The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington (ACLU-WA) Board of Directors selected Evans School Professor and Dean Emeritus Hubert G. Locke to receive the 2008 William O. Douglas Award, the organization's highest honor that is given for outstanding, consistent, and sustained contributions to civil liberties.
Locke received the honored for his decades of committed leadership, scholarship, and public service in defense of civil rights and human rights at the ACLU-WA's Bill of Rights Celebration Dinner on November 15 at the Seattle Marriott Waterfront.
"Hubert Locke exemplifies leadership in civil liberties and civil rights. He is an inspiration to both students and activists," said ACLU-WA board president Jesse Wing.
Locke is an articulate advocate for social justice with a special interest in fairness in the criminal justice system. He is published extensively on race relations and civil rights, particularly on the experiences of German society during the era of National Socialism. He also often tackles civil liberties issues in columns for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
In addition to his scholarly work, Locke has spent a majority of his life in helping develop policies to improve police accountability. After the American civil rights movement caught his attention in 1962, he left school to become executive director of the Citizen's Committee for Equal Opportunity, a civil rights organization in Detroit. In the 1960s, he served as a special assistant to Detroit's Commissioner of Police.
Decades later, he worked with citizen panels under Seattle Mayors Schell and Nickels to examine accountability and advocate for high ethical standards of all police officers. Locke has chaired the Washington State Sentencing Guidelines Commission and is a member of the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. He serves on the boards of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
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Thank you to the ACLU-WA for providing some of the information for this news item.
Published on November 20, 2008
