Company Profile
ACLU of Northern California
Company Overview
The ACLU-NC is an affiliate of a nationwide, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to the defense and expansion of civil liberties and civil rights. For most of the last century, it has been at the heart of many of the most major – and sometimes controversial – struggles for civil liberties and civil rights in our state. Our mission is to ensure that Constitutional rights don’t just exist on paper, but are protected in practice.
Company History
The ACLU of Northern California has been the leading champion of civil liberties in our state since our founding in 1934. As changing times bring new challenges, we have expanded our issue areas and strategies. We added a reproductive justice policy director, launched a technology project for the digital age, and opened a Fresno office to engage communities in the Central Valley. But our commitment does not change or waver: fairness, equality, and justice for all people.
Our principles haven’t always made us popular. The ACLU-NC was alone in standing with Fred Korematsu and against the forced detention of Japanese-Americans during WWII, in a case that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. We dared to oppose obscenity laws in the prim 1950s, defending Lawrence Ferlinghetti for selling Howl, the groundbreaking book of poetry, in his San Francisco City Lights bookstore. In the years after 9/11, the ACLU pushed back on a wave of bigotry and fear mongering to protect the civil rights of Muslims and people of Middle Eastern and South Asian decent. In recent years, as discrimination has shifted to target Latinos and others perceived as “foreign,” the ACLU has stamped out anti-immigrant laws around the country and challenged unlawful policing in immigrant communities in California.
We may be best known for litigation, but through our history the ACLU-NC has been powered by the passion of our activists. The organization was forged through the courage of trade workers and labor organizers in the 1930s. We aided the growing civil rights movements of the 1960s, providing legal protection to campaigns by African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian Americans, as well as anti-war protestors and LGBT activists. Over the decades, battles have been fought and won by ACLU activists in fifteen chapters across Northern California and student groups on California’s university campuses, from the activists who launched the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley in 1964 to the UC Davis students who endured pepper spray while exercising their free speech rights in 2011.
The ACLU of Northern California has expanded freedom and justice in California for more than 75 years. Now new generations of Californians – taking action in the streets and online – will shape our course and our impact in the next century.
Notable Accomplishments / Recognition
The ACLU-NC is an affiliate of a nationwide, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to the defense and expansion of civil liberties and civil rights. For most of the last century, it has been at the heart of many of the most major – and sometimes controversial – struggles for civil liberties and civil rights in our state. Our mission is to ensure that Constitutional rights don’t just exist on paper, but are protected in practice. The ACLU is the first line of defense against threats to civil liberties and we work to ensure these freedoms are guaranteed to every person in this country.
As we move into a new era and face dangerous policies that threaten our civil rights and civil liberties, we remain dedicated to confronting these issues and defending the progress we have made.
We are witnessing a surge in unconstitutional laws that threaten American values. The current administration has plans to build a massive deportation force and forcibly remove 11 million immigrants, to ban the entry of Muslims into our country, to limit the rights of women to access reproductive healthcare, and to institute aggressive surveillance and registry programs. As these unlawful actions unfold, we are vigilantly working in courts, legislatures and communities to maintain the promise of freedom, justice and equal opportunities for all.
The ACLU of Northern California is one of the largest ACLU affiliates in the nation with 250,000 members throughout the state. We have a critical role to play. We must use our decades of experience in impact litigation, legislative advocacy, and fearless organizing to fight these un-American policies and protect our most cherished rights and freedoms. We are the resistance. Join us.