Center for Constitutional Rights
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| Founded | July 1966 by Arthur Kinoy, William Kunstler, Ben Smith and Morton Stavis |
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| Type | Non-profit |
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| Services | Advocacy, litigation, public education |
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Key people
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Michael Ratner, President Emeritus; Jules Lobel, President; Alex Rosenberg and Peter Weiss, Vice-Presidents; Vincent Warren, Executive Director; Baher Azmy, Legal Director; William P. Quigley, Associate Legal Director |
| Website | CCRJustice.org |
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is a progressive non-profit legal advocacy organization based in New York City, New York, in the United States. It was founded in 1966 by Arthur Kinoy, William Kunstler and others particularly to support activists in implementation of civil rights legislation and achieve social justice.
CCR has focused on civil liberties and human rights litigation, and activism. Since winning the landmark case in the United States Supreme Court of Rasul v. Bush (2004), establishing the right of detainees at Guantanamo Bay detainment camp to challenge their status in US courts and gain legal representation, it has provided legal assistance to people imprisoned there and gained release for many who were unlawfully held or proven not to be a risk to security.
The Center, originally the Law Center for Constitutional Rights, was set up to give legal and financial support to lawyers who were representing Civil Rights Movement activists in Mississippi at the height of the struggle against racial segregation and economic injustice. Its founders were Morton Stavis, Arthur Kinoy, Ben Smith and William Kunstler. The Center identified as a "movement support" organization; that is, an organization that concentrated on working with political and social activists to use the courts to promote the activists' work. Cases were chosen to raise public awareness of an issue, generate media attention, and/or energize activists being harassed by local law enforcement in the South. In this regard, the Center differed from more traditional legal non-profits, such as the ACLU, which was more focused on bringing winnable cases in order to extend precedents and develop the law, as well as pursuing First Amendment issues.
The current organization was formed from the merger of the original Center for Constitutional Rights (formed in 1966 by Kunstler, Kinoy, Stavis and Smith) and the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee (ECLC).
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