Athar Haseebullah recalls when his drive for justice was first set in motion. He was a student at Bishop Gorman High School. “I was the only Muslim person in my class. … I was 14 years old when 9/11 happened. My first visceral memories related to bigotry [were] the voicemails at our mosque … threats [to] burn down our building,” he says.
“I think a lot of my early experiences dealing with bigotry kind of made me more protective of those who don’t have a voice for themselves. It’s why I ended up here at the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union].”
Haseebullah, the executive director of the ACLU of Nevada and the affiliate’s first person of color in that position, says bigotry became “pervasive” during his teen years. Along with it, “being more vocal and standing up for myself … really just kind of grew,” he says.
The son of Pakistani immigrants, Haseebullah graduated from Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C., and spent some time working for the City of New York before returning to Las Vegas. Having worked as an attorney for Legal Aid of Southern Nevada, in government affairs for the Regional Transportation Commission and as director of strategic initiatives and general counsel for a local education nonprofit, he joined the ACLU in January 2021.
Since he took over, he has grown a team of attorneys and staff he says are “fiercely devoted” to advocating for justice. In 2022 alone, they successfully argued in District Court for the removal of cannabis from Nevada’s list of Schedule 1 controlled substances, further decriminalizing it; stood up for the free speech rights of street performers on Fremont Street; and defended voting rights when they filed a lawsuit against Nye County for its “unprecedented” hand counting of ballots and election proceedings.
Most recently, the ACLU of Nevada has stepped up to represent Durango High School students alleging excessive use of force by school police during a February 9 incident that was filmed and sparked outrage and public demonstration.
The Weekly sat down with Haseebullah to talk about what motivates him, his views on community advocacy and more.
You started becoming more aware of bigotry after increased anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence toward Muslims in the U.S. after 9/11. How did that progress when you were an adolescent? The first time I was detained by police was just a couple years later, when I was 16 years old. Someone had called me a sand N-word at a gas station. He was drunk and pushed me. When I pushed him back, he fell. Cops then arrived. And I ended up getting labeled as an aggressor; despite the fact there was an adult who was intoxicated, who in my opinion [now, in retrospect] assaulted me.
But, I was experiencing so much else in my life. … There wasn’t really the opportunity to kind of vent or have an outlet there. Through the years, it kind of carried forward in terms of how I ended up proceeding [with] things like xenophobia [and] figuring out ways to address that … whether it’s the Muslim community, Jewish community, racial minorities or our friends who are LGBTQ+.
What kind of impact can civil rights advocates make? Whenever I think about people who are impacted by harms—whether that’s government policy, dealing with other individuals or businesses that are depriving them of their rights, or it’s a scared child just looking for some level of support—I think of my own experiences. And I remember when I was younger and I felt voiceless and like I had nobody there to advocate for me.
We don’t take on every case where someone’s been harmed. What we try to do is use the law to help or use the courts to help potentially modify interpretations of the law to advance civil rights and civil liberties. We’ll normally do that when the government is on the opposite ends of our cases … to make sure that there’s an impact in the work that we do.
Since you took over, ACLU of Nevada has added diverse staff and really ramped up its community outreach and communications through fun and informative social media. Before I got to the ACLU, I only ever had [female] bosses, [and] I’ve learned a lot from each of these women over the years, in terms of how to effectively lead organizations. Before my hire, there were only a couple of people of color, ever, that worked here full-time since the start of this affiliate [in 1966]. That has turned around. We’re a majority person-of-color team. We’ve had a majority of women in positions of leadership here.
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