Production and distribution of City Club forums and Ideastream Public Media are made possible by PNC and The United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland, incorporated Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

It's Friday, May 1st.

My name is Nick DiCello I'm the current president of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, and we are proud to once again partner with the City Club of Cleveland to host our annual Law Day forum.

Welcome.

We look forward to presenting a conversation to you today that aligns with the Nation's Law Day theme this year, the Rule of law and the American Dream.

The rule of law, including the idea that no person is above the law, is what ensures the right of all people to live their lives as freely as possible, and to pursue their version of the American Dream.

It is fitting, then, that today we have the privilege to hear from Deborah N. Archer, president of the National American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, as we commonly refer to it, where she serves as chair of the board of directors and executive committee.

There are few organizations that serve as fiercer defenders of constitutional rights and the rule of law in our country than the ACLU, and at a time when our fundamental rights of free speech, free assembly, issues concerning immigration status and voting rights are being tested and brought to the forefront of the American conscious in ways they have not been previously.

It is important that Americans can count on the ACLU for its unyielding dedication to our principles, even if they don't agree on every issue.

Deborah brings front line insight into today's web of legal battles, and calls attention to how traditional tools for protecting civil rights are currently being tested in ways not seen before.

Deborah is a tenured professor and associate dean at New York University School of Law, and the faculty director of the Community Equity Lab at NYU law.

Also joining us on the stage, my colleague moderating the conversation is Chris Schmitt, CEO of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association and Foundation.

Chris has been with us for almost two years now.

It's been a busy two years for Chris, and his work is central to the rule of law.

Our theme likewise this year was promoting, celebrating and yes, defending the rule of law.

And Chris has been at the forefront of that initiative, not just locally, but nationally.

Chris is a national leader amongst his peers in the professional bar association world.

He is often sought out to speak nationally on these topics, and he represents all of us very well.

Before I introduce our speakers, like, those before me have said, there is no more and there's never been a more important time to support your local bar association.

If you are not a member, please join us.

It's easy to do lawyers and non-lawyers alike have a place at the bar association.

Look us up.

Look at the good work we are doing.

Chris is doing.

And support us.

If you have any questions for our speakers, you can text it to (330)541-5794.

And City club staff will try to work those questions into the Q&A portion of our program.

Members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland.

Please join me in welcoming Deborah Archer and Chris Schmitt Thank you, Nick, and thank you Deborah for joining us today.

We really appreciate it.

And this is your first trip to Cleveland, right?

Yes.

So we'll start with a soft ball Thank you for the rainy weather to welcome me.

tell us in a few words why this is the best city in America.

All the reasons.

We'll skip over that one.

You did get a nice day yesterday, which is, Once a month or so they come around.

But that's a tough question.

I'm.

I live in New York City, so it's hard for me to say that any city.

I'm sorry.

Fair enough.

So, let's assume everyone in here is, familiar with the ACLU generally, but, give me the elevator pitch.

How do you describe what you do to, to people who maybe have never heard of the organization?

First, thank you all for coming.

It's wonderful to see such, a large and robust crowd.

Diverse crowd.

I love that there are students here as well, and I appreciate that there are folks who want to come in here, conversations about how we can do the work to, protect democracy, protect our country.

So thank you for joining us.

It's hard to describe it any better than Ben did in his opening remarks.

The ACLU has lots of slogans that we, you know, see different slogans on t shirts.

I think the one that I like the most.

And I think that speaks most, most clearly and directly to who we are and what we do is that we're fighting for an America where we, the people means all of us, and that is what we do.

Whether or not you agree with us, whether or not you are a supporter, whether or not you are on our side of issues and questions of the day and of a history, we believe that the Constitution's promises apply to everyone, and that the work that we do is about ensuring that that's true, that everyone can go through their daily lives and feel the weight of the rights that they have been promised, be able to exercise the rights that they have been promised, and to receive the full protection of our Constitution and our laws.

That means that our work covers the waterfront of of issues, as has been described it as well.

So we do voting rights.

We do immigration rights.

We have a speech, privacy and technology project.

We do racial justice, criminal law reform, you name it, we we do it.

We have a growing AI practice that focuses on the way that technology is impacting every right that we hold dear to us, and we do it across the country.

So we're certainly focused on what is happening at the federal level.

But we have affiliates in 50 states, which means that we are on the ground, on the front lines of all of the issues that as they evolve at the federal level, at the state level, at the local level, and we're engaged in advocacy, to ensure that, as I was talking to a group of folks last night that we are doing all the work to bridge that gap between the America that's promised in the America that is I'm going to love y'all with y'all.

Clap.

After everything that I said, it's going to be great.

We only have a half an hour.

Keep it.

Keep it under.

No.

Like our bar association and foundation, the ACLU that we think of is really two organizations wrapped into one.

Right.

Can you tell us more about that structure?

Yeah, we have an ACLU and an ACLU foundation to, organizations that work really closely together.

One's a C3, one's a C4.

