The ACLU's (selective) defense of free speech

The ACLU has a proud heritage of defending unpopular thought.  I acknowledge that they don't have the resources to address all issues, but I believe ACLU is unbalanced in protecting the political left and "progressives" as opposed to the political right and "conservatives".

Recently, I wrote to an ACLU development director as follows:

"I have gotten a steady stream of messages from ACLU supporting the free speech rights of students to protest on campus.

That’s fine, but can you point me to similar ACLU defenses of free speech on campus for professors, speakers and students who espoused conservative religious, economic or political thoughts or did not support woke issues such as personalized pronouns?  I don’t remember having seen the ACLU speak much in defense of such conservatives.  Hopefully, you can point to evidence that ACLU still truly believes in free speech for everyone.  Thanks!"

She responded nicely:

I don’t have any recent, specific examples about defending conservative protests on campus, but I do have plenty to share about the ACLU defending conservative speech more generally.

Below are two major examples which, in honesty, have had ACLU staff divided internally nationwide:

We’re representing the NRA at the Supreme Court this year, specifically defending their right to free speech: https://www.aclu.org/cases/national-rifle-association-v-vullo

We filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief to defend Donald Trump’s speech rights last fall: https://www.aclu.org/cases/united-states-v-trump-amicus-brief

Here is my response to her:

Thanks!  Please pass my comments on to policy staff.  Although I’ve never owned a firearm (used them in the military) nor donated to NRA, I strongly support ACLU’s NRA stance.

As regards the Trump case, I also agree, despite being a never-Trumper.  However, ACLU’s summary inadequately defines its position.  “cover only imminent threats that would impede a fair trial” alarmed me, as it sounds as though the safety of participants is not an issue.  However, when I read the amicus brief, I saw that ACLU’s position does allow limits on threats.  I suggest that the summary be improved.

It is better to allow too much free speech than too little.  As stated in my blog, the problem in these protests, in general, is not the students.  We’ve had very unequal application of free speech on campuses for decades.  Speech cancellations and interruptions; faculty punished for holding conservative religious, economic, or political ideas; etc.  DEI has been used to cast a tight net around acceptable speech: conform or you won’t be hired or will be fired.  Beyond silencing people, DEI demands creative fealty to orthodoxy.  ACLU is quite capable of hewing a fine line in explaining what it does/does not support, but it has strongly supported DEI programs without acknowledging their free speech restrictions.   While I agree that it is important to protect students’ rights to protest, I am concerned that ACLU seems to take a one-sided approach.  (Note to blog readers: I stuck to the free speech issues, choosing not to mention overwhelmingly leftist faculty and curricula.)

1. ACLU's letter appropriately states “it is essential that you not sacrifice principles of academic freedom and free speech that are core to the educational mission of your respected institution” but then focuses solely on student activist group protests.  Principle #1 states “They must not single out particular viewpoints for censorship, discipline, or disproportionate punishment” which is great, but ACLU has seemingly been careful to state this principle in the context of these protests.  ACLU’s statement could have been framed more broadly.
2. On Monday, 5/13, ACLU sent an email with the following link: Tune in to get the full story on the free speech issues on campuses.  As you can see, that link is focused on Anti-War protests.  It is not the “full story”.
3. The principles say that students need to be protected.  What about staff, faculty, and visitors on campus?  Similarly, why shouldn’t faculty, staff and guest speakers have room to express themselves?
4. I agree that asking police to forcefully remove students can endanger students and should be a measure of last resort, but I do not agree that the mere presence of armed police on campus has such effect.  Police on campus protect students.  Does ACLU advocate removing all police from all levels of education?

By the way, in my reading tonight, I saw ACLU inaccurately refer to curated book lists for elementary students as “book bans” (the books are not blocked from public libraries nor for older students or adults, at least in most situations I’ve heard about).  In ACLU’s work, it is critical that ACLU not unnecessarily divide us by using inaccurate, inflammatory terminology.  I’d appreciate a response from a policy person, but I recognize they can’t reply to all input.  Thanks again!