NEW YORK CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION Championing civil rights and civil liberties for 50years NYCLU POLICY AND LEGAL STAFF BY DECADE 1950s George E. Rundquist, Executive Director Clifford Forster, Counsel Josephine Scheiber, Administrative Secretary Newsletter Editors: Leslie Slote, Eileen Martinson 1960s George E. Rundquist, Executive Director Aryeh Neier, Executive Director Amelie S. Rothschild, Associate Director Ira Glasser, Associate Director Assistant Directors: Josephine Scheiber, Gordon K. Haskell Staff Counsel: Janet Ann Johnson, Alan H. Levine, Henry N. di Suvero, Burt Neuborne, Paul Chevigny Civil Liberties and Mental Illness Project: Bruce Ennis, Director Police Practies Project: Paul G. Chevigny, Director Selective Service and Military Law Panel: Ed Oppenheimer, Coordinator Legislative Department: Neil Fabricant, Director Rebecca Hahn, Development Director Editors: Alan Bader, Gordon K. Haskell, Ronald Gold, Claire Cooper, Eve Cary Ramona Ripston, Chapter Director 1970s Ira Glasser, Executive Director David Rudenstine, Acting Executive Director Associate Directors: David Rudenstine, Barbara Shack Staff Counsel: Alan H. Levine, Burt Neuborne, Paul Chevigny, Bruce Ennis, Eve Cary, Arthur Eisenberg, Marcia Lowry, Risa Dickstein, Lawrence Faulkner, Clifford Forstadt, Richard Emery, Steven Shapiro Student Rights Project: Alan H. Levine, Director Steven M. Tullberg, Counsel Selective Service and Military Law Panel: Ed Oppenheimer, Coordinator Civil Liberties and Mental Illness Project: Bruce Ennis, Director Mental Health Law Project: Directors: Chris Hansen, Robert Levy Children’s Rights Project: Marica Lowry, Director Peter Bienstock, Counsel Steven Shapiro, Counsel Sentencing and Parole Project: David Rudenstine, Director Exclusionary Zoning Project: Lawrence Sager, Director Arthur Eisenberg, Counsel Legislative Department: Directors: Kenneth P. Norwick, Barbara Shack Thomas Stoddard, Counsel Sara Birn, Associate Ellen Azorin, Development Director Editors: Betty Borger, Lewis Grossberger, Wayne S. Braveman, Joanne Dann, Betsy Brown, Thomas Stoddard NEW YORK CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION Championing civil rights and civil liberties for 50years NEW YORK CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION 50th Anniversary Donna Lieberman Executive Director New York Civil Liberties Union: Championing Civil Rights and Civil Liberties for 50 Years This report has been prepared by the New York Civil Liberties Union, a non-partisan organization dedicated to preserving and defending the principles set forth in the Bill of Rights. Published by the New York Civil Liberties Union, September 2003. Designed by Sara Glover. NEW YORK CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION 50th Anniversary TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction . .ii The 1950s . .1 Fighting for First Principles The 1960s . .9 The NYCLU In Ascendancy The 1970s . .17 A Decade of Growth The 1980s . .27 Issues of Democratic Governance The 1990s . .37 Continued Vigilance ii NEW YORK CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION 50th Anniversary NEW YORK CIVIL ishment or oppression because of dissent- anti-war movements, the NYCLU created LIBERTIES UNION: ing beliefs, racial or religious identity, or its Students’ Rights Project – the first in Championing Civil Rights and status as a member of a discrete and insu- the country – to protect the First Civil Liberties for 50 Years lar minority group. Amendment rights of student activists. While the NYCLU has deservedly The NYCLU also created the first acquired its reputation as a principled and project in the country devoted to the pro- OR THE PAST HALF- aggressive litigating organization, its activ- tection of the mentally disabled. Its path- century the New York Civil ities have not been limited to the court- breaking lawsuit brought on behalf of the Liberties Union has been recognized F room. For at least thirty-five years the mentally disabled at the Willowbrook as the pre-eminent statewide organization NYCLU has been actively engaged in leg- facility on Staten Island led to a new com- devoted to the protection and enhance- islative lobbying, and has also effectively mitment to community placement of the ment of civil liberties and civil rights for advocated on behalf of civil liberties and institutionalized. the residents of New York. For fifty years civil rights through public education and In 1973 the NYCLU became the the NYCLU has displayed a compassion- community organizing. In this regard the first civil liberties organization in the ate devotion to the rights and well-being NYCLU’s mission has been significantly country to undertake reform of the foster- of the dissenters, the disadvantaged and enhanced by the fact that the organization care placement system. This became the the dispossessed in our society. Its