And what that means is that we are able to use every tool in the toolkit to advance justice, to advance equality, to protect civil rights and civil liberties, to expand civil rights and civil liberties.

That's not just about litigation.

But we have an arm that does litigation and education, but we also have, an arm that allows us to engage in broader advocacy, including lobbying.

So working together to make sure we can get it done no matter what the challenges that we're facing.

So tell us the Deborah Archer origin story for the ACLU.

So how did you get involved in the first place?

Yeah.

So the, Deborah Archer origin story for the ACLU is my origin story generally, I think, and I, I think it's important to, share my story because people have a sense of assume who you are and your background based on the role that you have.

And I think that my journey is a little bit different than what people might expect.

I am a first generation American citizen.

My parents are immigrants from Jamaica.

I am the first person in my family to graduate from college and grew up in Connecticut, a state where people assume that everyone who lives there is wealthy, that they're, you know, they think about Stamford and Greenwich and that I, you know, you're captains of industry and have access to all the things that you need.

But in reality, my parents struggled financially to provide some of the basic things for my family.

And despite all the efforts that they, you know, engaged in, they couldn't shield us from the inequality and racism that they experience because they're black, because they're Jamaican, because they spoke with accents, because they didn't go to college, because they didn't have resources.

And that kind of discrimination that I, you know, experience from very early on, I remember very clearly, my parents moved us from Hartford, Connecticut, which is predominantly black and Latino, to a suburb of, Hartford, Windsor, Connecticut, very proud of themselves for being able to move their children to a place where they could have more opportunity.

But our neighbors didn't want us there.

We were one of three black families to live in that community.

And every opportunity that our neighbors had to remind us that we were not wanted, they took advantage of the opportunity.

And I was about ten years old.

That's the age my parents tell me I was when we woke up to find that our house and car had been vandalized and KKK had been spray painted on our house.

And it kind of shattered that my safety.

Right?

My sense of the world at such an early age.

And my parents had to explain why it is our neighbors didn't want us there.

Who the KKK was and why they did what they did.

I was afraid to live in that house.

I was afraid to go to school, afraid to play in the park, and ended up spending some time living with my grandparents in a different, in a different town before I felt safe coming back to the school and our house.

And that experience, and so many experiences after that, forced me to really want to grapple with inequality and racial inequality.

Why we have so many systems designed to keep people out.

Why would my neighbors harass us?

Why do we have to leave Hartford, Connecticut, where we felt safe and a part of a community to go to a predominately white community in order to to feel safe to to attend good schools, to have access to opportunity.

And so I feel early on, my destiny was set for me.

And I spent my career, fighting for people like me and families like mine and trying to protect our ability to live with dignity and respect.

And I found my way to the ACLU very early on.

The ACLU was my first legal job out of law school.

In 1996, I joined the ACLU as a Capac and fellow, and I worked for the national legal department, doing everything that the ACLU does.

So I grew up as a baby lawyer, as a young advocate, understanding the way that racial justice impacts immigration impacts women's rights, the way that free speech can help drive racial justice, and it impacts criminal law reform.

I understand the way all of these systems work together to reinforce the inequality that we experience every day, the way that the systems drive the individual, inequality and discrimination.

I have never left the ACLU since I was a Capac and fellow in one way or the other, I've been involved with the organization.

I was a cooperating attorney, joined the board of the New York Civil Liberties Union, then joined the board of the national organization.

Have been president for five years.

And it really to to go from a fellow.

Right.

To this this point is unbelievable to me, especially given when I told you about my background, and, how I was raised.

Young Deborah, no one who knew me then, I think, could have imagined that I would have the opportunities, to serve the way that I do, now.

And I'm just really excited and honored to be able to, to to be in this role when I think the my life's work is important to the work of the ACLU as well.

So you mentioned those five years, you've had two slightly different administrations during the five years to deal with.

Can you talk about kind of those those two eras?

I mean, it's it's really three years.

Not that everything was perfect by any means before, but, three years of one and now a year and a half or two years.

Yeah.

And I was on the board before that.

Right.

So I, have seen the I've been on with the ACLU through a variety of administrations.

Right.

Trump 1.0, as well as Trump 2.0 and all the things in between and a little bit before and surprisingly, because I think this is not the answer you want, a lot of it is similar because the work is always the same, protecting the Constitution.

It is not that one party, one administration has, you know, pledged 100% fealty to the Constitution and has never taken steps to violate it.

In our 106 years, we have sued every president in every administration.

Right.

Very proud of that.

And we'll continue to do that.

And so throughout, the administration that I've seen the work of the ACLU has been to kind of to step up and show up, based on what the challenges are.

And also during during those administrations, our work is just not focused on federal, administration and what they're doing, but also on within states and local governments.

And you will, can remember and reach back and know that throughout the past 5 or 10 years, we have seen some real challenges around civil rights and civil liberties, in states across the country.

And we have been on the front lines of that work as well.

What has, you know, but some of it has changed.

What has changed is, I think the intensity of the attacks we are seeing, just everything that we care about, like, I list a lot of issues we work on.

There is not one issue that we work on that is not under attack.

