After 11 years at the helm of the Utah chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, Carol Gnade has announced she will retire.
In a letter to ACLU board members and friends, Gnade on Friday said she plans to stick around through the end of the year to help search for a new director.
She said she was "running out of time" to be with her grandchildren while she is still young to keep up with them. "I also believe change is so good," she said. "New people come in with new ideas and enhance an organization."
Gnade's resignation is the second in two months at the Utah ACLU. Stephen Clark, organization's legal director for Utah, resigned in March due to budget problems.
Gnade first worked for the Utah ACLU as a volunteer for a year, then as executive director.
She had been shocked when during a ski trip some 12 years ago, she saw a television report about the Utah Legislature outlawing abortion. The divorced mother of three, a transplant to Madison, Wis., by way of Chicago and New York, was dumbfounded.
The fight for abortion rights, which led to the court dismissal of Utah's ban, was followed by ACLU demands that inadequate medical services at the Utah State Prison be upgraded.
Gnade fought for — and won — an end to the torture-restraint of prisoners who were strapped naked to a board or a chair designed for punishment.
In 1999, after years of hammering the Department of Corrections over prisoner treatment and dragging prison officials to court, she was recognized with a "Citizens Certificate" for "public service or actions" that "provided a valuable service benefiting the Department of Corrections."
Said then-Corrections Director Pete Haun: "As we sit down and try to find solutions to these problems, we have to understand help can come from the public — the ACLU is part of that."
Gnade led the defense of Wendy Weaver, a Spanish Fork High School psychology teacher and girls' volleyball coach, who was fired for not heeding the school's requirement barring her from discussing her sexual orientation in or out of the classroom. The case is now before the Utah Supreme Court.
Gnade supported a a gay student club at East High School and tackled the ongoing fight over the sale of a block of Main Street in Salt Lake City to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
"You can make a huge difference in a place like Utah, as it is about 30 years behind the rest of the country in securing individual freedoms," she said.
Gnade said she will leave without regret.
"I'm not angry with anyone," she said. "We just need to remember in this state that the battle of monitoring and challenging violations of the separation of church and state are constant. We must be diligent, not angry."