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American Civil Liberties Union: Supreme Court Cases

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American Civil Liberties Union: Supreme Court Cases
The American Civil Liberties Union was established to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to the people by the Constitution and laws of the United States. (ACLU) The rights that ACLU focuses on specifically include the fifth and first amendments, which give citizens the freedom of speech and the freedom to assembly. Founded in January of 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union was born amidst the Red Scare, where many people were being arrested without proper warrant. (ProCon) This of course led to the need for better understandings of the rights each citizen holds, and through that need the ACLU was born. The ACLU is a non-profit and non-partisan organization with its headquarters in New York. (ACLU) …show more content…
In 1954 they joined forces with the National Organization for Woman and together worked on the Brown versus Board of Education case. (ACLU) In Brown versus Board of Education, a compilation of four actual cases, the Supreme Court declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional, which at the time of civil rights and lingering racism was, for some, a controversial idea. (US Courts) The 1973 Supreme Court cases Roe versus Wade and Doe versus Bolton involved the argument that women held the right to privacy and therefore could decide for themselves whether they wanted to terminate a pregnancy or not. (ACLU) These two cases have since become famous in the privacy rights of women, and are still considered current topics as the debate over whether abortion is a women's privacy matter or a governmental …show more content…
(ACLU) Their website states that "We do not defend them because we agree with them; rather, we defend their right to free expression and free assembly." (ACLU) The ACLU then goes on to say that "Historically, the people whose opinions are the most controversial or extreme are the people whose rights are most often threatened." (ACLU) The ACLU finishes off their explanation of choosing to defend such organizations by saying that "Once the government has the power to violate one person's rights, it can use that power against everyone."
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