In deep and profound ways, we I think the level of, just to speak honestly, the level of cruelty and disregard for, the humanity and the safety and the dignity of citizens in this country, is shocking and, I think unique to this, to this moment as well.

And I also think it's, challenging because kind of the very infrastructure of civil rights and civil liberties is being dismantled right now.

The very tools that we have used to fight over the decades is disappearing.

And so it is a different game, in so many ways.

It's a different playbook.

And we have had to adapt and build as we, as I say, build the plane as we fly and, change strategies from day to day and evolve.

And it has been, a challenge in so many ways.

And we talk about that a lot at the bar Association as well.

Is that, the rule of law is not a, it's not a Partizan issue.

It's not a political issue.

It's an American issue.

And the reason you're hearing that phrase a lot more now, maybe than you did before, is the threats right now are louder than they've been before, at least in during my lifetime.

And I would say, for, for most folks in the room, maybe, that, that weren't alive to, to experience the 60s firsthand.

The threats are louder.

Some people who thought they were safe are seeing that they're not, that that no right is safe.

So many things that we thought were settled, that many of the people in this room who I know have been fighting civil for civil rights and civil liberties for decades.

A lot of the fights that you fought and thought that it's done now, and that my generation is going to come and fight different fights, for me, that I think some of the fights that I fought were done and that I had made things better for my children and the generations to come.

None of those things are settled anymore.

We're going to have to fight fights that your grandparents fought, that they thought was done.

And before they hand it off to you, it is, no one is safe, no right is safe.

And we are taking all of those threats very seriously.

So, speaking of the current administration, the ACLU is certainly not bashful about calling out the administration by name, on things you disagree with.

And to your credit, last week, President Trump shared a message that called the ACLU gangsters with laptops.

I would buy that t shirt in a second if it goes up in the store.

So, we're on it.

Check in an out back with us in an hour.

Sounds good.

One of the first things you see on your website right now is ACLU versus President Trump.

Can you talk a little bit about the strategy from the boardroom perspective of calling him out directly by name, as opposed to focusing on the policies?

Yeah, we're doing both.

Right.

And so this is about policies that this administration, is pursuing.

But it also, is personal because so much of what we are seeing Donald Trump do is about advancing his personal agenda, kind of prosecuting his personal vendettas.

And so we do think it is it is both.

But our, our work is, you know, firmly still on protecting civil rights and civil liberties during the election cycle.

Last year, we took very seriously everything that the candidates said that they would do or not do around civil rights and civil liberties, not just Donald Trump.

And that meant that we were ready on on day one, right?

We read project 2025, we read everything that came out and we were ready to go on day one, because what we saw that he was promising to do, I think they were saying they were going to flood the zone.

Right.

And we know that the best response to disorganized chaos is organized resistance.

And so we were organized and we were ready to go from the very beginning.

And that meant that on the first day of the administration, within hours of him issuing, an executive order attempting to rewrite the constitution, and ban birthright citizenship, we filed a challenge in court and stopped that.

And it has never been enacted.

And thank you.

And we haven't stopped.

We have not stopped since.

Since day one, we have filed, in this first year and a half of the administration, about 280 legal actions against this administration, really trying to fight everything that they are doing.

And it's, you know, there's a lot going on.

We have a mission focused on, protecting civil rights and civil liberties.

And so we have had to prioritize and focus on a few buckets of, of, of, of the challenge.

I think the first is protecting the rule of law.

No one is above the law, and we've had to do a lot of work to advance that principle and enforce that principle in the Constitution.

We've also seen that this administration is focused on targeting power centers, across the country.

Focused on undermining the media, for example, the focus on the judiciary attacking, judges, undermining their credibility and their independence, kind of weaving narratives of them as evil actors, but also attacking the lawyers that bring the cases, to these judges and to court, in the institutions where those lawyers work.

We've seen attacks on, higher education.

And we are focused and involved and engaged in all of that as well.

We've also seen attacks on the most vulnerable communities, on immigrants, trans folks, people of color.

And we have been engaged in, in that work as well.

And also in, kind of challenging this administration's idea that they get to write the law and just with a pronouncement in a stroke of a pen, believing that they have rewritten, you know, kind of erase what Congress has done or decisions, the Supreme Court and we've been, fighting that as well.

We will have said and will continue to say that the ACLU is built for moments like this.

And, I'm going to take a few minutes just to explain what I think we mean by that, or what I take from that one is, as you heard, we are an organization that has affiliates in all 50 states, and that means that wherever the harm is, we are there have folks on the ground attorneys, advocates, organizers, who are engaged in the work every day but are ready to go.

They see what is going on and they can act quickly.

It's been meaningful in this, in the challenges to this operation over the past year and change, because one example and we were chatting about this, was birthright citizenship.

And so when the, you know, I'm going to switch to the Alien Enemies Act, that's the, an example that's better in this context, the Alien Enemies Act was the law that this administration invoked to to say that they had the authority to deport, to deport people to third countries, that they had not ever been and had no connection to.

