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Palmer Raids
In its first year, the ACLU championed the targets of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer including politically radical immigrants. Also supported the right of trade unionists to hold meetings and organize, and secured the release of hundreds of activists imprisoned for their antiwar activities. -
The Scopes Case
When biology teacher John T. Scopes was charged with violating a Tennessee ban on the teaching of evolution, the ACLU was there and secured celebrated attorney Clarence Darrow for his defense. -
Brown v. Board of Education
The ACLU, having joined the NAACP in the legal battle for equal education, celebrated a major victory when the Supreme Court declared that racially segregated schools were in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. -
Protecting free speech
In Tinker v. Des Moines, the ACLU won a Supreme Court victory on behalf of public school students suspeneded for wearing an armband protesting the war to school, a First amendment victory. -
Reproductive Rights
After decades of struggle, the Supreme Court held — in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton — that the constitutional right to privacy encompasses a woman's right to decide whether she will terminate or continue a pregnancy. But the fight still continues and the ACLU struggles to protect women's right to reproductive choice. -
Internet Free speech
In ACLU v. Reno, the Supreme Court struck down the 1996 Communications Decency act, which censored the Internet by broadly banning "indecent" speech. Since then, Congress has passed numerous versions of the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), a federal law that would criminalize constitutionally protected speech on the Internet. Each time the law has been challenged by the ACLU and declared unconstitutional. -
keeping religion out of the science classroom
In Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, the ACLU represented a group of parents who challenged a public school district requirement for teachers to present so-called "intelligent design" as an alternative to evolution in high school biology classes. In a decision that garnered nationwide attention, a district judge ruled that "intelligent design" is not science and teaching it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. -
Protecting the right to privacy
In Safford Unified School District v. Redding the court ruled that school officials violated the constitutional rights of a 13-year-old Arizona girl when they strip searched her based on a classmate's uncorroborated accusation.
