES
• FUTURE DIRECTIONS
• GROUP RESOURCES
• GROUP PUBLICATIONS
• BIBLIOGRAPHY

ESTABLISHED: 1920
EMPLOYEES: 150
MEMBERS: 300,000
PAC: None

Contact Information:
ADDRESS: 125 Broad St., 18th Fl. New York, NY 10004
PHONE: (212) 549-2500
E-MAIL: aclu@aclu.org
URL: http://www.aclu.org
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Ira Glasser
PRESIDENT: Nadine Strossen

WHAT IS ITS MISSION?

The primary mandate of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is to defend and preserve the Bill of Rights, the amendments to the U.S. Constitution that guarantee individual civil rights to each of the country's citizens. The ACLU, a public interest law firm, works in "courts, legislatures, and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." In accordance with that stated purpose, the ACLU expends a significant amount of its effort in the nation's courtrooms defending lawsuits it files against governments, corporations, and individuals suspected of violating the civil rights of U.S. citizens.

HOW IS IT STRUCTURED?

The ACLU's national office in New York City is managed by an eight-member staff. The individual ultimately responsible for the day-to-day operations of the ACLU is the executive director. As top staff member, the executive director reports directly to an 84-member board of directors.

While a national organization, the ACLU maintains a local presence in many communities across the United States. The ACLU has 50 state-based affiliates and 379 local chapters with these offices primarily staffed by volunteers. The organization's state and local chapters operate independently of the national organization. Each of the 50 state affiliates has a representative on the ACLU's board of directors.

A couple holds their adopted 2-year-old son at an ACLU press conference following a 1997 New Jersey court landmark ruling allowing joint adoption of foster care children by gay or unmarried couples. (Photograph by Rich Schultz, AP/Wide World Photos)

The ACLU has 300,000 members nationwide. ACLU members are simply supporters who pay annual dues. Members do not generally get involved with the day-to-day operations of the organization. More active, volunteer members, make up a significant portion of ACLU's work force. Approximately 2,000 volunteer attorneys collaborate with 60 paid staff attorneys to handle an average of 6,000 ACLU cases annually.

Since 1968 the ACLU has administered some of its activities through the ACLU Foundation. Like the ACLU, the foundation litigates, but it does not lobby legislatures. One major initiative created by the ACLU and the ACLU Foundation in tandem has been a push for increased public education programs. The ACLU and the ACLU Foundation use direct mail to deliver information about civil rights legislation, the institution's activities, and fund raising efforts.

PRIMARY FUNCTIONS

First and foremost, the ACLU is a law firm dedicated to the defense of civil rights. Therefore the organization does most of its work in U.S. courtrooms, representing a wide range of clients on a variety of issues. In fact, the ACLU has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court more than any other organization—apart from the government itself—in its efforts to change local, state, or federal laws or statutes that violate civil liberties. For example, in 1996 the ACLU sued a Mississippi public school system that required students to participate in religious instruction. The ACLU will also defend individual plaintiffs it believes are being prosecuted unfairly by the justice system.

In addition to its work in courts across the United States, the ACLU maintains a presence in Washington, D.C., lobbying Congress to prevent potential civil rights abuses. A prime example of ACLU lobbying efforts is its continued attempt to defeat U.S. flag amendments. The ACLU has historically defended individuals who have used the flag in making political statements, such as citizens who set fire to the stars and stripes in symbolic protest against the government and its policies. There have been movements across the country to add an amendment to the Constitution that would make such acts illegal. The ACLU has consistently fought such movements, maintaining that a flag desecration amendment would severely and unfairly limit free speech.

The ACLU also works to educate the public about issues with the potential to infringe on constitutionally guaranteed rights. It disseminates information to its members and the public at large about how members of Congress, the Supreme Court, and local lawmakers and courts are responding to the civil liberties issues that are presented to them. It also alerts its members when mobilizing supporters to contact legislators who could make a difference.

PROGRAMS

Most of the ACLU's programs have to do with educating the public on various civil rights issues. Others revolve around various legal challenges. Two ACLU programs in particular focus on the rapid dissemination of information. With its Action Alert program, the organization aims to quickly spread word to the public about important civil liberties issues being introduced before Congress. The ACLU sends E-mail on these issues and encourages its members to write to their legislators. The Execution Alert program centers around the ACLU's continuing opposition to the death penalty: its belief that no individual should be put to death by the state, no matter what manner of crime has been committed. The organization keeps track of prisoners on death row and if an execution appears imminent, it sends out E-mail to alert those interested.

The Women's Rights Project is a special division within the ACLU that, since the early 1970s, has fought to ensure equal rights for women. The project has challenged such things as lack of professional advancement for women, and discrimination in the workplace on the basis of pregnancy.

