Celebrating the ACLU Centennial and the Next Century

[On this day in 1920, the same day American women finally won the right to vote, the ACLU was founded. The two events are connected, in part because the ACLU's existence can be traced back to one woman, Crystal Eastman, an extraordinary lawyer, organizer, and suffragist.

In 1917, Eastman was a board member of the League Against American Militarism, a prominent anti-war organization. However, being an outspoken pacifist became dangerous when the U.S. entered World War I in 1917. That year, the government shut down The Masses, the vibrant political and arts magazine published by Eastman and her brother Max. Max was one of a number of anti-war activists who were criminally prosecuted for speaking out against the war and the draft.

Then Crystal changed direction. She came up with the idea of creating a National Civil Liberties Union to defend conscientious objectors and dissidents, trotting out a constitutional principle that was more reality than theory at the time: that punishing people for exercising their First Amendment free speech rights, no matter how radical or unpopular that speech may be The idea is that it is not permissible to punish people for exercising their First Amendment freedom of speech, no matter how radical or unpopular that speech is.

That ACLU became the ACLU with the expanded mission of defending the full range of constitutional rights of all people. One of the first activities of the young ACLU was to publish a pamphlet (the 1920s equivalent of a blog) called "The Fight for Free Speech." Whether we agree with them or not, ACLU affiliates across the country have filed lawsuits to counter McCarthy-era repressive red-baiting tactics, to counter government attempts to censor the Internet, and to protect the expressive rights of students, teachers, artists, journalists, government officials, and activists in thousands of lawsuits filed by the ACLU.

The protection of First Amendment rights has often served the ACLU's other goals, including the promotion of equality. For example, in 1936, the ACLU challenged the City of Boston's decision to ban Lillian Hellman's lesbian-themed play, The Children's Hour. Also, building on its fight against racism dating back to the 1930s (the ACLU argued that the "Scottsboro Boys" were wrongfully convicted), the ACLU vigorously defended opportunities for civil rights activists to demonstrate and organize for racial justice in the 1960s. According to John Lewis, a hero of the voting rights movement, the civil rights movement without the First Amendment was like a "bird without wings."

Another of the ACLU's first activities was to challenge the constitutionality of the Palmer Raid of 1920. The fight against xenophobia continued through World War II, when the ACLU, led by its California affiliate, became one of the first national organizations to oppose the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans. And after 9/11, we fought the anti-Muslim excesses of the "war on terror. It was ACLU lawyers who exposed the government's complicity in torture of terror suspects. [And fighting inhumane immigration policies that terrorize immigrants and separate families remains a priority as we enter our second century. In addition to winning judicial verdicts against extremely cruel and unfair practices, the ACLU has reunited more than 2,000 people with their families. Yet, the Trump administration continues to expand its attacks on the immigrant communities that have defined our national identity, totally destroying the asylum process, greatly expanding immigrant detention, and severely limiting who can secure visas to enter this country. Someone asked me how the ACLU was able to respond so quickly and comprehensively to this tsunami of anti-immigration legislation. I replied that, after all, we have been practicing for 100 years.

And for the next 100 years, we are fighting for women's equality and reproductive justice. Eastman, after all, was also an active organizer for women's suffrage. When the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was passed, most suffragists declared victory. Eastman published her famous article, "Now We Can Begin," in which she argued that gaining the right to vote was only the first step toward full equality for women. Eastman was also a co-author of the first Amendment Equality Clause, which was first proposed in 1923 to help women achieve social, economic, and political equality.

The ACLU's Women's Rights Project, founded in the early 1970s by now Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, persuaded the Court to take gender discrimination claims seriously. In many ways, however, we have only begun to realize the equality that suffrage has enabled us to pursue. Obstacles to women today include denial of access to family planning and abortion services; in 2019 alone, the ACLU fought 40 abortion bans and restrictions in 14 different states and at the federal level. We sued Frontier Airlines for discriminating against pregnant and nursing employees. education, including the repeal of body-shaming and racist awards in Wisconsin "honoring" cheerleaders with the biggest hips and biggest breasts, and the repeal of training protocols in New Jersey that instruct teachers to treat boys and girls differently based on denied "gender science." fought to overturn sex discrimination in ...

With the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts occupied by extremely conservative newcomers, there is a considerable risk that the Court will overturn hard-won civil liberties precedents. If the Court overturns Roe v. Wade, which protected a woman's right to choose abortion, we will be doubling down on the ongoing fight for reproductive freedom in the states. If the courts are hostile to civil liberties claims, we will reach out to our elected officials and legislatures. If Congress is unwilling to recognize basic American principles like fairness in elections and the criminal justice system, we will use ballot initiatives and organizing campaigns to reach out directly to the American people.

The first century of the ACLU was all about ensuring that our rights are recognized. Our second century's challenge may be to use all our creativity to defend the freedoms we thought we had already won.

Susan N. Herman is president of the ACLU.

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