And we represented several people challenging the administration's use and invocation of the alien enemies that when we filed and got, an injunction, a nationwide injunction that paused it.

But then the Supreme Court said, you can't do that.

No nationwide injunction.

Instead, you have to file a habeas, petition in every jurisdiction where an individual is being held.

And because we have lawyers in all 50 states, we were able to do that.

And so we seamlessly moved from this nationwide injunction to taking the action in every state that we needed to take.

That I think we were built for this because we are a legal powerhouse.

We have attorneys with, you know, deep, decades long experience in these areas of the law, substantive experience, understand how the law works, understand how to use the law.

I think unlike any other organization in this country, we also engage in what we call integrated advocacy, understanding the importance of litigation.

But knowing that litigation alone is not going to win the day, it's not going to get us the change that we need.

It's not going to protect us, long term, and it's not going to build the kind of infrastructure for justice and democracy that we want to see.

So we pay for our litigation with, public education, with policy advocacy, with support for direct action, with the narrative change work.

And then finally, I think we really lean into helping people understand the power that exists in our communities and figuring out how to exercise that power.

So we have lots of, systems in place to, for people to get engaged, for us to connect people with action that needs to be taken in their community and to help the kind of nationwide network of of organizations engaged in this work to help coordinate, everyone so that the whole field is covered.

So let's talk about two recent cases.

We've got about five minutes left before we open up.

I know you're great.

So the recent birthright citizenship case that was.

I found to be argued brilliantly by ACLU national legal director Cecilia Wang.

Tell us, tell us about, how that case came together.

And I guess, what's the experience being in the ACLU, ACLU headquarters leading up to that and immediately following that?

And how do you feel about that, that outcome?

Are you feeling positive about that?

So I'll start there.

Yes.

Okay.

With the easy answer.

You know, we spent, as I said, time identifying actions this administration would take and then being ready for it.

Birthright citizenship is top of that list.

I think a lot of people thought that the president would not actually attempt, to ban birthright citizenship, but we took it seriously.

We were already.

And that's it's a lot of strategizing, within the organization, with all the people that that issue touches on, like the immigration issue, it is a democracy and citizenship issue.

It's a racial justice issue.

Remember that birthright citizenship was adopted by this country in response to the Dred Scott decision, a Supreme Court decision in which the court said black people had no rights, which this white man was required to respect, and that no matter what we did, we could not be citizens of this country, were not and could not, be citizens of this country.

And it was through birthright citizenship that that horror of Dred Scott, was, was reversed.

And so we connected all the folks who had work within our organization that touched on this, but also with the organizations outside of the ACLU that worked on this issue and were connected to this issue and were able to come forward with this, with, with this case, I think it's important to just speak to how, horrible and profound it is that we are looking to, erase something so foundational to who we are as a country.

I'm a citizen today because of birthright citizenship.

As I mentioned, my parents were not citizens of this country.

When I was born, they were sworn in as citizens when I was clerking by the judge that I clerked for.

And they became citizens because they were told by their friends that if they were not citizens, I would, hold my career back.

And so they wanted to, right, support their child in every way that they could.

But, you know, it is an attempt, part of the broader attempt to rewrite, our democracy, to decide who belongs and who does not.

And I think that everyone who cares about this country should be fighting that.

It is not that birthright citizenship and banning birthright citizenship is going to affect this small circle of people.

It's going to affect everyone.

Think about what happened in Minneapolis when, Somali immigrants were targeted.

It wasn't just about Somali immigrants.

It was about anyone who looked kind of brown was going to get stopped.

And your citizenship was questioned, and you had to prove whether or not you were a citizen.

It is the everyday reality for so many people of color in this country right now, that questioning whether you belong and feeling like you have to prove whether or not you are a citizen and your right to be here.

And if we were to get rid of birthright citizenship, that would open it up.

To all of us.

I sat in the courtroom.

Cecilia was brilliant, absolutely amazing.

And I left even more confident that we are going to to win.

I'm not going to say the numbers, but I think it's not going to be close.

And I think on that case, we are going to win.

And it's an example.

So many people question this conservative court and say, why are you still going to go to court?

Why not try other avenues?

You'll never going to win.

And it's an example that you can win.

We can win even, in in conservative courts because these fundamental principles are what they are.

And we have a federal judiciary that is a largely doing what they are supposed to do, doing what they are obligated to do, to apply and protect.

All right.

So let's swing to the to the other end.

There was a decision that came out on Wednesday about the, Civil Rights Act.

Section two.

I know that was, devastating to a lot of communities.

And the ACLU was quick with a statement.

Can you tell us more about what's the impact of that?

What's the fallout of that going to be?

Yeah.

So there's so many levels to the impact to that I feel devastated about, really the complete and total gutting of the Voting Rights Act, the Crown jewel, I think of, of civil rights, legislation that we had.

I started my career as a voting rights attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund after I left my fellowship at the, at the ACLU, and was so proud to be able to be using this tool that so many people, fought for, led for, died for the people who sacrificed to help that law get passed and then to really make that law reality.

