[1] The ACLU-NJ was founded on June 16, 1960, when North Jersey- and South Jersey-based ACLU members convened in Newark to officially form a statewide affiliate.
In its first decade, the ACLU-NJ formed the Community Legal Action Workshop (CLAW) to advocate for inner-city victims of civil liberties violations in light of the Newark riots.
[7] In September 2010, the ACLU-NJ filed a similar petition with the Department of Justice in response to recurring complaints of police brutality and abuse[8] The ACLU's New Jersey chapter has also made open government a priority.
[9] In 1997, the ACLU-NJ took on the case of Jon Holden and Michael Galluccio, a gay couple fighting to adopt their two-year-old foster son.
[10] The ACLU-NJ served as co-counsel to Sally Frank, a Princeton University student fighting for the acceptance of women into the all-male Eating Clubs on campus beginning in 1979.
Frank was represented by Nadine Taub, who went on to make the argument that the clubs, though private organizations, were public accommodations actively discriminating on the basis of gender.
Donations to the ACLU-NJ Foundation, on the other hand, are tax-deductible because this branch operates as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, focusing on litigation and public education.
Prior to joining the ACLU-NJ, Ofer founded the Advocacy Department of the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) and helped transform the organization's work.
Ofer began his legal career in 2001 as a Skadden Fellow and staff attorney at My Sisters' Place, a domestic violence organization where he represented women on their immigration and public benefits matters.
He negotiated reform of adolescent behavioral programs and proposed a policy for community placements and for the closure of a psychiatric hospital, which was presented by the Protection and Advocacy Advisory Council to Governor Whitman and was later adopted.
He attended Rutgers College in New Brunswick and received his Juris Doctor in May 1992 from the National Law Center at George Washington University.