Source: http://www.wikisummaries.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Union
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 15:55:06+00:00

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Description: A nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to upholding the Bill of Rights and defending the civil liberties and civil rights of all Americans.
Significance: Appearing before the Supreme Court more often than any other organization except the federal government itself, the ACLU has been involved in an estimated 80 percent of the landmark cases brought before the Court after 1920.
The ACLU was founded in 1920 by Roger Baldwin and other Progressive-era activists. It grew out of earlier organizations that had opposed the entry of the United States into World War I (1917-1918) and had upheld the rights of conscientious objectors when little popular support existed for defending these dissenters’ rights. At the time of the ACLU's founding, the Supreme Court had never upheld a free speech claim under the First Amendment but instead had repeatedly ruled that the Bill of Rights limited only the federal government and did not apply to the states. Therefore, states were free to ignore the First Amendment. Only gradually was the Court persuaded to adopt the philosophy of selective incorporation, in which various provisions of the Bill of Rights were applied to the states. The ACLU developed the legal arguments for many of these landmark decisions.
The ACLU's first victory before the Court came in Gitlow v. New York (1925). Benjamin Gitlow, a socialist, had been sentenced to prison for distributing a radical pamphlet calling for world proletarian revolution. Although the Court upheld Gitlow's conviction, it accepted the argument set forth by ACLU lawyer Walter H. Pollak that liberty of expression was a right that should be protected against state infringement. The significance of this case was not immediately recognized, and the ACLU's annual report characterized it as a defeat. Because of the conservative nature of the Court, the ACLU leadership remained divided over the extent to which it should be relied on for the protection of civil liberties. Felix Frankfurter, a member of the ACLU National Committee, argued that legislative protection of civil liberties provided a more secure and democratic foundation. What the Court could give, it could just as easily take away. Baldwin was also suspicious of legal strategies and focused his attention on direct action, particularly in support of labor. However, in 1931 ACLU lawyers successfully argued in Stromberg v. California that the conviction of a communist for displaying a red flag should be overturned because it violated the First Amendment. The decision represented the first time in the Court's history that it ruled a state law unconstitutional on free speech grounds. In the 1930's the ACLU launched a broad anticensorship campaign that focused on movie censorship, artistic expression, and the right to disseminate information regarding birth control. By the late 1930's a growing number of legal victories fueled the ACLU's increasing turn toward legalism. In 1941 the organization hired its first full-time staff attorney. The ACLU first came to national attention with the 1926 Scopes “Monkey” trial. It had offered legal assistance to anyone willing to challenge a Tennessee law prohibiting the teaching of evolution. Although biology teacher John T. Scopes was convicted, the trial brought widespread publicity and support to the fledgling organization. The issues of academic freedom and the separation of church and state would remain central to the ACLU. During the 1930's and 1940's it sponsored key cases involving the rights of Jehovah's Witnesses. Later, in the landmark ACLU-sponsored cases of Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington School District v. Schempp (1963), the Court struck down “nondenominational” school prayer and in-school Bible reading. The ACLU's commitment to civil liberties faltered in the 1940's and 1950's. During World War II (1941-1945), it unsuccessfully argued two cases involving Japanese internment, Korematsu v. United States (1944) and Hirabayashi v. United States (1943), yet refused to permit its lawyers to directly challenge the constitutionality of the internment orders. During the 1950's the ACLU succumbed to anticommunist hysteria, prohibiting communists from serving on its board. Although it filed amicus briefs in cases involving the Smith Act, an antisubversive law adopted in 1940, it refused to directly represent communists.
Garey, Diane. Defending Everybody: A History of the American Civil Liberties Union. New York: TV Books, 1998.
Lamson, Peggy. Roger Baldwin: Founder of the American Civil Liberties Union. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976.
Murphy, Paul L. World War I and the Origin of Civil Liberties in the United States. New York: W. W. Norton, 1979.
Reitman, Alan. The Pulse of Freedom: American Liberties, 1920-1970's. New York: W. W. Norton, 1975.
Walker, Samuel. In Defense of American Liberties: A History of the ACLU. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

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