The ACLU Lost Its Way -- And Has Stayed Lost
I've written here about how, as a teen, I took the position in a debate -- which was my sincere position -- that the Nazis should be allowed to march in Skokie. I'm Jewish and my mother told me she thinks we lost family at Babi Yar, because our relatives who lived around there did not emigrate and pretty much disappeared. No more contact with my grandfather or anyone else.

However, I'm aware that what's most dangerous for all of us is to quash speech. Only where speech is free do we have hope of protecting democracy. So, yes, I really was (strongly!) for the Nazis being allowed to March in Skokie.

The ACLU used to stand for that sort of thing, too: Free speech.

Then things got tangled.

Alan Dershowitz writes at Newsweek:

In a long and detailed article--really, an obituary--The New York Times announced the death of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) as the primary defender of free speech in the United States. More than a century old, the ACLU was founded primarily to defend the free speech and due process of all Americans regardless of their views, party affiliation, race or ideology.

The ACLU has defended Nazis, the KKK, pornographers and purveyors of hate speech. I was privileged to serve on the national board of the ACLU during its golden age.

Then everything changed. The board decided to "diversify." This meant that a certain number of women, African Americans, Latinos and gays had to be represented--which, in turn, meant the representatives of these groups were expected to prioritize the parochial interests of the groups they represented over the more general interests of all Americans pertaining to free speech and due process.

Unsurprisingly, the organization stopped prioritizing free speech and due process. Instead, it began to prioritize a woman's right to choose, gay marriage, racial issues and "progressive politics." This trend began well before the election of President Donald Trump, but it came to a head when he took office. The ACLU turned into a money-making machine by prioritizing the anti-Trump attitudes of its new members over its traditional role as a nonpartisan defender of free speech and due process.

The ACLU is now rolling in money, but it is intellectually bankrupt in its defense of free speech and due process--especially when these core liberties conflict with its money-making progressive agenda.

...The young people who have destroyed the ACLU were educated--or miseducated--at the same institutions whose graduates now fill the newsroom of The New York Times. So the story of the ACLU is the story of The New York Times and is also the story of CNN, The Washington Post, HuffPost, Facebook, Twitter and Google. It is the story of liberalism in America dying and being replaced by a radical progressive agenda that cares little about free speech, due process or other civil liberties. These young lawyers, journalists and editors know "The Truth" and see little need for dissenting opinions, due process and other cumbersome mechanisms that stand between them and their hard-left utopia.

...The death of the ACLU, along with the weakening of liberalism and our civil liberties, is among the most dangerous developments we now confront. As the founder of the ACLU cautioned nearly a century ago: "The struggle for liberty never stays won." We are now losing that battle, in no small part because the new leaders of the great organization he founded have sold out and abandoned its original mission to defend the free speech and due process of everyone.