Ira Saul Glasser (born April 18, 1938) is an American civil liberties activist who served as the fifth executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) from 1978 to 2001. His life is the subject of the 2020 documentary Mighty Ira . [1]
Ira Glasser was born on April 18, 1938, at Brooklyn Jewish Hospital in Brooklyn, New York. [2] He earned a graduate degree in mathematics from Ohio State University.
In the early 1960s, Glasser taught mathematics at Queens College (CUNY) and Sarah Lawrence College. From 1963 to 1967, he was the editor of Current magazine. In 1967, Glasser joined the New York Civil Liberties Union as associate director. In 1970 he became the NYCLU's executive director, in which capacity he served until he became the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in 1978.
The ACLU website credits Glasser with transforming the American Civil Liberties Union "from a 'mom and pop'-style operation concentrated mainly in a few large cities to a nationwide civil liberties powerhouse." [3] At the end of Glasser's directorship the ACLU maintained staffed offices in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico; when he became director in 1978, only about half of the states had staffed offices. Glasser raised the ACLU's annual income from $4 million in 1978 to $45 million in 1999.
Although the ACLU had protected civil liberties generally through litigation, Glasser expanded the focus of the ACLU's activities through lobbying and public education programs. [4]
Glasser retired in 2001; he was succeeded as executive director of the ACLU by Anthony D. Romero.
In his retired life, Glasser serves as the president of the board of directors of the Drug Policy Alliance.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is an American nonprofit human rights organization founded in 1920. The organization strives "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." The ACLU works through litigation and lobbying and has more than 1,800,000 members as of July 2018, with an annual budget over $300 million. ACLU affiliates are active in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The ACLU provides legal assistance in cases where it considers civil liberties 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.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), formerly named the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit civil liberties group founded in 1999 with the mission of protecting freedom of speech on college campuses in the United States. FIRE changed its name in June 2022, when it broadened its focus from colleges to freedom of speech throughout American society.
Nadine Strossen is an American legal scholar and civil liberties activist who served as the president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) from 1991 to 2008. A liberal feminist, she was the first woman to lead the ACLU. A professor at New York Law School, Strossen is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and other professional organizations.
Morton H. Halperin is an American analyst who deals with U.S. foreign policy, arms control, civil liberties, and the workings of bureaucracies.
Roger Nash Baldwin was one of the founders of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). He served as executive director of the ACLU until 1950.
Anthony D. Romero is an American lawyer who serves as the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. He assumed the position in 2001 as the first Latino and openly gay man to do so.
Wendy Kaminer is an American lawyer and writer. She has written several books on contemporary social issues, including A Fearful Freedom: Women's Flight From Equality, about the conflict between egalitarian and protectionist feminism; I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional: The Recovery Movement and Other Self-Help Fashions, about the self-help movement; and Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety.
Phil Harvey was an American entrepreneur, philanthropist and libertarian who set up large-scale programs that delivered subsidized contraceptives in poor countries. Harvey was the founder and former president of DKT International, the Washington, D.C.-based charity that implements family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention programs in 57 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America. He was the chief sponsor of the DKT Liberty Project which raised awareness about freedom of speech issues in the U.S. Harvey was also the president of Adam & Eve, the North Carolina–based company that sells sex toys, adult films and condoms. Consequently, he has been called "one of the most influential figures in the American sex industry today".
Norman Siegel is the former executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), New York's leading civil rights organization, under the umbrella of the nationwide American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), as well as a former candidate for Public Advocate in New York City and a noted civil rights attorney.
Gregory Christopher Lukianoff is an American lawyer, journalist, author and activist who serves as the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). He previously served as FIRE's first director of legal and public advocacy until he was appointed president in 2006.
David D. Cole is the National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Before joining the ACLU in July 2016, Cole was the Hon. George J. Mitchell Professor in Law and Public Policy at the Georgetown University Law Center from March 2014 through December 2016. He has published in various legal fields including constitutional law, national security, criminal justice, civil rights, and law and literature. Cole has litigated several significant First Amendment cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, as well a number of influential cases concerning civil rights and national security. He is also a legal correspondent to several mainstream media outlets and publications.
National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, 432 U.S. 43 (1977), arising out of what is sometimes referred to as the Skokie Affair, was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court dealing with freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. This case is considered a "classic" free speech case in constitutional law classes. Related court decisions are captioned Skokie v. NSPA, Collin v. Smith, and Smith v. Collin. The Supreme Court ruled 5–4, per curiam. The Supreme Court's 1977 ruling granted certiorari and reversed and remanded the Illinois Supreme Court's denial to lift the lower court's injunction on the NSPA's march. In other words: the courts decided a person's assertion that speech is being restrained must be reviewed immediately by the judiciary. By requiring the state court to consider the neo-Nazis' appeal without delay, the U.S. Supreme Court decision opened the door to allowing the National Socialist Party of America to march.
Aryeh Neier is an American human rights activist who co-founded Human Rights Watch, served as the president of George Soros's Open Society Institute philanthropy network from 1993 to 2012, had been National Director of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1970 to 1978, and he was also involved with the creation of the group SDS by being directly involved in the group SLID's renaming.
John A. Powell is an African-American law professor. He leads the UC Berkeley Othering & Belonging Institute and holds the Robert D. Haas Chancellor's Chair in Equity and Inclusion, Professor of Law and Professor of African American Studies and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Powell spells his name in lowercase based on the idea that we should be "part of the universe, not over it, as capitals signify".
The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey (ACLU-NJ) is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit civil rights organization in Newark, New Jersey, and an affiliate of the national American Civil Liberties Union. According to the ACLU-NJ's stated mission, the ACLU-NJ operates through litigation on behalf of individuals, lobbying in state and local legislatures, and community education.
Ramona Ann Ripston served as the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California between 1972 and 2011. In her 38 years at the helm of the ACLU SoCal, Ripston had helped bring about substantial reforms in the region.
Osmond Fraenkel was an American attorney who served as general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.
John de Leon is a retired Cuban-American attorney known for his work on immigration and civil rights issues. His cases were the subject of reports in The New York Times and ABC News and he was a frequent guest on Spanish-language news and opinion programs and local media discussing immigration and other human-rights topics. He also appeared as a legal commentator on CNN.
Chase Strangio is an American lawyer and transgender rights activist. He is the Deputy Director for Transgender Justice and staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Mighty Ira is a 2020 documentary film by Nico Perrino, Aaron Reese, and Chris Maltby. The film profiles the life and career of Ira Glasser, who was executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) from 1978 to 2001.
