Minnesota Civil Liberties Union

Interest in forming a Minnesota branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was first discussed at a meeting of 21 Twin Cities ACLU members on January 25, 1951 in the home of Minneapolis-based attorney Vincent Johnson. The meeting was called by Johnson; Henry E. Allen, University of Minnesota student religious activities coordinator; William Lloyd Sholes, Minneapolis attorney and ACLU state correspondent; and Maurice B. Visscher, University of Minnesota medical school professor, to discuss rising concerns about individual and minority rights in light of the Cold War and McCarthyism. A second meeting held in February of 1951 was attended by Alfred McClung Lee who represented the national board of the ACLU. Attendees at that meeting decided not to institute a state affiliate but to work toward increasing the number of Minnesotans with ACLU membership.

A year later, on May 12, 1952, more than 70 Twin Cities ACLU members were present at a meeting attended by ACLU field director George E. Rundquist. The members authorized Vincent Johnson to head a state organizing committee to canvass local support and to work with the national office on bylaws, organizational structure, and affiliation matters. Committee members included Henry E. Allen; Fanny F. Brin, member of the National Council of Jewish Women; Finch J. Cornwall, district manager, Mutual Service Insurance Companies; Earl R. Larson, attorney and later U.S. district judge; Verner Levi, University of Minnesota political science professor; Miriam Levy (Mrs. Irving Levy of St. Paul); Robert C. McClure, law professor; Russell E. Myers, executive director, St. Paul Council of Human Relations; Donald G. Peterson, University of Minnesota psychology professor; Robert W. Smith, Minneapolis Star editorialist; and Edward F. Waite, retired state district judge. An organization ballot was mailed on August 22, 1952 and in September 88 votes for state formation were recorded by the New York office of the ACLU.

The first meeting of the board of the Minnesota Branch of the American Civil Liberties Union was held on October 2, 1952. During that meeting the board elected Earl R. Larson as president, Theodore Jorgenson as vice president, and Robert McClure as secretary-treasurer. By the end of 1952 the Union had a membership of 175 individuals and the board had established a membership committee and a lawyers advisory committee. Publication of a newsletter began in 1953 and by 1957 membership had grown to around 800.

Specific issues that first caught the attention of the new Union included pending changes to the state's obscenity laws, the suspension of public employees purported to have communist affiliations, incidences of racial discrimination in housing matters, the distribution of bibles in public schools, and state reapportionment. The first case in which the Union intervened as a friend of the court was on the behalf of Harry Fredkove, a St. Paul news retailer charged in 1953 under the state's obscenity ordinance for selling a copy of Women's Barracks by Tereska Torres. Other early cases concerned the revoked security clearance of a Honeywell engineer whose wife had joined a communist organization as a teenager, the discrimination against a Dakota Indian couple by a Minneapolis cemetery, and the constitutional test of a Minneapolis vagrancy law following the arrest of a woman on an unsubstantiated charge of prostitution.

The board voted in early 1958 to hire an executive secretary and board member Marshman S. Wattson served as the first paid staff member until his death in 1962. Jack Davies, a former state senator, filled Wattson's post until 1964. Subsequent executive directors have included Lynn S. Castner, Patricia Harms, Matthew Stark, William Roath, and Michael Moore.

A local chapter was created in Duluth in 1962 and a second local was organized three years later in the Fargo-Moorhead area. By 1975 five additional chapters had been established in the Iron Range, the Minnesota River valley, Rochester, St. Cloud, and Northfield.

Public outreach efforts began in earnest in 1962 when the Union developed a civil rights training course for University of Minnesota campus police officers and also began lobbying for the creation of police review boards. Civil rights training was presented to the Minneapolis Police Department in 1965 and has remained a mainstay of the Union's educational outreach. Additional activities have included radio and television programs, letters to editors, legislative lobbying, and presentations before numerous bar associations, press organizations, educators, public administrators, religious leaders, student groups, and local civic and community clubs.

In 1965 the Union opened an office in St. Paul which was moved shortly thereafter to the Upper Midwest Building in Minneapolis. The MCLU Foundation, an arm of the Union that raised funds for legal expenses was also established in 1965. In 1967, with a membership of over 1,500, the name of the state branch was changed to Minnesota Civil Liberties Union.

The Union hired its first full-time legal counsel in 1972. The first appointment was held by R. Michael Wetherbee through 1974 when he was joined by Randall Tigue. Subsequent staff counsel have included Katherine Berkvam, Owen Gleason, Patsy Reinard, Amy Silberberg, Janlori Goldman, Deborah Gilman, and Alexander Dolce. Volunteer lawyers have included Peter Dorsey, Frank Farrell, Douglas Hall, Kenneth Tilsen, Chester Bruvold, George Stephenson, Larry Leventhal, Newton S. Friedman, Patsy Reinard, Linda Ojala, Janet Benshoof, Mark Anfinson, and many others.

Since its formative years the Minnesota branch has participated in hundreds of cases concerning censorship and the right to read, leafleting, separation of church and state, criminal justice procedures, mental commitment proceedings, involuntary medical and psychiatric treatments, voting rights, selective service laws and administrative rules, reproductive freedoms, intrusions on the right to privacy, and racial, gender, sexual preference, age, and class discriminations. These cases represent the Union's mission to protect rights guaranteed by the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, ninth, and fourteenth amendments, most specifically those rights to freedom of speech, press, assembly, petition, and religion; probable cause before arrest; protection against unreasonable search and seizure; due process; representation by counsel; equal protection; and the rights guaranteed to native Americans under U.S. Indian treaties.

From the guide to the MCLU records., 1940-1999 (bulk 1951-1996)., (Minnesota Historical Society)