It seeks to promote the strength and profitability of the banking industry byLOBBYING federal and state governments, building industry consensus on key issues, and providing products and
Trang 1ambiguity deprives a person of the notice requirement ofDUE PROCESS OF LAW, and, therefore, renders the statute unconstitutional
AMBIT
A boundary line that indicates ownership of a parcel of land as opposed to other parcels; an exterior or enclosing line The limits of a power or jurisdiction The delineation of the scope of a particular subject matter
AMBULANCE CHASER
A colloquial phrase that is used derisively for a person who is hired by an attorney to seek out NEGLIGENCE cases at the scenes of accidents or in hospitals where injured parties are treated, in exchange for a percentage of the damages that will
be recovered in the case
Also used to describe attorneys who, upon learning of a personal injury that might have been caused by the negligence or the wrongful act of another, immediately contact the victim for consent to represent him or her in a lawsuit in exchange for a contingent fee, a percentage of the judgment recovered
AMBULATORY Movable; revocable; subject to change; capable of alteration
An ambulatory court was the former name
of the Court of King’s Bench in England It would convene wherever the king who presided over it could be found, moving its location as the king moved
An ambulatory disposition is a judgment, DECREE, or sentence that is subject to change, amendment, or revocation
A will is considered ambulatory because as long as the person who made it lives, it can always be changed or revoked
AMENDMENT The modification of materials by the addition of supplemental information; the deletion of unnec-essary, undesirable, or outdated information; or the correction of errors existing in the text
In practice, a change in the pleadings—
statements of the allegations of the parties in a lawsuit—may be achieved if the parties agree to the amendment or if the court in which the proceed-ing is pendproceed-ing grants a motion for the amendment made by one party A judgment may be altered
by an amendment if a motion to do so is made
within a certain time after its entry and granted by the court The amendment of pleadings and judgments is regulated by state codes of CIVIL PROCEDUREand the rules of federal civil procedure
A constitution or a statute may be changed
by an amendment
A will, trust, corporate charter, and other legal documents are also subject to amendment
CROSS REFERENCE Constitutional Amendment.
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR JUSTICE
The American Association for Justice (AAJ) (formerly the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, or ATLA) is a NONPROFIT organization that represents the interests of PERSONAL INJURY attorneys The AAJ is the world’s largest trial bar organization, with more than 56,000 members worldwide AAJ’s goals are to safeguard the interests of people who seek redress for injury and to protect individuals from abuses of power Any person who is licensed to practice law in any country, state, or jurisdiction, who is committed to theADVERSARY SYSTEM, and who, for the most part, does not represent the defense in personal injury LITIGATIONis eligible for membership In 1946, a group of plaintiffs’ attorneys involved in workers’ compensations litigation founded the National Association of Claimants’COMPENSATIONAttorneys (NCACCA) In 1972 NACCA became ATLA, and
in 1977, the organization moved its headquarters from Boston to Washington, D.C The association changed its name once again in 2006 to the AAJ AAJ comprises a network of U.S and Canadian affiliates involved in diverse areas of trial advocacy It provides lawyers with the information and professional assistance needed
to serve clients successfully and protect the civil justice system AAJ is governed by its member-ship through a board of governors and national officers who are elected at the organization’s annual convention AAJ committees help to set policies in critical areas, make recommen-dations to the board of governors, and oversee staff implementation of AAJ objectives The AAJ has 155 staff members, including approxi-mately 30 attorneys It publishes the monthly magazine Trial, AAJ Law Reporter, and AAJ Advocate
AAJ’s sections, each of which encompasses an area of litigation practice, include admiralty,
258 AMBIT
Trang 2aviation, CIVIL RIGHTS, products LIABILITY,
insur-ance, FAMILY LAW, and workers’ compensation
law Services of the sections include the
publica-tion of annual directories and periodic
news-letters and information exchange AAJ also has
organized litigation groups, which are voluntary
networks of AAJ members sharing an interest in a
particular type of case, many of which involve
hazardous products The groups share timely
documents and information, much of it obtained
from discovery in similar cases The litigation
groups organize programs that educate members
about recent developments in their special areas
AAJ has been a leading opponent of state and
federal legislative efforts to restrict the amount of
DAMAGES a PLAINTIFF can recover for MEDICAL
MALPRACTICEor for injuries caused by a defective
product Two major areas of litigation that
emerged during the early 2000s were related to
asbestos and toxic mold For many years, the
organization has lobbied against tort reform bills,
rebutting arguments that too many lawsuits have
led to excessive costs and delays and that juries
can no longer be trusted to render fair verdicts
The election of GEORGE W.BUSH as president in
2000 and the gain of Republican seats in
both the House and Senate in 2002 brought the
issue to the forefront Although some
commen-tators expected a significant number of states to
approve tort reform measures, the proposals in
most of these states failed As Democrats regained
control of Congress during the mid- to
late-2000s, focus on the tort reform issue became less
intense Tort reform was not a major issue during
the presidential campaign of 2008
In addition to its LOBBYING efforts, AAJ
provides a specialization certification program
for trial skills and statistical compilation, as well
as a placement service It also conducts seminars
and conferences across the country
During the 2000s, members of the ATLA
expressed concern about negative reactions to
the reference to trial lawyers in the association’s
name In 2006 the members agreed to change the
name to the American Association for Justice
Membership is not limited to trial lawyers and
instead extends to attorneys, law professors,
paralegals, and law students
Web site: http://www.justice.org
FURTHER READINGS
American Association for Justice Available online at http://
www.justice.org (accessed May 12, 2009).
