The trailblazing Maryland ACLU director who fought for racial justice

At the end of a long day of a community stream cleanup, when her West Baltimore neighbors started to head home for a shower, Susan Goering stayed to sort the recycling from the trash.

Another time, when Goering volunteered her home as a clothing donation center for a church sale, she sorted through all the items one by one. She had a small sewing kit ready to secure a loose button or wrangle a broken zipper before donating.

“She just took no shortcuts,” said Suzanne Fontanesi, a longtime neighbor and friend. “She was so conscientious in the best way possible.”

Other friends and colleagues remember her the same way, but for different reasons. Most knew the Irvington resident for her 32-year tenure at the ACLU of Maryland, where she relied on the same tenacity and virtues to fight for civil rights, social justice and equal opportunity, particularly for Black Marylanders and women.

In any setting, loved ones said, Goering went the extra mile. It’s the example she set and the legacy she leaves.

Goering, also a devoted mother, avid gardener and runner, died June 21 of cancer. She was 73.

She was born in Kansas on Nov. 12, 1952, the eldest, and only daughter, of Milton and Margy Goering’s five children. She lived on a farm and adopted the pacifist beliefs of her Mennonite parents.

One of her favorite childhood memories was digging in the yard with her brother David and unearthing “dinosaur bones,” said her son, Austin Goering. Their father had to break the bad news that they were actually from cows. Another time, she used the reddish soil to make her own blush.

“Making your own stuff, that was kind of just their daily life, figuring out how to make things work,” Austin said.

As a sixth grader, Goering was struck by Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. She told The Baltimore Sun in 1998 that it was a defining moment of her early life: “Although I hadn’t experienced discrimination firsthand, I was resolved to do something.”

She headed to the University of Kansas to study political science and earn a law degree. After graduating, she moved to Kansas City and worked on a case similar to the Brown v. Board of Education school segregation case. She then briefly lived in Philadelphia before moving to Baltimore to become the legal director of the state ACLU in 1986, her son said.

Her experience in Kansas shaped the way she approached her job at the ACLU, said Debbie Jeon, the organization’s current legal director. At the time, other ACLU chapters were more strictly focused on First Amendment issues, not the civil rights cases the organization is known for today, Jeon said.

“She had a vision for change that was really grounded in racial justice,” Jeon said. “She was the visionary behind several cases that … became decades-long litigation projects.”

That included the 1993 “driving while Black” case the ACLU filed on behalf of U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Robert Wilkins, then a public defender in Washington, D.C. State police had pulled him over on suspicion of drug trafficking and illegally searched his car — finding nothing. The lawsuit led to a nationwide reevaluation of stop-and-search policies, and Maryland State Police agreed as part of a settlement to videotape traffic stops from then on and document the race of each person they pulled over.

“Police have to have the confidence of the people they police, or our democracy doesn’t work,” she told The Sun after the case was settled in 2003.

She also spearheaded a 1994 lawsuit on behalf of Baltimore public school students who received less funding than their peers in the D.C. suburbs. And in 1995, she filed Thompson v. HUD to fight for Black Baltimoreans who, as a result of segregation and systemic racism, were relegated to dilapidated public housing complexes.

“She had a vision of racial equity in the state long before that was a term that anybody used, and then looked at what institutions were standing in the way and looked for the best legal models to apply,” said Andy Freeman, an attorney who worked with her on the case.

He said it was Goering’s “rare and wonderful combination of vision and execution and cheerfulness” that made her an effective leader and litigator. She was someone people always wanted to say ‘yes’ to, he said.

Goering was appointed ACLU executive director in 1996, remaining until her retirement in 2018. She continued to promote social justice and civil rights and became a high-profile media figure. Throughout her career, she advocated for pregnant women facing employment discrimination, gay couples denied the right to marry, victims of police abuse, and inmates living in poor conditions at Eastern Shore jails.

She gave birth to her son, Austin, in 1995, during a brief marriage. He was a gift and the light of her life, loved ones said.

He remembers how much she was consumed by work — papers always spread across the dinner table, her computer always open. But she made sure to cart him to sports practice, take him hiking or biking, and teach him how to weed the garden. They listened to the radio together every Sunday night. And ever the environmentalist, Goering regularly bought her son thrifted clothes and toys.

Austin is proud of his mom’s legacy and impact. She always told him her greatest goal was to prepare him to live without her. She’s left him with lessons on public service, optimism, generosity and selflessness.

“She was so good at using the time she had in this world to make the world a better place, and not for her own benefits, but for other people’s,” he said.

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