‘New York’: Incivility at Civil-Liberties Union

The American Civil Liberities Union has grown quickly under the leadership of Anthony Romero, who took over just a few days before the 2001 terrorist attacks and has led the organization through dozens of lawsuits over actions the Bush administration has taken to promote national security, reports New York magazine (February 19).

The organization now has 573,000 members, after hovering around 300,000 for decades, and it raises about twice as much from private sources as it did in 2000.

Much of the money has gone into expanding the number of lawyers who work for the organization, and civil libertarians say the group has been successful in fighting government restrictions that improperly intrude on Americans’ rights.

But Mr. Romero’s leadership style has divided the organization, its board, and civil-liberties advocates. The difficulties at the organization have gone public, both through leaks of board sessions to newspapers and through a Web site set up by civil libertarians to “save” the group from the threat they say Mr. Romero poses.

His opponents say he is too willing to abandon principles of free speech and stifles open discussion among staff and board members.

Among his major detractors is the man who persuaded the board to hire him: Ira Glasser, who was previously the organization’s leader. Mr. Glasser says Mr. Romero has misled board members and threatened to retaliate against those who disagree with him. He also frustrated Mr. Glasser and other board members with his handling of donations that came with restrictions some trustees and other legal experts said violated free-speech rights.

The concerns have prompted some board members to resign, while others say they were forced out because they disagreed with Mr. Romero. Mr. Glasser is now contacting local affiliates and asking them to hold debates between Mr. Romero’s supporters and detractors.

Rick Johnson, a member of the Florida affiliate’s board, tells the magazine he doubts Mr. Romero will be ousted, in part because of his work to bolster the organization’s financial position. But he says, “What I’m troubled by is, if you take any cluster of people, no matter how fine their character may start out to be, and you give them something close to unlimited money, unlimited power, secrecy, the ability to take that money and use it to perpetuate themselves in power, the ability to silence critics, to keep documents secret or shred those documents, the ability to erase tapes so your version of history cannot be challenged, and if you mix that with an attitude that is vindictive and maybe a little paranoid, what you’ve got is a potential train wreck.”

Mr. Romero concedes he has made some mistakes, but says his critics are ignoring the organization’s accomplishments. The chairman of the board, Nadine Strossen, tells the magazine, that “even assuming completely for the sake of argument that every allegation made by this group is true, I would say, so what!”

The article is available online at http://www.nymag.com.