Bogus, Carl T 2001 Why Lawsuits Are Good for America:
Disciplined Democracy, Big Business, and the Common Law New York: New York Univ Press.
Orey, Michael 1999 Assuming the Risk: The Mavericks, the Lawyers, and the Whistle-Blowers Who Beat Big Tobacco.
Boston: Little, Brown.
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF RETIRED PERSONS
The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) is aNONPROFIT, nonpartisan organization dedicated to helping older Americans achieve lives of independence, dignity, and purpose
Founded in 1958 by Dr Ethel Percy Andrus, AARP is the oldest and largest organization of older Americans, with a membership of 40 million The National Retired Teachers Associa-tion (NTRA), which was founded in 1947, is a division of AARP Membership in AARP is open
to anyone age 50 or older, working or retired
More than one-third of the association’s mem-bership is in the workforce The AARP head-quarters are in Washington, D.C By the early 2000s, AARP had fulfilled its goal of having staffed offices in all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S
Virgin Islands AARP has an extensive network of local AARP chapters, its National Community Service Programs and NTRA members to involve members, volunteers, the media, community partners, and policymakers in carrying out its objectives The organization is led by a 21-member BOARD OF DIRECTORS and has an administrative staff that carries out the group’s day-to-day activities The organization is funded almost entirely by annual membership dues
The AARP has been an effective advocate for issues involving older persons, in part because
of its large membership and its ability to mobilize its members to lobby for its positions before Congress and government agencies The organization has concentrated much of its LOBBYINGeffort onSOCIAL SECURITY,MEDICARE, and long-term care issues The AARP has fought zealously to protect the Social Security benefits of retired citizens and has resisted efforts by Congress to change the system itself Its Advocacy Center for Social Security develops policy proposals and lobbies Congress
The AARP Advocacy Center for Medicare seeks to ensure the availability of affordable, quality health care for older individuals and persons with disabilities In the early 2000s,
it worked to develop ways of maintaining the
Trang 3short-term SOLVENCY of the Hospital Insurance Trust Fund and was preparing for the long-term needs of the aging baby boomers With the dramatic growth in managed health care plans, the AARP has sought to educate its members about this new way of providing services and to empower older people by telling them what their rights are under this system However, AARP lost
a significant and protracted court battle in 2008 when the U.S Supreme Court denied review of the AARP challenge to a proposed rule from the EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION (EEOC), which created a new exemption to the AGE DISCRIMINATIONin Employment Act (ADEA) (AARP v EEOC, 2008 WL 754343, _ U.S _
[2008]) The new exemption allows employers to reduce retiree health benefits for anyone 65 or older (i.e., eligible for Medicare) The Third CIRCUIT COURT of Appeals sided with EEOC in finding that Congress had delegated to the EEOC complete authority to create exemptions under ADEA (AARP v EEOC, 489 F.3d 558 [3rd Cir
2008])
The association also has been actively involved in voter education A major, nonparti-san component of the association’s legislative program is AARP/VOTE, a voter education program designed to inform the public about importantPUBLIC POLICYissues and the positions
of candidates for public office Through issue and candidate forums and voter guides, AARP/
VOTE works to promote issue-centered cam-paigns and a more informed electorate
The organization also provides many benefits
to its members The AARP licenses the use of its name for selected services of chosen providers
For example, it offers members a choice of insurance plans Because most of the plans are neither age-rated nor medically underwritten, the association can make HEALTH INSURANCE available to many of its members who otherwise would be unable to obtain coverage because of pre-existing conditions The association receives
an administrative allowance or a royalty from the providers and the income realized from these services is used for the general purposes of the association and its members
AARP operates a nationwide volunteer net-work that helps older citizens Programs include information and support for grandparents who are raising their grandchildren, legal hotlines, and INCOME TAX preparation These and other programs are funded, in part, by federal grants
The association produces two national radio network series and publishes a monthly maga-zine, AARP The Magazine; a monthly newspaper, the AARP Bulletin; and a quarterly Spanish-language newspaper, Segunda Jeventud As older adults have gained computer skills, the organiza-tion’s Web site has become increasingly popular Outreach programs launched by AARP in the early 2000s include a collaborative national effort
to help prepare people for independent living, long-term care, and end-of-life care, as well as a pilot program to promote physical activities for healthy aging
FURTHER READINGS American Association of Retired Persons Available online at www.aarp.org (accessed September 26, 2009) Kimbol, Anne 2008 “Medicare and Retiree Benefits: The Impact of AARP v EEOC ” Health Law Perspectives, University of Houston Law Center, April 2008 Text available online at http://www.law.uh.edu/healthlaw/ perspectives/homepage.asp; website home page: http:// www.law.uh.edu/ (accessed August 5, 2009) Morris, Charles R 1996 The AARP: America’s Most Powerful Lobby and the Clash of Generations New York: Times Books.
