Once a bastion of free speech, the ACLU faces an identity crisis

> the existence of such laws codifies the avenue of their corruption

As a practical example, consider China's recent "security" law that allows only "patriots" to run for political office.

For something a bit closer to home, looking at various ToS and codes of conduct reveals how wildly definitions of "hate speech" vary in the US alone.

and I don't think that's even been sidelined to the degree that people argue (as the article points out the ACLU did take up numerous free speech issues including the NRA or even Trump's social media ban), but one thing ought to be recognized I think.

There is a big difference however between the traditional old American left largely coming out of an academic, fairly elite milieu, and the much more diverse left today.

For people like Chomsky who used to defend the right to Holocaust denial say, it's a very abstract, intellectual debate. For a lot of Asian working class people, proliferation of hate-speech is a very real threat today. I don't think this tension is new either. Even during the civil rights era, there were marked differences between black activists (or even militant groups) and the public left-wing intellectuals.

Equality is not offensive and a left-wing value but today it is more obvious that there is a tension between formal equality in front of the law and genuine equality in the real world. And because there is now more voices in politics, the left is changing.And so is the right by the way, whose elite values are very, very far removed from the ordinary voter.

> You may believe the 1619 Project is a "major indoctrination effort" and that it lacks "academic rigor", but that's not established fact at all. Many people think highly of it and of her work - including her potential UNC professional colleagues, who wanted her there in a tenured job at an excellent university. It does represent a point of view that disagrees with established ones, but that's almost the point of academic research: Find where established beliefs are flawed. Especially on sensitive topics, that may result in an angry reaction and division; that shouldn't stop people from publishing, and that's what tenure protects.

If the intention of the 1619 Project was merely to use rigorous historical methods to expand the purview of the historical record in accordance with the useful-sounding aspects of truthful claims that have been suppressed, as some insist, it would be a valuable, if not necessary, contribution.

However, the goal the 1619 Project is not, and never was, to improve our historical understanding. Rather, its goal was always to perpetrate a critical historiography that muddles and besmirches it (i.e. problematize). This it seeks to achieve by calling into doubt the American metanarrative and establishing alongside it, if not in place of it, the critical race Theoretical metanarrative instead: that the United States is indelibly racist and has been since its origins. This includes undermining trust in the liberal ideas of individualism and human universality, wherein people are judged by the contents of their character and recognized for their common humanity, and forwarding identity-group thinking that is more useful for (radical) identity politics.

The fact that so many professors at UNC shares a critical consciousness is a sign of how far gone that university is from its original liberal vision of truth-finding in favor of identity politics.

> What distinguishes those things? Who decides? Just because it has happened at some time in some place, is that evidence that it's happening now? Should we eliminate all academic freedom?

If an academic is engaging in critical consciousness, basically creating meta-narratives to further a radical political activist goal instead of truth-finding, it should be treated the same as an academic that mainly teaches baptism of Christianity in history class and produce a revisionist meta-narrative to further baptism. Such a person would not receive academic freedom protections.

> he ACLU exists to defend civil rights regardless of how those rights might be used. They do not (or at least did not previously) exist in order to further a political agenda.

The former is inconsistent with the latter. The preservation of any set of civil rights you might conceive of is, absolutely, a “political agenda”.

> what does the term "woke" mean in this comment?

In brief, “woke” means having awakened to having a particular type of “critical consciousness,” as these are understood within Critical Social Justice. To first approximation, being woke means viewing society through various critical lenses, as defined by various critical theories bent in service of an ideology most people currently call “Social Justice.” That is, being woke means having taken on the worldview of Critical Social Justice, which sees the world only in terms of unjust power dynamics and the need to dismantle problematic systems. That is, it means having adopted Theory and the worldview it conceptualizes.

Under “wokeness,” this awakened consciousness is set particularly with regard to issues of identity, like race, sex, gender, sexuality, and others. The terminology derives from the idea of having been awakened (or, “woke up”) to an awareness of the allegedly systemic nature of racism, sexism, and other oppressive power dynamics and the true nature of privilege, domination, and marginalization in society and understanding the role in dominant discourses in producing and maintaining these structural forces.

Furthermore, being woke carries the imperative to become a social activist with regard to these issues and problems, again, on the terms set by Critical Social Justice. This—especially for white people—is to include a lifelong commitment to an ongoing process of self-reflection, self-criticism, and (progressive) social activism in the name of Theory and Social Justice (see also, antiracism).