Anthony D. Romero

Anthony Romero
6th Executive Director of theAmerican Civil Liberties Union
Incumbent
Assumed office 2001
Preceded by	Ira Glasser
Personal details
Born	(1965-07-09)July 9, 1965 New York City,U.S.
Education	Princeton University(BA) Stanford University(JD)

Anthony D. Romero(born July 9, 1965) is an American lawyer who serves as the executive director of theAmerican Civil Liberties Union.He assumed the position in 2001 as the firstLatinoand openly gay man to do so.

Early life and education

Romero was born in Bronx, New York city on July 9, 1965, toPuerto Ricanparents Demetrio and Coralie Romero. Romero spent the initial years of his childhood growing up in a public housing project in theBronx.He was the oldest of his siblings. His father worked as a houseman at a large Manhattan hotel and was repeatedly turned down for a more financially lucrative job as a banquet waiter, being told that it was because he did not speak English well enough. Demetrio Romero later decided to seek assistance from the attorney of thelabor unionhe belonged to, hoping to file a grievance against his employer. He won the case, which allowed for him to seek out better paying work and later allowed for the family to improve their standard of living. The family subsequently moved to suburbanNew Jersey,where Anthony graduated high school.

Romero was the first member of his family to graduate from high school. He received his B.A. degree fromPrinceton University'sWoodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairsin 1987, having written a senior thesis titled "Colombian Migration and Political Participation in the United States".He later received aJ.D.fromStanford Law Schoolin 1990.He is a member of theNew York bar.He was a Dinkelspiel Scholar atStanford University,a Cane Scholar atPrinceton,and a National Hispanic Scholar at both institutions.

Early career

Romero started his career at theRockefeller Foundation,notably leading a foundation review that helped determine future directions incivil rightsadvocacy.In 1992, Romero began working for theFord Foundation,initially serving as a program officer in the Civil Rights and Social Justice Program. After less than four years in that position, he was promoted to the position of director, making him one of the youngest directors in the foundation's history. Prior to his departure, he served as the director of Human Rights and International Cooperation, transforming the program into the foundation's largest. As director, he managed and facilitated roughly $90 million in grants tocivil rights,human rights,and peace projects. Notably, he also launched progressive initiatives inaffirmative action,voting rightsand redistricting,immigrants' rights,women's rights,reproductive freedom,andLGBT rights.

American Civil Liberties Union

Anthony Romero became executive director in September 2001, just before theSeptember 11, 2001, attacks.He is the first openlygayman and the firstHispanicdirector of the civil liberties institution.

After the September 11th attacks, Romero launched a national campaign called "Keep America Safe and Free" to protect American civil liberties and basic freedoms during a time of crisis in the United States. The campaign successfully targeted thePatriot Act,achieving a number of court victories, and uncovered hundreds of thousands of documents detailing the illegal torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. custody inIraq,Afghanistan,andGuantanamo.As a result of their successful court challenge to elements of the Patriot Act, the ACLU also forced theFBIto open files it had on antiwar groups, including the ACLU itself. Further, under Romero's leadership, the ACLU became the first organization to successfully file a legal challenge to theBush administration's illegalNational Security Agency(NSA)spying program.Shortly thereafter, Romero helped to establish the John Adams Project, in collaboration with theNational Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers,to assist the under-resourcedmilitary defense lawyersin theGuantanamo military commissions.Referring to the August 17, 2006, federal court declaration that theTerrorist Surveillance Programwas unconstitutional, Romero called the court's opinion "another nail in the coffin in the Bush administration's legal strategy in theWar on Terror".Discussing the Bush administration, Romero said that the "eight years ofPresident Bushwill go down in history as one of the darkest moments in America's commitment tohuman rights".

Amidst 9/11 related concerns, ACLU membership, which had hovered around 300,000 for decades, increased to 573,000 following the terror attacks and subsequent legislation established during theBush administration.Total donations to the ACLU doubled to more than twice the 2001 budget, increasing to about $28 million per year in the years following. Upon Romero's arrival, he increased the number of ACLU staff from 186 to 379 in 2001 alone. He also raised the salaries of staff members to be more in line with industry standards, in some cases increasing salaries by as much as 86%. In each of the ACLU's national affiliate offices, Romero hired and placed at least one staff attorney.

