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The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa (ACLU of Iowa,) also known as The Iowa Civil Liberties Union (ICLU,) is the Iowa State affiliate of the national American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU of Iowa is a non-profit membership organization that promotes and defends the values reflected in the Bill of Rights through public advocacy and outreach, lobbying, and litigation. The ACLU of Iowa is dedicated to upholding the United States Constitution – particularly the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. It also supports and works for the improvement civil rights statues, open records/meetings laws, and statutory privacy protections. The ACLU of Iowa’s work is focused on defending the rights to freedom of speech and association and freedom of religion; and the rights of due process, privacy, and equal protection under the law. These rights are also protected by Article I of the Iowa Constitution.

Funding
The ACLU of Iowa is a non-partisan organization that does not endorse or oppose candidates and does not contribute money to political campaigns. Rather, it relies solely upon the force of its moral arguments and the voices of its members to promote civil liberties in the state and federal legislatures.

As a private organization, the ACLU of Iowa is funded entirely with membership dues and donations – it receives no government funding. Membership dues to the ACLU of Iowa are not tax-deductible. However, donations to the ACLU Foundation of Iowa are tax-deductible.

Founding
Founded in 1935, the ICLU became the fifth affiliate of the national American Civil Liberties Union. The only affiliates founded prior to the ICLU were located in urban centers: Boston, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. It wasn’t until 2006 that the group was renamed the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa to better reflect its more interconnected working relationship with the national organization.

Litigation and Advocacy, 1935-1940
In the early years of its existence, the ICLU concentrated on the right of the still-young unionization movement. It succeeded with two key legal victories.

In 1938, Maytag workers with the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers Union went on strike in Newton. Several people were charged with “criminal syndicalism.” Apparently, just one, William Sentner, was actively prosecuted. He was fined what was then a whopping $2,500 or 750 days in jail. With the defense assistance of the ICLU and ACLU, Senter’s conviction was appealed and reversed by the Iowa Supreme Court.

A year later, five Communists were arrested in Sioux City at a public meeting and charged with criminal syndicalism. They were defended by ICLU Board member John Denison. The grand jury indicted no one.


 * State v. Sentner

1940-1950
In the post-war era, anti-communist hysteria began to grip America and Iowa was no exception. The ICLU fought against loyalty oaths. And also—surprisingly in such a predominantly white state—it managed to help deal an early blow to racial discrimination.

In 1948, more than a decade before other lunch counter sit-ins gained attention, the remarkable Edna Griffin of Des Moines and others staged a lunch counter sit-in at the downtown Katz Drugstore. Katz was a chain notorious for its blatant policy of not allowing black customers to eat at the lunch counter with whites.

On July 7, Griffin, holding her baby daughter, went with John Biggs and Leonard Hudson to the Katz drugstore to order ice cream. The manager refused to serve them, saying, “It is the policy of our store that we don’t serve colored.”

The Polk County attorney, and ACLU pursued the case legally. The Katz manager was prosecuted under Iowa’s only civil rights law at the time, a criminal statue prohibiting discrimination in public accommodations. An agreement was negotiated to end the discriminatory practice.

1950-1960

 * Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District

1970-1980
1974 Alsager case is an important example. Filed against the Polk County Juvenile Court, Alsager resulted in a dramatic overhaul of America’s juvenile justice system that still remains in place today.

Charles and Darlene Alsager, represented by the ICLU, sued over the termination of their parental rights to five of their six children, ranging in ages from 10 to one. The children were removed for neglect, and for the next six years, several were back and forth from their parents to foster homes to potentially adoptive parents. The Federal appeals court held that the state had to have a clear standard, with adequate notice and very substantial cause, to terminate parental rights.

In 1976, the ICLU filed the first lawsuit for Iowans seeking the right to marry a partner of the same sex, making it perhaps the first organization in the state to sue on behalf of same-sex couples. We filed a petition, albeit unsuccessful, on behalf of Tracy Bjorgum and Kenneth Bunch, two men who were denied a marriage license in Polk County. The case was a good example of how, in much of our work, a battle may have been lost but not ever the war.

1980-1990
In 1984, two young men were singled out for a selective service prosecution purely on the basis of their public defiance of the draft. The ICLU attorneys argued their case all the way to the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court. Rusty Martin and Gary Eklund were charged with failure to register specifically because they had reported their opposition directly to the draft board in protest. The U.S. Court of Appeals rejected their arguments that selective prosecution violated their right of protest, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied review.

Later, in 1989, the ICLU took a nationally heralded case, championing privacy for cordless telephone calls in what became a national issue. We represented the Scott Tyler family in a suit brought after the warrantless eavesdropping on their cordless telephone calls. The case received a great deal of national media attention and although the Eighth Circuit Court ruled that there was no expectation of privacy in cordless telephone conversations, lawmakers disagreed. Soon afterwards Congress extended statutory protection to electronic communications. The communications industry subsequently responded by encrypting transmitted voice signals.

In 1985, in a lawsuit against the Central Community School District of Decatur County, we started the first in a long series of cases challenging the practice of including an official Christian prayer at school graduation ceremonies. With representation from the ACLU of Iowa, the Grahams prevailed, but they faced fierce reaction in their own community as did the Skarins a decade later.

1990-2000
During this decade, the ICLU took on the fight to prevent restoration of the death penalty in Iowa. We prevailed despite the governor’s support of the death penalty.

The organization also worked successfully for legal protection of AIDS victims and for the confidentiality of AIDS test results. Another victory came when we sucessfully represented a state worker who sued the state for job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, even though no specific law made such discrimination legal.

The ICLU also began a string of cases dealing with jail and prison conditions. We successfully sued a sheriff in northwest Iowa over treatment of prisoners, nearly bankrupting ourselves in the process. Another major lawsuit stopped the religious indoctrination of Iowa prisoners forced to accept Christ in order to complete a mandatory drug treatment program.

One ICLU lawsuit forced a county to hold a legally required election on gambling.

The ICLU also successfully campaigned against the indiscriminate and inept use of ion hand scanners, which checked skin surfaces for traces of drugs by security and law enforcement. The highly inaccurate scanners resulted in innocent citizens being accused of illegal drug use.

In 1990, we took on abusive law enforcement seizures, as in the case of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources permanently seizing a fisherman’s boat and motor when he was cited for the simple misdemeanor crime of fishing with a net. We fought unfair seizures such as this one in the press, the courts, and the legislature until a reform law was adopted.

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