For years, many of us who have long supporteded the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have grown alarmed by its abandonment of core principles in the support of civil liberties in favor of support what seems a more political agenda. Under the leadership of a President Susan N. Herman and Executive Director Anthony Romero, the ACLU has dropped support for unpopular causes while aligning itself more closely with the Democratic Party’s position on issues ranging from immigration to sexual harassment. I have spent my life supporting the ACLU and speaking at its conferences. It has been very painful for many of us in the “Old guard” as these political advocates have taken over the board and organization. That has been evidenced as the ACLU moved to develop a more nuanced approach to “hate speech” after criticism following the Charlottesville protests. Free speech protection was once the touchstone of the ACLU which was fearless in its unpopular advocacy. It is now an area of open retreat for the organization as the leadership seeks to appease irate donors. Despite the right to carry being a constitutional right, the ACLU has indicated that it will not vigorously support the right to lawfully carry weapons at protests. That is no more evident than in the truly shocking filing of the ACLU to oppose due process rights for students at our colleges and universities, particularly in the imposition of a higher and more consistent evidentiary standard. While I found aspects of the brief to raise compelling points, the thrust of the brief is an attack on basic evidentiary protections that would have once been viewed as a position fundamentally at odds with the organization’s mission.
ACLU filed suit to try to block the increased due process protections mandated by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in her recently proposed reforms. I have long been a critic of the rollback on due process under the Obama Administration and have noted the absence of the ACLU in leading this fight. The group seems increasingly committed to appeasing liberal donors and supporters in avoiding such fights. Now it has actually taken up the cause of reducing due process — a position that disgraces its long and proud legacy.
The ACLU sounds much like its historic opponents in decrying the scourge of too much due process as inhibiting greater enforcement. It states that the increased right to protections like confrontation and counsel “sharply limit educational institutions’ obligations to respond to reports of sexual harassment and assault.” It is now actively trading off civil liberties to achieve beneficial social ends. It has embraced the very false choice that it spent years refuting. There is no need to erase due process protections to achieve the protection of students from sexual harassment or assault. It is a false dichotomy. Universities once opposed such rollbacks, but the Obama Administration ordered the de facto changes. It then became a political cause, particularly when the Trump Administration sought to restore due process.
The filing belittles due process protections as technicalities or barriers to justice: “Students shouldn’t have to jump through hoops just to report abuse.”
The ACLU opposes the different treatment given sexual harassment as opposed to harassment and assault based on race, national origin, or disability. Yet the lawsuit is not arguing for enhanced due process across the board but the lower standard for sexual abuse cases, which are the most common area of due process abuse and carry possible criminal implications for students. Thus the ACLU objects to “Permitting, and in some cases requiring, schools to apply a higher standard of proof in sexual harassment hearings than has been required in hearings involving other forms of harassment committed by students.”
The ACLU states that:
“Holding schools accountable for their failed responses to sexual harassment only when they are “deliberately indifferent,” while requiring schools to “take prompt and effective steps reasonably calculated to end harassment, eliminate the hostile environment, prevent its recurrence, and remedy its effects” in cases of harassment based on race, national origin, or disability (see ¶¶ 98-105).”
I think the ACLU’s points on the difference between types of harassment is a legitimate issue. However, the ACLU clearly opposes the relatively low standard of “clear and convincing evidence” which should apply universally. It also opposes the extension of the higher standard that applies to faculty to those students accused of the same type of violations:
“Section 106.45(b)(1)(vii) of the Rule allows institutions to adopt a “clear and convincing evidence” standard of proof, more stringent than typically required when evaluating complaints brought under other civil rights laws, including private damages actions under Title IX. This places a heavier burden on those alleging sexual harassment than on students who allege other forms of harassment. Moreover, in some situations, the provision will force schools to use a “clear and convincing evidence” standard for sexual harassment claims, even though they will be free to use “preponderance of the evidence” for harassment based on race, national origin, or disability. 107. Section 106.45(b)(1)(vii) requires institutions to ‘[s]tate whether the standard of evidence to be used to determine responsibility is the preponderance of the evidence standard or the clear and convincing evidence standard, apply the same standard of evidence for formal complaints against students as for formal complaints against employees, including faculty, and apply the same standard of evidence to all formal complaints of sexual harassment.'”