And it was an honor to be able to continue that work and to to fight that fight that they had started.

And today, to see that gone to to feel like those folks sacrifice, was washed away, for nothing.

It was it's also, it's going to have a profound impact on the not just the look of our government.

People are focused on the, you know, the federal legislature.

And what are we going to deal with this House will look like with we just doing it will impact every level of government, federal, state legislators.

I spent a lot of my time, litigating around a water board and school boards every level of government that impacts every aspect of our lives is going to be less diverse, less inclusive, less representative, less open to addressing the concerns of everyone in our community.

I think it's also an example of how this Supreme Court works and why we can't, celebrate things as victories too early, right?

It has.

This has been a decades long plan to get us to this point to eviscerate the the the Voting Rights Act and the Supreme Court did it in stages, right?

They started with a case called Mud where they questioned and weakened section five, and then they went to Shelby County, where they allowed section five to still be there, but gutted it by having no body covered by section five.

Then we saw Brnovich, which was a case that weakened section two.

And now we have this case, Kayleigh, which basically eviscerates section two.

So we can say that we have a Voting Rights Act.

But this Supreme Court over the course of many years has made it ineffective, made it not a tool that is going to be easily used for people to protect our right to have a truly multicultural democracy.

And but of course, the fight does not end.

We will have to other tools.

We will build new tools, we will get creative and we will continue to do the work.

We will show up every day, make sure that people are educated and understand their right to vote, have the means to get out, to vote and know how important.

I hope that there is no one left in this country.

After that decision yesterday that can say that they don't understand how important every single election is.

So many people set these elections out.

Elections have consequences.

Every election has consequences.

We're seeing the consequences of of elections through these decisions.

I'm going to ask one last question and I'll turn it over to the audience.

How do people get involved?

I mean, common citizens, lawyers give give a few words on, what what should people be doing right now instead of just feeling helpless?

I hope no one's feeling helpless.

A colleague of mine says that we can all be a part of the circle of human concern.

For me, that means that everyone has a role to play in standing up to protect our country, to protect the rule of law, to protect our our Constitution and our laws.

You can get engaged with the ACLU.

I hope that you will.

You can go to our website.

We have something called People Power and you can sign up and we will get in touch with you based on your zip code or your interest, and get you engaged in work, in your community.

Tell you when it's an opportunity to come out to your testimony to join the, you know, a group of folks at the legislature to protest, to to send letters, to send emails, to send text.

All those things matter.

You can support us financially.

We would love that.

Right.

All of this litigation and advocacy cost money.

It is expensive, and I promise you that we are not a bank.

When you give it to us, we spend it and we we put it, we put it to good use.

And I hope that you have seen that.

We put it to good use of the 200 plus cases as of yesterday was confirm that we are winning in 80% of the cases that we have filed against this administration.

Approximately 20.

But very quickly, I know that each of you knows an organization here in your community that is also doing the work.

And of course, we want you to support the national organizations.

Of course, we want you to support the ACLU and the ACLU, Ohio, but also support local organizations that are on the ground doing the work to make sure that everyone has what they need on a daily basis to live a happy, healthy, and choice filled life.

So, get involved in local organizations and then just do something, anything.

You don't have to be a lawyer having conversations with colleagues and relatives and friends and helping move the conversation on that level is important.

If you are an artist, use your skills right to to tell stories to change the narrative.

If you are a tech person, get engaged with helping us understand how AI is working, or just help us figure out better tools to use to engage in the struggles, do anything.

Show up, ask questions.

Just be engaged.

Members of our democracy.

We're about to begin the live Q&A session here at the City Club.

For those just joining us, live streamer on the radio, I'm Chris Schmitt, CEO of the Cleveland Metro Bar Association and Foundation and the moderator for today's conversation.

We're at the City Club for the 2026 Law Day Forum.

This year's theme is The Rule of Law and the American Dream.

Here with us is Deborah Archer, president of the National ACLU.

We welcome questions from everyone City Club members, guests, students and those joining via our live stream at cityclub.org or live on the radio broadcast at 89.7 WKSU Ideastream Public Media.

If you'd like to text in a question for our speakers, please text it to (330)541-5794 That's (330)541-5794, and the City Club staff will try to work it into the program.

And we have our first question, please.

Thank you for coming to Cleveland.

My question is Trump administration seems to have their approach to burn it down first before anybody has any chance to get the fire department to come in and use the example of the white House.

They tore the West Wing down and you can sue as long as you want.

Nothing gets changed.

How do you react to that kind of thought process for the current administration, and what will stop us from having somebody like that in the future?

From doing the same methods of burn first and ask questions later?

Jeff.

Interesting question.

I have to say, I've never been asked that question before, so, thank you.

Cleveland.

We did it.

So so I think part of the challenges is that people don't take this president seriously when he says certain things.

It is not that he woke up one morning and bulldozers were they are ready to tear down, the East wing, the white House.

There were conversations that happened before people heard him say that he was going to do that, and didn't think he would actually do that and did not take that seriously.

