Wendy Kaminer, who co-authors thefreeforall.net with longtime Politech subscriber Harvey Silverglate, has a provocative and well-argued op-ed in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal. Wendy asks whether the ACLU still broadly supports free speech, and answers the question in the negative: http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010111 Wendy points out that the ACLU has been silent on a key free speech case involving anti-homosexual statements that set an important (and awful) precedent before the 9th Circuit and was AWOL on the Muhammad "hate speech" cartoons. The ACLU has supported legislative restrictions on speech of pro-life groups offering abortion counseling. The New York Civil Liberties Union failed to criticize a New York City Council resolution condemning use of the "n-word." And so on.[1] It's true that ACLU litigators have done terrific work on free speech cases before, and will continue to do so. It has represented me as a plaintiff in the 1996 CDA case, for which I will always be grateful, and has devoted countless resources to COPA as well. The organization boasts the most principled and ardent First Amendment lobbyists in Washington, who are willing to take controversial stands on things like outlawing morphed child porn (a stand later vindicated by the Supreme Court). But those attorneys and lobbyists ultimately report to a national board that seems to be growing more politically correct by the day. (Wendy was a dissident board member; I'm not sure if she's still on the board.) This is not exactly a new phenomenon. Liberals and progressives have long been split between their totalitarian-minded leftist wing that loves to enforce political correctness through "hate speech" laws and campus speech codes -- and those who recognize the social and political dangers inherent in banning speech that someone dislikes, and believe the answer to objectionable speech is more speech. The danger is that the ACLU's national board has been edging toward the former category, and the group will end up defending the speech rights only of liberals and liberal causes. That's fine, I guess, but it means those of us who believe conservatives, libertarians, religious folks, and so on also have free speech rights will have to look elsewhere for a more principled organization. The ACLU has always been selective in what sections of the Bill of Rights it takes literally, of course. Contrary to its claim to be "the foremost defender of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights,"[2] its national board asserts that Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear firearms.[3] It certainly doesn't believe in a literal reading of the Commerce Clause, and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments that limit government power might as well not exist. The ACLU Foundation of Arizona has fought bitterly against laudable school voucher programs on behalf of monopoly public schools, and it has muzzled its own board members from criticizing the organization's policies.[4] But at least when it came to free speech, you could historically count on the ACLU defending the rights of everyone, not just lefties. Unfortunately, unless current trends reverse, that will no longer be the case. That brings us to groups like the Institute for Justice[5] and Harvey's organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education[6], or FIRE. IJ has become what the ACLU could have been: a principled organization that believes in the entire Bill of Rights and stands up for both free speech and property rights, for instance in its work on eminent domain abuse. FIRE defends the free speech rights of liberals, conservatives, and libertarians on college campuses. And while groups like the Cato Institute and the Mises Institute aren't activists, their board members and staff actually take a broad, inclusive -- one might say a traditionally "liberal" -- view of free speech. The big question remaining, for those of us who actually believe that the First Amendment does not protect only the rights of progressive and liberal speakers, is whether the ACLU can be salvaged from the views of the majority of its board members. Articles like Wendy's, and a response by David French formerly of FIRE[7], are a step in that direction, if it's not too late. -Declan [1] http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0309-26.htm [2] http://action.aclu.org/site/PageServer?pagename=FP_about_accomplishments [3] http://www.aclu.org/police/gen/14523res20020304.html [4] http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0524-06.htm [5] http://ij.org/ [6] http://www.thefire.org/ [7] http://tinyurl.com/yp8z59 _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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