The Bob Worth Fund for Defending the Separation of Church & State and the First Amendment
The fund is named after Bob Worth, a lifelong champion of progressive causes and a firm believer in the need to keep religion out of government and vice-versa. He was the founder and CEO of Worth Publishers, a New York-based firm that won a reputation for publishing some of the best and highest-selling college textbooks in the country. Raised in a Quaker tradition, he was an atheist and a great believer in the importance of science. He was alarmed by the efforts of Christian fundamentalists to infuse religious doctrine into our laws and policies in recent years. Like many others, he was especially concerned about the direction being pursued by the U.S. Supreme Court, with decisions like Carson v. Makin and Kennedy v. Bremerton School District.
The Fund was established in 2023 to honor Bob by supporting ACS’s steadfast commitment to the goals he passionately shared. ACS is the foremost progressive legal organization in the country, with nearly 200 student and lawyer chapters. The organization and its nationwide network of lawyers, scholars, students, judges, elected officials, and advocates are on the frontlines of shaping the legal debate on the most pressing legal challenges of our time, including countering the conservative legal movement’s drive to blend church with state. From the programs hosted by our chapters on their campuses and in their communities, to ACS’s National Convention and its signature podcast, “Broken Law,” ACS is driving the debate in support of the First Amendment.
The fight to preserve the separation of church and state is playing out in courtrooms across the country. This is one of many reasons why ACS is working closely with the Biden administration and the Senate to fill as many federal court vacancies as possible with diverse, qualified judicial candidates who are committed to the rule of law and to upholding the Constitution, including the First Amendment. ACS is the only grassroots, nationwide organization with 55 working groups in 42 states focused on identifying, recruiting, and supporting qualified judicial candidates for federal and state courts. Now more than ever, we need judges who are bound not by ideology or partisanship, but to the Constitution.
Donations to the Bob Worth Fund for Defending the Separation of Church & State and the First Amendment are tax-deductible to the full extent provided by law.
To donate by mail, please send checks payable to:
American Constitution Society
601 13th St, NW, Suite 610
Washington, DC 20005
Please include "The Bob Worth Fund" in note field
If you prefer to send donations via wire, ACH, or stock transfer, please contact Mary Irvine for details at mirvine@acslaw.org.
Robert Richards Worth grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, and was educated at the Hill School and Princeton University. As a young man, he spent nearly four years with the U.S. Navy, largely in Japan. He moved to New York to pursue a career in publishing, working for McGraw Hill and W.A. Benjamin before founding his own firm in 1966. Over the next several decades, Worth Publishers became renowned for academic quality and for their books’ fine design, rare at the time. Worth textbooks, including Helena Curtis’ Biology, Ian Robertson’s Sociology, David Myers’ Psychology, and economics titles by N. Gregory Mankiw and Paul Krugman, were leaders in their fields. An ebullient optimist and a philosophical sceptic, Bob often introduced himself as an atheist or “Quaker atheist,” in a nod to his family origins. He was active outside publishing, serving on the boards of various non-profits and schools and helping found the Adirondack Explorer magazine. He and his beloved wife Blaikie raised four children. He died in May, 2023 at the age of 92.