Aryeh Neier

Who is Aryeh Neier?

Aryeh Neier is an American human rights activist who served as the president of George Soros’s Open Society Institute philanthropy network from 1993 to 2012, and had earlier been Executive Director of Human Rights Watch and National Director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Neier was born in Nazi Germany and became a refugee as a child when his family fled in 1939 when he was two years old. He served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at New York University.

Neier was hired by the ACLU in 1963 and became the organization's executive director in 1970. During his time as executive director, he helped grow the organization's membership from 140,000 to 200,000. Neier was criticized for his decision to have the ACLU support the National Socialist Party of America, a Neo-Nazi group, in its efforts to march in Skokie, Illinois in the case National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, despite the presence in Skokie of large numbers of Jews and Holocaust survivors. The ACLU's representation of the group resulted in 30,000 members who ended their ACLU membership.