Tag: aclu

The ACLU is now siding with the censors

Asserting their First Amendment rights against compelled speech, elementary-school teachers in Loudoun County, Virginia, are challenging a school-board rule requiring them to address transgender and ‘gender expansive’ students by their preferred pronouns. The teachers claim that the pronouns convey messages about transgenderism that violate their religious beliefs as well as their understanding of biology. As a compromise, in an effort to balance their speech rights with students’ interests in being recognised, the teachers have offered to address the students only by their names, eschewing the use of any offending pronouns. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has sided against them.

Confirming its transformation from a free-speech organisation into a progressive advocacy group, it has submitted a brief in Cross v Loudoun County, advocating restrictions on fundamental First Amendment freedoms. According to the ACLU, public-school teachers should be required to affirm controversial, state-imposed orthodoxies about sex and gender in violation of their conscience, in order to protect students from discrimination.

Sad to say, the ACLU’s brief against the First Amendment is neither a shock nor a surprise – it was predictable. Its retreat from defending speech that conflicts with progressive values and ideas dates back at least 15 years. Still, there is a difference between avoiding litigation that requires defending the right to use whatever progressives consider harmful speech and engaging in litigation to suppress it or to compel speech aimed at mitigating its alleged harms. The ACLU has crossed a line, effectively advancing arguments about the direct, indisputable dangers of offensive language and ideas that have long been used to justify bans on ‘hate speech’.

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The ACLU, Prior to COVID, Denounced Mandates and Coercive Measures to Fight Pandemics

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) surprised even many of its harshest critics this week when it strongly defended coercive programs and other mandates from the state in the name of fighting COVID. “Far from compromising them, vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties,” its Twitter account announced, adding that “vaccine requirements also safeguard those whose work involves regular exposure to the public.”

If you were surprised to see the ACLU heralding the civil liberties imperatives of “vaccine mandates” and “vaccine requirements” — whereby the government coerces adults to inject medicine into their own bodies that they do not want — the New York Times op-ed which the group promoted, written by two of its senior lawyers, was even more extreme. The article begins with this rhetorical question: “Do vaccine mandates violate civil liberties?” Noting that “some who have refused vaccination claim as much,” the ACLU lawyers say: “we disagree.” The op-ed then examines various civil liberties objections to mandates and state coercion — little things like, you know, bodily autonomy and freedom to choose — and the ACLU officials then invoke one authoritarian cliche after the next (“these rights are not absolute”) to sweep aside such civil liberties concerns:

[W]hen it comes to Covid-19, all considerations point in the same direction. . . . In fact, far from compromising civil liberties, vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties. . . . .

[Many claim that] vaccines are a justifiable intrusion on autonomy and bodily integrity. That may sound ominous, because we all have the fundamental right to bodily integrity and to make our own health care decisions. But these rights are not absolute. They do not include the right to inflict harm on others. . . . While vaccine mandates are not always permissible, they rarely run afoul of civil liberties when they involve highly infectious and devastating diseases like Covid-19. . . .

While limited exceptions are necessary, most people can be required to be vaccinated. . . . . Where a vaccine is not medically contraindicated, however, avoiding a deadly threat to the public health typically outweighs personal autonomy and individual freedom.

The op-ed sounds like it was written by an NSA official justifying the need for mass surveillance (yes, fine, your privacy is important but it is not absolute; your privacy rights are outweighed by public safety; we are spying on you for your own good). And the op-ed appropriately ends with this perfect Orwellian flourish: “We care deeply about civil liberties and civil rights for all — which is precisely why we support vaccine mandates.”

What makes the ACLU’s position so remarkable — besides the inherent shock of a civil liberties organization championing state mandates overriding individual choice — is that, very recently, the same group warned of the grave dangers of the very mindset it is now pushing. In 2008, the ACLU published a comprehensive report on pandemics which had one primary purpose: to denounce as dangerous and unnecessary attempts by the state to mandate, coerce, and control in the name of protecting the public from pandemics.

The title of the ACLU report, resurfaced by David Shane, reveals its primary point: “Pandemic Preparedness: The Need for a Public Health – Not a Law Enforcement/National Security – Approach.” To read this report is to feel that one is reading the anti-ACLU — or at least the actual ACLU prior to its Trump-era transformation. From start to finish, it reads as a warning of the perils of precisely the mindset which today’s ACLU is now advocating for COVID.

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ACLU Says the State Forcing People to Take Vaccines is a Victory For Civil Liberties

The ACLU has published an article in the New York Times followed up by a tweet which asserts that the government forcing people to take vaccines is a victory for civil liberties.

No, this isn’t out of the Babylon Bee.

