Career
Herman teaches constitutional law and criminal procedure,seminars on law and literature,and terrorism and civil liberties, [7] at Brooklyn Law School where she is the inaugural Ruth Bader Ginsburg Professor of Law. [8]
She began working for the ACLU as an intern in law school. [1] When she was elected president,Herman was the organization's general counsel and had served on its board for 20 years. [1] [3]
Herman's book Taking Liberties:the War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy was published by Oxford University Press in October 2011, [9] and won the 2012 Chicago-Kent College of Law/Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberties Prize. [10]
Herman has appeared as a guest on NPR,PBS,C-SPAN,NBC News,and MSNBC. She has written opinion columns for The New York Times ,Time, Newsday ,and HuffPost . [11] [12] [13] [14]
In 2019,Herman was named to Crain's New York Business biennial list of the "Most Powerful Women in New York". [15]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is an American nonprofit human rights organization founded in 1920. The organization's website has stated that 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 Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award is an award created in honor of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. The Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Awards were established by Christie Hefner in 1979 to honor individuals who have made significant contributions in the vital effort to protect and enhance First Amendment rights for Americans. Since the inception of the awards, more than 100 individuals including high school students, lawyers, librarians, journalists and educators have been honored.
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.
A Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) is an American locally-based multi-agency partnership between various federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies tasked with investigating terrorism and terrorism-related crimes, led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Department of Justice. The first JTTFs were established before the September 11 attacks, with their numbers increasing dramatically in the years after.
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.
Ira Saul Glasser 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.
Norman Dorsen was the Frederick I. and Grace A. Stokes Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties Program at the New York University School of Law, where he specialized in Constitutional Law, Civil Liberties, and Comparative Constitutional Law. Previously, he was president of the American Civil Liberties Union, 1976–1991. He was also president of the Society of American Law Teachers, 1972–1973, and president of the U.S. Association of Constitutional Law in 2000.
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.
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.
Marjorie Heins is a First Amendment lawyer, writer and founder of the Free Expression Policy Project.
Maya Lakshmi Harris is an American lawyer, public policy advocate, and writer. Harris was one of three senior policy advisors for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign's policy agenda and she also served as chair of the 2020 presidential campaign of her sister, Kamala Harris.
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.
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.
The Root-Tilden-Kern Scholarship is a full-tuition public service scholarship for students at New York University School of Law. It is widely considered to be the most prestigious public interest scholarship for law students in the United States.
Margo Jane Schlanger is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, and the founder and director of the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. Previously, she was at Washington University School of Law. From 2010 to 2012, while on leave from her professorial position, she served as the presidentially-appointed Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the United States Department of Homeland Security. As the top civil rights official at the Department of Homeland Security, Schlanger led the office that advises department leadership about civil rights and civil liberties issues, engages with communities whose civil rights and civil liberties may be affected by Department activities, investigates and resolves civil rights complaints, and leads the Departments equal employment opportunity program. Schlanger's major initiatives as Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Officer included: creating and managing a structure for overseeing the Department's controversial Secure Communities program to ensure that it did not serve as a conduit for unconstitutional practices by local law enforcement agencies in jurisdictions covered by the program; publishing guidance for agencies that receive DHS funding on providing meaningful access to people with limited English proficiency; working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the reform of detention practices; and improving the department's civil rights complaint process.
Susan Bandes is an American lawyer and the current Centennial Distinguished Professor Emeritus at DePaul University. Bandes is considered one of the 20 most cited law professors in criminal law and procedure.
Steven R. Shapiro is the former National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) from 1993–2016. Shapiro served as counsel or co-counsel on more than 200 briefs submitted to the United States Supreme Court on behalf of the ACLU. When he announced his retirement from the ACLU, Kathleen Sullivan said: “Civil Liberties without Steve Shapiro is like the Rolling Stones without Jagger.”
Thomas I. Emerson (1907–1991) was a 20th-century American attorney and professor of law. He is known as a "major architect of civil liberties law," "arguably the foremost First Amendment scholar of his generation," and "pillar of the Bill of Rights."
Deborah N. Archer is an American civil rights lawyer and law professor. She is the Jacob K. Javits Professor at New York University and professor of clinical law at New York University School of Law. She also directs the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law and the Civil Rights Clinic at NYU School of Law. In January 2021, she was elected president of the American Civil Liberties Union, becoming the first African American to hold the position in the organization’s history.
