News
Two recent stories in New York and the Nation explore the battle over the ACLU. Neither disputes any of our factual assertions, which detail serious misconduct by ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero, President Nadine Strossen, and other board leaders. Together, these stories offer a disturbing portrait of an organization undermining itself from within.
The New York piece, by David France, does not take sides but includes some devastating admissions by the ACLU leadership and its supporters. Nadine Strossen responds to our allegations of misconduct by saying “so what” if they’re true. Romero characteristically blames other people for the few “mistakes” he acknowledges: He casually blames a staff member for his own failure to disclose a legal matter to the board that he was required to disclose, and he blames his temper tantrums on people who “provoke” him. Corporate recruiter Arnie Miller, who vetted Romero, acknowledges that he is engaged in mudslinging in order to discredit Romero’s critics.
http://www.nymag.com/news/features/27839
The Nation piece, by Scott Sherman, is, in the end, critical of our efforts; yet, remarkably, the substance of his report vindicates them.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070205/sherman/2
It does not challenge in any way any of our factual claims. And, even while Sherman criticizes us for not accepting the national board’s decision to continue supporting the current leadership, despite its misconduct, he concedes “the critics performed a useful service by confronting Romero and bringing his transgressions to light.”
Even Romero’s supporters admit to The Nation that these transgressions include his mishandling of a government blacklist agreement; (he signed the agreement in relative secret and lied about his decision to approve the agreement when it was exposed.) They also question his apparent support for a policy proposal that would have barred ACLU board members from criticizing the ACLU. Why does Romero continue to enjoy support? According to The Nation, some attribute his questionable conduct to his relative incompetence, which they’re apparently willing to tolerate. The Nation reports that Romero “kept his job, in large part, because many of his colleagues viewed him as young, inexperienced, and overwhelmed by the complexities of running the ACLU after 9/11.” In other words, Romero was allowed to keep his job because he was considered not quite up to it.
Romero is 41 years old. But, former ACLU attorney Burt Neuborne observes that he needed a “mentor.” Neuborne also remarks that if New York University law professor Norman Dorsen were still president of the ACLU, this battle “would never have happened… When Norman’s hand went off the tiller at ACLU, it lurched a bit … He would have told Anthony what to do.” (We leave it to others to figure out why the ACLU board should content itself with an executive director who cannot be trusted to act in accordance with the ACLU’s principles unless he is “told what to do” and a president, Nadine Strossen, who seems to be incapable of telling him.)
Besides, the 41 year old head of the ACLU should not need to be instructed to tell the truth. Lack of mentoring is obviously no excuse for lying. Even Romero effectively acknowledges to The Nation, when cornered, that his transgressions included lying about his approval of the government blacklist agreement: He admits to the reporter that he did not sign the agreement on advice of counsel, as he had long led people to believe. Apparently Romero found this lie amusing: he acknowledges it, according to the reporter, with a “sheepish grin.” (The reporter does not reveal that Romero also repeatedly misrepresented the substance of counsel’s advice when he did belatedly obtain it.)
A summary of “transgressions” by the ACLU staff and lay leadership are included in the factual statement (Facts of the Matter”) posted on this website, so we will not review them here. We do want to stress that:
1. Savetheaclu includes many former and current ACLU staff and board leaders, including those who served for two to four decades. Some of them are identified on this website, where you can also find individual statements by Norman Siegel, former Executive Director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, James Ferguson a former, longtime national board leader, (who resigned from the board in dismay) and Noel Salinger, a former ACLU development director and current board member of the ACLU of Illinois.
2. Serious breaches of principle have not been remedied, or even acknowledged, including the ACLU’s continuing, voluntary participation in a government blacklisting scheme. Why has the ACLU signed a contract with the federal government agreeing to engage in blacklisting? As our statement of facts explains, it did so to facilitate fundraising.
