Rosendall presents award to Art Spitzer

Distinguished Service Award to Art Spitzer

Presented by GLAA Vice President for Political Affairs Richard J. Rosendall

GLAA 35th Anniversary Reception
Washington Plaza Hotel
Thursday, April 20, 2006


The American Civil Liberties Union of the National Capital Area is the strongest organizational ally that GLAA has ever had. Our past honorees have included their staff attorney Stephen Block and former executive director Mary Jane DeFrank. ACLU/NCA, whose current executive director is our friend Johnny Barnes, testifies before the D.C. Council on issues of mutual concern. They help craft legislation, such as when they worked with former Judiciary chair Kathy Patterson on the First Amendment Rights and Police Standards Act of 2004. And when necessary, they go to court to enforce the law and defend the Constitution. The leader of that legal team is ACLU/NCA Legal Director Art Spitzer, who for 26 years has been fighting for the civil liberties of people in the Washington area.

Prior to being appointed to his current position in 1980, Art worked at Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering. He is a native of New York City and a graduate of Cornell University and the Yale Law School. He is a member of the American Law Institute and the Executive Committee of the Yale Law School Association.

Consistent with GLAA’s own firm belief that civil liberties belong to everyone and not just to people we agree with, Art and his staff have represented a wide variety of clients. Two decades ago Art argued Ake v. Oklahoma in the Supreme Court, which held that indigent defendants are entitled to trial and pre-trial expert assistance at government expense. Recently, with assistance from lawyers at Covington & Burling and Gaffney & Schember, a settlement was reached on behalf of seven people who challenged the Metropolitan Police Department’s mass arrest of demonstrators in Pershing Park in September 2002.

Art and his team recently won a challenge to D.C. Fire Department grooming regulations that require Muslim and Rastafarian firefighters to violate their religious beliefs by shaving and cutting their hair. The Department had refused even to allow bearded firefighters to take fit tests to prove that their beards did not prevent a good facemask fit. The Department appealed in two related cases on March 16, so that fight continues.

Last June, ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Library of Congress on behalf of Diane Schroer, a retired U.S. Army Colonel and counter-terrorism expert whose job offer to be a terrorism analyst at the Library was withdrawn when the Library learned that applicant David would begin work as Diane, following gender reassignment surgery. Attorneys from the ACLU Lesbian and Gay Rights Project assisted in that case. On March 31, U.S. District Judge James Robertson denied the Library’s motion to dismiss, stating that discrimination against a transsexual may violate Title VII’s prohibition of discrimination “because of...sex.”

Whether they are defending freedom of speech and religion, fighting HIV discrimination, defending transgender rights, protecting sexual privacy in the military (in which they worked with SLDN and Lambda Legal), joining with ACLU of Maryland to defend our freedom to marry, or suing to hold military officials personally responsible for the abuse and torture of detainees in U.S. military custody, Art Spitzer and his legal staff have consistently served America’s first and finest principles.

We are proud to count this outstanding civil libertarian as an ally and a friend, and it is my privilege to present GLAA’s Distinguished Service Award to Art Spitzer.


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