The ACLU of Kentucky has more than 5,000 members statewide. ACLU-KY staff use their skills, expertise, experience, and passion to defend and expand the civil rights and liberties of everyone in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Our team culture is centered on mutual respect, candor, collaboration, accountability, trust, solutions, continuous improvement, and fun.
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Our Mission: Preserving Liberty
The American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky (ACLU-KY) is freedom’s watchdog. We work daily in courts, legislatures, and communities to defend the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people by the Constitutions of the United States and the Commonwealth of Kentucky:
- Our right to freedom of speech, association, assembly, and the press;
- Our right to freedom of religion, supported by the strict separation of church and state;
- Our right to be treated fairly by the government whenever life, liberty or property is at stake;
- Our right to be free from unwarranted government intrusion into our personal and private affairs; and
- Our right to equal protection of the laws, regardless of race, gender, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, age, disability or other such classifications.
The ACLU also works to extend rights to those who traditionally have been denied them, including:
- women,
- Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC),
- lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals,
- people experiencing incarceration,
- people with disabilities,
- and young people.
Racial justice has been, is now, and will continue to be central to our mission. We dedicate ourselves to pursue cases designed to have a significant and wide-reaching effect on BIPOC communities, to work in coalition with other civil rights groups and local advocates to lobby in local and state legislatures, and to support grassroots movements. Through these efforts, we strive to educate and empower the public on how racism impacts the issues we work on – including but not limited to criminal justice reform, reproductive freedom, LGBTQ equality, and immigrants’ rights – and we commit to consider racial impacts when making hiring, policy, and administrative decisions for the organization.
If you would like to explore an opportunity with the ACLU of Kentucky, please see our current openings below.