Education
Award Programs

Civil Rights in Action Award
The ACLU of Colorado Civil Rights in Action Award is presented to a student or group of students whose activism exemplifies the ideals of the ACLU's mission: to protect, defend and extend individual's civil rights and civil liberties.

Become an ACLU Youth Activist Scholar!

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is offering 16 of the nation’s most committed, young civil liberties activists $12,500 each toward their first year in college.

Winners will also become part of an elite class of scholar-activists who will be invited to participate in ongoing activities with the ACLU, including activist trainings at the ACLU offices in New York City and Washington DC.

To qualify for the scholarship you must:

1. Have demonstrated a strong commitment to civil liberties through some form of activism
2. Be a high school senior planning on entering an accredited college or university as a full-time, degree-seeking student
3. Have attained a cumulative GPA of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale at the time of graduation
4. Not be a current ACLU plaintiff or witness in a legal case

To be considered for the ACLU Youth Activist Scholarship your local ACLU affiliate must nominate you for consideration. Please contact Dani Newsom at 303.777.5482 x109 for details about the scholarship. 

[insert local name] will explain the application process to you in detail, ask you some questions about your involvement in civil liberties activism and, if you qualify, send you scholarship application forms and counsel you on how to proceed.

Activists who complete the application forms will be judged on the following standards (in order of importance):

1. The strength and depth of the candidate’s contributions to civil liberties
2. Demonstrated leadership
3. The likelihood of the applicant continuing commitment to civil liberties in the future
4. Commitment to academic excellence
5. Demonstrated financial need

Past scholarship winners were recognized for a wide variety of civil liberties activism including:

1. Founding a student-led coalition to expand the student non-discrimination policy to include sexual orientation and gender identity, expression, and appearance
2. Giving dozens of presentations to high school students about critical reproductive health services
3. Organizing student protests against censorship after the school banned several controversial books from the English curriculum
4. Mobilizing the media and politicians to respond to the discrimination of HIV-positive students in the public school system
5. Starting a high school Gay-Straight Alliance in the face of strong opposition from the community and the local school board
6. Creating a civil liberties-themed documentary to be used as an educational tool in high school classrooms

If you are passionate about protecting, and fighting for, the Constitutional rights of everyone download and complete the ACLU Youth Activist Scholarship forms. 

Deadline for submissions is Friday, December 5.

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