The ACLU repeated the objection that “institutions are now required to adopt the higher standard if they use it for sexual harassment complaints against faculty.” Yes, it is true that the higher standard may be part of collective bargaining contracts or individual contracts. However, why would the ACLU object to the imposition of the same protective standard for students and faculty alike?
The ACLU does not address the Obama Administration gutting the evidentiary standard, an issue that I flagged at that time:
“In the past, many schools have required significant evidence to find students or faculty guilty, often a “clear preponderance” or “clear and convincing evidence.” These standards require less than the criminal “beyond the reasonable doubt” standard but still a 75% or 80% certainty of guilt. The administration, however, demands that schools adopt the lowest evidentiary standard short of a presumption of guilt — “preponderance of the evidence,” just slightly above a 50-50 determination.
Because many of these cases involve the classic “he-said-she-said” situation, they come to the university as an even split based on opposing testimony. Add in the fact that many of these cases involve drinking, and the “preponderance” standard becomes a recipe for injustice. Even the slightest evidence can dictate the result and tends to favor conviction.”
Yet, the ACLU actually argues for the lesser protective standard for students who could not only face expulsion but potential criminal charges. They will certainly be painted as sexual abusers for the rest of their lives. Nonetheless, the ACLU argues:
“Promoting the use of a clear and convincing standard of proof for sexual harassment complaints is internally inconsistent with other provisions of the Rule that require that institutions ‘[t]reat complainants and respondents equitably,’ § 106.45(a)(1)(i), and adopt grievance procedures that provide for an “equitable resolution” of student complaints, § 106.8(c). OCR interpreted the Title IX regulations to mandate recipients’ use of the preponderance of the evidence standard for ‘equitable resolution’ of sexual harassment complaints as early as 1995.”
The concerning element is the exclusive concern of the ACLU for the accusing over the accused student. The ACLU insists the higher protections would “inflict significant harm on students who experience sexual harassment or assault and those who advocate on their behalf, including Plaintiffs. The challenged provisions dramatically undermine students’ civil rights and will limit their ability to access measures that enable them to continue with their educations.” What about the harm to falsely accused students, who are the subject of a number of recent cases where courts express alarm at the loss of due process at our schools? The ACLU seems blissfully unconcerned about such due process.
Once again, I think that the difference in the standards that apply to different types of harassment is worthy consideration. However, the ACLU goes further to attack the imposition of a more protective evidentiary standard while dismissing the countervailing interests of the accused. The ACLU was an inspiration for me as a young law student and I have spent my career supporting its mission and speaking at ACLU conferences. I have spoken to many of my generation who are mystified by the politicalization of the organization over the last decade. It has led to internal struggles and the departure of core figures in the ACLU. This brief is the manifestation of the loss of mission and clarity at the ACLU. It is also a troubling example of the loss of legitimacy for the organization.
The ACLU is now unmoored not just from its origins but from its defining value to this country. The loss of the ACLU as the nation’s premier defenders of civil liberties would be immeasurable. It has long been the North Star for those of us in the civil liberties community. For that star to be extinguished would leave future generations without an organization that was unbowed and undeterred in supporting the least popular among us.
Please get someone to proofread your articles before you put them online.
lol blah blah blah. Marxism as a way of thinking about class conflict and history is relevant as ever. It’s actually a lot more useful than conservatives in America previously believed. I am young enough to have learned so much Marxism at university that I can actually make good use of it.
Communism as a political flag is alive and well in the guise of the Chinese Communist Party. CCP
The CCP uses markets to set prices inside their nation. That is nothing new. Lenin had the NEP. Look it up.
There is no free speech, no tolerance of dissent at all. That’s why your Silicon Valley creeps want here in the US too.
