"Why I think Ira is doing what he is doing..."

Download PDF version of this letter

December 5, 2006

Dear Voices for the ACLU,

For almost thirty years, I have helped many of our nation's civil rights, civil liberties, human rights and women's rights organizations conduct searches for leaders and members of their senior staffs. I have recruited Cabinet and sub-Cabinet officials for two Presidents of the United States (Carter and Clinton.)

I am extremely proud to say that for over 23 years, I have helped with the recruitment of most of the senior leadership of the national staff of the ACLU and many of the affiliates. For most of that time, I worked very closely and productively with Ira Glasser. In the past year, I have recruited a new member of the national staff and am presently conducting another search. In 2001, I collaborated with Ira and the Executive Committee of the Board to recruit Anthony Romero as Executive Director. Over these 23 years, not every search has resulted in a perfect outcome, but I am exceedingly proud of the work of the overwhelming majority of the excellent people whom Ira and I have recruited together- and that includes Anthony Romero.

Over the course of these years as an executive recruiter, I have witnessed and/or been involved with hundreds and hundreds of leadership transitions. This one at the ACLU can only be described as disgraceful. What happened?

Much of what follows is based on my own observations over the past five years. Some has been learned from members of the senior staff in the national office and others in the field.

It started out wonderfully. Ira and I worked closely to encourage Anthony and others to apply. Ira helped to prepare Anthony for his interviews and briefed him after he was hired. Before Anthony actually reported for work, Ira and Anthony collaborated closely -meeting activists, donors, and others across the country. Then Ira went away and appropriately left his successor to run the show. Within two weeks, the 9/11 attacks occurred. Senior staff and the Executive Committee of the Board rallied behind Anthony as the organization confronted this crisis. Undoubtedly, mistakes were made during this crisis and subsequently. Many of us pointed these out. Anthony and others have acknowledged and corrected these mistakes. But with respect to the overriding response of the organization to the unprecedented assaults on civil liberties during this period and subsequently, there is no other conclusion to reach than that the ACLU has remained the most vigilant and forceful defender of our nation's liberties.

As time went on and after many months of careful deliberation, Anthony determined that several changes in the organization's staffing, structure and systems were required. He replaced members of the staff who had close personal relationships with Ira. He retained a new direct mail firm, replacing a firm with a longstanding and close personal relationship with Ira and for that matter with me, as well. He changed ad agencies, engaged in a re-branding of the ACLU's public image including a new look and logo and he replaced me as the organization's recruiter. Anthony brought in new people. He established a new department to provide support to the organization's affiliates-something Ira had resisted for over ten years. Real and regular meetings of the senior staff were held and they started to share responsibility for the overall leadership of the organization. And he, along with his staff, developed the first long-range strategic process to help ensure that the ACLU's work would be coordinated, integrated and more effective. Millions of new dollars were raised from new donors and others who had left the organization and were prepared to come back to support new leadership. Many of the senior staff remained. All agreed that the ACLU had undergone a comprehensive organizational transformation and was much stronger as a result. This was no longer Ira Glasser's ACLU. He was not happy with many of these organizational changes. He told me so in the summer of 2002 and subsequently.

Starting in 2003, Ira decided to go on the attack. First through other people. I sat with him at the annual dinner of the Massachusetts ACLU in October of 2003, when he and Wendy Kaminer and her husband Woody Kaplan (who Ira told me had previously been asked to resign from the National Board because of serious improprieties) left the dinner to discuss their concerns. A few others were enlisted-members of the National Board and the Executive Committee (two of whom had opposed Romero's appointment in the first place). Issues were raised and vigorously debated at National Board and Executive Committee meetings. Mistakes were acknowledged and corrected and the Board and the Executive Committee repeatedly expressed their overwhelming (nearly unanimous) support for Nadine Strossen, Anthony Romero and the other leaders of the organization. It's easy to see why. Millions of new dollars had been transferred to the affiliates. They are now much stronger and more effective. Hundreds of thousands of new people from across the political spectrum have been enlisted and have become valuable allies in the struggle. Younger people were joining and assuming leadership positions. Our message was strong and still is resonating across the country with people of all political persuasions.

Yet during this period, Ira called important financial supporters of the organization to discredit the leadership. It apparently didn't matter that he was no longer in charge. Outrageous as this may seem, Ira met with members of the staff to discuss organizational issues, and on at least one occasion aggressively criticized one staff member for what that person was doing on the job. On at least one other occasion, Ira gave advice to an employee who was being let go-helping her to negotiate a severance package. In addition to these secret meetings, Ira's role was starting to become more public. Then, a series of inaccurate stories, each repeating already discredited accusations started to appear in the New York Times. Whether the inaccuracies resulted from sloppy journalism or misrepresentations by "sources" or both is unclear.

But what is clear is that anyone who asserts that Nadine Strossen is jeopardizing the soul of the ACLU, is at best deluded and more likely, dishonest. Nadine is one of our nation's leading civil libertarians who has served tirelessly as President of the Board for 17 years, To conclude that the overwhelming majority of the 83 member National Board and the Executive Committee of the Board have failed to protect the fundamental principles of the ACLU is an insult to their intelligence and their commitment. To imply that Steve Shapiro, the long-time National Legal Director of the organization, Alma Montclair, the long-time Director of Administration and Finance and the other members of the senior staff who unanimously support the current leadership, are ignoring the very principles at the core of the organization's mission is simply preposterous.

So what's going on here? Are all of Ira's attacks based on principle or are they the result of something else? It's hard to believe that all of this is the behavior of a fiercely competitive man who can't stand to see others succeed. But it would be harder to believe if this pattern hadn't occurred before. Talk to the people who have worked with Ira and watched his behavior over the past 25 years. I have. Talk with people he succeeded at the National Office. Ira systematically went about undermining and attacking them. Many of them will tell you, with great admiration, about Ira's steadfast tenacity, his strategic genius and tactical savvy in defense of liberty. But they will also tell you, with equally great regret, about his fierce and sometimes unrestrained competitiveness and his vindictive and sometimes vicious side as well. I've seen these impulses masquerading as principle.

I call upon Ira to control that side of himself, to lend his enormous talent to the struggle confronting our nation and not be diverted or divert others from this important work. The only winners in such a diversion are the enemies of civil rights and civil liberties. Of course mistakes have been made and they have been corrected. Serious mistakes were made under his tenure as well. We need not go into them here. We must work to correct mistakes and solve problems and not recklessly destroy the organization.

Arnie Miller
Principal of Isaacson Miller, a national executive recruiting firm that specializes in recruiting leaders of non-profit organizations  

[ back to top]