Ethics

Dover and the ACLU Slur

By Ed Brayton

I just finished reading The Devil in Dover by Lauri Lebo (if you only read one book about the Dover trial, this is the one to read - it's absolutely brilliant in every respect) and she discusses the background of Vic Walczak. Vic is the legal director of the ACLU of Pittsburgh and was one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs in the Dover trial. And his entire life puts the lie to this idiotic slur that the ACLU are communists.

Before going to law school, Walczak went to Poland to give aid Lech Walesa and the Solidarity movement. He documented police brutality, wiretapping and other human rights violations as he dodged the secret police. He was detained by them and strip searched, but the documentation had been handed over to an American consulate worker who would ship them back to the US in a diplomatic bag. When he returned to the US, he knew that he had to become a human rights attorney.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on May 13, 2008 (boomark / email).