![]() In the world of journalism, for example, there’s a generational debate over whether certain ideas are even legitimate, whether conservative ideas are worth publishing. Nor do those reports mention colleges and universities, where the most volatile speech battles often play out.”Īs troubling as what’s going on inside the ACLU is, this is simply a reflection of what’s going on in broader America, where woke thinking is influencing policy at all sorts of institutions, not only on college campuses. “But the words ‘First Amendment’ or ‘free speech’ cannot be found. “Its annual reports from 2017 to 2019 highlight its role as a leader in the resistance against President Donald J. When Donald Trump was elected, liberal lawyers at the ACLU filed some 400 lawsuits against his administration. It’s hard to pinpoint precisely when the ACLU took a hard-left turn but 2016 is a good place to start. The ACLU that used to exist would have said exactly the opposite.” Floyd Abrams, one of America’s preeminent First Amendment lawyers, told the Times: “The last thing they should be thinking about in a case is which ideological side profits. This new attitude is causing considerable anguish among traditional free-speech liberals. But now, to progressives at the 101-year-old organization, free speech apparently is worth fighting for only when the cause is sufficiently woke. Not that long ago, this kind of thinking would be considered alien to the essential mission of the ACLU. … an ACLU official said it was perfectly legitimate for his lawyers to decline to defend hate speech.” The Times reports that at a recent ACLU event, “A law professor argued that the free-speech rights of the far right were not worthy of defense by the ACLU. ![]() Now I learn from a recent story in the New York Times that old values at the ACLU are in the progressives’ crosshairs, that there are forces at the organization which believe that left-wing values should trump free-speech rights.Īccording to the Times, “An organization that has defended the First Amendment rights of Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan is split by an internal debate over whether supporting progressive causes is more important.” But I still believed - as did the ACLU - that Nazis in America, despicable as they were, had the same rights as every other American. Had my own grandparents not packed what little they had and got out of Eastern Europe before Hitler’s storm troopers marched in, they would have been among the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis. In the late 1970s, neo-Nazis wanted to march through the city, a place they picked precisely because many of its residents had survived Hitler’s Holocaust. Skokie, Ill., was a big test for liberals. And that if you deprive them of their rights, then no one is safe. A lot of liberals understood that even vile members of our society have First Amendment rights. I was a liberal once upon a time and supported the American Civil Liberties Union when it defended Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |