Nadine Strossen Papers

Strossen, Nadine (1950)

Nadine Strossen was born August 18, 1950, to Sylvia Simicich Strossen and Woodrow John Strossen, in Jersey City, New Jersey. She attended Radcliffe College, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1972. Strossen moved on to attend Harvard Law School, graduating Magna Cum Laude in 1975. She also served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Following her graduation from law school, Strossen clerked for the Minnesota Supreme Court and practiced at private firms in Minneapolis and New York. In 1984, Professor Stossen accepted the position of Supervising Attorney at the Civil Rights Clinic and Associate Professor of Law at the NYU School of Law. In 1989, Strossen was hired as a Professor at the New York Law School.

Strossen became involved with the leadership of the ACLU in 1982, when she served at vice-char of the Due-Process committee. She was elected to the National Board of Directors in 1983, and began serving as General Counsel in 1986. In 1991, Strossen was elected National Board President, making her the youngest person and first woman to hold the position. Strossen continued teaching at New York Law School throughout her tenure as ACLU National Board President and after her resignation in 2008.

Strossen is considered an expert in constitutional law, civil liberties, and international human rights. She has focused much of her attention on the area of free speech, especially in the realm of pornography. Professor Strossen has written and lectured extensively in these areas, having authored more than 250 published works, including Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women's Rights (Scribner, 1995; NYU Press, 2000), and Speaking of Sex: Hate Speech, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties (NYU Press, 1995). She has also served on the Boards of Directors of many other organizations, including Asia Watch, Coalition to Free Soviet Jews, The Fund for Free Expression, Human Rights Watch, Middle East Watch, National Coalition Against Censorship, and the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project.

American civil liberties union

The ACLU is the preeminent civil liberties organization in the United States. The ACLU describes itself as "our nation's guardian of liberty, working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country." Since its inception in 1920, the ACLU has played a part in nearly every significant American social or political issue in the 20th century. This includes important work in the areas of civil rights, children and women's rights, freedom of speech (and all First Amendment questions), and due process, among many others.

For a more detailed history of the ACLU, please see the history in the finding aid for the processed portion of the ACLU Records.

This collection consists of records generated by Nadine Strossen in her leadership roles with the American Civil Liberties Union and as professor of law at the New York Law School. Strossen's work addressed the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the United States Supreme Court, police brutality against Rodney King, the appointment of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and twenty-first century national security and immigration policies. The collection primarily consists of correspondence, press clippings, conference materials, and notes and transcripts from Professor Strossen's public appearances and speaking engagements.

The collection is arranged in three series: correspondence, scrapbook files and speeches. Archivists at the ACLU re-arranged many series chronologically -- the arrangement of materials as they arrived at Princeton has been maintained.

This collection was transferred directly to the custody of the ACLU Archives in the summer of 2008 by Jennifer Bellusci, Nadine Strossen's assistant, following Strossen's resignation as the ACLU's National Board President. The collection was transferred to Princeton University in April 2012.

Gift of Nadine Strossen in April 2012. An additional accession was received in June 2013. The accession numbers associated with this gift are ML.2012.11 and ML.2013.018. Original correspondence in Box 38 was donated by Nadine Strossen in March 2015. The accession number associated with this gift is ML.2015.010.

For preservation reasons, original analog and digital media may not be read or played back in the reading room. Users may visually inspect physical media but may not remove it from its enclosure. All analog audiovisual media must be digitized to preservation-quality standards prior to use. Audiovisual digitization requests are processed by an approved third-party vendor. Please note, the transfer time required can be as little as several weeks to as long as several months and there may be financial costs associated with the process. Requests should be directed through the Ask Us Form.

These papers were processed by Maureen Callahan in 2012. An inventory created in a spreadsheet was converted to EAD and materials were arranged into series at this time. Materials in the June 2013 accession (ML.2013.018) were transferred from five large transfile boxes to standard record center boxes upon arrival at the library. The 2013 accession was added to the collection as a new series. A file-level inventory was created in September 2013. No physical processing or arrangement took place at this time.

No records have been separated from this collection.

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Preferred Citation

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Nadine Strossen Papers, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Publisher

Public Policy Papers

Date

2012

Creator

Strossen, Nadine (1950)

Subject

United States -- Supreme Court -- Justices -- 20th century

Police power -- United States -- 20th century

Censorship -- United States -- 20th century

Censorship -- United States -- 21st century

Organization

United States Constitution -- 1st-10th Amendments

American civil liberties union

New York Law School

Language

English

Form

Correspondence

Speeches

Brochures

contact sheets

photographs