Tufts will soon add to its legacy of campus activism when it welcomes a chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), an organization that protects the Bill of Rights in courts, state and federal government, and through public education.
The Tufts chapter will join ACLU Massachusetts, one of the group's largest state affiliates. Freshmen Jeff Finkelman and Rachel Tabak are bringing the ACLU to campus and will hold an organizational meeting in the campus center tomorrow night.
"I think it is high time such a chapter existed at Tufts," said philosophy Professor Norman Daniels, who will serve as the club's faculty advisor. "In the context of new threats to civil liberties in the aftermath of Sept. 11, it is important for a group to stimulate deliberation about these issues."
But the idea for creating a Tufts chapter of ACLU was conceived before the Sept. 11 attack. Finkelman, who was active in his high school ACLU chapter, said he was surprised to learn that it did not already exist on campus when he arrived at Tufts.
He discussed his vision with Tabak, who he met on a pre-orientation FOCUS program through the Leonard Carmichael Society, and the two have spent the past few weeks brainstorming ways the group can make an impact at Tufts.
The Tufts chapter of the ACLU is one of many cropping up across the country. While the organization has been prevalent at law schools for a number of years, undergraduate chapters have only recently become commonplace. Aside from Tufts, Northeastern University is amongst the schools in Greater Boston that are in the beginning stages of forming ACLU chapters.
"Many colleges are seeing a need to have these chapters not only to educate, but to promote activism," said Nancy Murray, director of Bill of Rights Education for ACLU. "It's hard to get a lot of this information, and I applaud the students getting this out there."
Murray said that the lack of undergraduate chapters is largely a result of wavering student interest. "What tends to happen with student chapters is that they ebb and they flow, depending on the enthusiasm of the students," she said.
"I think at a time like this when we are all living in fear but at the same time faced with having to balance our own constitutional rights and protections it's a wonderful thing to do," she said.