We have to take everything that he says.

So he does not say anything, without a purpose.

Right.

There were conversations, starting at the very beginning of the administration about how, certain things were dangerous.

That's it is dangerous.

It's just, you know, unlawful lawlessness and lawlessness.

A lot of it was focused on black led cities.

They don't have leadership.

The federal government should do something.

And it's just started to make it feel so accepted and so natural.

Yeah.

That those places are dangerous.

Those places need leadership and then steps in and takes over cities and occupy cities.

We have to take him seriously.

Don't take it as a joke.

Nothing.

He says is as a joke.

Nothing he says should be dismissed.

Nothing that members of this administration says should be dismissed.

So we have to be ready.

Take him seriously, spend time and prepare a plan so we are ready to go immediately.

There are some things that can happen and there is nothing that we can do about it to stop it in the moment.

And that is, just the reality of our, of our system.

It may mean that there should be folks in here who are engaged in drafting new legislation that provide protections that slow things down.

But what's important is that as he tears things down and it's not just physical structures, it's systems and organizations.

It's whole agencies that did an important work of protecting, the most vulnerable and, on this, they think about the Department of Education and the work it did to protect the most vulnerable children, basically and completely gutted the civil rights Division of Department of Education, of the Department of Justice, not able to do the work that it used to do, that infrastructure is gone.

We have to be thinking about right now, not after the midterms, not after, you know, the next presidential election right now.

What do we rebuild and how do we rebuild it?

Because we're not going.

People keep saying to me, once we get through this and we go back to normal, there's no normal to go back to what we thought was normal is done.

And so we have to be thinking right now about how we build something, rebuild some things, but build some things new, build some things better, because it is not as if the system that we had was doing what it was supposed to do.

We never had the government that we deserved.

We never had all the institutions and the support and the infrastructure that we deserved.

So as we are thinking and imagining and creating and dreaming, let's build something better.

And that that work of imagination has to happen now and again.

At the end of the day, the only way to prevent us from being back in this situation is for us to be engaged and to vote and to always, always vote like our lives depend on it, because it has.

Margaret so my question to you is with these fires and I listen to you, do you have, process in place to because your limited resources, we talk about your resources.

How do you identify resources on from immigration to civil rights to voting?

I remember there was a time that the African Americans don't like us immigrants We take away their jobs.

You know, and the Chinese didn't like the Japanese, you know, so we have our own history.

That's my first question.

The second question is asked.

I'm sorry.

I listen, I know we are public, but that's okay.

I'm old.

So the second so the second question I have is on litigation as a private immigration law firm, we only do immigration of criminal.

So sometimes we felt very selfish because as of 4 or 5 years ago, our local federal park was already doing seminars on APA.

On administative.

we need to start the hate the litigation.

And it took me like maybe two years to even get my firm, you know, lawyers involved in federal hate because as you know, with district court, you know, you need a VHO you need a local lawyer, and it's just a pain in the butt.

So finally, we're really with this tape and North and District of Ohio, it's really good.

And these, prison.

Except maybe one judge.

We're trying to educate him.

I don't hate him, but I educate him.

I still have time.

I'm sorry.

So just a second question.

The third question is.

I'm sorry because I don't get you.

We're going to we're going to cut you off at two.

Is that okay?

I just want to make sure we get to a few more questions right here.

One, please.

Please.

Okay.

I'm sorry.

This is the important one.

I call it very important.

The third question I have, and I really think it's one of the most important in our age.

You know, we are getting old.

Most of these immigration judges, they're getting retired.

They're getting fired.

The SEC, they're tired of the job.

They quit.

How do you transfer the passion you have from the grandparents generation to the younger people here?

Because they have to work life balance, have children.

By the time I talked to when we ran out to pick up the kids.

So how do you translate my three question?

Okay, I'm going to try to be brief, though.

Perfect.

On the first one, we were, you were concerned about your focus on a particular aspect of immigration law.

I think that that's a challenge for lots of folks where they think that there's so much to do.

Does it make a difference if I'm doing this little piece, I should be doing everything, and I think we all need to, you know, there's there's some benefit to being in our lanes.

And then when we all do our work in our lanes, that the, the collection of the work will be impactful.

So all immigrants need representation, not just one category.

And so it's important that you're doing the work that you're a part of the system, a part of the conversation, to protect this community.

And the work will happen collectively.

How do we prioritize?

Sometimes we don't prioritize.

We have, as you've heard, offices in all 50 states, and we have folks who come through the door, and bring issues to us.

And then we will take those cases and they go up to the Supreme Court and they become, you know, the law that governs the country.

But we also go and engage in a real important strategic plan.

And what we think, are the areas where our resources are best use that we can advance change.

And, of course, plans get thrown out the window when we have emergencies and we respond, but we always want to, you know, recognize there are lots of people in this space.

And we're going to come to the table when we think we have something to contribute where we bring something to the conversation, to the fight, to the movement.

That would be helpful.

And is not already covered by, by someone else.

Yeah.

