The ACLU’s actual legal advocacy represents its institutional values; individual staffers’ tweets do not. All lawyers understand this, but some pretend not to.
https://twitter.com/joshablock/status/1401637971808358405
The narrative that the ACLU has abandoned the First Amendment does not withstand the slightest scrutiny.
https://twitter.com/udiaclu/status/1401653809487745026
Also, the fact that @chasestrangio supported Amazon’s decision to stop selling an anti-trans book does not conflict with the ACLU’s commitment to free speech. Private businesses have a right to sell or not sell any book they choose. The ACLU has long defended corporate speech.
The rejoinder, I think, would be that some ACLU staffers do not support the organization’s current approach to free speech. Fair. But they have very clearly not won out. They remain a minority. And from reading this article, you wouldn’t realize that. Which is my main critique.
I wrote about this dynamic a few years ago and I don’t think anything has changed since. Some ACLU staffers question the group’s First Amendment litigation; there are debates on the issue; but at the end of the day, the ACLU sides with free speech. slate.com/news-and-polit…
Anyway here is the article, which, again, highlights a very real debate within the ACLU but does not, to my mind, fully convey the organization’s refusal to retreat from its free speech principles in actual litigation! nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
