ACLU hosts speakers, stories at Frick Fine Arts

The Frick Fine Arts Building echoed with stories last night as Oakland residents gathered to… The Frick Fine Arts Building echoed with stories last night as Oakland residents gathered to discuss the past year’s biggest American Civil Liberties Union cases.

About 120 people attended the ACLU’s annual presentation of “Voices of Freedom: The Personal Side of Civil Liberties.”

Hosted by the Greater Pittsburgh Chapter of the ACLU, a national advocacy group for individual rights, the event featured seven speakers who shared experiences of standing up for constitutional rights in Oakland and Western Pennsylvania.

Witold Walczak, the legal director of the Pennsylvania ACLU who hosted the event, said organizers hoped they could put a face on some of the broad legal issues currently under debate in the Pittsburgh area — including G-20 Summit arrests, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights and religious freedom.

“The work we do often appears to be about only abstract legal issues,” Walczak said. “But most fundamentally it’s about the people involved — young women, students, local community members. It’s about making right what the government has made wrong in these people’s lives.”

Nancy Jankowiak, one Pittsburgh resident in attendance, explained what drew her to the event.

“I think it’s interesting to actually see the people behind the cases, both the ACLU members and their clients,” Jankowiak said. “These people have been fighting this fight for much of their lives. It’s inspiring to see.”

Barb Feige, director of the Pennsylvania ACLU Pittsburgh Chapter, described the event as a vital component of her organization’s yearly work.

“I think we sometimes get caught up in the big picture view of what free speech and other constitutional rights mean,” Feige said of ACLU operations. “But when you get to see an actual person who has firm beliefs, and you see how committed that person is, you can understand the issue in a deeper, more personal way.”

Feige and other ACLU members hoped the stories would touch people on an emotional level — a level different from reading the newspaper or surfing the Internet.

Feige said the Pittsburgh Chapter of the ACLU selected speakers for the event in a variety of ways. Some speakers volunteered, while others were asked to speak by the organization.

One speaker, Pitt freshman Tracey Hickey, described her arrest on the night of Sept. 25 and the ways she thought police forces infringed upon her constitutional rights.

“I was holding the door open for people running into Towers when police came up onto the patio,” Hickey said of her arrest. “They clearly wanted everyone off the patio, so as far as I was concerned, the police wanted people to go inside. There was nowhere else to go.”

An officer arrested Hickey as police approached the Towers Lobby. Later that night, the arresting officer formally charged Hickey with failure to disperse.

Hickey explained that she decided to speak at the meeting for two reasons.

“The ACLU has been a big help to me in dealing with all of my court dates and procedures,” Hickey said. “I wanted to help them out any way that I could. So when a woman from the ACLU called and asked if I would share my story, I agreed immediately.”

The other reason she decided to speak, Hickey said, was more personal.

“I want to get my story out there,” Hickey said. “I feel like there is this stereotype of students who got arrested.”