Section Background
The Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice is the only entity within the ABA dedicated solely to civil rights, civil liberties, and human rights issues. The Section takes pride in its unique mission within the ABA of providing leadership to the legal profession in protecting and advancing human rights, civil liberties, and social justice. Through education and advocacy, the Section expresses the legal profession's commitment to achieving the American ideals of justice, freedom, and equality for all through the legal system.
Since its founding in 1966, the Section has sponsored policies adopted by the Association that address a broad range of civil rights, civil liberties, and human rights issues, including capital punishment due process issues; constitutional equality for women; the rights of the physically and mentally disabled, lesbians and gay men, children, and the elderly; the right to privacy, equal educational, employment, and housing opportunities; adherence to American Indian treaty obligations and international human rights conventions; homelessness; and apartheid in South Africa. In recent years, the Section has successfully proposed ABA policies on "child exclusions" in welfare legislation, gender equity in Social Security regulations, legal mechanisms for the long-term care of people with AIDS, gay and lesbian parents' child custody and visitation rights, immigrant rights, religious liberty, medical records privacy, education rights of children with disabilities, discrimination in bar admissions and judicial appointments, support of affirmative action programs, death penalty implementation, and community public health programs that authorize needle exchange for drug users. Other projects include participating in working groups and steering committees to discuss the ratification of both the UN Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.