“Far from compromising them, vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties,” the organization’s tweet ludicrously claimed. “They protect the most vulnerable, people with disabilities and fragile immune systems, children too young to be vaccinated, and communities of color hit hard by the disease.”

The tweet linked to a New York Times opinion piece written by ACLU staffers which further amplified claims that the government forcing people to take a vaccine under threat of them losing their jobs, social lives and potentially in the future the right to buy and sell was actually a boon for civil liberties.

What’s next? Maybe the ACLU will call for the government to forcibly incarcerate Americans for their controversial political opinions because it might ‘prevent harm’.

Respondents on Twitter were swift to ridicule the organization’s absurd hypocrisy.

“The government forcing a needle in your arm is actually them furthering your civil liberties” is quite the take even from Marxists like you. Thank you for dropping the mask to reveal yourselves though,” remarked Robby Starbuck.

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The ACLU Is Suing To Give The Government More Power To Mask Your Kids

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing South Carolina over a ban on mask mandates in schools.

Earlier this summer, the South Carolina state legislature passed a budget bill with conditions prohibiting school districts from using government funds to “require that its students and/or employees wear a face mask at any of its education facilities.” Scientific studies are clear that COVID-19 transmission among children is much lower than among adults but that hasn’t stopped the Biden administration, the CDC, teachers’ unions, and now the ACLU from pushing for students and vaccinated teachers to mask up this fall.

The leftist activist group, which represents several parents of children with disabilities and other groups, is targeting Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, his administration, and certain school districts for prohibiting face-covering requirements because they say the rule “effectively exclude[s] these students with disabilities from participation in the public education system, in violation of the [Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act].”

“School districts with students who have disabilities, including underlying medical conditions, that make them more likely to contract and/or become severely ill from a COVID-19 infection have a legal obligation to ensure that those children can attend school with the knowledge that the school district has followed recommended protocols to ensure their safety,” the lawsuit states, citing the CDC’s anti-science universal masking protocols for children as young as two years old.

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The ACLU Has It Backward: Schools Should Worry About Being Sued For Teaching Critical Race Theory

On July 8, the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin sent a letter to each school district administrator in the state specifically invoking the national and local controversy over “critical race theory” and attempts to limit its teaching. In that particular context, the letter “reminds” the districts of anodyne statutory directives to teach an “understanding of human relations, particularly with regard to American Indians, Black Americans and Hispanics” and that curricula should reflect “the cultural diversity and pluralistic nature of American society.”

The letter warns schools they can be sued for creating a racially hostile environment and notes they have a legal obligation “proactively to remedy and end any racially hostile environment in their schools.” That “will often necessarily include discussions of race.” It claims that undefined “culturally responsive” teaching will enhance the performance of racial minorities.

While the ACLU never says “teach CRT-derived concepts or else,” it takes little imagination to pick up that message. It’s as if the ACLU is saying, “Maybe there is no such thing as CRT in the schools, but there had better well be CRT in the schools.”

Critical race theory (CRT) is a quantum ideology: Now you see it; now you don’t. Its defenders tell us that it is, at most, an “academic theory” limited to law school musing and nowhere to be found in public schools. Except when they claim that schools must teach it.

On July 8, the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin sent a letter to each school district administrator in the state specifically invoking the national and local controversy over “critical race theory” and attempts to limit its teaching. In that particular context, the letter “reminds” the districts of anodyne statutory directives to teach an “understanding of human relations, particularly with regard to American Indians, Black Americans and Hispanics” and that curricula should reflect “the cultural diversity and pluralistic nature of American society.”

The letter warns schools they can be sued for creating a racially hostile environment and notes they have a legal obligation “proactively to remedy and end any racially hostile environment in their schools.” That “will often necessarily include discussions of race.” It claims that undefined “culturally responsive” teaching will enhance the performance of racial minorities.

While the ACLU never says “teach CRT-derived concepts or else,” it takes little imagination to pick up that message. It’s as if the ACLU is saying, “Maybe there is no such thing as CRT in the schools, but there had better well be CRT in the schools.”

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ACLU ‘Waging War on Bill of Rights’ and Self-Defense by Declaring 2nd Amendment ‘Racist’

For years, the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU, has chosen to stand against those who would attack our Constitutional rights. Even the Free Thought Project has been supported by the organization when a California sheriff attempted to force us to delete an article that was damning to his organization. Over the past several years, however, there has been a sort of rift happening inside the organization, with your right to self-defense right in the center of it.

While they have been vehemently fighting for the right of transgender athletes to compete in sports, the ACLU has largely chosen to remain silent on the Second Amendment. Though they have supported most every amendment in the bill of rights, their position on gun rights has remained ambiguous and nuanced — perhaps deliberately. But that all changed this week when they ran an article with an embedded podcast that claimed the Second Amendment is rooted in racism.

