Date: June 22, 2018
01) Leaked Internal Memo Reveals the ACLU Is Wavering on Free Speech
“The American Civil Liberties Union will weigh its interest in protecting the First Amendment against its other commitments to social justice, racial equality, and women’s rights, given the possibility that offensive speech might undermine ACLU goals.
“Our defense of speech may have a greater or lesser harmful impact on the equality and justice work to which we are also committed,” wrote ACLU staffers in a confidential memo obtained by former board member Wendy Kaminer.
It’s hard to see this as anything other than a cowardly retreat from a full-throated defense of the First Amendment. Moving forward, when deciding whether to take a free speech case, the organization will consider “factors such as the (present and historical) context of the proposed speech; the potential effect on marginalized communities; the extent to which the speech may assist in advancing the goals of white supremacists or others whose views are contrary to our values; and the structural and power inequalities in the community in which the speech will occur.”
…
The ACLU’s capitulation to the anti-speech left should serve as a wake up call for true liberals. What has taken place on campus over the last decade does matter, and though the scope of the problem is frequently overstated, we should all be concerned when the nation’s premiere civil liberties organization is increasingly afraid of defending the First Amendment—not because the Trump administration scares them, but because college students do.”
It’s sad to see…but, there is nothing even remotely shocking about this…
…I agree, that the ACLU should be up front about this, and not attempting to conceal such a serious retreat from defending free speech.
Truth be told…the ACLU does discriminate…it’s more of a sick joke, than any serious civil rights organization.
While true…they did defend NAMBLA [Curley V NAMBLA]…consider that it took a young child being kidnapped, murdered and “necro-raped”, along with a [starkly baseless and malicious] lawsuit seeking hundreds of millions of dollars, and the public smearing of NAMBLA [and it’s members], to finally get the ACLU off of it’s almost entirely worthless ass…to do what it allegedly exists to do.
Why does it demand such a grotesque extreme set of circumstances, before the ACLU will defend the civil rights of MAPs?
The ACLU has a very long history, of turning it’s back on MAPs…
The ACLU does not live up to it’s claimed purpose.
We need a real civil rights organization in the USA, for once…
…Now more than ever…it is time.
