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The ACLU’s Longstanding Commitment to Defending Speech We Hate
- comex 8y ago> The guidelines do not suggest that the ACLU should not represent a speaker because his speech causes harm. Rather, they “attempt to identify the kinds of questions that ought to be considered, the processes for their consideration, and the measures that can help mitigate the harms to competing interests.” In other words, it does exactly that, but buried under a mountain of weasel words. Direct link to the leaked document in question: http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/20180621ACLU.pdf http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/20180621ACL... Even taken at face value, it states that the "harmful impact" of speech in a given case should be a factor weighing against the ACLU choosing that case to defend – just not "dispositive". By itself, that's not necessarily a bad thing. On the contrary, it's a description of how the ACLU has presumably always operated to some extent. It would be unrealistic to expect them or anyone else to be completely blind to ideology; that's just not human nature. But considering the context of when and why that document was promulgated, combined with the wordy and defensive feel of its writing, it's hard to escape the conclusion that someone is trying to have their cake and eat it too. It's a change under the guise of a clarification. They'll still defend speech they hate… just a bit less often. And personally, I might even approve of that change; it's not like white supremacists' speech is especially vulnerable to government suppression at the moment (quite the opposite). But the blog post's energetic rebuttal of the idea that the document could possibly be trying to change anything just feels, well, dishonest.