As Gleen Greenwald points out:

The ACLU is now waging war on the Bill of Rights.

ACLU’s position on the Second Amendment has always been nuanced: it’s an important constitutional protection, but one that’s collective, not individual.

Now they’re full on proclaiming parts of the Bill of Rights to be racist.

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ACLU Again Cowardly Abstains From an Online Censorship Controversy: This Time Over BLM

Whatever one’s views are on this particular censorship controversy, there is no doubt that it is part of the highly consequential debate over online free speech and the ability of monopolies like Facebook to control the dissemination of news and the boundaries of political discourse and debate. That is why Smith devoted his weekly column to it. And yet, when Smith approached the standard free speech advocacy groups for comment on this story, virtually none was willing to speak up. “Facebook’s usual critics have been strikingly silent as the company has extended its purview over speech into day-to-day editorial calls,” he wrote.

Among those groups which insisted that it would not comment on Facebook’s censorship of the Post‘s BLM story was the vaunted, brave and deeply principled free speech organization, the American Civil Liberties Union. “We don’t have anyone who is closely plugged into that situation right now so we don’t have anything to say at this point in time,” emailed Aaron Madrid Aksoz, an ACLU spokesman. Smith said “the only criticism he could obtain came from the News Media Alliance, the old newspaper lobby, whose chief executive, David Chavern, called blocking The Post’s link ‘completely arbitrary’ and noted that ‘Facebook and Google stand between publishers and their audiences and determine how and whether news content is seen.’”

How is it possible that the ACLU is all but invisible on one of the central free speech debates of our time: namely, how much censorship should Silicon Valley tech monopolists be imposing on our political speech? As someone who intensively reports on these controversies, I can barely remember any time when the ACLU spoke up loudly on any of these censorship debates, let alone assumed the central role that any civil liberties group with any integrity would, by definition, assume on this growing controversy.

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The Skokie Case: How I Came To Represent The Free Speech Rights Of Nazis

The First Amendment principles that apply to prior restraints are straightforward. While any effort to censor by punishing a speaker after the fact is likely to violate the First Amendment, preventing the speech ahead of time is even more likely to violate the Constitution, even where the anticipated speech is profoundly offensive and hateful. Central to the ACLU’s mission is the understanding that if the government can prevent lawful speech because it is offensive and hateful, then it can prevent any speech that it dislikes. In other words, the power to censor Nazis includes the power to censor protesters of all stripes and to prevent the press from publishing embarrassing facts and criticism that government officials label as “fake news.” Ironically, Skokie’s efforts to enjoin the Nazi demonstration replicated the efforts of Southern segregationist communities to enjoin civil rights marches led by Martin Luther King during the 1960s.

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ACLU Counsel Warns of ‘Unchecked Power’ of Twitter, Facebook After Trump Suspension

Alegislative counsel member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) warned Friday that the suspension of President Donald Trump‘s social media accounts wielded “unchecked power,” by Twitter and Facebook.

Kate Ruane, a senior legislative counsel at the ACLU said in a statement that the decision to suspend Trump from social media could set a precedent for big tech companies to silence less privileged voices.

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The Ongoing Death of Free Speech: Prominent ACLU Lawyer Cheers Suppression of a New Book

On Friday, Strangio’s very un-ACLU-like views of free speech were on full display. On Friday morning, Abigail Shrier — author of a new book exploring the rapid, massive increase in teenage girls self-identifying as trans boys and undergoing permanent gender reassignment therapies and surgeries in their teens — published an article in Quillette describing the extraordinary efforts by major corporations and various activists to prevent her book from being purchased:

The efforts to block my reporting have been legion, starting with staff threats at a publishing house, which quickly reversed its original intention to publish my book. Once I obtained a stalwart publisher, Regnery, Amazon refused to allow that company’s sales team to sponsor ads on its site. (Amazon allows sponsored ads for books that uncritically celebrate medical transition for teenagers)….

Because the book tackles an interesting phenomenon, a number of established journalists wanted to review it….[T]he issue has created surprising bedfellows. Religious conservatives are concerned about the trend—but so are lesbians, who look upon the shocking numbers of teen girls transitioning with abject alarm. Many suspect that all this transitioning of girls is effectively euthanizing a generation of young lesbians….In any case, every major newspaper and legacy magazine summarily turned interested journalists down. 

The recent protest by Spotify employees over Joe Rogan’s podcast was triggered in large part by his decision to invite Shrier onto his program. Many liberal employees inside the streaming service demanded this episode be removed. “Many LGBTQAI+/ally Spotifiers feel unwelcome and alienated because of leadership’s response in [Rogan’s] conversations,” was one of the questions posed to Spotify’s CEO at a tense staff-wide meeting, along with a demand to know why that program had not been deleted from the platform. 

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