Our affiliate started with a conversation between two Unitarian clergymen, both new to the state and both longtime members of the national ACLU. By late May of 1966, state paperwork made it official: Nebraska became the 38th state with an ACLU state affiliate. In our founding, we committed to "promote the observance of free speech, free assemblage, equality before the law and other civil liberties." We had about 250 members shortly after our founding. Today, that number is in the thousands. "There was little expectation in those early years that NCLU (our original name) would grow as it has," wrote founder Rev. Charles Stephen several decades later. "The people and size of the organization have changed, but the ideals remain the same."

Community education started early in our history. In the summer of 1968, our affiliate announced plans to distribute an estimated 25,000 pamphlets outlining what police can and cannot do and the legal rights of an arrested person: "the fold-outs, with a tear-off that can be carried in the pocket, will be distributed at Indian reservations, to university and college students as well as on the Near North Side in Omaha" media reported.

The police shooting of Vivian Strong, an unarmed Black 14-year-old, sparked days of emotional protests and mourning in Omaha. Our affiliate joined with other local organizations in a sign-on letter demanding police accountability and arguing that current standards "appear to invite an excessive use of firearms by the police." The same letter called for bail reform, voicing that many community members feel they receive different treatment than Officer James Loder, who had his bond set at a "relatively small" amount of $500 while charged with manslaughter for the shooting. An all-white jury would acquit Loder less than a year later.

Some of our earliest cases focused on students’ rights and free expression. As we entered a new decade, we litigated on behalf of several students about what reporters would call “the long hair issue.” Cooperating attorneys with NCLU (Nebraska Civil Liberties Union) represented an Aurora seventh grader being denied admission to school because of his hair and a Chadron State College student being prevented from registering for classes. Robert Reichenberg, a 24-year-old Army veteran “with high grades,” was being denied registration due to his mustache and sideburns. These early victories would eventually lead to advocacy and litigation that helped secure anti-discrimination protections in state law decades later for students’ natural hair, protective hairstyles, religious headdresses and tribal regalia.

When a 17-year-old from Lincoln learned she could not access abortion care because she could not obtain parental permission, she turned to NCLU. Filing as “Jane Doe,” she won a temporary court order blocking enforcement of the parental consent law, making her case against an attorney for the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office who media quoted as saying she “‘doesn’t know what is best’ for her.” This case is just one example of our work to safeguard bodily autonomy in the 1970s — a decade that saw almost immediate municipal and state restrictions on funding for abortion care after the U.S. Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade. Our work to protect access to abortion care continues today with more urgency than ever given the court’s 2022 decision overturning the individual right to access abortion care.

In 1976, attorneys with the ACLU’s national office and NCLU took on the case of Nate Saunsoci, a Native American 17-year-old who had spent seven years in juvenile and adult facilities for a burglary that never went to trial and that he denied being part of. The case came on our radar after the youth was transferred from a youth facility in Kearney to a men’s prison in Lincoln. Litigation ended with a court order wiping his record clean. Attorneys had hoped the case would provide an avenue to challenge our state’s practice of transferring juveniles to adult prisons, but the decision did not allow that.

Not every milestone has been a victory. In 1979, concerns about separation of church and state led NCLU and State Sen. Ernie Chambers to file a lawsuit challenging the Unicameral’s hiring of a legislative chaplain and state-sponsored printing of prayer booklets. Marsh v. Chambers would reach the U.S. Supreme Court four years later after victories on the local level and before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court ruled that the practice was lawful, writing that this interpretation was informed by members of the First Congress appointing and paying chaplains. “It can hardly be thought that [they wanted] to forbid what they had just declared acceptable.”

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As city and state prosecutors ramped up a censorship campaign in partnership with private groups, the ACLU of Nebraska stepped up to be a voice for free expression. In 1992, we represented the owner of Omaha bookstore Read All About It, facing up to three years in jail and $3,000 in fines for selling books with sexual content. (OPD’s “Intelligence/Vice Unit” investigated based on a tip.) Judge Thomas McQuade sided with the bookstore, stating that the case was important not just because of potential loss of freedom but because of the Constitution’s guarantees of freedom of speech and freedom of the press: “What is obscene in one community may not be obscene in another. […] The community standard can be a very elusive creature to grasp.” Censorship remained a focus through the 1990s — the decade would end with our involvement in a challenge to gay artwork in an Omaha bar.

In the middle of the night, police cars surrounded a home in Blair. Officers were there to take a pregnant 15-year-old into custody at direction of County Attorney John Samson. They had been told she was considering seeking abortion care and planned to stop her by taking her from her supportive parents. Court filings even describe a sheriff’s deputy attempting to give anti-abortion literature to the teenager. The teen was returned to her parents under a court order to not seek an abortion. We represented her and her family alongside attorney Jeanelle Kleveland, who learned about the case from the ACLU. That case was settled three years later.

