Zoom Conversation Today (Noon Pacific) with Nadine Strossen, Former ACLU Head

The conversation will be about Prof. Strossen's Journal of Free Speech Law article, "The Interdependence of Racial Justice and Free Speech for Racists," and it will be with Profs. Jane Bambauer, Ash Bhagwat, and me.

Please come by at https://ucla.zoom.us/j/93534879077; you can also read the article (20 pages). Here's the Introduction:

Michael Powell's June 7, 2021 New York Times article—"Once a Bastion of Free Speech, the A.C.L.U. Faces an Identity Crisis"—raised a perennial issue that has roiled not only the ACLU, but also society in general, throughout my adult lifetime: do we have to choose between freedom of speech and other aspects of the civil liberties/human rights agenda? Since the ACLU's founding, more than a century ago, it has defended all fundamental freedoms for all people, including free speech and equality, especially for people and groups that have traditionally been subject to discrimination. Some ACLU critics charge that its vigorous advocacy of equality rights is somehow antithetical to its free speech advocacy. Conversely, other ACLU critics charge that its ongoing defense of free speech rights even for those who convey anti-civil-liberties messages is somehow antithetical to its equal justice advocacy.

The ACLU's mission closely parallels government's responsibility: to uphold all rights for everyone, neither privileging particular rights over others, nor privileging the rights of particular people or groups over others. Therefore, debates about the ACLU's efforts to promote our interlocking national aspirations of "liberty and justice for all" has resonance for government policy as well. The ACLU-focused debates mirror more general debates about the appropriate prioritization of racial justice and free speech in our public sphere—for example, in public schools and universities.

The event is cohosted with UCLA's Institute for Technology, Law, and Policy and the University of Arizona's TechLaw Program.

Comments

[Jimmy the Dane]

That is a lot of dancing around the issue - "oh we defend rights, we just defend all rights equally...." How about just time to be honest instead of engaging in intellectually dishonest gymnastics?

[DaivdBehar]

The ACLU is the spear point of the Democrat attack machine. It has ruined school districts, intimidated agencies, and expanded the areas of attack by the scumbag lawyer profession on our nation. It is a fake advocacy group, and should be shut down for its bad faith.

[jdgalt1]

They've never defended all rights; in particular they were hostile toward gun rights 50 years ago. But the hostility to speech is a new thing. I doubt they would take up the American Nazis' right to parade in Skokie any longer.

[Brett Bellmore]

" Since the ACLU's founding, more than a century ago, it has defended all fundamental freedoms for all people, "

Total bullshit. Since the ACLU's founding, they have tautologically defined "fundamental freedoms" as those rights they felt like defending. If they didn't want to defend a right, even an enumerated right in the Bill of Rights, it just magically wasn't fundamental.

We should never humor their claim to be that principled, because they never were, from the start they were picking and choosing which rights they'd defend. Their claim to be a principled defender of all rights means nothing more than, "We defend what we feel like defending, and what we don't feel like defending, we don't admit is a right."

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

They also fall back on the excuse that the national ACLU has no control over the state ACLUs. Except when they don't.

[Brett Bellmore]

As far as I know, the only state chapter to successfully buck the national ACLU on the 2nd amendment is Nevada's.

[tkamenick]

Which isn't that big of a criticism honestly. It's important to note of course, but it's not possible for ANY group to defend "all" rights or "all" people.

[Ed Grinberg]

Today, the ACLU doesn't just defend some rights; it defends the right of some people to do anything while urging severe government action against other people.

[Ed Grinberg]

As another commenter says below: "the right to burn car dealerships is a fundamental right, unlike self-defense."

[Brett Bellmore]

The problem isn't actually that they fail to defend all rights. I'd be fine with them defending some rights, and leaving other rights to other people to defend.

They could have just said, "The NRA adequately defends the 2nd amendment, we'll leave that to them.", and I'd have been happy as a clam, might even have joined.

But they didn't want to admit to being selective about which rights they'd defend, which resulted in them denying the reality of the rights they didn't want to defend. Which meant as a practical matter they weren't simply blowing those rights off, they were actively opposing them.

That's the consequence of their lying about defending all rights.

[AmosArch]

You just have to admit it. A robust right of free speech and a robust right to feefees cannot coexist at the same time. (heck even the right to feefees is impossible in and of itself since you are always going to be offending someone but thats another story) You have to choose one or the other. The ACLU increasingly chooses the latter.

[Brett Bellmore]

No kidding. After not having done so in several years, on a whim I visited the ACLU's website a few weeks ago.

At first I thought maybe I'd entered the url wrong, and ended up at a BLM or Antifa site. I mean, good grief: They're literally hosting a petition to demand slavery reparations!

[Gandydancer]

Rittenhouse/Kenosha "protests" gaslighting by the ACLU:
https://www.aclu.org/news/criminal-law-reform/kyle-rittenhouse-didnt-act-alone-law-enforcement-must-be-held-accountable

Because the right to burn car dealerships is a fundamental right, unlike self-defense.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'd add that it was in a Reason interview that Strossen announced that tautology, all of 27 years ago.

"Putting all that aside, I don't want to dwell on constitutional analysis, because our view has never been that civil liberties are necessarily coextensive with constitutional rights. Conversely, I guess the fact that something is mentioned in the Constitution doesn't necessarily mean that it is a fundamental civil liberty."

[docduracoat]

The ACLU is a comply leftist organization.
They have no credit at all

[Gandydancer]

* credibility

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You should be thrilled that the Journal Of Free Speech Law -- which claims to be nonpartisan, I believe, despite ample evidence to the contrary -- selected three clingers to take on the former ACLU leader here!

Three Republican movement conservatives against one liberal-libertarian mainstreamer sounds like a fair fight.

May the better ideas (continue to) win in America.

[backbencher]

Should really change their name to ASCLU, the "S" being 'some'. They defend and argue for only those liberties that are consistent with the prevailing views of Democratic Party mandarins.

[Jerry B.]

Strange that you never see the ACLU defending 2nd Amendment rights. Guess the media doesn’t cover that.

[Brett Bellmore]

Ilya: I do hope you're going to bring up the tautological nature of the ACLU's claim to defend all fundamental liberties.

I would add that there is, in fact, no constitutional value of "equality". There's a constitutional value of equal protection under the law, of equality of rights.

But the Constitution embraces no other sort of equality, besides equality of rights.

[aclu victim]

Ask her how she can continue to associate herself with the ACLU, given the accusations of rape and other sexual abuse against the ACLU leadership. The world is watching. She needs to be certain.

[Brett Bellmore]

So, any recordings of the event?

[Shamie Ervin iv]

My experience with ACLU a few years ago related to their infatuation with radfemmery, If there were ever a time for an ACLU on notice to step forward for 1A, it was during the time when radflimflammery and free speech were diametrically opposed. For ACLU it was radfemmery all the way, despite the toxic effect of scary restraining orders based on a couple of innocuous remarks to a snowflake neighbor who borrowed expensive tools and refused to return them, and unleashed her cats on my songbird nestlings.

These hysterical RO laws are still on the books, despite scholarly treatises condemning them by Prof. Aaron Caplan and so many others summing up the alarming caselaw from all over the USA, home of the free.

If you're a Munchhausen queen like this neighbor and two ROs and a slew of show-cause hearings won't get him jailed, then have him arrested with F&M cyberstalking warrants. (BTW, no conviction ever occurred, but I had to fight like hell, and the road to victory was bruising.) I'm still here and she left town in disgrace.