Yes, they don't want to be associated with someone who might use that association to emotionally harm others. I don't see the contradiction. I don't understand

Yes, they don't want to be associated with someone who might use that association to emotionally harm others. I don't see the contradiction. I don't understand your point about being 'ahistoric'. Private organizations are allowed to prohibit certain types of speech. That is part of what freedom of assembly means. Quoting Mills, it's the "freedom to unite for any purpose not involving harm to others". Or earlier in the same paragraph, "the principle [of expressing and publishing opinions] requires liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character; of doing as we like". If we don't like someone else's opinion, we don't have to express it for them. Like I said, freedom of speech is on par with freedom of assembly. There can be a tension between them, certainly, but it's certainly not the case that freedom of speech historically trumps freedom of association. Otherwise, a Perl conference will be forced to accept talks about C#, Google would be forced to accept and forward unsolicited commercial email, etc. Quoting now from the Supreme Court in THOMAS v. COLLINS (1945): > It was not by accident or coincidence that the rights to freedom in speech and press were coupled in a single guaranty with the rights of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition for redress of grievances. All these, though not identical, are inseparable. They are cognate rights, cf. De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353, 364 , 57 S.Ct. 255, 259, and therefore are united in the First Article's assurance. Cf. 1 Annals of Congress 759-760. [323 U.S. 516, 531] Similarly from N. A. A. C. P. v. ALABAMA, (1958): > Effective advocacy of both public and private points of view, particularly controversial ones, is undeniably enhanced by group association, as this Court has more than once recognized by remarking upon the close nexus between the freedoms of speech and assembly. De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353, 364 ; Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 530 . It is beyond debate that freedom to engage in association for the advancement of beliefs and ideas is an inseparable aspect of the "liberty" assured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which embraces freedom of speech. See Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652, 666 ; Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 324 ; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 303 ; Staub v. City of Baxley, 355 U.S. 313, 321 . Of course, it is immaterial whether the beliefs sought to be advanced by association pertain to political, economic, religious or cultural matters, and state action which may have the [357 U.S. 449, 461] effect of curtailing the freedom to associate is subject to the closest scrutiny. How about you clarify to me what the freedom of assembly means, and its connections to the freedom of speech? Since the historical record seems to say they are aspects of the same sense of liberty.