Photo: Daniel Axler
Kurt Vonnegut at a recent ACLU of Indiana event
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The American Civil Liberties Union mourns the passing of iconoclastic author and staunch friend of civil liberties, Kurt Vonnegut.
Vonnegut's wise, freethinking writing touched Americans of all ages, and his steadfast support of civil liberties over his lifetime was uncompromising. He was a long-time and proud member of the ACLU. In 1973, the ACLU successfully sued a North Dakota school district on behalf of a schoolteacher who taught his famous novel Slaughterhouse-Five, which a local minister had called "a tool of the devil," in the classroom.
Vonnegut told the New York Times in September 2003, "What I've said again and again is that if any official from a dogcatcher on up treats you in a way in which is clearly unconstitutional don't call the F.B.I., call the ACLU."
The ACLU extends its deepest sympathy to Jill Krementz and the entire Vonnegut family on the loss of a great man.
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