The ACLU's massive growth under Romero's leadership allowed for the organization to expand its activities with regard toracial justice,religious freedom,privacy rights,reproductive freedom,andLGBT rights.In recent years, this has enabled the organization to create a new Human Rights program as well as a division dedicated to privacy issues arising from newsurveillancetechnology, includingdata miningand the collection ofgenetic data.

In 2007, Romero and the ACLU denouncedthe Pentagonfor monitoring 186 antiwar protests and keeping files on pacifist groups, fromVeterans for Peaceto theCatholic Worker Movement.

Romero spoke at the March for Women's Lives inWashington, D.C.Video courtesy of Crystal Pyramid Productions.

In 2008, Romero spoke at theMarch for Women's LivesinWashington, D.C.,advocating for the legality ofabortion.

In 2013, Romero, on behalf of the ACLU organization, praisedEdward Snowdenfor hiswhistleblowingaction against the NSA.

In 2016, Romero co-signed a letter toUN Secretary-GeneralBan Ki-mooncalling for a more humanedrug policy,along with people likeEve Ensler,Norman Lear,andErnesto Zedillo.

Criticisms

During the course of his time with the ACLU, Romero has come under fire by other leaders within the organization, including board members and his predecessor,Ira Glasser.Their complaints have included assertions of his dishonesty and lack of integrity in the context of the workplace and with regard to the ACLU's work. His critics within the ACLU have launched websites such as savetheaclu.org and voicesfortheaclu.org, reporting that he "has betrayed fundamental ACLU values".

In 2002, Romero signed a consent decree theNew York Attorney Generalat the time,Eliot Spitzer,to settle a privacy breach that had been discovered on the ACLU website. Although an outside company was responsible for the breach, Spitzer's office had demanded $10,000 from the ACLU for the error, which would later be reimbursed by the outside company directly responsible. However, as designated in the decree, Romero was required to distribute the decree itself to the national ACLU board within 30 days. Instead, he waited 6 months to do so, when he reportedly "offered vague and inconsistent explanations of the circumstances surrounding the negotiation, execution, and eventual distribution of the agreement".

In 2004, Romero received criticism for signing two agreements without the consent or approval of the larger ACLU leadership council. Most notable of the two was his signing of theCombined Federal Campaign,a government program that allows federal employees to allocate funds to charities and nonprofits that do not "knowingly employ" people found on federal and international antiterrorismwatch lists.Fellow leadership did not approve of this partnership and were forced to withdraw from the program, a move that cost the organization roughly $500,000.

On June 26, 2011, Romero was charged with a DWI after being seen "careening into oncoming traffic" by police. His arrest was not included in any weekly press releases of DWI charges that week and was not made public until it was published in theNew York Poston August 10, nearly two months later. Police claim to have inadvertently omitted Romero's arrest. However, critics suggested that the omission was no accident.

Works authored by Romero

• In Defense of Our America: The Fight for Civil Liberties in the Age of Terror.William Morrow, 2007.ISBN0-06-114256-5.

Recognition

In 2005, he was named one ofTimemagazine's 25 Most Influential Hispanics.

In 2009, he received the Golden Plate Award of theAmerican Academy of Achievementpresented by Awards Council memberArchbishop Desmond Tutuat an awards ceremony atSt. George’s Cathedralin Cape Town, South Africa.

In 2011, Romero received the"Maggie" Award,highest honor of the Planned Parenthood Federation, in tribute to their founder,Margaret Sanger.

He was featured in the HBO documentaryThe Latino List.

Romero is the recipient of the 2020 Woodrow Wilson Award from Princeton University.

External links

• ACLU Biography
• PBS Biography
• Time– Anthony Romero
• AppearancesonC-SPAN
• Hispanic Magazine– Driven By Liberties
• ACLU v. ACLU–The Nation,February 5, 2007