| Their national director's statement in the immediate aftermath of the Charlottesville riots: https://www.vox.com/2017/8/20/16167870/aclu-hate-speech-nazi... > The backlash has already spurred other ACLU chapters to declare that they don’t believe free-speech protections apply to events like the one in Charlottesville, and led the ACLU’s national director, Anthony Romero, to declare the group will no longer defend the right to protest when the protesters want to carry guns. > “Until now,” lawyer and blogger Scott Greenfield wrote, the ACLU has “never quite come out and announced that they will refuse to defend a constitutional right. This announcement says that when someone seeks to exercise two rights at the same time, the ACLU is outta there.” And their internal policy document listing out things that might stay their hand in an otherwise vigourous defense of free speech: https://www.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/20180621ACLU.... > Considerations Specific to Speech Cases > * Whether the speaker seeks to engage in or promote violence > * Whether the speakers seek to carry weapons > * The impact of the proposed speech and the impact of its suppression > * The extent to which we are able to make clear that even as we defend a speaker’s right to say what they want, we reserve our right to condemn the views themselves > * The extent to which we are able to mitigate any harm to our mission, values, priorities, and/or relationships |
I think that the ACLU had a bigger impact with 60m in funding as a nonpartisan organization with a respected reputation than as a soldier in the culture war.