Among the giants of America’s civil-liberties tradition—from Thomas Jefferson to John Stuart Mill, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. to Roger Baldwin—stands Anthony Romero, defender of the U.S. Constitution.
In our pluralist democracy, the work of advancing the values they embodied—and enlarged—remains our highest calling. With courage and conviction, Anthony has answered it. Today, we are reminded anew of an old idea’s enduring power: as Jefferson phrased it in his Inaugural Address, “Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”
As executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which defends our constitutional rights through litigation and advocacy, Anthony has devoted his life to protecting these twin ideals, sometimes in tension, that precede all the others: at the most basic level, our grand, complicated experiment in self-government depends on tolerance for each other and for perspectives with which we disagree, even vehemently. But it also depends on reason and truth—and on proud patriots, like Anthony, who defend and demand freedom for all.
Walker is president of the Ford Foundation