Van Atta, Dale 1998 Trust Betrayed: Inside the AARP Chicago: Regnery.
CROSS REFERENCES Age Discrimination; Elder Law; Senior Citizens; Senior Citizens: How to Avoid Being Defrauded; Senior Citizens
“Scamming the Elderly” (In Focus).
AMERICAN BANKERS ASSOCIATION The American Bankers Association (ABA) is composed of banks and other financial institu-tions It seeks to promote the strength and profitability of the banking industry byLOBBYING federal and state governments, building industry consensus on key issues, and providing products and services, including public affairs support and legal services, to its member banks Membership
in the ABA includes community, regional, and money-center banks (the nation’s major banks) and holding companies, as well as savings associations, trust companies, and savings banks The ABA, which was founded in 1875, is the largest banking trade association in the United States The organization includes more than 95 percent of the commercial banking industry as members As of 2009 these members employ more than two million people and have more than $13 trillion in assets The ABA’s headquar-ters are in Washington, D.C
260 AMERICAN BANKERS ASSOCIATION
Trang 4The ABA places great emphasis on
represent-ing the interests of banks before Congress and
state legislatures The association takes stands on
banking and bank-related bills as they move
through Congress, attempts to influence the
interpretations of laws and regulations by
banking regulators, and is actively involved in
state LITIGATION that has implications for the
banking industry Throughout the 1990s and
2000s, ABA representatives frequently testified
before Congress, filed official letters of comment,
and sponsored trips by state associations to the
nation’s capital During this time, BankPac, the
banking industry’s POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
and one of the strongest committees nationwide,
raised and distributed millions of dollars for
congressional elections The ABA fought
legisla-tive efforts to regulate the fees banks charge
customers to use automated teller machines
(ATM) and has challenged in court the
member-ship policies used by credit unions to gain
customers ABA also became involved in such
issues as ATM accessibility for blind persons,
predatory lending practices, SOCIAL SECURITY
reform, andMONEY LAUNDERING
In 2001 the ABA established the ABA
Mortgage Solutions program, which assists
mem-ber banks in the secondary mortgage market
When a lender initially makes a loan, it has a
choice to keep the loan as part of its portfolio or to
sell the loan on the secondary mortgage market
The ABA’s program became the most widely used
in the banking industry By 2009, the total amount
of mortgages sold through this program surpassed
$100 billion Several major banks and
organiza-tions are involved in this program, including the
Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation
(Freddie Mac) and FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE
ASSOCIATION(Fannie Mae)
The ABA operates the American Institute for
Banking (AIB), which is the largest provider of
banking education The AIB teaches more than
100,000 students annually In addition, the ABA
sponsors approximately 24 residential schools
with 3,700 students covering specialty areas within
banking and the prestigious Stonier Graduate
School of Banking New technology has provided
new opportunities as well American Financial
Skylink is a satelliteTELECOMMUNICATIONSnetwork
that delivers news, information, and training
directly to banks through regular telecasts
Other ABA affiliates include the following:
ABA eCom, which facilitates electronic banking
and COMMERCE over the INTERNET; the ABA Education Foundation, which provides resources for consumer education; and the ABA Marketing Network (ABAMN), which informs and educates banks in the marketing of their products and services The ABA SECURITIESAssociation assists sections of the banking industry that are competing in the securities business
Since the early twentieth century the ABA has produced the ABA Banking Journal, a monthly magazine that focuses on news and analysis of the financial services industry The journal is published for the ABA by Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corp
Though the ABA is aNONPROFITorganization,
it operates the for-profit Corporation for Ameri-can Banking (CAB) CAB was created to facilitate group buying of services, allowing participating banks to receive CAB-arranged discounts on long-distance telephone service, overnight package delivery, office products, and copying products
FURTHER READINGS ABA Banking Journal Available online at http://www.ababj.
com/ (accessed May 3, 2009).
American Bankers Association Available online at http://
www.aba.com (accessed May 3, 2009).
Lovett, William A 2005 Banking & Financial Institutions Law in a Nutshell, 6th ed St Paul, MN: Thomson/
West.
Malloy, Michael A 2003 Principles of Banking Regulation, 2d
ed St Paul, MN: West Group.
AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION The American Bar Association (ABA) is a nationwide organization to which qualified attorneys voluntarily belong With more than 413,000 members, the ABA is the largest volun-tary professional organization in the world
The ABA was founded in 1878 to improve LEGAL EDUCATION, to set requirements to be satisfied for admittance to the bar, and to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information among its members Over the years, the ABA has been largely responsible for the further develop-ment of American jurisprudence; the establish-ment of formal education requireestablish-ments for persons seeking to become attorneys; the formu-lation of ethical principles that govern the PRACTICE OF LAW; and the creation of the American Law Institute (ALI) and the Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, both of which advance the fair administration of justice through encouraging uniformity of statutes and
Trang 5judicial decisions whenever practicable For several years, the ABA has been prominently involved in the recommendation and selection of candidates for the federalJUDICIARY, the accredi-tation of law schools, and the refinement of rules
of legal and judicial ethics
Applicants for membership in the ABA must meet certain criteria They must be members in good standing of the bar of a state, TERRITORY, or possession of the United States
They must also have good moral character and pay the designated dues Law students qualify to
be members of the Law Student Division of the ABA if they attend an ABA-approved law school and pay the specified dues The ABA continues
to put great emphasis on promoting diversity within its membership and has initiated several programs designed to bring more women and racial and ethnic minorities into the profession
The ABA provides various forums through which attorneys continue their legal education during their careers The association’s national institutes are held frequently in areas of law that have become topical or have undergone sweep-ing reform In conjunction with the ALI, the ABA holds seminars in order to continue the professional education of interested members
Within the ABA, members may participate in the activities of numerous sections, which range
in size from about 2,300 members to more than 70,000 and are organized according to specialized areas of law Various committees exist that deal with such topics as judicial selection,PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY and discipline, lawyer referral services, and theUNAUTHORIZED PRACTICE of law
Other committees are concerned with topical areas, such as prepaid legal services,MALPRACTICE, legal problems of the elderly, and public-interest law The ABA employs more than 750 profes-sional staff members to assist committees, sections, and individual members
The ABA is involved in the political process through its seven-person Governmental Affairs Office (GAO), a LOBBYING effort that serves as the“eyes, ears and voice” of the organized bar at the seat of the national government in Washington, D.C The GAO staff is housed with about 170 other ABA staffers in the ABA’s Washington, D.C office (The ABA’s main offices are in Chicago, with more than 500 staff members.) The lobbying group in Washington, D.C., headed by the ABA’s associate executive director, testifies on Capitol Hill more often
than any other trade association The ABA’s lobbyists offer detailed information and analysis
on various technical issues, such as tax or antitrust legislation On issues such asABORTION, which many ABA members and leaders consider
as having an EFFECT on the legal system, the ABA offers its voice along with those of other interested groups
Another influential ABA committee is the Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary This committee consists of 15 members, includ-ing one representative for each federal circuit, two representatives for the Ninth Circuit, and one at-large member The President of ABA selects members based on professional compe-tence, integrity, and devotion to public service The committee rates each judicial nominee as
“well qualified,” “qualified,” or “not qualified.” The committee lists these ratings with the initials
WQ, Q, and NQ For example, when President GEORGE W.BUSHnominatedJOHN ROBERTSto serve
as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 2005, the ABA committee rated Roberts as WQ
Equal access for all to the justice system has become an increasingly important theme in the ABA’s mission The association has sought for a number of years to increase and improve free legal services to needy persons by practicing lawyers These lawyers donate some of their work PRO BONO publico (for the good of the public) In 1981, the ABA created the Private Bar Involvement Project, now called the Pro Bono Project, which acts as a national clearing-house of information and resources for various pro bono programs around the United States When it began, there were 66 organized projects nationwide; by 1995 there were more than 950 The ABA actively supports several major legislative priorities on topics that have been in the forefront of American political and govern-mental affairs The ABA has called for a MORATORIUM on the death PENALTY until certain procedures and policies are put into effect that mandate fair and IMPARTIAL administration of CAPITAL PUNISHMENT The Death Penalty Morato-rium Implementation Project had produced a number of reports focusing on specific states, including California, Maryland, New Jersey, and Illinois These reports typically demonstrate flaws in capital punishment procedures used
in those states
Since the SEPTEMBER 11TH ATTACKS in 2001, the ABA has stepped up its opposition to laws
262 AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION
Trang 6requiring extra verification of citizenship for
immigrants Additionally, the ABA has urged that
U.S citizens and legal residents detained as
“enemy combatants” be afforded due process
rights and that military tribunals authorized to
conduct trials of suspected terrorists be used in
limited circumstances The ABA has also
an-nounced its opposition to the incommunicado
DETENTIONof nationals held in undisclosed
loca-tions by IMMIGRATION officials or the HOMELAND
SECURITY DEPARTMENT The ABA continued to
PROTESTdetentions of nationals in such locations
as Guantanamo Bay during the early 2000s
The ABA holds annual conventions and
midyear meetings to discuss designated legal
topics and ABA matters It publishes the monthly
American BAR ASSOCIATION Journal, an annual
directory, and various journals and newsletters
reporting the work of its sections and
commit-tees The ABA also supports the activities of
affiliated organizations, such as the American
Bar Foundation, which sponsors research
activi-ties in law
The ABA provides a social outlet for its
members through which members meet to
freely exchange ideas and experiences that add
to the human dimension in the practice of law
The ABA has eleven goals:
1 Promote improvement in the U.S system
of justice
2 Promote meaningful access toLEGAL
REPRE-SENTATION and the U.S system of justice
for all persons regardless of their
econom-ic or social condition
3 Provide ongoing leadership in improving
the law to serve the changing needs of
society
4 Increase public understanding of and
respect for the law, the legal process, and
the role of the legal profession
5 Achieve the highest standards of
profession-alism, competence, and ethical conduct
6 Serve as the national representative of the
legal profession
7 Provide benefits, programs, and services
that promote professional growth and
enhance the quality of life of the members
8 Advance the rule of law in the world
9 Promote full and equal participation in the
legal profession by members of minorities
and women
10 Preserve and enhance the ideals of the legal profession as a common calling and its dedication to public service
11 Preserve the independence of the legal profession and the judiciary as fundamen-tal to a free society
FURTHER READINGS ABA Standing Committee on the Judiciary Available online
at http://www.abanet.org/scfedjud/roster.html American Bar Association Website Available online at http://
www.abanet.org/home.html (accessed May 11, 2009).
