Ahmuty looks back on career
After 35 years, he retires from ACLU
The other day, Chris Ahmuty’s desk was still covered with paperwork, an occupational hazard for the longtime executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin.
Ahmuty, 66, will be leaving the piles of paper behind when he retires at the end of the year. A new leader for the organization is expected to be named soon, completing a transition that has been in the works for nearly a year.
For 35 years, including the last 25 as executive director, Ahmuty has been on the front line in the battle over civil liberties. Under Ahmuty, the ACLU of Wisconsin has entered recent frays on marriage equality, voting rights, abortion, policing, transportation and access to the state Capitol.
Ahmuty is preparing to leave the public stage at an interesting time, just weeks before the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.
Following Trump’s election, the ACLU reported a surge in donations.
Ahmuty said the state chapter, which normally has around 6,500 members, has seen a membership bump of some 3,000 since the election.
“We’re still getting new members every day who are concerned about the future of civil liberties,” Ahmuty said.
What’s driving the membership surge? “Uncertainty and concern about deeply held values,” he said.
But Ahmuty cautions those who may want to jump to conclusions about how a Trump presidency will play out.
“On the basis of Trump’s statements during the campaign, there is plenty to be worried about without creating things that may never happen,” he said.
Ahmuty said it will be important to educate the public “and help frame issues so that people will understand some very basic civil liberties principles. Among those is the rule of law.”
Ahmuty joined the organization in the early 1980s as the assistant to then-executive director Eunice Edgar. He held that position for 10 years before becoming executive director.
“In my 35 years we’ve looked at ways to bring more people within the sphere of civil liberties protection,” Ahmuty said.
The ACLU of Wisconsin has done a lot of work on poverty and race, he said.
One big case he pointed to was from the early 1990s. Local chapters of the ACLU and NAACP joined in a suit accusing American Family Mutual Insurance Company of discriminating against black people in Milwaukee. In 1995, the firm agreed to pay $14.5 million to settle the suit.
“That really demonstrated how litigation and civil liberties could develop the law but could also help individual people and neighborhoods,” he said.
Another success for Ahmuty is the group’s work on same-sex marriage. The ACLU of Wisconsin initiated the case that led to the 2014 decision by a federal judge to overturn the state’s gay marriage ban. In June 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage.
“With same-sex marriage, it was a situation where we were part of a larger social movement,” he said.
Ahmuty and his partner of 35 years, Bob Schlack, have not married. “We certainly don’t need the government to affirm the relationship we’ve had for so long,” Ahmuty said.
Asked about the group’s biggest failure over the years, Ahmuty pointed to “the undermining of public education and school choice.”
The ACLU and the school choice movement in Wisconsin have long been at odds. The ACLU was one of the groups that in the late 1990s unsuccessfully challenged the Wisconsin law that allowed taxpayer funds to be used for religious school tuition under the voucher program.
“We’ve tried to deal from collateral damage of it ever since,” he said.
Over the next few months, Ahmuty will remain out of the public debate as his successor takes over. He won’t miss the fundraising or trying to meet an annual budget.
But Ahmuty said he will miss “the satisfaction of speaking out and challenging government officials at all levels who are arrogant.”
“But you know what, I won’t stop doing that,” he said. “I think I’ll give it a little break so I can say things without people saying, ‘that’s the ACLU talking,’ when it’s really me talking.”