endorse this position at a meeting, or did they agree it was a necessary legal
tactic, or what? Normally briefs aren't voted on, except by judges. --jks >>
The executive committee of the Mississippi ACLU vets and approves briefs. For example, the recent ACLU/M split from my case, in its 22nd year in federal court, came because the ACLU/M exec rejected the named disclosure plaintiffs' consensus brief by Shirley Payne, our [originally staff, later co-operating] attorney since 1984, and insisted on substituting a brief written by Jane Hicks, a different attorney, well-connected daughter of a liberal professor not previously involved in the case in any respect, who has no history whatever of working with the Black movements targeted by the Sovereignty Commission. When we said no, Hicks filed a separate appearance and sought recognition from the court for ACLU/M as representative of a distinct subclass.
In the 1977 KKK case, one white member of the ACLU/M board of directors, Rev. Edwin King* (condemned in Arieh Neier's memoir as Neier's device to avoid addressing the Black members' demands), sought a compromise that he hoped would forestall the imminent Black exodus, under which a different legal stance would be taken [cut loose the KKK's defense as a nonviolent protest group, file an amicus brief condemning the Klan but supporting its right to rally and burn a cross at the high school]. At Neier's prodding, the Board resolved to stick with the cooperating attorney and to support his brief.
* Today Ed King is a renegade in every way, supporter of "pro-life" Operation Rescue, and principal opponent of opening the Sovereignty Commission files. His appeal alone is blocking release of more than 1,000 pages of material.
Ken Lawrence