
The ACLU’s Longstanding Commitment to Defending Speech We Hate - raleighm
https://www.aclu.org/blog/aclus-longstanding-commitment-defending-speech-we-hate
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comex
> The guidelines do not suggest that the ACLU should not represent a speaker
> because his speech causes harm. Rather, they “attempt to identify the kinds
> of questions that ought to be considered, the processes for their
> consideration, and the measures that can help mitigate the harms to
> competing interests.”

In other words, it does exactly that, but buried under a mountain of weasel
words.

Direct link to the leaked document in question:

[http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/20180621ACL...](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/20180621ACLU.pdf)

Even taken at face value, it states that the "harmful impact" of speech in a
given case should be a factor weighing against the ACLU choosing that case to
defend – just not "dispositive". By itself, that's not necessarily a bad
thing. On the contrary, it's a description of how the ACLU has presumably
always operated to some extent. It would be unrealistic to expect them or
anyone else to be completely blind to ideology; that's just not human nature.

But considering the context of when and why that document was promulgated,
combined with the wordy and defensive feel of its writing, it's hard to escape
the conclusion that someone is trying to have their cake and eat it too. It's
a change under the guise of a clarification. They'll still defend speech they
hate… just a bit less often. And personally, I might even approve of that
change; it's not like white supremacists' speech is especially vulnerable to
government suppression at the moment (quite the opposite). But the blog post's
energetic rebuttal of the idea that the document could possibly be trying to
change anything just feels, well, dishonest.