BUDGET INFORMATION

The ACLU and the ACLU Foundation receive no money from the federal government. Rather, the organizations get their operating capital from membership dues, grants, and contributions from private sources. These sources are indeed substantial: the combined 1995 operating budget of both the ACLU and its foundation was approximately $26 million. That figure was for the national organization only, and excluded the operating budget of state affiliates. The 1995 budget breakdown included expenses of $7 million on legal services, $4 million on education, and $5 million on fundraising. The ACLU sent state affiliates almost $6 million in support and spent $1 million on management. It also ran a cash surplus of approximately $3 million.

HISTORY

The ACLU was founded in 1920, the same year the Nineteenth Amendment granting women the right to vote was added to the Constitution. By 1920 the U.S. Supreme Court had yet to uphold any free speech claims that fell under the First Amendment, but that would soon change. Within five years controversial defense attorney Clarence Darrow had joined with the ACLU to defend a Tennessee public school teacher named John Scopes in what would become known as the "Monkey Trial." Scopes had been indicted and prosecuted for teaching the theory of evolution in his class, which was illegal in the state of Tennessee. In a case that would spark national controversy revolving around freedom of religion issues and which was later immortalized in the play Inherit the Wind, Darrow defended Scopes's right to teach Darwinian theories despite their irreconcilability with the region's prevailing Christian beliefs.

In 1933 the ACLU helped win the battle over Irish novelist James Joyce's Ulysses, a work of fiction considered by many at the time to be pornographic. Published in Europe, the novel was not even allowed to enter the United States until Judge John Woolsey granted general U.S. distribution of Ulysses in a historic Supreme Court decision.

Infringements on the Bill of Rights continued into the 1940s as West Coast ACLU affiliates fought the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II (1939–45). Claiming national security interests, the U.S. government relocated 110,000 Japanese Americans into internment camps, causing many of these citizens to lose everything they owned and spend the duration of the war in these camps.

In the 1950s the ACLU was a participant in the legal dispute over desegregation that culminated in the historic U.S. Supreme Court ruling Brown v. Board of Education. In the early years of the decade, public school systems like other areas of society were still racially segregated; blacks and whites were not allowed to attend the same schools. In its dedication to help end segregation, ACLU volunteers acted as part of the legal team successfully fighting for desegregation in public schools.

In one of the most controversial cases ever decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, the ACLU helped bring about the ruling in 1973's Roe v. Wade that decriminalized abortion. The ACLU was active in the pro-choice movement before Roe v. Wade and has been involved in the subsequent debate over abortion legislation. In contrast to advancing a strongly liberal agenda with Roe v. Wade, in late 1977 the ACLU supported, defended, and ultimately won the right of members of the U.S. Nazi Party to march in Skokie, Illinois, in support of their conservative beliefs. At the time, 1,000 victims of the Nazi Holocaust lived in Skokie, a suburb of Chicago. The march was considered inflammatory, and the ACLU was resoundingly criticized for its work on behalf of the Nazis.

In 1981, 56 years after the Scopes Monkey Trial, the ACLU fought another evolution versus creationism battle when it contested an Arkansas statute that endorsed the biblical story of creation as a scientific and acceptable alternative to the theory of evolution. The statute called for creationism to be taught in schools. The ACLU sued and the statute was found to be unconstitutional by U.S. District Judge William Overton.

For 51 years the ACLU declined to either endorse or oppose candidates to the U.S. Supreme Court. However, the organization reversed this intentional policy of neutrality in 1987 when it successfully opposed the nomination of Robert Bork, a controversial conservative judge nominated by President Ronald Reagan. A year later Vice President George Bush attempted to fuel his campaign for president by attacking his opponent, former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, as a "card-carrying member" of the "liberal" ACLU. Bush won the race, but the ACLU's popularity rose and its membership increased by 50,000. The late 1980s also saw the ACLU helping defend Oliver North after his conviction by a federal court of being involved in the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal. The ACLU successfully defended North by asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Said North of the organization: "The ACLU has taken some very tough stands on some very tough issues. I'm one of those examples."

The ACLU has not always met with success. In 1990 the organization represented the family of a Missouri woman who had been in a coma, unable to breathe or eat on her own, for more than seven years. The family, believing there to be no hope of recovery, wanted to disconnect the life support system keeping the woman "alive." However, the State of Missouri denied the right of the family to let her die, and their decision was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The ACLU was involved in other sensational cases in the 1990s. In 1995 it filed a brief on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal a death row inmate awaiting his sentence for killing a Philadelphia police officer. Abu-Jamal claimed he was innocent and his case received widespread national attention. In jail he authored Live from Death Row, a book that was critical of the Pennsylvania penal system. The ACLU brief supported Abu-Jamal in his lawsuit against members of the penal system Abu-Jamal felt were punishing him. The ACLU would file a similar brief on behalf of Paula Jones in her suit against President Bill Clinton for sexual harassment while he was governor of Arkansas. In 1997 the Supreme Court struck down the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA) in ACLU v. Reno. The Act prohibited "indecent" speech on the internet. It was a major victory for the ACLU, which saw the CDA as censorship.

