Norman Siegel: Civil rights is a marathon, not a sprint

Norman Siegel, a Brooklyn native, has been an attorney for over five decades and was the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union from 1985 to 2000. He stepped down from the post and unsuccessfully ran for public office before opening a private practice to continue championing constitutional rights. He has famously quipped: “Everyone has the right to be wrong.” He once convinced a federal judge to sign an order stopping President Richard Nixon from dropping bombs on Cambodia, and his career has brought him into contact with the late Muhammad Ali, the late Rep. John Lewis and the Ku Klux Klan. City & State sat down with Siegel to discuss his fears about the second Trump administration and his plans to counter constitutional rollbacks. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What are your biggest fears going into this second Trump administration?

My biggest fear is that this president and his administration are going to undo our constitutional system. I’m concerned about the erosion of the Bill of Rights, the 14th Amendment, equal protection, due process. And even now I’m concerned about the elimination of the 22nd Amendment, which limits a president to two terms. I’m concerned that potentially there’ll be camps for undocumented people and I’m also concerned there'll be camps for street homeless people, especially on the West Coast, specifically, LA (and) San Francisco. I’m concerned with the Supreme Court decision last June out of Oregon that they might decide “out-of-sight, out-of-mind” and start rounding street homeless people up.

We have to fight back. Fighting back peacefully, legally, constitutionally. But we don’t have to accept some of the direction that’s coming out of Washington.

In 2017, when Trump first took office, you started the Declaration 17 project. Any plans to revive that work?

We took the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, and we eliminated the reference to the King of Great Britain, which was George III, and at various places we inserted President Donald Trump and his administration, and we gave people an opportunity to basically declare their independence from the policies and practices of President Trump and his administration.

We kept abreast of all the litigation that was going on, tracked results and it took a lot of people to put it together. Maybe I’ll get some other volunteers to work with me so that we can do a similar thing. I think it’s important for the public to have a place where they can go and have a chart of exactly what’s going on, what’s being litigated in the courts and what are the results. Because people are going to find out, I think, the same thing with regard to what happened in Trump’s (first term), (which is that on) the overwhelming majority of the cases, the Trump administration does not prevail. So that could give some people some hope that the federal courts, in my opinion, have always been, and hopefully will continue to be, a safety valve. I’m a little worried about the makeup of the Supreme Court. But I’m confident that the District Courts, and even the Court of Appeals – with a few exceptions – will not disappoint us.

Speaking of oversight, decades ago you were instrumental in establishing the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board. Talk about bringing that monumental oversight body online.

What I say to people is that when you’re doing civil rights issues, history teaches us that it’s a marathon, not a 100-yard dash. What’s most important? Stamina. You just have to outlast your opponents. Patience, resilience, courage! If you’ve got to walk alone, walk alone. You’d be surprised when you walk alone. There’ll be other people who see you walking alone. They’ll join you. And, if you’ve got to walk alone, walk alone.

A lot of who I am today is because I went south (from) 1966 to 1972 as part of an internship for the Law Student Civil Rights Research Council (and) was assigned to work with the American Civil Liberties Union and its southern regional office. I was so lucky. I met such incredible people. All of these people were part of the southern Civil Rights Movement. Great American heroes, in my opinion.

These were people that were fighting the good fight, and they taught me, “Keep your eyes on the prize.” And that’s helped me in understanding that a lot of things were challenging and worth taking on, but they didn’t happen overnight. So it’s not logical to think that you can turn it around overnight.

How did we get the CCRB started? It was euphoric because previous generations, starting in the ’60s and ’70s, tried to do this. They weren’t successful. The Tompkins Square Park riot that occurred in 1988 was a springboard to create a new CCRB, because the old one had a conflict. It was police investigating the police. That doesn’t work. So we now have nonpolice investigating allegations of police misconduct.

You’re most famous for championing free speech. And you have often been quoted as saying, “Everyone has the right to be wrong.” Who or what is the “wrongest” you have represented? And why did you take the case?

The most difficult case for me was representing the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan stands for certain positions that are antithetical to what I believe in. But when I got the phone call from the representative from the Klan that was calling me I said to them, “OK, what were the facts?” The Giuliani administration had denied them a right to hold a rally.

