The mission of the ACLU is to assure that the Bill of Rights are preserved for each new generation. The Constitution authorizes the government to act. The Bill of rights limits that authority.
The American Civil Liberties Union is the nationÆs foremost advocate of individual rights. The ACLU is concentrated in litigating, legislating, and educating the public on many issues affecting the individual freedom in the United States. The ACLU is not a public defender like Legal Services or Public Aid. It does not handle criminal cases or civil disputes. They are neither liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat. The ACLU is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, 275,000 member public interest organization devoted exclusively to protecting the basic civil liberties of all Americans, and extending them to groups that have traditionally been denied to them. For almost 70 years the ACLU has been a national institution, and is widely recognized as the countryÆs leading advocate of individual rights.
When Roger Baldwin founded the ACLU in 1920, civil liberties were in a terrible state. Citizens were sitting in jail for holding antiwar views. U.S. Attorney General Palmer was conducting raids upon aliens suspected of holding unorthodox opinions. Racial segregation was the law of the land and violence against blacks was routine. Sex discrimination was firmly in place considering that women didnÆt even have the right to vote until 1920. Constitutional rights for homosexuals, the poor, prisoner, mental patients, and other special groups were literally unthinkable. The Supreme Court hadnÆt even upheld a single free speech claim under the First Amendment.
The ACLU is frequently asked why it represented that KKK member or why it stood up for the rights of the Black Panthers. The ACLU responds that they defend the right of people to express their views, not with the views that they express. Historically the peoples whose opinions are the most controversial or extreme are those whose rights are most often threatened. The ACLU believes that once the government is empowered to violate one personÆs rights it can use that power against everyone.
The ACLU cannot take on every worthy case, so their lawyerÆs select cases that will have the greatest impact. Usually cases that have the potential to break new ground and to establish new precedents that will strengthen the freedoms we all enjoy.
The ACLU is a 50 state network of staffed affiliated offices in most major cities, and more than 300 chapters in smaller towns. Work is coordinated by a national office in New York, aided by a legislative office in Washington D.C. that lobbies Congress. The ACLU has more than a dozen national projects devoted to specific civil liberties issues, such as capital punishment, prisonerÆs rights, reproductive freedom, and even workplace rights.
The ACLU has more than 60 staff attorneyÆs who work with at least 2,000 volunteer attorneyÆs in handling close to 6,000 cases annually. That makes the Union the largest public interest law firm in the nation. The ACLU appears before the U.S. Supreme Court more than any other organization except the U.S. Department of Justice.
