Anti-Defamation League (ADL)

Anti-Defamation League (ADL)
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY, 10158
Phone: 212-885-7700
Fax: 212-867-0779

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In 1913 a group of B'nai B'rith members who saw a need for an organized public effort to counter anti-Semitic actions, activities, and attitudes founded the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith in Chicago. Its mandate is to "stop the defamation of the Jewish people... [and] to secure justice and fair treatment for all citizens alike." It was not originally founded as a litigating group, but taking legal action, molding public opinion, and developing educational programs are important foci.

The ADL has no members or affiliates; it does, however, have 30 regional offices. In conjunction with Boston College Law School it has created the Holocaust Human Rights Project to deal with legal issues surrounding the rights of survivors.

The ADL has a total staff of approximately 400, including 9 attorneys. It also occasionally relies on volunteer lawyers for assistance. Most of its legal work, however, is in the form of amicus curiae briefs. In 1947 the ADL filed its first amicus brief along with a number of other religious and civil rights groups in Shelley v. Kraemer (1948), successfully urging the Supreme Court to find state enforcement of racially restrictive covenants unconstitutional.

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Since 1947, the ADL has filed numerous amicus briefs (approximately 20 a year) in cases involving race discrimination, separation of church and state, and censorship. This amicus work is often carried out in conjunction with other Jewish, public interest, or civil rights organizations especially the American Jewish Congress,* the American Jewish Committee,* the American Civil Liberties Union,* and/or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.* Like many other groups participating as amici, ADL lawyers frequently use legal and sociological data. According to ADL, its "lawyers or the outside experts who often write such briefs for ADL are frequently better versed in particular constitutional issues at stake than the lawyer of the plaintiff or defendant ADL seeks to support."

Although the ADL is a Jewish organization, fully one-third of its amicus activity has been in the area of education. It has participated in most major desegregation cases including Sweatt v. Painter (1950), Brown v. Board of Education (1954), and Keyes v. School District No. 1 (1973).

Since 1948 it also has filed amicus curiae briefs in nearly every important church-state case, always arguing for a strict interpretation of the Establishment Clause. For example, it filed amicus curiae briefs in McCollum v. Board of Education (1948) involving released time for education, and more recently in Edwards v. Aguillard, the ADL argued that a Louisiana statute that required public schools that teach evolution to treat creationism on an equal basis violated the Establishment Clause. It also has been involved in cases such as Lynch v. Donnelly (1984), an unsuccessful challenge to the constitutionality of publicly sponsored creches displayed on private property, and Wallace v. Jaffree (1985), in which ADL successfully argued against the constitutionality of an Alabama law authorizing a moment of silence in the public schools.

FURTHER INFORMATION:

Eisler, I. (1985). "Profile" [of Anti-Defamation League Director], Los Angeles Daily Journal 98:1, May 6.

Snyder, J. D., and E. K. Goodman (1983). Friend of the Court, 1947-1982 (New York: ADL).