The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, 550,000+ member public interest organization devoted to protecting the human rights and civil liberties of all people in the U.S., and extending them to groups that have traditionally been denied them. The ACLU works daily in courts, legislatures, and communities to preserve our basic freedoms. Working through our national office and 53 affiliates and chapters, the ACLU fights civil liberties violations at the national, state, and local levels.

The goals of the ACLU Human Rights Program (HRP) are to increase the capacity of lawyers and activists to use human rights strategies to advance social justice needs (specifically in the areas of women’s rights, racial justice, national security, and immigrants’ rights), and to support continuing human rights work at the local, regional, and national levels. We work to achieve these goals by coordinating affiliate and national staff participation in international and regional mechanisms (such as the UN treaty bodies); developing international and comparative law arguments and analysis for use in litigation, legislation, and public policy debates; spearheading human rights documentation projects; incorporating human rights standards and messaging in grassroots organizing; and organizing regional workshops around the country.

Through these workshops, we help local activists, organizers, and ACLU affiliates develop concrete human rights strategies to achieve their advocacy goals – to date we have held workshops in Mississippi, California, Texas, and New York covering topics such as racial profiling and juvenile justice. The “Grants to Affiliates” component of this program provides our affiliates and other advocates with the resources to independently follow through with the tactics developed at our workshops, increasing their capacity to conduct human rights advocacy in the future.