CURRENT POLITICAL ISSUES

While the ACLU claims to be nonpartisan, when it takes a particular position it may be involuntarily affiliating itself with a political party. For instance, the ACLU's position on abortion is similar to that of the Democratic Party. The union has also been viewed as "liberal," also an earmark of the Democratic Party. During the presidential campaign of 1988, George Bush attacked the ACLU as a Democratic Party organization with a liberal agenda.

Contributing to the organization's liberal cachet is the fact that the ACLU has been a vocal opponent of the "Religious Right." "Religious Right" is a term used to describe a segment of the Republican Party dedicated to a conservative social agenda that includes anti-gay and anti-abortion legislation. The ACLU not only disagrees with the Religious Right's position on social issues; it opposes the increasing power of the group in a more fundamental way. To the ACLU, politics and religion are poor partners that endanger the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state. Since the ACLU opposes the more conservative elements within the Republican Party, it becomes, in a way an opponent of the party itself.

The ACLU involves itself in numerous issues having to do with personal freedoms as related in the Bill of Rights. These include the right to the freedoms of speech and expression. In the 1990s the ACLU continued to uphold individual rights, often tackling issues that expanded interpretation and always caused controversy. One of the issues the organization would focus on in the late 1990s is the legalization of marijuana for certain purposes.

Case Study: Medical Use of Marijuana

In the 1990s there was a legislative movement in several states to legalize the use of marijuana in medical treatment. Many physicians believe marijuana eases the pressure on the eyes created by the degenerative eye disease glaucoma. Others believe marijuana reduces arthritis-related joint pain. Recently, patients with AIDS claim marijuana is effective in relieving nausea. Marijuana also increases appetite; AIDS patients often lose their appetites because of drug treatment. They begin to suffer from "wasting disease," losing muscle as well as body fat. Proponents assert marijuana builds hunger and helps these patients gain weight. However, the federal government insisted and continues to insist marijuana is a dangerous drug and should not be legalized, even for medical use.

In 1996 initiatives calling for the legalization of marijuana for medical use appeared in California and Arizona. These propositions, numbered 215 in California and 200 in Arizona, were passed by a majority of voters. Billionaire activist George Soros spent $1 million on the California initiative. The Arizona statute, which also allowed heroin in medical use, was approved by a two-to-one margin by voters. The Arizona initiative was bolstered by an endorsement of former conservative Senator Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.).

In January of 1997, two months after the referenda were approved, the Clinton administration announced its opposition to Propositions 215 and 200. The director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Barry McCaffrey, warned doctors not to break the federal law. McCaffrey and U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno said any doctors who attempted to prescribe marijuana for medical use would be prosecuted. Furthermore, the administration threatened to take Medicaid and Medicare funds away from any doctor who recommended marijuana.

Days after it was made public that the government intended to prosecute doctors, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of doctors, patients, and medical associations. The lawsuit blocked federal government prosecutors from action. For the ACLU, the issue of medical marijuana was more complicated than a simple question of legality; it was a First Amendment and civil liberties issue. ACLU counsel Ann Brick said, "This case is not about whether the government should legalize the medical use of marijuana; it is about whether the government may prevent doctors from providing a patient with an honest medical opinion recommending marijuana." U.S. District Court Judge Fern Smith agreed with the ACLU, issuing a temporary restraining order prohibiting the government from acting on its threat to prosecute. In her ruling Judge Smith said, "The First Amendment allows physicians to discuss and advocate medical marijuana, even though use of marijuana is illegal."

In 1998 the federal government lost ground on its opposition to medical marijuana. Four more states—Washington, Alaska, Oregon, and Nevada—ratified referenda similar to the California and Arizona initiatives. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) introduced a bill into Congress that called for the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes. Further judicial rulings regarding the legalization of marijuana was expected to occur in late 1999.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

The ACLU has dubbed free speech via the internet and other related issues "cyber-liberties." The internet is a new medium and there are few precedents for free speech judgments as there are in television, radio, and newspapers. Censorship and internet issues will receive significant attention in years to come, precisely because rules for internet free speech have not been written. In 1998 the ACLU helped defeat CDA-type legislation in Georgia and New York. The ACLU expects the proportion of cases involving cyber-liberties to increase at a tremendous rate, and has been fighting a public relations campaign against a widely supported bill introduced in the House of Representatives that calls for actions similar to the CDA. The ACLU calls the legislation "Son of CDA." The ACLU vowed to pursue this issue with diligence, believing free speech on the internet to be of the utmost importance.

GROUP RESOURCES

The ACLU maintains a Web site that reviews its most recent activities and also contains biographies of ACLU executives. In addition it has complete transcriptions of particular ACLU court actions. The Web site is accessible at http://www.aclu.org. Individuals interested in contacting the ACLU may call the organization at (212) 549-2500 or write the American Civil Liberties Union, 125 Broad St., 18th Fl., New York, NY 10004.

GROUP PUBLICATIONS

The ACLU composes briefing papers that are available through the ACLU's Office of Public Education. These briefing papers cover a variety of subjects and may include a history of the ACLU or a summary of the organization's position on a particular issue. The organization's Public Education office also sends out direct mail pieces to donors and potential donors.