Posted on 05/24/2006 7:39:08 AM PDT by Jay777
The American Civil Liberties Union is weighing new standards that would discourage its board members from publicly criticizing the organization’s policies and internal administration.
“Where an individual director disagrees with a board position on matters of civil liberties policy, the director should refrain from publicly highlighting the fact of such disagreement,” the committee that compiled the standards wrote in its proposals.
“Directors should remember that there is always a material prospect that public airing of the disagreement will affect the A.C.L.U. adversely in terms of public support and fund-raising,” the proposals state.
Given the organization’s longtime commitment to defending free speech, some former board members were shocked by the proposals. Nat Hentoff, a writer and former A.C.L.U. board member, was incredulous. “You sure that didn’t come out of Dick Cheney’s office?” he asked.
“For the national board to consider promulgating a gag order on its members — I can’t think of anything more contrary to the reason the A.C.L.U. exists,” Mr. Hentoff added.
The proposals say that “a director may publicly disagree with an A.C.L.U. policy position, but may not criticize the A.C.L.U. board or staff.” But Wendy Kaminer, a board member and a public critic of some decisions made by the organization’s leadership, said that was a distinction without a difference.
“If you disagree with a policy position,” she said, “you are implicitly criticizing the judgment of whoever adopted the position, board or staff.”
Anthony D. Romero, the A.C.L.U.’s executive director, said that he had not yet read the proposals and that it would be premature to discuss them before the board reviews them at its June meeting.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Agreed. The problem is, this same organization does not agree with anybody else's right to do so. Their patently hypocritical position on free speech for their own members is representative of their compulsively craven hypocrisy on every other issue and only serves to undermine further the reputation of an organization which, truthfully, probably served a very noble purpose forty years ago.
That said, I think other people on this thread are off the mark on Nat Hentoff. He is probably the modern-day ACLU's most fervent critic, and it is likely he and a few of the other 'vintage' members, who regularly balk at the fascistic, bigoted organization the ACLU has transmogrified into in its current incarnation under current leadership, who are being targeted by this absurd directive.
What too many people tend to forget is.. even tho they may not support or agree with the ACLU, it is a private organization, not a government one.
As such they are free to be idiots and to insist that nobody in their organization publicly criticizes them from BEING idiots.
I support them on this as well, even tho I despise the ground they stand on.
There's always been a big PC aspect to the left. They love to be word Nazis. Like the word "rape." I actually read something written by a feminist which said "if a man lies to woman by telling her he loves her to have sex, that was rape if he doesn't really love her." What she learns days after the event can change making love to getting raped, if it disappoints her expectations.
I cannot see the Democrat party getting it together by November, mainly because the far left is much too influential. They own the language the party uses, and they own most of the senators.
ACLU fighting for NAMBLA to have their free speech rights while they curtail their own people from speaking freely about themselves really says alot about the ACLU today.
ACLU needs to practice what they preach.
"Fredo, never go against the Family."
Hentoff is an endangered species--the intellectually honest liberal.
}:-)4
You vill remain silent, SILENT.
I think these critics should sue the ACLU. Since the ACLU is so well-known as a defender of free speech, I think the ACLU would represent them. ;-)
I agree that they do need to practice what they preach. But they are a private organization, not a government one.
I can no more insist that they allow their members to criticize them in public than I can insist the boy scouts change their recruiting policies.
Will they send dissenting board members to Tolerance Camp?
I understand your position and I actually agree with it. However when you support their right to do this you could also demand that they practice what they preach. Absent that opposition demand they will simply see you as supporting them.
Kinda like giving them a free pass. Just a thought.
Although we cannot legally force them to allow their members to criticize them in public (indeed, they may run their organization as they see fit), we can nonetheless use our freedom of speech to call them on their double standard.
TROLL ^
Thanks, you said was I was trying to say in a much better way.
Oh I would demand that they practice what they preach. Please don't get me wrong on that.
But at the same time I'm caught in a conundrum and have to support their constitutional right to free speech and free association.
"we can nonetheless use our freedom of speech to call them on their double standard."
Amen to that!
Quite Ironic isn't it? You find yourself submitting,properly, to your own principles in defense of the ACLU when it comes to those rights and the very subject you support them on is their denial of that very thing when it applies to someone else.
You know, noone can make this crap up! It seems almost engineered in a way to sucker folks that do not really know what the ACLU is actually up to into gaining donations from folks that support free speech and free association rights.
NAH the ACLU would never do such a thing....he he.
It is a safe bet, this proposal came from the number 1 blatant Homosexual/Marxist Lunatic, the A.C.L.U.’s executive director, Anthony D. Romero.
"Mr. Meyers lost his bid for re-election to the board last year, but Ms. Kaminer has continued to speak out. Last month, she was quoted in The New York Sun as criticizing the group's endorsement of legislation to regulate advertising done by counseling centers run by anti-abortion groups. The bill would prohibit such centers from running advertisements suggesting that they provide abortion services when they actually try to persuade women to continue their pregnancies.
Ms. Kaminer and another board member, John C. Brittain, charged that the proposal threatened free speech. "I find it quite appalling that the A.C.L.U. is actively supporting this," Ms. Kaminer told The Sun.
Abortion trumps Free Speech with these hypocrites.
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