Witold Walczak

Witold "Vic" Walczak (born January 17, 1961) is the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.[1]

Witold "Vic" Walczak
Born (1961-01-17) January 17, 1961
Ystad, Sweden
OccupationLegal Director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania

Early life

Walczak was born in Ystad, Sweden on January 17, 1961, to Polish parents. His grandfather survived the Treblinka extermination camp. After the war his family was exiled from Poland by the incoming Communist Government.[2][3] He emigrated to the United States at age three, and spent much of his childhood in Scotch Plains, New Jersey.[4]

Education and early career

Walczak attended Colgate University, where he played Division I soccer and majored in Philosophy. While at Colgate, he helped the Polish trade union Solidarity to resettle refugees in the United States. He graduated in 1983, and traveled that summer to Poland, which was under martial law. While assisting Solidarity in covert operations, Walczak was subjected to police brutality, wiretapping, and a strip search, and says that he narrowly avoided being imprisoned in Krakow.[5][6]

Walczak attended Boston College Law School, graduating cum laude in 1986. Starting in 1986, he worked with the Prisoner Assistance Project of the Legal Aid Bureau in Baltimore, Maryland.

American Civil Liberties Union

In 1991, Walczak's wife, a doctor, was offered a job in Pittsburgh. After first applying to become a prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney's office,[5] he was hired as the executive director of the Pittsburgh Chapter of the ACLU's Pennsylvania affiliate. In 2004, Walczak was named legal director for the statewide affiliate.[6]

Notable Cases

Kitzmiller v Dover Area School District
Main article: Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District

Walczak oversaw the ACLU of Pennsylvania's 2005 challenge to the Dover Area School District's policy requiring the teaching of Intelligent Design.[6] This case, the first federal challenge to such requirements in public schools, has been credited with ending legal efforts by the Intelligent Design movement to introduce creationism into public school curriculum.[7] The ACLU prevailed in the District Court, and after all eight school board members who voted for the Intelligent Design requirement were defeated by opponents who opposed the teaching of Intelligent Design in a science classroom, the school board did not appeal.[8]

Lozano v City of Hazleton

Beginning in 2006, Walczak oversaw the ACLU of Pennsylvania's challenge to the Illegal Immigration Relief Act ordinances in Hazleton, Pennsylvania,[9] arguing the case before the United States District Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.[10] The case was notable as the first federal trial challenging local efforts to regulate immigration.[11] The ACLU won both in the District Court and on appeal, but the Supreme Court vacated the Third Circuit decision in June 2011, in light of its ruling in Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting, which addressed a similar law in Arizona.[12] The parties await a new ruling from the Third Circuit.

Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L.
Main article: Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L.

Walczak and the ACLU represented a cheerleader at Mahanoy Area High School in Mahanoy City, who had been suspended for a year from the squad in 2017 after posting a Snap reading "fuck school fuck softball fuck cheer fuck everything" one weekend after not making the varsity squad at that year's tryouts. Both the Middle District of Pennsylvania and the Third Circuit agreed that the cheerleader's punishment violated the First Amendment under the Supreme Court's Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District since it had not seriously disrupted school activities; the Third Circuit also held that Tinker did not apply to any student speech originating off-campus. The district, arguing that this created a circuit split, petitioned the Supreme Court to hear the case, which it agreed to do at the beginning of 2021. It will be the first time the Court has considered the question of what degree of protection the First Amendment offers student speech that originates off-campus.[13]

Hobbies and Interests

Walczak is a fan of Bruce Springsteen's music, and has cited Springsteen's song "Part Man, Part Monkey" as a source of inspiration during the Dover trial.[5]

References
  1. ACLU of Pennsylvania, Staff Biographies
  2. PA ACLU Leader Senses He Was Born For The Job, Joseph A. Slobodzian, The Philadelphia Inquirer, November 26, 2004
  3. Legalspan.com Biography: Witold Walczak
  4. ACLU Head Draws Inspiration From The Boss, Mackenzie Carpenter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 11, 2012
  5. Archived March 5, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
  6. "Staff". aclupa.org. Archived from the original on April 23, 2011. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  7. Irons, Peter (2007). "Disaster in Dover: The Trials (and Tribulations) of Intelligent Design" (PDF). University of Montana Law Review. 68 (1).
  8. Judge Rules Against 'Intelligent Design', Michael Powell, The Washington Post, December 21, 2005
  9. Lozano v. City of Hazleton Archived 2006-08-22 at the Wayback Machine, ACLU of Pennsylvania
  10. Third Circuit Ruling, September 9, 2010
  11. ACLU's Wins And Losses, Mackenzie Carpenter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 11, 2012
  12. "ImmigrationProf Blog: Supremes Vacate Third Circuit Decision in Hazleton v. Lozano, Deny Cert in California Supreme Court Decision in Martinez v. Regents of the University of California".
  13. Liptak, Adam (December 28, 2020). "A Cheerleader's Vulgar Message Prompts a First Amendment Showdown". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 3, 2021. Retrieved January 4, 2021.
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