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Summer Advocacy Program
Saturday, July 20 - Friday, July 26, 2019
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The ACLU Advocacy Institute’s Summer Advocacy Program will bring together a diverse group of high school students (ages 15-18) from across the United States to participate in a week-long, firsthand learning experience for the next generation of social justice advocates.
Advanced Advocacy Program
Sunday, July 28 - Friday, August 2, 2019
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The ACLU Advocacy Institute’s Advanced Advocacy Program will prepare college-aged students (ages 18-24) for lifelong engagement in grassroots organizing, policy development, and legal advocacy. New for 2019.
DC & NYC Extension Program
Want to extend your time at the ACLU Advocacy Institute? Join other ACLU Institute students for a week-long exploration of Washington, DC, and New York City following the close of the Institute. New for 2019.
California Advocacy Institute
Friday, October 11 – Monday, October 14, 2019
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Young people are mobilizing their political power to a degree we haven't seen in generations - and Californian youth are ready to lead the movement. Join the ACLU and hundreds of your fellow youth organizers (ages 15-18) from across the state of California to build skills and connect with a community of civil liberties and social justice advocates. New for 2019.
Click the links below to learn more about these programs.
Anthony D. Romero is the Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, the nation's foremost guardian of liberty for nearly 100 years. Under his leadership, the ACLU has grown into a nationwide organization of more than a million members, activists, and supporters in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C. Read more
Susan N. Herman is Centennial Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, where she currently teaches courses in Criminal Law and Procedure and Constitutional Law, and seminars on Law and Literature and Terrorism, and Civil Liberties. Her most recent book, Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy, (Oxford University Press 2011), is the winner of the 2012 IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law/Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberties Prize. Professor Herman was elected President of the American Civil Liberties Union in October 2008. She received a B.A. from Barnard College and a J.D. from New York University School of Law. READ MORE
Faiz Shakir is the National Political Director and oversees the ACLU’s National Political Advocacy Department, which houses the organization’s Washington Legislative Office and State Advocacy and Policy departments. In his role, Shakir develops and implements strategies to advance the organization’s priorities at the federal and state levels. Read More
David D. Cole is the National Legal Director of the ACLU and directs a program that includes approximately 1,400 state and federal lawsuits on a broad range of civil liberties issues. Cole has litigated several significant First Amendment cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as a number of influential cases concerning civil rights and national security. Read More
Cecillia Wang is a Deputy Legal Director at the ACLU and directs the Center for Democracy, which encompasses the ACLU’s work on immigrants’ rights, voting rights, national security, human rights, and speech, privacy and technology. Read more
Jeffery Robinson is a Deputy Legal Director and the director of the ACLU Trone Center for Justice and Equality, which houses the organization's work on criminal justice, racial justice, and reform issues. Read more
Louise Melling is a Deputy Legal Director and the Director of its Center for Liberty, which encompasses the ACLU’s work on reproductive freedom, women’s rights, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights, freedom of religion and belief, and disability rights. In this role, she leads the work of the ACLU to address the intersection of religious freedom and equal treatment, among their issues.
Adina Ellis
Associate Director of Strategic Communications
Adina Ellis is an Associate Director of Strategic Communications at the ACLU. Ellis leads the communications and media outreach efforts for the organization’s criminal justice work, including the Campaign for Smart Justice - an initiative designed to significantly reduce the U.S. jail and prison population.
Edward Snowden
As a whistleblower of illegal government activity that was sanctioned and kept secret by the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government for years, he undertook great personal risk for the public good. And he has single-handedly reignited a global debate about the extent and nature of government surveillance and our most fundamental rights as individuals.
Sasheer Zamata
ACLU Celebrity Ambassador
Actress and comedian Sasheer Zamata, known for her breakout role on the cast of Saturday Night Live, is the ACLU celebrity ambassador for women's rights. In her role as an ambassador, Zamata will elevate the ACLU’s work to fight gender inequality and structural discrimination against women in employment, education, healthcare, housing, and criminal justice through advocacy and public education. The ACLU Women’s Rights Project was co-founded in 1972 by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who called women’s rights “an essential part of the overall human rights agenda.” Though strides have been made in the past several decades to advance and protect the rights of women and girls, there’s a lot left to do.
