American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is an American nonprofit civil rights organization founded in 1920. ACLU affiliates are active in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The budget of the ACLU in 2024 was $383 million.
The ACLU provides legal assistance in cases where it considers civil liberties at risk with advocacy from a secularist stance against excessive religious entanglement over the United States government. Legal support from the ACLU can take the form of direct legal representation or preparation of amicus curiae briefs expressing legal arguments when another law firm is already providing representation. In addition to representing persons and organizations in lawsuits, the ACLU lobbies for policy positions established by its board of directors.
The ACLU's current positions include opposing the death penalty; supporting same-sex marriage and the right of LGBTQ+ people to adopt; supporting reproductive rights such as birth control and abortion rights; eliminating discrimination against women, minorities, and LGBTQ+ people; decarceration in the United States; protecting housing and employment rights of veterans; reforming sex offender registries and protecting housing and employment rights of convicted first-time offenders; supporting the rights of prisoners and opposing torture; upholding the separation of church and state by opposing government preference for religion over nonbelief in religious doctrine or for particular faiths over others; and supporting the legality of gender-affirming treatments, including those that are government funded, for transgender youth.
Leadership
The ACLU is led by a president and an executive director, Deborah Archer and Anthony D. Romero, respectively, as of September 2025. The president acts as chair of the ACLU's board of directors, leads fundraising, and facilitates policy-setting. The executive director manages the day-to-day operations of the organization. The board of directors consists of 80 persons, including representatives from each state affiliate and at-large delegates. The organization has its headquarters in 125 Broad Street, a 40-story skyscraper located in Lower Manhattan, New York City.The leadership of the ACLU does not always agree on policy decisions; differences of opinion within the ACLU leadership have sometimes grown into major debates. In 1937, an internal debate erupted over whether to defend Henry Ford's right to distribute anti-union literature. In 1939, a heated debate took place over whether to prohibit communists from serving in ACLU leadership roles. During the early 1950s and Cold War McCarthyism, the board was divided on whether to defend communists. In 1968, a schism formed over whether to represent Benjamin Spock's anti-war activism. In 1973, as the Watergate Scandal continued to unfold, leadership was initially divided over whether to call for President Richard Nixon's impeachment and removal from office. In 2005, there was internal conflict about whether or not a gag rule should be imposed on ACLU employees to prevent the publication of internal disputes.
Funding
The ACLU solicits donations to its charitable foundation. The local affiliates solicit their own funding; however, some also receive funds from the national ACLU, with the distribution and amount of such assistance varying from state to state. At its discretion, the national organization provides subsidies to smaller affiliates that lack sufficient resources to be self-sustaining; for example, the Wyoming ACLU chapter received such subsidies until April 2015, when, as part of a round of layoffs at the national ACLU, the Wyoming office was closed.In October 2004, the ACLU rejected $1.5 million from both the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation because the foundations had adopted language from the USA PATRIOT Act in their donation agreements, including a clause stipulating that none of the money would go to "underwriting terrorism or other unacceptable activities". The ACLU views this clause, both in federal law and in the donors' agreements, as a threat to civil liberties, saying it is overly broad and ambiguous.
Due to the nature of its legal work, the ACLU is often involved in litigation against governmental bodies, which are generally protected from adverse monetary judgments; a town, state, or federal agency may be required to change its laws or behave differently, but not to pay monetary damages except by an explicit statutory waiver. In some cases, the law permits plaintiffs who successfully sue government agencies to collect money damages or other monetary relief. In particular, the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Award Act of 1976 leaves the government liable in some civil rights cases. Fee awards under this civil rights statute are considered "equitable relief" rather than damages, and government entities are not immune from equitable relief. Under laws such as this, the ACLU and its state affiliates sometimes share in monetary judgments against government agencies. In 2006, the Public Expressions of Religion Protection Act sought to prevent monetary judgments in the particular case of violations of church-state separation.
The ACLU has received court-awarded fees from opponents; for example, the Georgia affiliate was awarded $150,000 in fees after suing a county demanding the removal of a Ten Commandments display from its courthouse; a second Ten Commandments case in the state, in a different county, led to a $74,462 judgment. The State of Tennessee was required to pay $50,000, the State of Alabama $175,000, and the State of Kentucky $121,500, in similar Ten Commandments cases.
