When the ACLU was founded in 1920, its focus was on freedom of speech, primarily for anti-war protesters.

In 1940, ACLU leadership was caught up in the Red Scare, and voted to exclude Communists from its leadership positions.

During the Cold War, the ACLU headquarters was dominated by anti-communists, but many local affiliates defended members of the Communist Party.

By 1964, membership had risen to 80, 000, and the ACLU was directly involved in a major expansion of civil liberties.

In 2005, there was internal conflict about whether or not a gag rule should be imposed on ACLU employees to prevent publication of internal disputes.

In June 2005, the ACLU announced a settlement between Bayaa and United Airlines who still disputed Bayaa's allegations, but noted that the settlement " was in the best interest of all ".

The ACLU had originally intended to oppose the Butler Act on the grounds that it violated the teacher's individual rights and academic freedom, and was therefore unconstitutional.

John Haynes Holmes, a Unitarian minister and social activist at The Community Church of New York — Unitarian Universalist was among the founders of both the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP ) in 1909 and the American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU ), chairing the latter for a time.

In December 1969, with a grant from the NIMH Center for Studies of Crime and Delinquency, cytogeneticist Digamber Borgaonkar at Johns Hopkins Hospital began a chromosome survey of ( predominantly African-American ) boys ages 8 to 18 in all Maryland institutions for delinquent, neglected, or mentally ill juveniles, which was suspended from February – May 1970 due to an American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU ) lawsuit about the lack of informed consent.

Though none of the men were found guilty by the all-white jury ( as blacks had been disfranchised under the South Carolina constitution, they could not serve on juries ), Thurmond was congratulated by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP ) and the American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU ) for his efforts.

The ACLU sued arguing that the right to place the sign was protected by the 1st Amendment.

The lawsuit was supported by Bryan Cave, Washington University Law School, St. Louis University Legal Clinic, the ACLU, MALDEF, the Hispanic Ministry of the Catholic Church and several private attorneys, who won a temporary restraining order.

The ACLU was dominated by anti-communist leaders during the 1940s, and did not enthusiastically support persons indicted under the Smith Act.

When the ACLU claimed the government sponsorship of a distinctly Christian symbol violated separation of church and state, the sponsors of the fifty-year-old Christmas celebration, Pageant of Peace, who had an exclusive permit from the Interior Department for all events on the Ellipse, responded that the nativity scene was a reminder of America's spiritual heritage.

This principle was further clarified in 1989, when the Supreme Court in County of Allegheny v. ACLU ruled that a crèche placed on the grand staircase of the Allegheny County Courthouse in Pittsburgh, PA violated the Establishment Clause, because the " principal or primary effect " of the display was to advance religion.

However, a year after students voiced protest and the American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU ) sent a letter to the school district requesting that the district reverse its actions, the book was reinstated.

The case was argued by ACLU attorney Kathryn Kolbert for Planned Parenthood, with Linda J. Wharton serving as Co-Lead Counsel.

The American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU ), led by Morris Ernst, appealed her conviction and won a reversal, in which judge Learned Hand ruled that the pamphlet's main purpose was to " promote understanding ".

Finally in 2007, the Taylor ruling was reversed for lack of evidence by the Supreme Court, which said that the ACLU had no evidence that its own communications had been intercepted without a warrant, and therefore the ACLU did not have a basis to challenge the legality of the wiretaps.

When he was denied the three days of paid bereavement leave given to married employees, he filed suit with the assistance of the ACLU.

" The ACLU represented Hoppe, and he was defended in an editorial article in the The Rebel Yell, the UNLV student newspaper.

The American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU ) got involved to protect the web sites, seeking a restraining order against Jones and then a permanent injunction against him, alleging that he had violated the constitutional rights of the web site creators.

Because of the secrecy rules involved, the government would not let the ACLU disclose they had even filed a case for nearly a month, after which they were permitted to release a heavily redacted version of the complaint ( shown right ).

The American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU ) got involved to protect the web sites, seeking a restraining order, followed by a permanent injunction, against Jones, alleging that he had violated the constitutional rights of the web site creators.

In 1997 fellow 1960s activist Danny Goldberg, a major music industry president heavily involved in the ACLU, became co-publisher with his father Victor.

After Alvin Moore was unable to take the case because of health reasons, the American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU ) attorney Robert J. Corcoran, asked John J. Flynn, a criminal defense attorney, to serve pro bono, along with his partner, John P. Frank, and an associate Peter D. Baird of the law firm Lewis & Roca in Phoenix to represent Miranda.

In 1997, in the landmark cyberlaw case of Reno v. ACLU, the United States Supreme Court struck the anti-indecency provisions of the Act.

ACLU took the case, and won.

Scopes ' involvement in the so-called Monkey Trial came about after the American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU ) announced that it would finance a test case challenging the confstitutionality of the Butler Act if they could find a Tennessee teacher willing to act as a defendant.

On August 17, 2006, U. S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit issued a 43-page ruling stating the program is unconstitutional, but did not immediately suspend the program and grants a temporary stay, in which the American Civil Liberties Union continued fighting the program's legality in the case ACLU v. NSA.

The majority decision denied that the ACLU had the standing to bring the case to court.

A few years later the American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU ) took its first major case in opposition to these laws.

) The ACLU posted bail, assigned defense counsel Albert Bendich to the case, and secured the pro bono services of famous criminal defense lawyer J. W. Ehrlich.

* ACLU of N. C. & Syidah Matteen v. State of North Carolina a court case in a state of the United States about taking oaths by different scriptures.

The American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU ) had been searching for a " perfect test case " to challenge anti-sodomy laws, and Hardwick's cause presented the one they were looking for.

In Reno v. ACLU, though, the Supreme Court held that this was not case law justifying the CDA, as the FCC's sanctions were not criminal punishments ; and TV and radio broadcasts, " as a matter of history, had ' received the most limited First Amendment protection ' … in large part because warnings could not adequately protect the listener from unexpected program content ", as opposed to Internet users, who must take " a series of affirmative steps " to access explicit material.

In April 1996, Donaldson testified on JDI ’ s behalf in the case ACLU v. Reno, which challenged the constitutionality of the Communications Decency Act ( CDA ).

Later, the crew is joined and greatly assisted by rabid ACLU feminist and law student Ellen Roark, who has prior experience with death penalty cases and offers Jake her services for free as a temporary clerk for the duration of the case.

He repeatedly refuses to play the " race card " even when baited to do so by several reporters, is clearly much more politically conservative than an attorney arguing such a case at the time might have been expected to be, and is shown to be in sharp contrast with Lucien on such matters, as well as with Ellen, to whom he expresses his strong support for the death penalty ( just not for Carl Lee ) and his contempt for the ACLU and, to a lesser extent, the NAACP.

* Information about the case from the ACLU

He was a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU ) during the 1944 Korematsu v. United States Supreme Court case.

" The case was settled in 2006, when " the federal government agreed to pay $ in attorneys ' fees to the ACLU of Northern California " and to " public, for the first time, hundreds of records about the government's secret ' no fly ' list used to screen airline passengers after September 11, 2001.

Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513 ( 1958 ), was a U. S. Supreme Court case addressing the State of California's refusal to grant to ACLU lawyer Lawrence Speiser, a veteran of World War II, a tax exemption because that person refused to sign a loyalty oath as required by a California law enacted in 1954.

( In this case, both ACLJ and ACLU were on the same side of the issue.

* ACLJ and ACLU jointly submitted an amicus curiae for a 2006 Texas case of Pastor Rick Barr and Philemon Homes vs. the city of Sinton.

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.