American Civil Liberties Union Of Maryland
The ACLU is our nation's guardian of liberty, working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.
Description:
The Maryland ACLU works to ensure that all people in the state of Maryland are free to think and speak as they choose and can lead their lives free from discrimination and unwarranted government intrusion. We are guided in our work by the United States Bill of Rights and the Maryland Declaration of Rights. The Maryland ACLU acts without partisanship to achieve these goals.
These rights we protect include:
Your First Amendment rights - freedom of speech, association and assembly; freedom of the press, and freedom of religion.
Your right to equal protection under the law - protection against unlawful discrimination.
Your right to due process - fair treatment by the government whenever the loss of your liberty or property is at stake.
Your right to privacy - freedom from unwarranted government intrusion into your personal and private affairs.
The ACLU also works to extend rights to segments of our population that have traditionally been denied their rights, including people of color; women; lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender people; prisoners; and people with disabilities.
Our office has a staff of 18, and include a Legal Program, Legislative Program, Development program, Public Education Program, Fair Housing Program, Public Outreach Program and Operations Program. All of these departments work together to achieve the mission of the ACLU.
History:
The ACLU of Maryland was founded on March 8, 1931- the 10th state ACLU affiliate. The National ACLU was founded in 1920. Among the founders of the ACLU, or as it was originally called, the Civil Liberties Bureau, were Crystal Eastman and Roger Baldwin. Eastman (1881-1928) studied law at New York University after getting her undergraduate degree at Vassar. She was a women’s suffrage activist who managed the Wisconsin Women’s Suffrage campaign in 1912, and organized a New York Feminist Congress demanding equality for women in 1919.
Roger Baldwin (1884-1991) attended Harvard obtaining his bachelor’s degree in 1904 and his master’s in 1905. He taught sociology, worked as a probation officer and served as the secretary of the Civic League of St. Louis before heading the pacifist organization, American Union Against Militarism, a predecessor of the Civil Liberties Bureau and the ACLU. This organization defended conscientious objectors and draft resisters during World War I. In 1918 he served nine months of prison time for himself resisting the draft. Ultimately he co-founded the Civil Liberties Bureau, serving first as its director then later as its national chairman.
Until the ACLU’s involvement no free speech defense trials had been won in the Supreme Court. With the ACLU this changed. Among many successful freedom defenses by the ACLU was the right of the Jehovah’s Witnesses to enjoy freedom of the press which had been denied to them because of a Georgia statute requiring a permit to distribute literature of any kind. Other successful ACLU cases were the John Scopes “monkey trial” in 1925 permitting the teaching of evolution in schools, the James Joyce trial in which the ban was lifted from selling his book “Ulysses” in the United States, and the Henry Ford trial where his right to distribute anti-union materials was successfully defended.
The ACLU has fought a great many cases before the Supreme Court in defense of civil liberties. Among them, in 1941, the ACLU won a discrimination case referred to as Edwards v. California. This Supreme Court Case fought the “anti-Okie” law of California which prohibited the transporting of indigent people into the state. In 1943, the Supreme Court decided in favor of the ACLU in the religious discrimination case, West Virginia v. Barnette, and determined that Jehovah’s Witness children could not be forced to salute the American flag. In Smith v. Allwright, 1944, the ACLU successfully fought a racial discrimination case which allowed blacks to vote in Texas’s “white primary”. The Supreme Court determined that even though the Democratic Party is a private organization, primaries are essential to the electoral process and all eligible voters must be included. In 1948 a censorship case called Shelley vs. Kramer determined that restrictive homeowner’s covenants cannot be used to prevent the sale of houses to blacks. In 1952, Burstyn vs. Wilson determined that New York state was wrong to censor a movie called “The Miracle” for being sacrilegious, saying this violated the First Amendment.
In more recent cases, the 1992 case, Lee vs. Weisman determined that it is unconstitutional for officially sanctioned prayers to be read at graduation ceremonies. The 1993 case of J.E.B. vs. T.B. the Supreme Court decided that pre-emptory challenges could not be used to exclude jurors on the basis of sex. And in 1997, the Supreme Court decided that the 1996 Communications Act banning “indecent” speech violated First Amendment rights.
Contact people:
Office fax number: (410) 366-7838
Address:
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3600 Clipper Mill Road
Ste. 350Baltimore, MD 21211(See a map) |
Web Site: http://www.aclu-md.org
Directions:
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Directions to the ACLU of Maryland:
1. From downtown and South Baltimore:
Get on I-83 North (either downtown or from Charles Street at Penn Station). Exit at Falls Road (Exit 8, after 28th Street). Take Falls Road through 2 lights,. . . (more) |
| Last updated on June 3, 2009 |