The CCP: In international trade they have made their billions renting out the slave labor force of China. WHich does not allow any unions and barely even requires wages to be paid on time. there is precious little environmental protection either. This all favors industry. industry that is owned jointly with CCP cutouts.
The CCP uses totalitarian social control methods of communism to keep their slaves in line and sell their labor to international finance. Which explains precisely why Democrat leadership is so eager to defeat Trump, and restore the old system of American sellout to the Chicoms. So the old rackets can flourish again.
Trump upset it all with the trade war. This was and is a fight between industrial capitalism and finance capitalism as much as anything. Michael Hudson is a fine economist who can help people understand the difference.
https://michael-hudson.com/1998/09/financial-capitalism-v-industrial-capitalism/
Trump is now the champion of Industrial capitalism. The CCP and their quislings in the Democrat leadership are the party of international finance. right now the lines are blurry, things are moving fast, but that diametric remains valid.
Trump sells a brand, not real estate or construction where he almost lost his a.s. “Trump” this, “Trump” that, “Trump” rubbers, “Trump” bogus degrees.
His ignorant “industrialism” policy helped steel but f…d companies that use it and consumers and he’s killing off midwestern farmers. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.
Balance of trade is down (we owe more) about 120 billion since 2016.
ha ha Trump made money as an executive in real estate and hospitality. you say he almost lost his ass but that is a simplistic interpretation on your part. i will let it go at that.
second phase of his career was indeed branding. so what?
third phase is public service. you benefit even as you heave gobs of spit his way every day
industrial policy matters. trade policy matters.
but the US dollar is an exceptional currency in history, unbelievably strong and resilient and valuable, which makes understanding what’s happening now very difficult in many ways, but that includes trade balances. and a lot of other things like how a stock market goes up when the economy is in a disaster mode. that level of action is operating above Trump’s head at the Federal Reserve level
That’s $120 bill in 2019, not total since 2016, and similar amounts for each of Trump’s years in office.
Um, ‘branding’ is pretty much the mantra of the modern left, particularly Silicon Valley. What point are you trying to make, exactly? Do you think YouTube or Instagram stars or even the Kardashians are making money from any discernible talents? That’s a good one. even Hillary got on that train in 2016. You arguing both for and against something that does not give your argument much credence, and only an idiot would fail to notice. What’s the most rich about all of that is that unlike Trump was, those people are all beholden to advertisers. If the advertisers go, you can pretty much count on the dividends shortening like quicksilver for such folks, they would be cut in a heartbeat. This is largely the problem with our MSM. They were getting spanked by online sources in terms of eyeballs and revenue and very crassly decided that selling out was the only viable option. Pretending that much of this is about anything else is pretty puerile.
Having watched and then annoyedly ignored your comments for months now, it’s clear that you seem to think very highly of yourself and your intellect, and very little of those faculties in others. I am guessing that is why you share your thoughts on the internet rather than in any more meaningful venue. We used to call that a coward. Prof Turley would be precisely the opposite. I disagree with him plenty, but his integrity and intellectual curiosity are bullet-proof. Why do you come here?
Psst – there simply was no ad-driven www during the time Trump made money as a ‘brand’, even if ‘Trump: The Game’ was utterly without use or merit. CNN, in fact, was a new thing at that time. Yes, some of us have been around awhile. None of this justifies your level of ignorant and inflammatory nonsense, particularly if you aren’t 25.
You are book that would make a fantastic doorstop. Send me a copy or two, I’ve got doors galore at home.
James:
+10
Did I post something favorable to one of the Kardashians?
I was probably drunk again. Sorry.
I believe it was reported pretty widely that the ACLU consciously decided to change their mission to accommodate the lion’s share of their current donors who are now Soros-esque progressives. This isn’t an unconscious evolution at all.
Correction:
“I believe it was reported pretty widely that the ACLU consciously decided to change”
[the Constitution to the Communist Manifesto].
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –…”
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,…”
_______________________
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism,…”
“…it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these [States]; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.”
– Declaration of Independence, 1776
If the shoe don’t fit then don’t wear it.
If the foo itShays then swear at it.
