The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". Officially nonpartisan, the organization has been supported and criticized by liberal and conservative organizations alike. The ACLU works through litigation and lobbying and it has over 1,200,000 members and an annual budget of over $300 million. Local affiliates of the ACLU are active in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The ACLU provides legal assistance in cases when it considers civil liberties to be at risk. 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.
Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971), was a case argued before the Supreme Court of the United States. The court ruled in an 8–1 decision that Pennsylvania's Nonpublic Elementary and Secondary Education Act from 1968 was unconstitutional, violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The act allowed the Superintendent of Public Schools to reimburse private schools for the salaries of teachers who taught in these private elementary schools from public textbooks and with public instructional materials.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is an American non-profit organization, which advocates for atheists, agnostics, and non-theists. Formed in 1976, FFRF promotes the separation of church and state, and challenges the legitimacy of many federal and state programs that are faith-based. It supports groups such as nonreligious students and clergy who want to leave their faith.
The Child Online Protection Act (COPA) was a law in the United States of America, passed in 1998 with the declared purpose of restricting access by minors to any material defined as harmful to such minors on the Internet. The law, however, never took effect, as three separate rounds of litigation led to a permanent injunction against the law in 2009.
American Civil Liberties Union v. Ashcroft is a lawsuit filed on behalf of a formerly unknown Internet Service Provider (ISP) owner by the American Civil Liberties Union against the U.S. federal government.
Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George W. Bush on October 31, 2005, and has served since January 31, 2006. He is the second Italian-American justice to serve on the Supreme Court, after Antonin Scalia.
In United States law, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, together with that Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, form the constitutional right of freedom of religion. The relevant constitutional text is:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky, 545 U.S. 844 (2005), was a case argued before the Supreme Court of the United States on March 2, 2005. At issue was whether the Court should continue to inquire into the purpose behind a religious display and whether evaluation of the government's claim of secular purpose for the religious displays may take evolution into account under an Establishment Clause of the First Amendment analysis.
County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, 492 U.S. 573 (1989), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court considered the constitutionality of two recurring Christmas and Hanukkah holiday displays located on public property in downtown Pittsburgh. The first, a nativity scene (crèche), was placed on the grand staircase of the Allegheny County Courthouse. The second of the holiday display in question was an 18-foot (5.5 m) public Hanukkah menorah, which was placed just outside the City-County Building next to the city's 45-foot (14 m) decorated Christmas tree and a sign saluting liberty. The legality of the Christmas tree display was not considered in this case.
Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, 535 U.S. 564 (2002), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the American Civil Liberties Union and the United States government regarding the Child Online Protection Act (COPA). The unconstitutionality of the law was ultimately upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, while earlier injunctions against the law by that same court were at first dismissed by but later upheld by the Supreme Court. Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002) dealt with a similar law, the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 (CPPA).
Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668 (1984), was a United States Supreme Court case challenging the legality of Christmas decorations on town property.
Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, 555 U.S. 460 (2009), is a decision from the Supreme Court of the United States which ruled on the U.S. Constitution's prohibition on a government establishment of religion specifically with respect to monuments on public land.
A public menorah is a large menorah displayed publicly during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. It is done to celebrate the holiday and publicize the miracle of Hanukkah, and is typically accompanied by a public event during one of the nights of Hanukkah attended by invited dignitaries who are honored with lighting the menorah.
Green v. Haskell County Board of Commissioners, 568 F.3d 784, was a First Amendment case concerning the placing of a Ten Commandments monument on public property, an alleged violation of the separation of church and state.
Capitol Square Review & Advisory Board v. Pinette, 515 U.S. 753 (1995), is a United States Supreme Court case that focused on First Amendment rights and the Establishment Clause. Vincent Pinette, an active member of the Ku Klux Klan in Columbus, Ohio, wanted to place an unattended cross on the lawn of the Capitol Square during the 1993 Christmas season. Pinette and his fellow members of the KKK submitted their request. The advisory board originally denied this request. However, Pinette and the other members of the Ohio Chapter of the Klan fought this decision in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. The court found in favor of the Klan and the Advisory Board issued the permit. The Board appealed to the United States Court of Appeals, which affirmed the decision of the district court. The board made one last petition to the Supreme Court where the decision was made, by a vote of seven to two, that the Klan was permitted to display the cross at the public forum.
Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders, 566 U.S. 318 (2012), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that officials may strip-search individuals who have been arrested for any crime before admitting the individuals to jail, even if there is no reason to suspect that the individual is carrying contraband.
American Civil Liberties Union v. James Clapper, No. 13-3994, 959 F.Supp.2d 724 was a lawsuit by the civil liberties promoting nonprofit organization the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and its affiliate, the New York Civil Liberties Union, against the United States federal government that challenged the legality of the National Security Agency (NSA)'s bulk phone metadata collection program. On December 27, 2013, the court dismissed the case, finding that metadata collection did not violate the Fourth Amendment. On January 2, 2014, the ACLU appealed the ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. On May 7, 2015, the appeals court ruled that Section 215 of the Patriot Act did not authorize the bulk collection of metadata, which judge Gerard E. Lynch called a "staggering" amount of information.
Board of Trustees of Scarsdale v. McCreary, 471 U.S. 83 (1985), was a United States Supreme Court case in which an evenly split Court upheld per curiam a lower court's decision that the display of a privately sponsored nativity scene on public property does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
The Ten Commandments Monument is an outdoor monument installed on the Arkansas State Capitol grounds in Little Rock, Arkansas, in the United States. The monument is being challenged as unconstitutional by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The ACLU says that the monument demonstrates a religious preference, violating the First Amendment and the religious preference prohibition clause of the Arkansas State Constitution.