Hobson, Wayne K 1986 The American Legal Profession and the Organizational Society, 1890–1930 New York: Garland.
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION Since 1920 the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has fought energetically for the rights
of individuals This private, nonprofit organiza-tion is a multipurpose legal group with 300,000 members committed to the freedoms in the Bill of Rights Although these liberties—such
as free speech, equality, due process, privacy—
are guaranteed to each citizen, they are never completely secure Governments and majorities can easily weaken them or even take them away
The ACLU has had enormous success fighting such cases: Many of the most important Supreme Court decisions have been won with its involvement, and the ACLU continues to fight thousands of lawsuits in state and federal courts each year The ACLU also lobbies lawmakers and speaks out on a wide variety of civil liberties and civil rights issues Its devotion
to these concerns makes it highly controversial
The origins of the ACLU date toWORLD WAR I,
a dark era for civil liberties War fever gripped the United States, and official hostility towardDISSENT ran high Attorney General A MITCHELL PALMER orchestrated much of this hostility from Washington, D.C., by ordering crackdowns on protesters, breaking strikes, prosecuting consci-entious objectors, and deporting thousands of immigrants One group in particular stood up to him: the American Union against Militarism (AUAM), led by social reformers and radicals
Among its founders was the pacifist ROGER BALDWIN, a former sociology teacher In 1917, as the United States prepared to enter the war, Baldwin gave the group a broader mission by transforming it into the Civil Liberties Bureau, dedicated to the defense of those the government saw fit to crush and corral Anti-Communist hysteria worsened the civil liberties picture
Trang 7between 1919 and 1920, and the upstart bureau had its hands full as Palmer, and his assistant,
J.EDGAR HOOVER, staged massive police raids that netted thousands of alleged subversives at a time
In 1920 the Civil Liberties Bureau became the ACLU Joining Baldwin in launching the new organization were several distinguished social leaders, including the author Helen
A Keller, the attorney and future Supreme Court JusticeFELIX FRANKFURTER, and the socialist clergyman Norman Thomas The ACLU quickly joined the U.S Congress and theAMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION in denouncing Attorney General Palmer for his raids—and the outcry helped end his tyrannical career In the first annual ACLU report, Baldwin weighed the effectiveness of public activism, noting, “[T]he mere public assertion of the principle of freedom helps win it recognition, and in the long run makes for tolerance and against resort to violence.” In its weekly“Report on Civil Liberties Situation,”
the group watched over a torrent of abuses: a mob forcing a Farmer-Labor party delegation in Washington State to salute the U.S flag; a Russian chemist being arrested in Illinois for distributing “inflammatory” handbills; and the LYNCHING and burning of six black men in Florida after a black man attempted to vote.pi tp From the beginning, strict political neutral-ity was the ACLU rule The group did not oppose political candidates and declared itself
neither liberal nor conservative This position had an important consequence: The ACLU would defend the civil liberties of all people, including those who were weak, unpopular, and despised, without respect to their views This principle made for strange bedfellows The Boston Globe recalled the following in its eulogy for Baldwin:
[A]t one point Mr Baldwin was engaged simultaneously in defending the rights of the
KU KLUX KLAN to hold meetings in Boston, despite the orders of a Catholic mayor; of Catholic teachers to teach in the schools of Akron, despite the opposition of the Ku Klux Klan; and of Communists to exhibit their film,“The Fifth Year,” in Providence, despite the opposition of both the Catholics and the
Ku Klux Klan
Consequently, while carving out a unique place for the ACLU in U.S law, these defenses also won the organization enemies
Within a few years, the ACLU was widely known Its first victory before the Supreme Court came in the landmark 1925 case Gitlow v New York (268 U.S 652, 45 S Ct 625, 69 L Ed 1138),
in which the Court threw out the defendant’s CONVICTION under New York’s “criminal anar-chy” statute (N.Y Penal Law §§ 160, 161, Laws
1909, ch 88; Consol Laws 1909, ch 40), for advocating the overthrow of the U.S government
in a printed flyer Gitlow established that the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT, which applies to the states, includesFREEDOM OF SPEECH in its liberty guarantee By 1926 the ACLU was involved in the debate over church-state separation It joined the so-calledSCOPES MONKEY TRIAL, arguing against
a Tennessee law that forbade teaching the theory
of evolution in public schools (Scopes v State, 152 Tenn 424, 278 S.W 57[1925]; 154 Tenn 105,
289 S.W 363[1927]) Besides bringing the group
to national and worldwide attention, Scopes set it
on a course from which it never veered: fighting government interference in religious matters It staged this fight with equanimity, opposing official help and hindrance to RELIGION, and it soon backed the Jehovah’s Witnesses in a series of key Supreme Court cases This involvement laid the groundwork for the Supreme Court’s ruling,
in a 1962 challenge originally brought by the ACLU, that school PRAYER is unconstitutional ENGEL V.VITALE, 370 U.S 421, 82 S Ct 1261, 8 L
Ed 2d 601)
Between the 1930s and the mid-1990s the ACLU won (as counsel) or helped to win
The ACLU’s
involvement in the
1925 Scopes Monkey
Trial brought the
organization national
attention Pictured is
the Scopes defense
team: (l-r) Clarence
Darrow, Arthur
Garfield hays, Dudley
Field Malone, George
Rappelyea, John Neal,
and Miss McClosky.