Guns are not speech. Leave the guns at home if you are planning to protest peacefully.
Must have missed the part where if you use your inalienable right to free speech you loose your inalienable right to protect yourself. Please show where that is written?
I assume you exercise your inalienable right to carry a gun to protect yourself while flying on a commercial plane.
Americans have the right to peaceably assemble and, simultaneously, the right to keep and bear arms, while government exists, merely, to facilitate the custody of those rights by Americans through the provision of security and infrastructure.
What part of English can you not read; what “interpreter” do you require to consume the English language comprehensively?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
1st Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
2nd Amendment
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
@first amendment
And leftists love to refer to speech they don’t like as “violence” We lose if even we are merely saying things the left does not like.
antonio
First Amendment – if guns are not free speech then why to cops and National Guard use them to suppress free speech.
Lefties are so dumb and ignorant…the people have the right to keep and BEAR arms. Please bring your guns to any protest where the government is trying to take any of your rights away. The 2nd amendment is the guarantor of all our rights.
i went to a debate in the mid 90s that was ACLU sponsored at one of the better Chicago universities. It drew law students from many of the local schools and a lot of ACLU partisans. I was one of a small number of “liberterians” who showed up that day operating under the wrong impression that ACLU actually was in favor of such a thing as liberty
The subject was “hate crime enhancements.” Now as the moderator who was a wonderful lady and constitutional law professor explained, was an emerging topic and one that had some troubling aspects for ACLU rank and file.
On the one hand, the “ACLU’s historic committment to fairness for black people and the history of segregation etc. ie “civil rights.”
On the other hand, “ACLU’s commitment to the idea that government should punish criminal conduct and not criminalize ideas.”
Ie the civil liberties perspective.
These were and are in tension.
See, let’s take a simple criminal assault and battery.
If the case is proven the perp gets a year in prison.
A “hate crime enhancement” statute tacks on additional time if there are certain bad words evidenced. Let’s say the perp is “gaybashing” a homosexual victim and says words like fggt. Or the perp is a white man who beats a black man and uses a bad word like the N word. Then there is an extra year tacked on to the sentence.
The problem with this from a civil liberties perspective is that the crminal conduct is fundamentally the same and the extra time is imposed for “bad ideas.”
in theory the ACLU should worry about this because the tables could be turned. one day a “fascist” America might put the shoe on the other foot and deliberately imprison blacks who attack whites, or lighten the sentence if the victim was a homosexual. So civil liberties are taken seriously by a lot of the ACLU rank and file.
But there is the “historic commitment to civil rights,” ie, favoring black people. ACLU has done this historically and it’s proud of it. The moderator made it clear, at least, that these things were genuinely in conflict.
She invited comments. Our small liberterian faction had the courage (or was it stupidity?) to take the bait and dare to say that hate crime enhancements were violations of civil liberties, unfair, dangerous encroachments into government criminalizing ideas instead of conduct. Yes, I was one of the fools who chirped up.
We held the floor for not even 3 minutes before a lot of disorderly howling at us erupted. The moderator had to quiet the zealots down and say that we were welcome to debate and that it was a matter of intellectual argument of valid viewpoints, etc. She was a wonderful lady, I tell you, to this day it warms my heart to think of her sincerity and fairness, which underpinned her quality as a professor.
Well the zealots piped down but they didnt like it. We sure got the message and didnt pursue our end of it. We dared to stay until the end of the meeting although it was very tense and we were physically outnumbered probably 100 to 1.
The conclusion was obvious and foregone, in spite of the quality of the moderator in trying to open it for conversation. The historical favoritism shown to blacks ie civil rights would always over rule any liberty issues in the end./
And Turley is writing about it here two and half decades later, same old situation.
Which only shows that ACLU has kept on faking people out in the meantime. Basically they are a group of urban cosmopolites that wants to protect their social position against a white Christian majority. hence why they also are on the warpath against mangers and public prayer all the time. That’s the overall organization drift in spite of how many good people have been on their side throughout the years. Including a lot of white Christians who were taken in by all the liberty talk. It was never about liberty, trust me, not at the top level strategy it wasnt. It was always politics.