Cristina Jiménez
United We Dream Network’s Co-Founder and Executive Director
Cristina Jiménez is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of the United We Dream Network, the largest immigrant youth-led network in the country. The organization, which is made up of over 100,000 immigrant youth and allies, has been a critical force in addressing immigration inequities across the country. Originally from Ecuador, Cristina came to the U.S. with her family at the age of 13, attending high school and college as an undocumented student. She was recently named among Forbes' “30 under 30 in Law and Policy,” one of “21 immigration reform power players” and one of 5 non-profit leaders who will influence public policy by the Chronicle of Philanthropy. READ MORE
Ben Wizner
Director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy & Technology Project
For nearly fifteen years, he has worked at the intersection of civil liberties and national security, litigating numerous cases involving airport security policies, government watch lists, surveillance practices, targeted killing, and torture. He appears regularly in the global media, has testified before Congress, and is an adjunct professor at NYU School of Law. Since July of 2013, he has been the principal legal advisor to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Ben is a graduate of Harvard College and New York University School of Law and was a law clerk to the Hon. Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. READ MORE
Gara LaMarche
President of the Democracy Alliance
Gara LaMarche is President of The Democracy Alliance, a group of donors and movement leaders who provide millions of dollars to strengthen progressive organizations, causes and campaigns. A longtime advocate for human rights and social justice, from 2007 to 2011, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Atlantic Philanthropies, an international foundation focused on aging, children and youth, health, and human rights operating in Australia, Bermuda, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, South Africa, the United States, and Viet Nam. During his tenure at Atlantic, the foundation made the largest grant ever made by a foundation for an advocacy campaign – over $25 million – to press for comprehensive health care reform in the U.S.
Dale Ho
Director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project
His work includes litigation to combat voter suppression and legislative advocacy to open new opportunities for participation for the historically disenfranchised. Dale supervises the ACLU's voting rights litigation nationwide, with active cases in over a dozen states throughout the country. He has litigated cases under the federal Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act. Dale has testified on election reforms in various state legislatures around the country, and is a frequent commentator on voting rights issues. He is an adjunct professor of law at NYU School of Law, and is widely published on redistricting and voting rights in journals including Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, the Florida Law Review, and the University of Richmond Law Review. READ MORE
Hina Shamsi
Director of the ACLU’s National Security Project
Hina Shamsi is the Director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, which is dedicated to ensuring that U.S. national security policies and practices are consistent with the Constitution, civil liberties, and human rights. She has litigated cases upholding the freedoms of speech and association, and challenging targeted killing, torture, unlawful detention, and post-9/11 discrimination against racial and religious minorities. READ MORE
For nearly 100 years, the ACLU has been our nation’s guardian of liberty, working in courts, legislatures, and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country. Whether it’s achieving a 50 percent reduction in mass incarceration by 2020; challenging police brutality nationwide; establishing new privacy protections for our digital age of widespread government surveillance; or preserving the right to vote or the right to have an abortion; the ACLU takes up the toughest civil liberties cases and issues to defend all people from government abuse and overreach. With more than a million members, activists, and supporters, the ACLU is a nationwide non-partisan nonprofit that fights tirelessly in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C., to safeguard everyone’s rights. The Institute builds upon this tradition to directly engage youth in becoming civil liberties advocates in their own right.
The Close Up Foundation - a DC-based civic-education nonprofit - will serve as a partner with the ACLU to provide substantive experiential learning and small group discussion opportunities
Since 1971, this nonprofit, nonpartisan organization has partnered with schools and organizations across the country to inform, inspire, and empower young people to exercise the rights and accept the responsibilities of citizens in a democracy.
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