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defending people you
don't always agree with.
Free speech allows the
mechanism to bring
things out in public.”
One issue Jewish
members fear most is
church and state.
With the active cam-
paign of the Christian
right to become more
political, Ms. Joyrich,
who hopes to launch a
grass-roots lobbying
group, stresses the
importance of keeping
prayer out of school.
This is one reason, she
says, "the Jewish com-
munity needs the
ACLU."
"The ACLU is one of
the predominant organi-
zations on church and
state," says board mem-
ber Leonard Grossman.
"The reason the wall of
separation must be
maintained is that too
frequently, the govern-
ment indoctrination of
religion is the same as
discrimination against
other religions."
David Gad-Harf, exec-
utive director of the
Jewish Community
Council, suggests the
ACLU can help fight this
church-state battle.
"There are some
issues in which we have
an active concern where
the ACLU really takes
the lead, like on the sep-
aration of church and
state," he says. "It is
important to have an
organization that is not
solely identified with the
Jewish community to
support civil liberty
issues."
ince its inception
by Roger Baldwin
in 1920, the
ACLU has been an orga-
nization that has blos-
somed in, and been
marred with, controver-
sy.
The groundwork for
the organization dates
back to 1918, when Mr.
Baldwin was helping
S
pacifists opposed to
World War I. At the
time, citizens were in jail
for holding antiwar
views. Mr. Baldwin him-
self was jailed for a year
for noncompliance with
the draft.
Attorney General Alex-
ander Mitchell Palmer
was conducting raids on
aliens suspected of hold-
ing unorthodox opinions.
Racial segregation was
law; violence against
blacks was routine. Sex
discrimination was stan-
dard.
There was no such
thing as constitutional
rights for homosexuals,
poor people, prisoners,
mental patients, or any
other special interest
group. And the U.S.
Supreme Court had,-
never upheld a free
speech claim under the
First Amendment.
In its first years, the
group largely directed its
work at combating the:
deportation of aliens fog:
radical beliefs, at oppos-
ing attacks on the rights
of trade unions to hold
meetings and to orga-
nize.
The ACLU lost most of
its early cases, including
the highly publicized.
Scopes trial. When
Tennessee's new anti-)
evolution law became
effective in March ol
1925, the ACLU tried t
Famous Cases and Faces
Chances are you stud-
ied in history class the
Scopes trial, Brown vs.
Board of Education, the
Nixon impeachment trial
and Roe vs. Wade.
Chances also are you
may have no idea just
what role the American
Civil Liberties Union
played in such famous
cases.
Throughout its 73-year
history, the ACLU has
gone to bat for a myriad
of individuals and
groups whose constitu-
tional rights allegedly
were violated.
The ACLU's mandate
is to assure that the Bill
of Rights — amendments
to the U.S. Constitution
that guard against
unwarranted govern-
ment control — are pre-
served.
The Constitution gives
authority to the govern-
ment, and the Bill of
Rights limits that
authority.
The ACLU is not a
public defender. It is a
non-profit, non-partisan
public interest organiza-
tion devoted to protect-
ing civil liberties of all
Americans, and extend
ing them to the group.
that have traditionalr,
been denied such rightsl
Here are some not -. a
worthy cases:
1925: THE SCOPES
TRIAL
Young science. teacher'
John T. Scopes ha': been-
teaching evolution in h±
classroom. Yet when the
state of Tennessee
adopted an anti-evolu-
tion law, he was arrest-.
ed. Attorney Clarence
Darrow, an agnostic:
lead the ACLU's volun-
teer defense team, test-
ing what ACLU believed
was the state statute's
attack on free speech.
Scopes was convi;-
and fined $101":.. •
appeal, the state
reme Court reversed t.
conviction, yet upliz,-
the statute.
1954: SCHOOL -
DESEGREGATION
Life began looking bet-
ter for civil libertarians
with the Brown vs.
Board of Education case.
In 1954, the ACLU had
joined the legal battle
resulting in the
Supreme Court's historic 1