Changes

The ACLU is the American Civil Liberties Union, which was run for its first 30 years by a American citizen named Roger Baldwin, who helped found it in 1920 in response to the [[Espionage Act]] and [[Sedition Act]].

The ACLU is the American Civil Liberties Union, which was run for its first 30 years by a American citizen named Roger Baldwin, who helped found it in 1920 in response to the [[Espionage Act]] and [[Sedition Act]].

In a rare example of an ACLU chapter siding with a Christian student, the ACLU of Michigan defended a Christian student seeking to have a Biblical passage on the student's yearbook page.<ref>http://www.aclu.org/studentsrights/expression/12845prs20040511.html</ref>  

The ACLU of Michigan defended a Christian student seeking to have a Biblical passage on the student's yearbook page.<ref>http://www.aclu.org/studentsrights/expression/12845prs20040511.html</ref>  

More typical of ACLU litigation was when attorneys on its side demanded over $2 million in legal fees and expenses in order to prohibit an elected school board from introducing public school students to concepts or books concerning [[Intelligent design]]. At the end of this case the trial judge simply copied more than 90% of the ACLU's brief for his ruling.<ref>http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=3829&program=CSC%20-%20Views%20and%20News</ref> The judge then entered a judgment for $2,067,226.00 against the school board members for the legal fees and expenses of the ACLU's side. The judge also prohibited any mention of [[Intelligent design]] by teachers in the public school. The judge's order also prevented any appeal of his opinion in the case.

The ACLU has been behind many of the more drastic civil rights changes in history.  In one important example, the ACLU helped put a stop to segregation by ending the use of [[racially restrictive covenants]], which were a form of de facto private segregation.<ref>Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1</ref> Additionally, the ACLU helped litigate the landmark case [[Brown v. Board of Education]], and was behind the first case to suggest a Constitutional right to privacy, [[Griswold v. Connecticut]].

 

The judge relied heavily on the decision in ''Selman v. Cobb County Sch. Dist.'', 390 F. Supp. 2d 1286 (N.D. Ga. 2005). But that decision was later reversed on appeal in ''Selman v. Cobb County Sch. Dist.'', 2006 U.S. App. LEXIS 13005 (11th Cir. May 25, 2006).

==References==

==References==