And we invest in young folks to spread the joy to to share the passion and the knowledge.

I'm a law professor.

I do that every day to make sure that we're training the next generation of lawyers to come in and be a part of the work.

The ACLU has a summer advocacy institute.

If you have a high school student who's interested in social justice and civil rights and civil liberties, we bring together a thousand high school students in DC for a week every summer.

We provide scholarships and support for folks to get their help to train them on our issues, train them on the skills that they need to be advocates, and then hopefully then send them out into the world to do good things.

And we do the same thing for college students, in January in New York City.

So visit our website and there's information about those programs and get your young folks to participate.

Awesome.

You mentioned the idea of using tools in us, using our tools, and it made me think of Audre Lorde assertion that, the master's tools would never dismantle the master's house.

And so I'm curious to know from your perspective, what are some tools that you see most efficient or effective in this, season that we're in and even moving forward?

Or alternatively, tools that you wish that the ACLU have more of.

And there are so in truth question.

I'm going to start with the with the quote with Audre Lorde quote, because I think that, a lot of my students kind of throw that back at me in a way that I think is not accurate to her, her meaning.

So I think about that quote a lot.

And I think, you know, I've heard folks say the most important part of that sentence is the apostrophe, but who does the tools belong to?

And that we are so willing to kind of sacrifice and give up all the tools and say that those aren't tools for our community, those aren't tools for our struggle.

So, you know, kind of making sure that we don't give up any of the tools.

She was talking about, movements, people, spaces that are actually kind of replicating the tools that the master have has had to, replicate oppression.

So she was invited to speak at a conference around, on feminism, and was the only, person of color on any of the panels and was on the very last panel, the last speaker of the of the last day.

And she was calling out the people in that room because you claim to be about justice and inclusion, for all of us.

But yet you have this unearned, inclusive, oppressive system that you have set up and trying to bring me in as a token.

And so that for me, means that the ACLU has to be an organization that thinks not just about the work that we do, but how we do it and who does it.

And so let's starting with who does it, we try to be a very, kind of inclusive, diverse organization in all the ways that it matters, not because it looks good, but because it's important to the work.

It's important to have people in the room have been impacted by the laws and policies and practices that we are challenging to share those perspectives on how to do the work, what the impact is and what solutions might be.

It's also important to think about how we do the work, and that means that we don't helicopter in to communities and tell them, this is what you need, and we're going to do it for you.

So stand back and let us do it.

It means being in a real and meaningful partnership with communities.

I have found through my own work that communities know what they need.

They know what is good for them.

They know what is standing in the way, and what they need are people to come in and support them in their struggles and help make sure that they have access to those tools to engage in that fight.

And so we have been thinking about, very deeply about how we, engage in that work and then using everything that we have, because I think lawyers in particular think that litigation is the tool.

It's the only tool.

But we are, growing as an organization and knowing that, every tool has a role in this fight and that sometimes litigation is just in service of the other tools that are going to help us achieve, change.

And so if we want to achieve, large scale systemic, and durable change, then we have to use everything that we have, what I wish we would do more and that every organization in this space would do more is to plan a long term.

It's hard because we're responding to fires today.

One of my favorite quotes from a movie is from the movie Dune.

And don't judge me.

But, there's a line in the movie that says our plans are measured in centuries, and that's what we have to do.

What we saw coming out of the Supreme Court this week was decades in the making.

The day after Roe versus Wade was decided, people started the work to get us to the point of Dobbs and to the point where we are today.

So, yes, respond to the emergencies.

We have to respond to the emergencies.

We have to protect people.

We have to minimize the harm.

But we also have to plan to think about what does a more just to more equitable country look like.

And then what does that mean for the work we do today, next year, in five years, in ten years, and in 50 years?

I think on this Law day, unfortunately, one of the changes that needs to be noted is that in the fight against civil rights, there's more and more lawyers, particularly government lawyers, who are violating the rules of professional responsibility, violating their duties as officer of the court to bring and litigate cases.

I'm wondering, what do you think should be done specifically for these lawyers who have become coconspirators to fight civil rights?

Interesting question.

I think we're seeing little nuggets of what should be done.

Right.

Every state has rules around professional responsibility, rules that don't often get enforced.

People don't, report folks for violating those rules.

We've seen a few folks who have been involved in, you know, particularly the election denier folks trying to suppress elections, who have been disciplined by the bar associations.

I think bar associations need to stand up and enforce their other ethical ethics codes in a way that we haven't seen before.

And I think that when we are in court, litigating against, folks who we think are violating rules, who are not abiding by court orders, and we have to, make use of all of the resources, all of the tools that we have at our disposal to help courts hold those folks accountable.

And something of interest from a few weeks ago.

It was published in the Federal Register, Department of Justice proposal to basically preempt state, disciplinary proceedings.

We were very quick to come out with a statement against that, along with the Columbus Bar Association here.

But, typical federal registrar comment periods get 7 or 8000 comments.

That one got 1.1 million.

Absolutely.

Good.

