ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero Honored At Academy Of Achievement Summit (7/8/2009)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org
NEW YORK –
American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony D. Romero was selected
as an honoree at the 48th annual Academy of Achievement's International
Achievement Summit in Cape Town, South Africa, which ended
today.
Each year, the Academy of Achievement invites 30 new honored
guests and 20 past awardees who represent the "greatest thinkers and achievers
of the age" from the sciences, business, the professions, sports, literature,
entertainment, the military, the arts and public service to a four-day summit to
share their knowledge with 250 outstanding graduate students from around the
world.
"It's been an incredible privilege to have been one of the
guests of honor at the International Achievement Summit," said Romero. "To be
recognized alongside luminaries who have achieved such greatness in practically
every human endeavor has been both humbling and inspirational."
The
Academy of Achievement, based in Washington, D.C., hosts the International
Achievement Summit annually in one of the world's major cities. Other
participants at this year's summit in Cape Town include Nobel Prize winners Wole
Soyika and Dr. Joseph Stiglitz, United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights Navanethem Pillay, Kerzner International Holdings Limited CEO Sol Kerzner
and Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu.
Romero is the ACLU's sixth Executive Director, and the first Latino and
openly gay man to serve in that capacity. Under Romero's leadership, the ACLU
has gained court victories on the Patriot Act, filed landmark litigation on the
torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. custody, filed the first successful legal
challenge to the Bush administration's illegal NSA spying program, and, through
Freedom of Information Act litigation, obtained critical Justice Department
memos outlining the Bush administration's legal framework for its torture
policies.
The ACLU has achieved unprecedented growth since Romero became Executive
Director in 2001, allowing the organization to expand its nationwide litigation,
lobbying and public education efforts, including new initiatives focused on
racial justice, religious freedom, privacy, reproductive freedom and lesbian and
gay rights.
In 2005, Romero was named one of Time Magazine's 25 Most Influential
Hispanics in America and in 2009, one of Out Magazine's Power 50: The Most
Powerful Gay Men and Women in America. He has received dozens of public service
awards and an honorary doctorate from the City University of New York School of
Law. Along with Dina Temple-Raston, he co-authored In Defense of Our America:
The Fight for Civil Liberties in the Age of Terror, which takes a critical look
at civil liberties in this country at a time when constitutional freedoms are in
peril.
Born in New York City to parents who hailed from Puerto
Rico, Romero was the first in his family to graduate from high school. He is a
graduate of Stanford University Law School and Princeton University's Woodrow
Wilson School of Public Policy and International Affairs. He is a member of the
New York Bar Association and has sat on numerous nonprofit
boards.
More information about the ACLU is available at: www.aclu.org/index.html
More information about the Academy of Achievement is available at: www.achievement.org/autodoc/pagegen/index.html
|
