Editing American Civil Liberties Union (section)

===1950s===
In 1950, the ACLU board of directors asked executive director Baldwin to resign, feeling he lacked the organizational skills to lead the 9,000 (and growing) member organization. Baldwin objected, but a majority of the board elected to remove him from the position, and he was replaced by [[Patrick Murphy Malin]].<ref>Walker, pp. 205–06.</ref> Under Malin's guidance, membership tripled to 30,000 by 1955{{spaced ndash}}the start of 24 years of continual growth leading to 275,000 members in 1974.<ref name=W207>Walker, p. 207.</ref> Malin also presided over an expansion of local ACLU affiliates.<ref name=W207/>

The ACLU, controlled by an elite of a few dozen New Yorkers, became more democratic in the 1950s. In 1951, the ACLU amended its bylaws to permit the local affiliates to participate directly in voting on ACLU policy decisions.<ref name=W208>Walker, p. 208.</ref> A bi-annual conference, open to the entire membership, was instituted in the same year; in later decades, it became a pulpit for activist members, who suggested new directions for the ACLU, including abortion rights, death penalty, and rights of the poor.<ref name=W208/>

====McCarthy era====
[[File:Paul Robeson 1942 crop.jpg|thumb|upright|In the 1950s, the ACLU chose not to support [[Paul Robeson]] and other leftist defendants, a decision that would be heavily criticized in the future.]]

During the early 1950s, the ACLU continued to steer a moderate course through the Cold War. When singer [[Paul Robeson]] was denied a passport in 1950, even though he was not accused of any illegal acts, the ACLU chose not to defend him.<ref>Walker, p. 199.</ref> The ACLU later reversed their stance and supported [[William Worthy]] and [[Rockwell Kent]] in their passport confiscation cases, which resulted in legal victories in the late 1950s.<ref>Walker, p. 200.</ref>

In response to communist witch-hunts, many witnesses and employees chose to use the [[Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution|fifth amendment]] protection against [[self-incrimination]] to avoid divulging information about their political beliefs.<ref>Walker, p. 201.</ref> Government agencies and private organizations, in response, established policies which inferred communist party membership for anyone who invoked the fifth amendment.<ref>Walker, pp. 201–02.</ref> The national ACLU was divided on whether to defend employees who had been fired merely for pleading the fifth amendment, but the New York affiliate successfully assisted teacher [[Harry Slochower]] in his Supreme Court case, which reversed his termination.<ref>Walker, p. 202. The case was ''[[Slochower v. Board of Higher Education of New York City]]'', 350 US 551 (1956).</ref>

The fifth amendment issue became the catalyst for a watershed event in 1954, which finally resolved the ACLU's ambivalence by ousting the anti-communists from ACLU leadership.<ref>Walker, pp. 208–11.</ref> In 1953, the anti-communists, led by [[Norman Thomas]] and [[James Fly]], proposed a set of resolutions that inferred guilt of persons that invoked the fifth amendment.<ref name="W208" /> These resolutions were the first that fell under the ACLU's new organizational rules permitting local affiliates to participate in the vote; the affiliates outvoted the national headquarters and rejected the anti-communist resolutions.<ref>Walker, p. 209.</ref> Anti-communist leaders refused to accept the results of the vote and brought the issue up for discussion again at the 1954 bi-annual convention.<ref name=W210>Walker, p. 210.</ref> ACLU member [[Frank Porter Graham|Frank Graham]], president of the [[University of North Carolina]], attacked the anti-communists with a counter-proposal, which stated that the ACLU "stand[s] against guilt by association, judgment by accusation, the invasion of privacy of personal opinions and beliefs, and the confusion of dissent with disloyalty".<ref name=W210/><ref>Graham's proposal quoted in Walker</ref> The anti-communists continued to battle Graham's proposal but were outnumbered by the affiliates. The anti-communists finally gave up and departed the board of directors in late 1954 and 1955, ending an eight-year ambivalence within the ACLU leadership ranks.<ref>Walker, pp. 210–11.</ref> After that, the ACLU proceeded with firmer resolve against Cold War anti-communist legislation.<ref name=W211>Walker, p. 211.</ref> The period from the 1940 resolution (and the purge of Elizabeth Flynn) to the 1954 resignation of the anti-communist leaders is considered by many to be an era in which the ACLU abandoned its core principles.<ref name=W211/><ref>[[Corliss Lamont]], in particular, portrayed that era as a major lapse of principle.</ref>

McCarthyism declined in late 1954 after television journalist [[Edward R. Murrow]] and others publicly chastised McCarthy.<ref name=W212>Walker, p. 212.</ref> The controversies over the Bill of Rights that the Cold War generated ushered in a new era in American Civil liberties. In 1954, in ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'', the Supreme Court unanimously overturned state-sanctioned school segregation, and after that, a flood of civil rights victories dominated the legal landscape.<ref>Walker, pp. 213–14, 217–18.</ref>

The Supreme Court handed the ACLU two key victories in 1957, in ''[[Watkins v. United States]]'' and ''[[Yates v. United States]]'', both of which undermined the [[Smith Act]] and marked the beginning of the end of communist party membership inquiries.<ref>Walker, pp. 240–42.</ref> In 1965, the Supreme Court produced some decisions, including ''[[Lamont v. Postmaster General]]'' (in which the plaintiff was [[Corliss Lamont]], a former ACLU board member), which upheld fifth amendment protections and brought an end to restrictions on political activity.<ref name="Walker, p. 246">Walker, p. 246.</ref>