American Civil Rights Union
The American Civil Rights Union (ACRU) is an American constitutional rights organization founded by former Reagan Administration official Robert B. Carleson in 1998. It was founded in response to views that the most prominent civil liberties organization, the American Civil Liberties Union, was too leftward leaning; ACRU has been described as a conservative civil liberties advocacy group. The ACRU has filed numerous amicus briefs in court cases involving election integrity, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), gun ownership and property rights cases, and cases involving the Boy Scouts of America including the 2000 U.S. Supreme Court case of Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, defending the Boy Scouts' freedom of association right to create their own criteria for leaders and members. Christopher Coates is the ACRU General Counsel, J. Kenneth Blackwell and Robert Knight are Senior Fellows, Ken Klukowski is a Fellow, Jan LaRue is a Senior Legal Analyst, and Carleson's widow, Susan, is chairwoman.