BETTMANN/CORBIS.
264 AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION
Trang 8(through amicus briefs) several Supreme Court
cases that profoundly changed U.S law and life
Among these wereBROWN V.BOARD OF EDUCATION
(347 U.S 483, 74 S Ct 686, 98 L Ed 873[1954])
(declaring racially segregated schools
unconsti-tutional);MAPP V.OHIO(367 U.S 643, 81 S Ct
1684, 6 L Ed 2d 1081[1961]) (severely limiting
the power of police officers and prosecutors to
use illegally obtained evidence); GRISWOLD V
CONNECTICUT(381 U.S 479, 85 S Ct 1678, 14 L
Ed 2d 510[1965]) (invalidating a state law that
banned contraceptives and, for the first time,
recognizing the concept of privacy in theBILL OF
RIGHTS);MIRANDA V.ARIZONA(384 U.S 436, 86 S Ct
1602, 16 L Ed 2d 694 [1966]) (requiring the
police to advise suspects of their rights before
interrogation); Loving v Virginia (388 U.S 1, 87
S Ct 1817, 18 L Ed 2d 1010[1967]) (striking
down the laws of Virginia and 15 other states that
made interracial MARRIAGE a criminal offense);
Brandenburg v Ohio (395 U.S 444, 89 S Ct 1827,
23 L Ed 2d 430 [1969]) (invalidating state
SEDITIONlaws aimed at radical groups); andROE V
WADE(410 U.S 113, 93 S Ct 705, 35 L Ed 2d 147
[1973]) (recognizing a woman’s constitutional
right to anABORTION)
Rarely did these victories endear the ACLU to
its opponents Liberals often—though not
al-ways—applauded the effort and the result They
praised, for instance, the ACLU fight against the
Customs Bureau for banning James Joyce’s novel
Ulysses, and its battle to secure publication of the
Pentagon Papers during theVIETNAM WAR
Con-servatives often found the ACLU meddlesome
and the results of its meddling ruinous
South-erners denounced its war on SEGREGATION,
antiabortion groups blamed it for the legalization
of abortion, and Vice PresidentGEORGE H.W.BUSH
even labeled it “the criminal’s lobby” for its
insistence on combating police illegality At
times, the organization outraged nearly everyone,
as when it went to court to win the right of Nazis
to march in Skokie, Illinois Yet throughout its
many controversies, the ACLU seldom seemed to
go against its charter Especially in the early
1990s, it did not avoid cases even when taking
them on meant clashing with such traditional
allies as feminists and university professors over
its support of the freedom to publish
PORNOGRA-PHYand opposition to campus speech codes
The ACLU is often called the nation’s
foremost advocate of individual rights With
dozens of Supreme Court cases and thousands
of state and federal rulings behind it, the organization is a firmly established force in U.S law Its reach goes beyond the courts
Watchful of lawmakers, it frequently issues public statements on pending national, state, and local legislation, campaigning for and against laws It also pursues special projects on women’s rights, reproductive freedom, chil-dren’s rights, CAPITAL PUNISHMENT, prisoners’
rights, national security, and civil liberties In these areas, its goal is both to defend existing liberties and to expand them into quarters where they are not generally enjoyed
The election ofGEORGE W.BUSHas president
in 2000 and the gain of Republican seats in both the House and Senate in 2002 gave increased urgency to the ACLU advocacy for civil liberties
In addition to supporting the right to partial-birth abortion, the ACLU has fought for the rights of library patrons to view unrestricted INTERNET sites as well as AFFIRMATIVE ACTION programs for colleges and universities through-out the country The ACLU opposed numerous initiatives of the Bush administration, in parti-cular, federal funding for faith-based drug treatment programs and the attempts to give sweeping new powers to domestic law enforce-ment and intelligence agencies after theSEPTEMBER
11TH ATTACKSin 2001
The ACLU has likewise advocated in favor of GAY AND LESBIAN RIGHTS In 2004, the ACLU became involved in LITIGATION in California challenging the state’s refusal to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples The California Supreme Court eventually heard the case, and
in In re Marriage Cases (183 P.3d 384 [Cal 2008]), the court ruled that the state could not constitu-tionally prohibit same-sex couples from marry-ing The decision was later effectively overruled with the passage of Proposition 8, a CONSTITU-TIONAL AMENDMENT in California that defines marriage as a union of a man and a woman
The ACLU supportedBARACK OBAMAin his bid for the presidency, and with his election, Demo-crats gained control of both houses of Congress
as well as the White House In 2009, the ACLU continued to advocate its agenda; for instance, the ACLU in March 2009 submitted a letter to Obama asking him to withhold support for funding for programs the support abstinence until marriage According to the ACLU, the money going toward those programs should be devoted
to teen education about safer sex practices
Trang 9Whose Civil Liberties, Anyway?