So that is something that, I would say every, every bar association and every lawyer in the room should absolutely pay attention to what happens next, because that's a, really, really dangerous precedent.

And that's an example in response to the first question we had.

Take it seriously and act immediately.

Good afternoon.

I'm finding.

And more and more schools a lack of student leadership organizations and student council used to be very popular.

And it seems that the hopelessness from the adults is kind of shifting down to the students.

And so it's not being pushed for students to have leadership organizations.

So, it seems that way students respond.

What they know to do is to walk out if there's something they don't like.

Could you talk about strategies that you've seen throughout the country that students are using to resist?

Yeah.

I have you know, I try to practice saying when, being honest and saying, I don't know.

And so that this might be outside of my, my area of expertise, and there may be some teachers in the room who can better engage.

There are so many reasons why our young folks are not engaging in the way that they used to.

In this sense, I think all politics are local.

And so, in diagnosing that problem, I think requires us to look at what is going on.

Those particular schools in that particular community.

And there may be reasons why folks are in engage.

For some of the students that I have engaged with more recently, it has to do with admissions and then believing that, college admissions, counselor is an advisor is a decision makers don't value student government as much as they used to.

And so they're trying to go into the places where they think that there's going to be some value.

It is that a lot of students have to work.

And to, you know, contribute to the family and aren't able to, to get engaged in the way that they used to.

Some folks just don't think it's it's worth it.

Right?

Just like adults, as you've said, they believe.

Like what?

What difference does it make to advocate with my school?

Nothing will change.

None of the things that are impo And that hurts me that that's the way that some of our young folks feel.

And so for me and my my students, for my, my kids, for the for the folks that we engage with, for the students who come through our, advocacy institute and then have ideas about what the ACLU can do differently, I think one of the most important thing that all of the folks in this room can do is to listen to these students and take them seriously, right?

To not push aside their ideas, to not say what you think.

Things will never change.

Nothing.

You know, kind of this this sense that everything is inevitable, kind of sweeps over us and lulls us into complacency.

Everything was the way it was until someone decided that it wasn't right.

We had segregation until someone decided that we're not going to.

It's not going to persist until someone, stood up until someone sat down at a lunch counter, until someone marched over a bridge.

We have to recognize some of the brilliance in what these students are saying.

I love that I, spend my days with, young students and young attorneys because they are brilliant.

They are creative.

They do not feel bound by the same constraints that we feel bound by.

I think if we want to figure out how to fix the world, that we should go to that table over there filled with those young folks and ask them what they think.

And they are going to have ideas that none of us ever thought about.

But if we engage with them, don't take them seriously.

Don't try to find ways to implement the changes that they would like to see in their world.

Then they're going to stop engaging.

They're going to stop coming forward with, with, with solutions.

They're going to feel like we don't take them seriously, and that this is not a fight that they should be a part of.

I'm wondering, especially in light of the recent Supreme Court decision, what the ACLU strategy is going forward to protect the right to vote.

Yeah.

Thank you.

So, but to have the opportunity answer that.

I think part of our strategy going forward is the same as our strategy was the day before.

The same as our strategy was last week, and it was last year to do that work every single day.

We are not waiting until, the midterm elections.

We're not waiting until the next presidential election to think about, voter suppression and fighting voter suppression.

We have been in court every day nonstop to do that work, to make sure that everyone has access to the ballot, that we make that access meaningful by keeping open all the avenues that we have available.

There's another voting rights case that the Supreme Court is going to, issue around, Mail-In ballots, which is so important for people, for example, with disabilities, to be able to access their right to vote.

So many of our communities have been built and structured in ways that people who live, they don't have access to transportation to get to polling places.

And the ability to have mail in voting is important.

Who?

People who work jobs from 7:00 in the morning till 7:00 at night and can't take off work to get to the polling place.

Being able to mail in votes are important.

So think about, you know, fighting to protect all of the little ways, the everyday ways that we make voting possible for everyone.

We're continuing to do that.

We're going to make sure that people, know how to vote, when to vote, where to vote, that people have the resources that they need to get to vote, that people are informed about the impact of their vote.

And so we are doing that as well.

And we're still going to use section two, and the Constitution and whatever other tool we have left to fight the way the many ways that voting inequality shows up in our system every day.

I think if we think about the right to vote and individual citizen participation is the foundation of our democracy, we have to acknowledge that that foundation is crumbling and that every day we have to do more to make sure that people can access the right to vote.

Our government should be doing everything to make it easier for everyone, regardless of what they believe, what, regardless of what party they're a part of, to be able to show up and cast their ballot.

Instead, they're making it harder.

And so our job each and every day is to counter the efforts that they're taking to make it harder.

We're going to make it easier.

We're going to make sure that those hurdles and barriers are torn down.

With that, we're out of time.

Members and friends, please join me in thanking Deborah Archer for joining us today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I have closing remarks.

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You can learn more about how to become a guardian of free speech at cityclub.org Thank you once again to Deborah Archer and to the members and friends of the City Club.

I'm Chris Schmitt from the Bar Association and this forum is now adjourned.

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