A Look Back at Civil Rights Decisions from the Supreme Court's 2019-20 Term

Arthur B. Spitzer became Senior Counsel of  the ACLU of the District of Columbia in April, 2020, having served as its Legal Director since April Fool's Day, 1980. His work has spanned the range of ACLU issues, including freedom of speech and religion, police misconduct, national security, due process, privacy, prisoners' rights, the rights of government employees, freedom of information, discrimination based on race, sex, religion, sexual orientation and gender preference, and more. In the Supreme Court, Art successfully argued Ake v. Oklahoma, which ruled that poor criminal defendants are entitled to free expert witnesses when needed for their defense, just as they're entitled to free lawyers. Among Art's many cases are Harmon v. Thornburgh (challenging random drug testing of Justice Department employees), Walsh v. Montrose Christian School (representing longtime school secretaries and a cafeteria worker at a Christian School who were fired because they were not members of the church), Schroer v. Billington (representing a trans woman who was fired by the Library of Congress when she disclosed her status), Center for National Security Studies v. U.S. Department of Justice (challenging the secret detention of immigrants after 9/11). See his full biography at https://www.acludc.org/en/biographies/arthur-b-spitzer.