On July 1, the Supreme Court ruled the Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta that the government cannot force nonprofits to reveal the names of their supporters. As the former Executive Director and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and National Youth Assistant to Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s, I believe this ruling marks one of the most significant civil rights achievements in decades.
It’s important to note that while the majority Conservative Supreme Court has restricted Americans’ voting rights, the same nation’s highest court has just ruled to protect American freedom, civil rights organizations, and other social justice nonprofits.
By sided with the AFPF, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and many other nonprofits, the Supreme Court overturned the State of California’s mandate to allow tax-exempt charities to reveal the names of their largest donors commit. This is good news because the demand for the American people to be free to associate freely with other groups without fear of retaliation is completely deaf, which the Supreme Court upheld during the civil rights movement.
In 1956, the Alabama Attorney General took all legal steps to get the NAACP to cease operating in the state. Citing the association’s activism in the Montgomery bus boycott and financial and legal support for African Americans who wanted to attend the all-white University of Alabama, the organization caused “an irreparable violation of the property and civil rights of the residents and citizens of the state.” of Alabama … “He went on to issue a subpoena for the names of the association’s members.
Understandably, this subpoena sent a shiver down the spine of everyone who was active in the civil rights movement at the time. The Ku Klux Klan regularly directed violence against those who spoke out loudly against racial segregation, and members of the NAACP were its main targets. In fact, the home of a NAACP president was bombed, likely by a Klansman, just years before the Alabama Attorney General filed his lawsuit. Had the NAACP disclosed its membership list, this would have been an unexpected risk for the association’s allies. Instead, the group took the matter to the Supreme Court, which eventually campaigned for the right to freedom of association of members of the First and Fourteenth Amendment.
In the majority opinion, Judge John Harlan wrote: “The immunity to government scrutiny of the petitioner’s lists of members is closely related here to the right of the petitioner’s members to privately pursue their legitimate private interests and to freely associate with others to participate in the Protection of the Fourteenth Amendment. ”His opinion also articulated that“ the freedom to engage in the promotion of beliefs and ideas is an inseparable aspect of the ‘freedom’ guaranteed by the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. ”
While the Supreme Court was right at the time, the Ninth District Court of Appeals in the AFPF case argued that “the interests served by non-electoral disclosure, such as police types of charitable fraud, pale in comparison to the critical importance of ensuring” our electoral system is free from corruption or its appearance. ”
The election argument of the court of appeal is on a few legs. The AFPF case is not concerned with elections, but rather with the narrow question of whether attorneys-general can force 501 (c) (3) organizations to disclose their supporters to the state. It is utterly insincere to categorize this issue as one of campaign finance.
Fortunately, the Supreme Court understands that supporting causes is not the same as supporting candidates. For this reason, when Judge John Roberts overturned the Ninth Ward ruling on July 1, the majority “found little evidence that the Attorney General’s investigators relied on Appendix B to uncover nonprofit fraud” and “found that the disclosure regulation burdened the work of the association ”. Donors’ rights ”.
The Supreme Court deserves praise for once again defending the rights of Americans who privately support activism efforts paramount to citizens’ right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The ruling in the AFPF will protect not only civil rights but the concerns of all underserved and underrepresented populations that are worth fighting for every day.
I speak for all activists when I say that no one will forget this opinion anytime soon.
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. is President and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA). He is the former executive director and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and a former assistant to Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
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