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by ceeplusplus 1385 days ago
> I’d hope that any organization concerned with civil liberties would make the effort to act in a bipartisan, politically neutral way.

Funny, because you could say the same about the ACLU, but swap progressive/conservative.

1 comments

Here’s a list of cases that the ACLU has defended which are in alignment with right wing causes:

https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/defending-speech-w...

From the ACLU:

"a reason to decline taking a free-speech case “the extent to which the speech may assist in advancing the goals of white supremacists or others whose views are contrary to our values." In selecting speech cases to defend, the ACLU will now balance the “impact of the proposed speech and the impact of its suppression.” Factors like the potential effect of the speech on “marginalized communities” and even on “the ACLU’s credibility” could militate against taking a case." [1] [2]

[1] https://www.axios.com/2018/06/21/aclu-leaked-memo-free-speec...

[2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-aclu-retreats-from-free-exp...

Your list looks impressive. But what cases did they choose to not accept that aren't listed there?

And yet you still haven’t provided any cases this organization has pursued that would further non-right-wong causes. Here we compare sizable number of cases to… zero.
I never said this organization is neutral. Merely that if you criticize this organization you should also criticize the ACLU for the same lack of neutrality.
Correct. "Our values" used to mean "civil liberties." That's what the "CL" in the name means.

Now it apparently means "subscribes to currently trendy theories of social justice."

It's well-known that ACLU has changed its freedom of speech stance recently, which greatly disappointed many long-standing members, and definitely had a negative effect on its reputation.

However, that was a very specific and rather recent change. ACLU before that change can still be seen as a model organization that threw its weight behind causes regardless of whether they were "left wing" or "right wing", so long as one of its principles were affected.