Mr .Kurtz: I’m really grateful that you used terms like “fggt” and N word” because I have NO IDEA what either of those terms mean and therefore I am able to feel much more virtuous.
And when did the requirement for due process become just a suggestion.
I was merely illustrating how “hate crime enhancements” work by a theoretical example.
Due process is required by the Fourteenth amendment. But what process is due under any particular circumstances is a matter for courts to decide.
“Hate” “crime” is redundant, frivolous and unconstitutional “double jeopardy.”
That statement is as “serious” and no less frivolous than the absurd statements of the proponents of “hate” “crime” laws.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
5th Amendment
“…nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb;…”
In Germany it is now a hate crime to burn an EU flag. In the UK it is a hate crime to call someone ugly. You can see where hate crime legislation is drifting.
Oh yes, in San Antonio it is hate to call it the China Virus.
Can they, the haughty and erudite San Antonians, retroactively criminalize the use of the phrase “Spanish Flu?”
The poor Spaniards were simply the only neutral nation and, therefore, the only outlet for news, hence the name.
The “Spanish Flu,” as all others, actually came from China, in that case, by way of “Chinese laborers” headed to the WWI front and packed in rail cars crossing Canada, per National Geographic.
I too used to have a certain respect for the ACLU’s support of free speech, even speech for unpopular groups. Looks as if they have been co-opted by the SJW crowd.
Anyone here familiar with “critical legal theory”? In a nutshell, your status in society or rights and treatment in the legal system should be based on whether you are an oppressor or victim. People who fall higher in the Cultural Marxist paradigm of victimhood are to be treated more favorably than those below it. And remember to “check your privilege”, you white male scum!
antonio
and that has a social context as well antonio. the point behind crushing down white people is not because the strategists are anti-white racists.
it is because they actually represent financial interests which must weaken and undermine and limit the resolve of a white Christian majority in the US over the past 70 years.
They used lawfare to do that: strategic lawsuits against public prayer and mangers and so forth, to limit and weaken public expressions of Christian solidarity.
They also used “civil rights” cases to attack segregation and then once that was done, to continue the attack against an organized white majority and punish it and make it ever afraid to raise its own voice again.
The purpose was never really to lift up blacks. Nor to help atheists, nor to help immigrants or even homosexuals.
it was, ironically, to protect financial interests, to by weakening majoritarian democratic impulses when expressed in law.
So folks dont be fooled into thinking they were a bunch of pinkos. No, no more than Jacob Schiff, the Wall Street tycoon who loaned money to the Soviets. He was just attacking the Czar as a matter of strategy. Jacob Schiff was no Marxist. But he was a capitalist who saw in Marxism closer allies than the vanquished Czar’s feudal order.
Russians today have fully understood this dynamic. Some Russians. “fourth political theory” explains it. a watered down version of that is circulating more widely today in the form of “economic nationalism” and populism.
see you have to understand “cultural marxism” not as a fantasy, but as a strategy. marxism actually does incorporate some meaningful insights into society. the irony of right wing efforts at education in America is that they are habitually afraid to understand marxism’s insights, which makes them weak in overcoming it when expressed in the simplified strategic form that is “cultural marxism”
alain de benoist explained this dynamic.
in a way it goes back to hegel. thesis antithesis and synthesis. there is no short circuiting history back to an earlier era. the American conservative that operates strictly according to the liberal Enlightenment values of reason, individual rights, etc, is basically ignoring the entire 20th century. ignoring history is no way to develop effective strategies. marxism and postmodernism as intellectual movements can’t just be ignored or dismissed. you can’t understand much of what’s happening now if you don’t get marxism and postmodernism alike.
I tried to point out how important figures like Mayor Pete’s dad were in developing the thinking of the modern Democratic leadership. he was an expert and cataloguer of Gramsci. he was an influencer propagating the works of the Italian communist to several generations of midwestern university students. mostly future Democrats you can bet on that. But this is philosophy and it’s generally too boring for folks I guess. Pete’s relevance as a candidate had nothing to do with him being gay, and everything to do with his vague way of talking and how he got the big money donations from the rich guys.