The ACLU and Its Critics
Since 1920 the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU) has stood
at the forefront of nearly every great legal
battle over personal freedom in the
United States The C in ACLU might
easily stand for Controversial Although
the ACLU’s role as a major institution
in U.S law is indisputable, its effect on
the law and on the lives of citizens is
frequently in dispute Political debate
over the group yields very little middle
ground and a great amount of passionate
disagreement Supporters agree with its
self-styled epithet,“the guardian of liberty.”
To them, the ACLU is often all that stands
between freedom and tyranny Opponents
think the organization is simply a liberal
establishment bent on imposing its views on
society They fault its reading of the law,
despise its methods, and rue its results At
the heart of this debate is a fascinating
question: how does an organization that
fights for the very foundations of the
nation’s commitment to liberty inspire so
much conflict?
Even from the start, the idea of a group
devoted to defending liberty (the right of
each person to be free from the despotism
of governments or majorities) made some
observers angry In 1917 members of the
Civil Liberties Bureau, which was soon
renamed the ACLU, got this welcome from
the New York Times editorial page: “Jails
Are Waiting for Them.” AlthoughWORLD
WAR Iwas a period of governmental
heavy-handedness, the Times proved to be both
right and wrong In the next 75 years the
ACLU became a powerful force in shaping
law, and it won many more enemies than
friends By the 1988 presidential election,
candidateGEORGE H W BUSHcould make
political hay in campaign speeches by
attacking the ACLU as “the criminal’s
lobby.” Other critics said the ACLU was
anti-God, anti-American, anti-life, and so
on In the end, no jails held ACLU
members (at least not for long), but no
small number of people would have liked
to lock them away
The case against the ACLU is actually many cases Every time the organization goes into court, it naturally has to displease someone; LITIGATION is hardly about making friends Although the organization has one mandate, the ab-stract ideal of freedom, it must oppose the will of specific individuals if this mandate is to be carried out Take, for example, one of the ACLU’s civil liberties battles: religious freedom For some, religious freedom means the First Amendment’s guarantee that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establish-ment of religion”; in other words, that people will be free from government-imposed religious worship For many others, religious freedom implies just the oppositeFIRST AMENDMENTassurance, that Congress shall not prohibit the free exercise ofRELIGION In a 1962 court battle, the ACLU won a point for the former, an end toPRAYERin public schools, a victory that polls indicate was unwanted and unsupported by most U.S citizens (ENGEL
V.VITALE, 370 U.S 421, 82 S Ct 1261, 8 L
Ed 2d 601) Equally stymied by ACLU activism are people who want to display Christian crèches on government
proper-ty at Christmastime They have their holiday hopes dashed every time the ACLU wins a court order blocking such
a display on First Amendment grounds
Each victory for the organization in such cases may be another disaster in local public relations
In response, scorn heaped on the ACLU seldom fails to question its motives The ACLU’s “yuletide work”
was attacked by the conservative com-mentator John Leo in an essay in the Washington Times entitled “Crushing the Public Crèche:” “While others frolic, the grinches of the ACLU tirelessly trudge out each year on yet another crèche-patrol, snatching Nativity scenes from public parks and rubbing out religious symbols.” Leo’s point is shared
by many conservatives: The government,
far from remaining neutral in religious matters, is actually engaging in hostility toward religion, at the behest of ACLU
“zealots.” In this view, the defense of an abstract principle has taken hold of the senses of its defenders; they have become inflexible absolutists The conservative attorney and author Bruce Fein took this complaint much further, discovering something insidious: “A partial sketch
of the ACLU’s vision of America reveals a contempt for individual responsibility, economic justice and prosperity and moral decency.” Fein meant that the ACLU defends welfare
Ascribing suspicious aims to the ACLU moves the debate into a more complicated area The ACLU is not opposed simply because it has fought to block government-sanctioned religious displays, causing local upset and anger Similarly, it is not opposed merely because it defends the rights of some of society’s most unpopular groups, Nazis, for example The deeper issue is civil liberties themselves Here people face a new question: Why does an organization that fights for the very foundations of the nation’s commitment to liberty even have to exist?
