ACLU Announces Racial Justice Fellowship Program Named for Ira Glasser, Longtime Executive Director
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEW YORK- Responding to the social and economic inequalities that persist around the nation in communities of color, the American Civil Liberties Union today announced the launch of the Ira Glasser Racial Justice Fellows Program to further develop, strengthen and increase programmatic work on racial justice issues.
“The fellowship program is designed to both substantially expand our existing racial justice programs and to search for new ways of remedying the old problems of skin color injustice,” said Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. “It is quite fitting that the program is named after my immediate predecessor, Ira Glasser-a committed civil libertarian and a longtime champion of racial justice.”
Under Glasser’s leadership, Romero said, “the ACLU was transformed into a truly diverse organization that actively implemented the principles of affirmative action internally and advocated vigorously for racial justice on every front externally.”
The ACLU will be awarding at least six fellowships to begin in the fall of 2003. According to ACLU executives, the program provides for two sets of fellows to serve terms of up to two years. The two sets of fellows are:
- At-Large Fellows, who will be based at the ACLU’s national offices in either New York or Washington, and will serve as a resource to the organization’s affiliate offices and focus primarily on developing new paradigms and remedies for the persistence of skin color injustice.
- Affiliate Sponsored Fellows, who will be based at selected affiliate offices around the nation and will assist in expanding the general effort to achieve racial justice in local jurisdictions.
The fellowship is made possible through $1.2 million in funding and is named after Glasser in recognition of his longstanding commitment to issues of racial justice and equity. Glasser served for 23 years at the organization’s helm and retired in 2001.
Glasser has agreed to participate in the selection process for fellowship candidates and will be involved with their work on an ongoing basis. The program seeks applicants with a demonstrated commitment to racial justice from a wide variety of disciplines, including lawyers, journalists, social scientists, and community organizers. For more information on the Ira Glasser Racial Justice Fellowship, go to /Jobs/Jobs.cfm?ID=12237&c=215
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