I said, “Call me back in an hour.” It was hard for me. One of the things that went through my mind was: “How do I explain to my mother?” She brought up her son, a Jewish young man, the Klan is against Jews, Blacks, other groups. Then I said, “Well, if it’s not me, then who?”

Most importantly, I’ve always written and talked about people who say they’re for free speech and for the First Amendment. It’s not easy to be for the First Amendment and free speech when you don’t agree with the views of the person or the group asking you to use your skills to represent them, especially if their views are repugnant. They’re objectionable. They’re wrong-minded. If you say no, then you’re not really supportive of the neutral principle that everybody has the right to free speech, and in this case everybody had a right to hold a peaceful rally, press conference, whatever. So when he called back I said I would do it, and I got death threats.

Not many people know that you want to have a third act in life, to possibly be named as the federal receiver over the New York City Department of Correction. Tell us about that and how is the process going.

So I have expressed interest in being appointed the receiver in Rikers. People say, “You’re crazy! That’s a lose-lose situation!” I tell them the story in 1991 with my colleague, Earl Ward, I taught for one year at Rikers. One guy got up and said, “Mr. Siegel, how can I do anything in the real world if I can’t read or write?” I didn’t have an answer for him. The answer is, we should have a literacy program.

I had a client where I had to go for about two years regularly out to the Rose M. Singer Center on Rikers. After what I saw it would take me two to three hours to unwind when I came back from Rikers. The noise, the way they treated people, the conditions, there’s unacceptable conditions of confinement that currently exist. There’s a culture of violence that has and continues to exist. And then the thing that, as a constitutional matter for a civil rights lawyer like me, is the Sixth Amendment, right to a speedy trial.

When I look at the data and see people there, not just one year, not just two years, but even more where they don’t get their day in court, why can’t we set a standard, six months, nine months? Prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges, they all have to be held to that kind of standard.

You asked the question about the process. It was disappointing. I started off letting the lawyers for the plaintiffs know I was interested and wanted to have a meeting. The best I could get is to talk on the phone for a little while. Then I saw their reports that were put in, and they want someone from the outside, which I think is good, but they want someone who has correction experience and has a track record on prison reform, I don’t have that.

I also don’t think you need that. If I was the receiver, I’d bring someone in on our team who has that experience. But I think you need ideally a civil rights lawyer who people will look at the track record and say, “This guy or gal knows what they’re doing.” So I’m still interested, but it’s up to the judge, and I was disappointed that at least the people that I talked to, who knew I was interested, seem not to think that I’m the candidate they want. So that’s where we are.

So I think that this is all up to Judge (Laura Taylor) Swain. I know her a little. I think she’s a very good judge, and I think she’ll have to decide how she wants to create a process. Can people apply? Can they be interviewed? If they do, I’ll apply, and I hopefully will be interviewed. But it’s all up to her. At this point, people should not be afraid of a receiver. The concept of a receiver is one who comes in and works with all the stakeholders. If you’re a good receiver, you’ve got to work with everybody, which means that people (have) to give a little in order to get the changes that are necessary. I would love to do it, but who knows whether I have a chance. But I’m still interested.

What do you hope to be your legacy that you leave behind to New York City and the world?

Well, I don’t think I’m going to retire, especially for the next four years. I have to go to the gym more often and eat more balanced now, because I’ve got to last at least the next four years. First, I want to be remembered as a good person that cared about people and cared about people’s rights, especially marginalized communities. And hopefully I’ll be remembered as a good civil rights lawyer. Most importantly, hopefully, someone would say that Norman Siegel strongly believed in freedom, justice, equality and fairness for all.

Is there any advice you would like to share to young attorneys starting out?

The only thing I would say is to all the lawyers, and especially new lawyers or people who are thinking of being a lawyer, especially law students: This is a time we need all of you. We need to remember what the constitutional system is all about with the First Amendment, Fourth and Fifth Amendment, the 14th Amendment. This is not a time to disappear. We have choices, we can turn away or we can use the civil rights terms and “confront and overcome,” and I hope all of us in the legal community and future lawyers, especially people concerned about civil rights, social justice, we recognize this is an unprecedented era of history. This is our city, and we have to peacefully, legally and constitutionally fight to keep those principles and values that make us unique as a country and as a city.