In 2024, the ACLU received $268M in grants and donations from supporters.
Policy positions
The ACLU's 2024 annual report states that it engages in legal advocacy in support of civil rights, including abortion rights, LGBTQ equality, immigrants' rights, criminal law reform, free speech, and voting rights.When the ACLU was formed in 1919, free speech was the civil right that it concentrated on. The ACLU has supported free speech, even when the speech is unpopular or offensive. The ACLU opposes limits on campaign contributions, since such limits generally limit free speech and could be used to restrict the rights of unions. The ACLU also opposes state censorship of the Confederate flag. Free speech on college campuses has been the subject of several lawsuits the ACLU has supported. In the employment realm, the ACLU has supported the rights of employees to engage in free speech. Protests outside religious buildings are supported by the ACLU, even when perceived as offensive.
Combating discrimination based on race, religion, ethnicity, or gender has been a focus of the ACLU since the civil rights era in the 1960s. The ACLU frequently participates in legal actions in support of the LGBTQ community.
Criminal justice has been long-standing goal of the ACLU, focusing on constitutional issues such as excessive punishment and the right to an attorney. Immigrant rights, for undocumented immigrants in particular, is an area of the law that the ACLU frequently acts as an advocate.
Many of the ACLU positions are rooted in the U.S. Constitution, such as the Second Amendment: the ACLU opposes any effort to create a national registry of gun owners and has worked with the National Rifle Association of America to prevent a registry from being created, and it has favored protecting the right to carry guns under the Second Amendment. However, the ACLU also supports some degree of gun control.
The ACLU supports women's rights to make health care decisions, including access to abortions.
Support and opposition
A variety of persons and organizations support the ACLU. Allies of the ACLU in legal actions have included the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the American Jewish Congress, the National Rifle Association of America, Planned Parenthood, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State.The ACLU has been criticized by liberals, such as when it excluded communists from its leadership ranks, when it defended Neo-Nazis, when it declined to defend Paul Robeson, or when it opposed the passage of the National Labor Relations Act. In 2014, an ACLU affiliate supported anti-Islam protesters, and in 2018 the ACLU was criticized when it supported the NRA.
Conversely, it has been criticized by conservatives such as when it argued against official prayer in public schools or when it opposed the Patriot Act.
The ACLU has supported conservative figures such as Rush Limbaugh, George Wallace, Henry Ford and Oliver North; as well as liberal figures such as Dick Gregory, Rockwell Kent, and Benjamin Spock.
The ACLU is often criticized when it represents an individual or organization that promotes offensive or unpopular viewpoints, such as the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, the Nation of Islam, the North American Man/Boy Love Association, the Westboro Baptist Church or the Unite the Right rally. The ACLU's official policy is "... represented or defended individuals engaged in some truly offensive speech. We have defended the speech rights of communists, Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, accused terrorists, pornographers, anti-LGBTQ activists, and flag burners. That's because the defense of freedom of speech is most necessary when the message is one most people find repulsive. Constitutional rights must apply to even the most unpopular groups if they're going to be preserved for everyone."
Organization and state affiliants
At the national level, the ACLU consists of two legal entities: the American Civil Liberties Union, a 501 social welfare group; and the ACLU Foundation, a 501 public charity. Both are non-profit organizations that engage in civil rights litigation, advocacy, and education. The two organizations are closely related, and share common goals and some common leadership. Donations to the 501 foundation are tax-deductible, but donations to the 501 are not. The 501 group can engage in unlimited political advocacy, but the 501 foundation cannot.Most of the organization's workload is performed by its local affiliates. There is at least one affiliate organization in each state, as well as one in Washington, D.C., and in Puerto Rico. California has three affiliates. The affiliates operate autonomously from the national organization; each affiliate has its own staff, executive director, board of directors, and budget. Each affiliate consists of two non-profit corporations: a 501 corporation–called the ACLU Foundation–that does not perform lobbying, and a 501 corporation–called ACLU–which is entitled to lobby. Both organizations share staff and offices.
ACLU affiliates are the basic unit of the ACLU's organization and engage in litigation, lobbying, and public education. For example, in 2020, the ACLU's New Jersey chapter argued 26 cases before the New Jersey Supreme Court, about one-third of the total cases heard in that court. They sent over 50,000 emails to officials or agencies and had 28 full-time staff.