In 1995, the state yanked a 3-year-old child away from his foster parents after learning via an anonymous tip that one of the parents had HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The boy had been in their care since he was 3 months old. Jay and GayLynn Brummett turned to the courts, winning a ruling that said the boy should be returned — but still facing barriers to adoption. The ACLU of Nebraska and Nebraska Appleseed represented the Brummetts in a federal lawsuit claiming the state’s denial violated the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Rehabilitation Act and seeking damages. The case would not be settled until 2004. In a statement, the state maintained they "do not and will not unlawfully discriminate" against prospective parents with HIV or AIDS, but also acknowledged they had rewritten regulations used to justify denial of the Brummett adoption. Tragically, GayLynn never saw the case resolve. She passed away in 1996. The Brummetts’ case is the longest in our affiliate’s history.

In our 30th year, NCLU became the ACLU of Nebraska, a name we’ve kept ever since.

Similar to the national ACLU’s controversial representation of a neo-Nazi group in Skokie, Illinois, our affiliate took on representation of neo-Nazi activist Gary Lauck, who faced charges in 1999 for information he provided when requesting a handgun permit. At issue: Lauck attested that he had not been convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment even though he had been convicted and recently imprisoned in Germany for hate speech that is protected under the First Amendment. A federal judge dismissed Lauck’s charges in 2001. Decades later, we would encourage Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department to disavow postcards sent by Lauck claiming the department was seeking information on illegal immigration.

In 2010, Fremont residents voted on Ordinance 5165, which requires all people renting property in Fremont to first sign a declaration stating that they are legally present in the United States and pay $5 for an occupancy license. The National ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project and the ACLU of Nebraska sued the city, arguing the ordinance conflicted with federal immigration authority and discriminated against immigrants. In 2012, a federal district court blocked key parts of the ordinance, including provisions targeting landlords and tenants based on immigration status. However, in 2013, the Eighth Circuit upheld the ordinance, allowing it to take effect in 2014. In 2024, officials turned over documents related to the ordinance after the ACLU of Nebraska sued the federal government to comply with a public records request originally filed in 2021.

"Without a license to drive, you constantly face limits on what you can accomplish in your life," said Maria Marquez Hernandez, a plaintiff in the lawsuit the ACLU of Nebraska and the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project launched against then-Governor Dave Heineman and the Nebraska Department of Motor Vehicles when they enacted a policy barring DACA recipients from obtaining a driver’s license. Disappointingly, the courts sided with the Governor and the DMV, making Nebraska the second state to have this restriction. However, in 2015, after overriding a veto by then-Governor Pete Ricketts, the State Legislature passed LB 623, which allowed DACA recipients to obtain driver’s licenses.

This case is one of many reminders of how delayed justice can undermine constitutional rights. In 2014, the ACLU of Nebraska filed a lawsuit on behalf of incarcerated Nebraskans Paul Gillpatrick and Nicole Wetherell, after prison officials repeatedly denied their request to marry. The couple, who became engaged in 2011, were told they could not wed because NDCS would not facilitate an in-person or virtual ceremony. In 2019, a federal district judge ruled in their favor, recognizing that incarcerated people retain their right to marry. The decision was later appealed by the state and put on hold. Before the case could establish a broader legal precedent, Wetherell died in February 2024 from an undisclosed medical condition while serving her life sentence. Following her death, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the case without a ruling.

Love won in Nebraska. In 2014, the ACLU, the ACLU of Nebraska and the law firm Koenig | Dunne filed Waters v Ricketts, on behalf of seven couples seeking their freedom to marry or the recognition of their marriages in Nebraska. Among the plaintiffs were Omaha couple Susan and Sally Waters, who had been together for 17 years when Sally was diagnosed with breast cancer, making legal recognition even more urgent for their family. On March 2, 2015, a federal court ruled the ban unconstitutional and granted an injunction in favor of the couples, though the decision was temporarily stayed during appeals. A few months later, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Obergefell v. Hodges made marriage equality the law of the land. After years of advocacy, LGBT+ couples in Nebraska could finally say “I do” with the full recognition and protection of the law.

Nebraska’s overcrowded and under-resourced prison system has endangered the health and safety of incarcerated individuals and staff for decades. In response, the ACLU, the ACLU of Nebraska, Nebraska Appleseed, and partners filed a major class-action lawsuit challenging conditions inside Nebraska prisons in 2017. The lawsuit argued that inadequate medical and mental health care, disability discrimination, chronic understaffing, and prolonged solitary confinement violated the rights of incarcerated Nebraskans. During litigation, Nebraska closed the notorious “South 40” solitary confinement unit, reduced the number of people in solitary and expanded access to critical care. In 2020, the legal team agreed to dismiss the case after negotiating terms with the state. While progress has been made, the work to build Smart Justice reform throughout Nebraska continues.

This ruling marked a major win for open government and transparency in Nebraska. After wasting tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars in failed – and potentially illegal – attempts to secure lethal injection drugs, and the first lethal injection in the state in 2018, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled in favor of the ACLU of Nebraska in a major transparency case. The ruling found the NDCS violated public records by withholding documents related to the source and purchase of execution drugs for Mr. Carey Dean Moore, the first time a lethal injection was used as a method of execution, and the first execution carried out by the state in 21 years. We argued that the death penalty, as the most extreme use of state power, must be subject to public scrutiny and accountability.