The Disintegration of the ACLU

This article glosses over the actual results of Skokie and Charlottesville, both of which are pretty important. The Nazis never ended up marching in Skokie, nor did they march in any of the other small towns where they'd requested permits, either. There's a fair bit of reason to believe that their goal wasn't to promote their ideas, nor even to harass the heavily Jewish village of Skokie through marching, but to harass the village through the courts - they found someone who they could bully and they enjoyed it.

Charlottesville didn't deny the alt-right a permit. They denied them a permit in a particular park, which had a particular statue - but they denied it on the grounds that security would be difficult to arrange in the small park, and they granted them a permit in a larger, nearby park. The alt-right did in fact rally, and as the city predicted, there was an act of violence because of the crowded conditions, and someone died.

Both of these were tactical failures.

Which is to say, I don't think it's particularly easy to say that Ira Glasser-era ACLU was a great force for justice and Anthony Romero-era ACLU lost it. I'd argue that the ACLU made the same mistake, in the same context, both times. In neither case did they actually make it so someone could exercise their free speech rights. They just got lucky the first time that there were no obviously negative consequences to their action, and so they could engage in PR that they were the good guys. And the ACLU themselves bought into that PR, which kept them from realizing their mistake.

The article also makes this pretty wild assertion at the end:

> FIRE also discovered that female, LGBT, and Black students are less supportive of free speech than male, straight, Hispanic, Asian, and white students, a worrisome indication that the insidious effort to malign the entire concept of “free speech” as a weapon to “harm” minorities is bearing fruit. Rather than learning how the First Amendment has been a precondition for every social, political, legal, and cultural advancement secured by marginalized groups in America, it would tragically appear that indoctrinating the latter-day beneficiaries of these struggles in the belief that they are helpless against “oppressive structures” and “systems” has convinced many that free speech is their enemy.

Why is it taken as an obvious fact that said female, LGBT, and Black students are wrong about free speech? Why are they clearly indoctrinated? Why not ask them why they don't support it? Perhaps they have a well-considered opinion on the matter?

"And unlike the 1970s, when the ACLU was run by stubbornly principled people who refused to buckle under the weight of fashionable opinion or donor pressure, the new generation of leaders prioritized conformism over intellectual consistency."

That's a problem. The huge pressure for conformity. Both Left and Right are way too insistent on this. The Left now insists on gender concepts that were considered totally wacko twenty years ago. The Right is stuck with fear of and attraction to Trump. Rejecting those positions can get people fired. This is not good.

The ACLU used to be my favorite organization to donate to. They had a set of principles and defended them rigorously. Due to the way US jurisprudence works, most people who are victimized by laws and courts are criminals and general scum. It takes maturity to rise above that initial distaste and accept that criminals and scum not only have rights too, but are the most important people to defend from victimization. Not every civil rights case will be Rosa Parks.

Needless to say, I no longer donate to the ACLU. I know why they have changed, but I do not like it. I will not support it. They can take their dirty money and play their political games by themselves. There are many good charities that need support.

>Why is it taken as an obvious fact that said female, LGBT, and Black students are wrong about free speech?

Because de facto (and de jure) they are.

>Why are they clearly indoctrinated?

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-cod...

>Why not ask them why they don't support it?

FIRE literally does exactly that.

>Perhaps they have a well-considered opinion on the matter?

This made me audibly chuckle. Undergraduate students with pronouns in their Twitter profiles having a well-considered opinion on free speech? Press X to DOUBT.

It is hard to take this as a serious criticism

First James Kirkpatrick argues that the ACLU doesn't stand for anything these days.

Then he starts to associate the ACLU with cancel culture. Mostly by citing surveys of leftist students and implying that the ACLU is also leftist thus it is basically the same.

Then he argues that the ACLU does stand very strongly for transgender rights but then criticizes it for being strong on that because James Kirkpatrick doesn't agree with it.

Argh. I think the key problem is that James doesn't like what the ACLU is prioritizing, that is all.