By Sheila Suess Kennedy
October 31, 2026
Over the past few weeks, we in Indiana have been seeing what happens when the Board of a not-for-profit organization fails to understand, let alone honor, the organization’s mission. In the case of the Indiana ACLU, it is devastating.
Between 1992 and 1998, I was the Executive Director of Indiana’s ACLU affiliate. My appointment was met with surprise by a lot of people, because at the time I was well-known to be Republican (i.e., member of a party that no longer exists), and there was–and evidently still. is–a (mis)perception that members of the ACLU were all Democrats and political liberals. I considered it one of my major tasks to educate people about the similarities and differences between liberal political positions and a devotion to civil liberties. (There’s a lot of overlap, but they aren’t the same, and I undertook to explain the differences in my first book, “What’s a Nice Republican Girl Like Me Doing at the ACLU?”)
Evidently, the remaining members of the current board lack that understanding (I say “remaining” because some have resigned), opting to turn the affiliate into a liberal activist organization and hiring a new Executive Director, Nikkita Oliver, whose career focus has been entirely on activism and “movement lawyering” rather than civil liberties. Oliver’s application included the belief that “community organizers”–from the ACLU or from other organizations–should take the lead in deciding which cases would be accepted for representation by the affiliate’s lawyers.
In conversations with staff, Oliver displayed a shocking lack of understanding of the central mission of the ACLU–opining that the ACLU had been “too pure” on civil liberties, remarking that the landmark Skokie free-speech case wouldn’t have happened under Oliver’s leadership, and suggesting that people espousing the “wrong” ideas could find representation elsewhere.
Oliver clearly wouldn’t have understood why, when I was Executive Director, we represented the odious KKK. At the time, the local affiliate had only three employees–the legal director, me (Jewish) and a secretary (Black). (As I recall, we also had a cooperating (volunteer) lawyer on the case who was gay.) The Klan had petitioned to hold an event on the Statehouse steps, where multiple other organizations had been permitted to gather, and they’d been denied. Rather obviously, we all detested the Klan–but we also understood that if government can decide who has rights and who doesn’t, no one has rights.
As Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously wrote, “If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought—not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.”
Activism absolutely has its place. Indeed, in the era of Trump and MAGA, it is more important than ever. In past positions, Oliver’s activism has evidently accomplished admirable results. But the ACLU’s mission isn’t activism–or, more properly, it is a constrained activism on behalf of the liberties protected by the Bill of Rights. People who don’t understand and support that mission need to work elsewhere.
And people who fail to understand and support civil liberties for all citizens–whether we agree with them or not– do not belong on an ACLU board. Neither do people who fail to recognize the likely consequences of a radical change to the organizational mission. I’m told that staff warned the board that turning the affiliate into a political organization would imperil its tax-exemption and would likely cause financial supporters to withdraw–and that board members took those warnings as threats, rather than as prudent counsel.
When staff members shared their concerns about Oliver with the board, those concerns were dismissed. As a result, several staff members and most of the affiliate’s legal team are leaving. Four of the five principal attorneys have resigned: legal director Ken Falk, deputy legal director Gavin Rose, senior staff attorney Stevie Pactor and staff attorney Josh Bleisch. Collectively, they have 50 years at the ACLU, and they are widely admired throughout Indiana’s legal community. Deciding to leave was quite obviously a wrenching decision–these are not impulsive or thoughtless people, and they have devoted their professional lives to the cause of civil liberties.
I’m told that the lawyers are creating a new nonprofit organization to defend civil liberties. It should never have been necessary.
Sheila Suess Kennedy is Emerita Professor of Law and Public Policy at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis. As an attorney, she practiced real estate, administrative and business law in Indianapolis before becoming corporation counsel for the City of Indianapolis in 1977. In 1980, she was the Republican candidate for Indiana’s then 11th Congressional District and in 1992, she became executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana. She joined the faculty of the School of Public and Environment al Affairs in 1998.
This column was originally published by Sheila Kennedy on her blog, “A Jaundiced Look at the World We Live In.” The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.