Soros is not a billionaire because he is stupid. We have to look and see why people like Soros champion the things which they do. His big endowments are not charities they are operations. Soros is like a modern day Jacob Schiff loaning money to the Soviets. Why why why. Understand why.
The purpose is always the same. Billionaires must fight majoritarian democratic impulses. They do it the most efficient way possible– they buy off the opposing leadership. This is why the “Democrat” party is actually the party most favored by Wall Street and the Silicon Valley billionaires.
And yes they are not patriots. They would sell us all to the Chicoms as slaves if they could. You can look and see them carrying water left and right for the Chicoms today and it’s patently obvious.
They have marked Donald as the Enemy and are out to take him down. This has been obvious since Trump rode down on the escalator. “economic nationalism” as as much the enemy of billionaires today as fascism was during the war, and communism was during the cold war. Now the enemy is “populism” and its twin “economic nationalism.” They are busy writing checks to the opposition organizations who can rally the troops and thus we see the flunkies at the lowest level showing up to put in the work today at comments sections like this.
@mr kurtz
I am quite familiar with Alan de Benoit and Alexander Dugin and both are quite intelligent.
Jacob Schiff was certainly not a Marxist. He financed that great humanitarian, Leon Trotsky out of a hatred for the Czar, not because he wanted to further international Communism. BTW – Leon Trotsky was the first the use the word “racist” in the modern sense. In History of the Russian Revolution (circa 1930) he uses that term in a derogatory sense to refer to the White Russians who opposed the Bolshevik takeover.
antonio
I figured you knew about all this stuff. We need to expose a wider audience to these insights. People need to understand how the billionaires that own google, facebook, etc. Bezos and the silicon valley media bosses are shutting up American patriots who dissent from the globalist scheming. And the saboteurs in the Democrat leadership that have been stabbing Trump in the back all along due in no small part to their divided loyalty to the PRC leadership which has been lining their pockets all the way back to when Bill Clinton was taking bribes from a PLA colonel when he was President.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_finance_controversy
Kurtz’s writes:
“Billionaires must fight majoritarian democratic impulses.”
That wouldn’t be you Kurtz. You’ve lost 6 of the last 7 popular votes. You represent the minority paranoid resentment party and fortunately it’s mostly old guys, even if some like to pretend to being revolutionaries. There are no CHicomms or Marxist left either. You need a makeover.
they most certainly are still Leninists. read this. you’re welcome for a good piece of education
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/china-plans-global-order
I noticed the trend at least 30 years ago and quit donating.
See the columns by Alan Dershowitz and Nat Hentoff composed a generation ago. Dershowtiz and Hentoff were careful to note there were elements within the ACLU working for civil liberties, but said the organization’s institutional mission had been corrupted. See Wm. Donohue’s history of the organization published around that time; his thesis was that it had always been a lawfare outfit, only incidentally a defender of civil liberties. (He likened the role of civil liberties litigation in the organizations lines of business to telegraphic services in the A T & T catalogue). Ed Meese was pithier when he called it ‘a criminal’s lobby’. It’s been a sh!t sandwich the entire time Prof. Turley’s been a member of the bar. In addition to defending the interests of hoodlums and Mexican turnstile-jumpers, they’re now promoting the comfort and convenience of the world’s pretty little liars.
That’s about the size of it. Their main goal has been everything besides free speech. Once in about every five or six years they find some green-toothed klucker to represent in a cross lighting to provide window dressing and the illusion of neutrality in the simmering social conflicts. Along the pattern of the skokie case.
Not that there weren’t a lot of good people who did hold liberal values in a neutral fair sort of fashion in the old days, I knew some. they’re retired.
But even then, all the way back to the 1960s, they have taken a strategic choice to elevate black empowerment ie “civil rights” over generally neutral principles of liberty, ie, civil liberties. That has dictated the outcome of every conflict along the way. If you know the history of the organization it’s clear., I bore of explaining it to people.