The ACLU’s answer is rather simple Civil liberties, it argues, exist only when everyone enjoys them In other words, there is no such thing as freedom for some without freedom for all, including those individuals whom the majority may hate
or whom the government seeks to silence Loren Siegel, ACLU director of public education, wrote that the United States was founded upon not one, but two great principles The first, democracy, is the more familiar: The majority rules The second principle, liberty, is not as well understood Even in our democ-racy, the majority’s rule is not unlimited There are certain indi-vidual rights and liberties, enshrined in the BILL OF RIGHTS,
266 AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION
Trang 10that are protected from the
“tyr-anny of the majority.” Just because
there are more whites than blacks
in this country does not, for
example, mean that whites can
vote to take the vote away from
blacks And just because there are
more heterosexuals than
homo-sexuals should not mean that the
majority can discriminate with
impunity against the minority
But civil liberties“are not self-enforcing,”
Siegel adds Moreover,NADINE STROSSEN,
former ACLU president, points out that
victories in civil liberties need to be
continually re-won It is not the habit of
enemies to grant their opponents the same
constitutional rights that they themselves
enjoy; plainly, it is the habit of enemies to
ignore, restrict, or even crush those rights
Not by accident, the government or a
majority of voters can do this; the weak
and the few cannot Thus, the ACLU’s
commitment is precisely to those whose
purchase on freedom is slim—not because
the ACLU is necessarily in favor of their
cause, but because it is in favor of
upholding their rights
That argument sounds nice on paper,
opponents say, but it is neither practical
nor sensible at all times in real life Indeed,
they ask, what about the majority—why
must it suffer to please the few in its midst
who cause trouble, such as criminals? This
is the point that Bush wanted to make with
his famous“criminal’s lobby” blast: The
civil liberties of criminals should not be
upheld at the expense of the civil liberties of
law-abiding citizens Bush, like other
critics, turned this charge into a broader
INDICTMENT of the ACLU: In his 1988
campaign for the presidency, he accused
Democratic presidential candidate Michael
Dukakis of being a“card-carrying member
of the ACLU.” The term card-carrying
resonates in U.S political history; it comes
from the era of anti-Communist witch
hunts and implies anti-Americanism Ira
Glasser, the ACLU’s executive director at
the time, indignantly replied to Bush in the
Boston Globe: “The vice president feels it is
politically expedient to beat up on us, and if
the only way that he can carry it off is by
engaging in McCarthyism and distorting
our record, then he is willing to do it.”
Despite the conservative claim that the ACLU is a liberal group, the political left also has taken shots at it In the 1980s and 1990s, some feminists opposed the ACLU’s absolute defense of free speech
These critics were particularly distressed
by the organization’s support of the speech rights of pornographers Others
on the left, notably academics, resent the ACLU’s opposition to so-called hate-speech codes that colleges and universi-ties have imposed on campuses to protect members of minorities from others’ abusive expression Such issues have caused DISSENT even among the ranks of the ACLU itself, leading some
to argue that the organization should emphasizeCIVIL RIGHTSover civil liberties, that is, jettison its traditional mission in order to focus more specifically on the rights of women and racial minorities In the ACLU’s annual report (1992–1993), Strossen dismissed this argument
Liber-ty and equaliLiber-ty, she wrote, are not mutually exclusive.“How can individual liberty be secure if some individuals are denied their rights because they belong to certain societal groups? How,
on the other hand, can equality for all groups be secure if that equality does not include the exercise of individual liberty?”
Critics contend, however, that mak-ing individual rights paramount can produce results that clash with commu-nity values They note that the ACLU has fought the implementation of the Chil-dren’s Internet Protection Act, including
a provision that requires public libraries receiving federal technology funds to install filters on their computers or risk losing aid With the First Amendment seemingly protecting most forms of Internet PORNOGRAPHY, the act seeks to prevent access on public library compu-ters, so as to prevent children from seeing disturbing images as they walk
by The act even permits adults to ask the librarians to turn off the filters Never-theless, the ACLU persuaded a federal court in 2002 that the law violated the First Amendment Critics of the ACLU cite this as just one more example of blind devotion to an absolutist view of free expression
In the aftermath of theSEPTEMBER11TH ATTACKSof 2001, the ACLU exposed itself
to more criticism over its objections to new federal laws and orders It objected to proposed provisions of theUSA PATRIOT ACT
in October 2001, at a time when very few voices were raised about protecting the right to privacy and preventing the government from gaining more police powers It lobbied again when the act was reauthorized in 2006, and in 2009 advo-cated that three provisions of the law be allowed to sunset at the end of the year
It has challenged the indefiniteDETENTION
ofALIENS who are suspected of terrorist activities and ties, and questioned the invasion of email and phone traffic by federal agencies tasked with fighting
TERRORISM The ACLU promises to remain on the forefront of the debate over the scope of the Bill of Rights and the desire
of citizens to be protected by their government TheWAR ON TERRORISMthat began in September 2001 has generated many legal challenges by the ACLU as the federal government asserted new-found powers to monitor, investigate, and detain suspected terrorists The ACLU will continue to find itself isolated at times as it battles for its vision of a free society
FURTHER READINGS American Civil Liberties Union Available online at www.aclu.org (accessed July
11, 2003).
Hershkoff, Helen 1997 The Rights of the Poor: The Authoritative ACLU Guide to Poor People’s Rights Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois Univ Press.
Schulhofer, Stephen J 2002 The Enemy Within: Intelligence Gathering, Law En-forcement, and Civil Liberties in the Wake
of September 11 New York: Twentieth Century Fund.
Strossen, Nadine 2001 Defending Pornogra-phy: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights New York: New York Univ Press.
Walker, Samuel 1999 In Defense of American Liberties: A History of the ACLU New York: Oxford Univ Press.
CROSS REFERENCES Bill of Rights; Liberty; Right.