By Lael Chester
I like fireworks and hotdogs as much as the next person, but I firmly believe that the best way to celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday is, and will always be, defending the Constitution.
It’s an imperfect document, but it has nevertheless been the starting point for generations of advocates seeking to expand and extend the liberties enjoyed by people in this country. It’s also the oldest and longest standing national constitution still in force in the world — and it was modeled on our Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, which is even older.
For over a century, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts (ACLU of MA) has worked to ensure the that civil rights and civil liberties embedded in these constitutions are honored, by litigating in courts, advocating at the State House, and mobilizing in communities across the Commonwealth.
Maybe it is comforting to know that the Constitution has always been under attack and has always needed defenders, though perhaps never so urgently as now.
I think back on one of our early prominent free speech cases, when the ACLU of MA opposed an effort by the Boston police commissioner to ban a 1938 edition of Life magazine because of what was then considered a scandalous feature called “The Birth of a Baby.” More recently, the ACLU of MA defended the right of Black Lives Matter protestors to march peacefully in Boston.
The topics of our work have been varied and broad, as the ACLU of MA has defended and sought to extend such fundamental rights as due process, the separation of church and state, and personal privacy. With the rapid advancement of technology, including new and intrusive surveillance tools, this last subject, privacy, has become a particularly hot topic, resulting in the creation of a focused “Technology for Liberty” initiative.
Our court cases often involve vulnerable people facing both unlawful and harmful practices. Some are recognized nationally for their resilience and bravery, like Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk, who was arrested and detained in early 2025 in retaliation for co-authoring an opinion piece published in the student newspaper. People across the country were horrified to watch a video of her arrest and learn of her long and traumatic detention in a private prison in Louisiana before the ACLU of MA and our co-counsel were ultimately able to win her freedom.
Other cases involve less well-known people, such as citizens of the city of Quincy who were shocked to learn that their mayor secretively used city funds to commission and transport two large statues of Christian saints from Italy with the intent to install them prominently at the entrance of the new public safety building, in violation of the state constitution’s requirement that government remain neutral in matters of religion.
The ACLU of MA has always been, and remains, non-partisan: It defends the rights of Democrats, Republicans, Independents, progressives, conservatives, societal heroes and pariahs. The ACLU of MA does not pick cases based on the names of the parties; rather, the ACLU of MA picks cases based on the rights at stake, always working to ensure that civil rights and civil liberties are respected and enforced.
This current administration has been particularly challenging, as the Constitution suffers multiple blows daily, such as repeated extra-judicial killings in the Caribbean and criminal prosecutions driven by personal vendettas that makes the name of the “Department of Justice” a mockery. The recent announcement of the removal of historic signs at Bunker Hill Monument, which the administration targeted because the materials address immigration, slavery, and war, is a brazen act of censorship — and the timing is ironic, erasing history while simultaneously planning celebrations to honor our history.
As Pulitzer-winning historian Jill Lepore chronicles in her most recent book, We The People, the U.S. Constitution itself is far from perfect and the mechanisms to amend and improve it are inherently flawed and challenging.
But it must withstand these assaults so that we the people can build a democracy that truly works for everyone.
Our client is the Constitution, and it is in jeopardy. We will continue to represent it as zealously as we can.
Lael Chester, Esq., is chair of the ACLU Foundation of Massachusetts