work maintains offices not only in New York mission of the NYCLU’s Children’s Rights has been characterized by a commitment City but also in Albany, Syracuse, Project. At the same time the organization to constitutional principle, by the intellec- Rochester, Buffalo and Ithaca as well as in was actively engaged in lobbying and pub- tual integrity of its positions, and by its Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties. lic education in support of civilian review advocacy programs, which have been driv- The NYCLU came to the fore as a of police misconduct. The NYCLU also en by engagement with New York’s many civil liberties and civil rights organization maintained a deep commitment to civil communities. in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The rights, pursuing school-desegregation cases The NYCLU program has exhibit- NYCLU spearheaded litigation challeng- in Buffalo (Arthur v. Nyquist) and New ed a dynamic quality. In many instances ing the constitutionality of the Vietnam York City (Caulfield v. Board of Education). the NYCLU has used the litigation War; and the organization coordinated the Beginning in the decade of the sev- process as a mechanism of legal reform, work of an extensive team of lawyers who enties and on into the eighties, the with the objective of creating new consti- represented thousands of individuals NYCLU became involved as an advocate tutional doctrine in the service of civil lib- asserting conscientious-objector claims and in many voting rights issues: securing for erties and civil rights. The NYCLU has other challenges to the selective service college students the right to vote in their also provided legal counsel and advocacy system based upon its unfairness and arbi- college communities; successfully opposing on behalf of individuals whose claims may trariness. In response to the protest activi- the dilution of voting rights of racial not create new legal precedent – but who, ties that grew out of the civil-rights and minorities in Yonkers; and successfully nonetheless, have been subjected to pun- Introduction iii constitutional principles protective of free- technologies surface, controversies persist dom of speech, assembly and association. between those advocating for the autono- The NYCLU’s dynamic program my of personal, medical and scientific continues. At the same time, however, the decision-making and those who seek to challenges that we confront persist as well. impose their own religious or personal Police abuse – particularly within minority views upon others. communities – remains a systemic prob- New technologies also present new lem. The public schools in New York State opportunities for invading individual pri- are among the most racially segregated in vacy through surveillance and data collec- the nation, and significant racial disparities tion. Religionists continue to press for and inequalities with respect to educational prayer in schools, vouchers for parochial opportunities exist throughout the state. education and government funding of New York’s death penalty statute remains social service agencies engaged in religious poised to kill, its potential invocation not proselytizing. yet stayed despite growing evidence around Finally, government censorship the country of wrongful convictions in remains an enduring problem. The natural capital cases. The racial divide in this impulse to censor disagreeable speech country is more entrenched and complex inevitably drives the political branches of than it was thirty years ago when the government to seek to restrict dissenting The NYCLU was chartered in 1951, through a grant from the Kerner Commission warned us about “two or offensive expression. Such impulsive Florina Lasker Foundation. Florina Lasker served as chairperson of the New York Committee of the ACLU from 1932 until her separate societies, one black, one white – and politically popular behavior by public death in 1949. separate and unequal.” officials is not about to change any time Gender discrimination has not soon. challenging New York City’s undemocratic been eliminated even though statutory Seen in these terms, the NYCLU’s Board of Estimate as a violation of consti- prohibitions against such discrimination mission remains unchanged. But the ter- tutional “one-person one-vote” principles. have been on the books for years. rorist attacks on September 11, 2001, have In Morris v. Board of Estimate, a landmark Discrimination against gays and lesbians given a new urgency to the NYCLU’s mis- suit brought by the NYCLU, the court also persists; more work needs to be done sion. In the period following that horrific invalidated the New York City Board of to provide statutory protection for this day, the federal government acted precipi- Estimate, leading to the restructuring of minority group. The rights of reproductive tously in creating extraordinary new