The article is confusing. It sounds like the topic involved criminal liberties.
I was a civil rights lawyer for thirty plus years but I never joined the ACLU because some members were lame.
The right to am bears was never taken up as an issue by the ACLU.
If you have a wild bear in your woods then give him a rifle.
Is it my bias alone, or has all constitutional civil rights litigation been gutted fundamentally, to the point where virtually all §1983 lawsuits are doomed to dismissal on qualified immunity?
I had a civil rights case where the defendant never claimed qualified immunity, which is supposed to be an affirmative defense, but the judge sua sponte gave it to them on those grounds anyway, essentially litigating for them. The judge essentially said that they a qualified immunity defense that they never claimed.
It has become the tail that wags the dog, a purely court created immunity not found in the statute, yet applies dispositively to 99% of all civil right actions.
The powers-that-be must reform this idiocy, it is the only direct weapon that the average citizen has against official misconduct.
I used to admire the old ACLU and was a contributor. That ended when they swung fascist and fought against civil liberties rather than for them.
T
“For that star to be extinguished would leave future generations without an organization”
That star IS extinguished. The ACLU doesn’t have a clue as to what civil liberties are anymore.
The SJW insanity has gobbled up another principled institution, and now actually fights for fewer civil liberties.
Gone are the days when a Jewish ACLU lawyer defended the rights of Nazis to march in the public square. The ACLU would have all those Nazis presumptively put in jail for hate speech alone.
The Old ACLU is incompatible with today’s Democrat party or the left.
In re: Name Change for the ACLU
Perhaps Approved Civil Liberties Union would be a better fit. Heck, it’d be such a small change to the letterhead, maybe they could still use what they have on hand until it runs out…much as their “mission and clarity” and “North Star [guided] values” have run out.
They should rename themselves to something more truthful.
I’m not familiar with the old version of the ACLU, but wouldn’t that old version have maybe filed a few lawsuits against some of the states’ more arbitrary and excessive shutdown orders that violate various Constitutional rights? What organization will take over this sort of defense of Constitutional trampling?
So in this blog, there are a quantity of bloggers who are Sociopaths.
Sociopaths can’t tolerate stability, and they sabotage it whenever they can.
They thrive on chaos.
Antifia are clearly bully’s, sociopaths, ciaos creators, all with destructive personality behavior’s. Just remember back to when the videos were on the news about their riotous behavior and attacks. Hopefully, they can create a better environment for themselves in prison.
delmaracer you are half right and half incorrect. they are not sociopaths. they are soldiers
they are motivated by money or perhaps their own perceived social interests and they’re acting on them according to the guidance offered by their intellectual leadership
but you are right they thrive on chaos. it’s ever thus with finance capitalism. and finance capitalism has got to always in every generation tame majoritarian democratic impulses. and they do so effectively. today their bete noire is Donald, before it was Putin, but in a decade it will be someone else.
Can we convince the organization to change its name? The bias is striking! 🤣🤣🤣
I noticed the ACLU’s agenda driven bias many years ago, and stopped supporting it. Time for a true defender of all civil liberties to be formed.
Same here. It goes for pretty much every left leaning organization at this point. I mean no disrespect to the prof, but come on: do you folks that have ‘happily supported’ these organizations for years suffer from narcolepsy? Frankly, it wasn’t difficult for many of these folks to install themselves and in turn recruit when the rest of you lot had your eyes closed and heads turned. This has all been plain as day for quite some time. Perhaps if more had voiced these opinions long ago, we wouldn’t be in the current mess, at least not to this extent. This logic could be applied to nearly all of our current national woes, as well. Yes, the Swamp is bad in its entirety, but more specifically the dem party as it was when the prof was a youngster *no longer exists*. It simply doesn’t.
ACLU is now a lost cause for liberties they support the DEM’s and Anti-Trump forces 100% – it is political not liberties they are interested in. They use to stand up for people liberties and rights and now they quash those liberties and rights.