The ACLU generally will not represent protesters who seek to march while armed. It is important that this content-neutral rule be applied without regard to a speaker’s political views. It should also apply whether or not state law permits or prohibits the carrying of weapons in a protest. To this end, and consistent with time and resource constraints (including assistance from the national office to affiliates and vice versa), we should exercise due diligence in assessing whether the potential client seeks to march while armed. If there is reason to believe that the clients do so intend, and we are unable to satisfy ourselves that they will not do so, we should be reluctant to accept representation.
ACLU Case Selection Guidelines: Conflicts Between Competing Values or Priorities
2018
[H/T to Chet in the comments.
See also: Memo: ACLU Will Weigh ‘Effect on Marginalized Communities’ in Free-Speech Cases
Apparently some speakers are more protected than others. Neo Nazis marching down the streets of Jewish residents should be protected. Gun owners advocating for the right of Jewish residents to have the ability to defend themselves should not be protected.
Okay, that makes things perfectly clear for me. Whatever “principles” the ACLU claims to have do not have a significant overlap with mine.—Joe]
the old joke goes, how does an ACLU member count to ten? one, three, four, five, …
in fairness, they do a decent job of the other nine. but their selective blindness to the second is most frustrating, yes.
But they are going soft on the First Amendment now.
having read the leaked memo — and wasn’t that an exercise in reading between lines which on the face of them said nothing at all, very verbosely — it appears you’re right about that. very sad; we need a staunch defender of the first amendment, but that can’t be done from a viewpoint of some kinds of speech being more equal than others.
them being willing to defend *any* speech, including klansmens’ and nazis’, was a huge benefit for them; something that showed they stuck to the moral high ground impartially. abandoning it — even any semblance of them abandoning it — will dramatically reduce their authority and influence.
Neil Schulman, in “Stopping Power” documented in great detail the fact that ACLU abandoned any support for the 2nd Amendment decades ago — if they ever supported it at all.
This is “content neutral” the way the western Democracies’ desire to stay out of the Spanish Civil War was content neutral, but that neutrality had the very real effect of coming down heavily on the side of the Fascists under Franco. In the same way, this pronouncement by the ACLU (insert appropriate words for that acronym here) has the effect of protecting the masked Anti-fa while pretending to be content neutral regarding anyone who wants to march armed against the club-wielding Anti-fa.
We will defend anyone who thinks like us or doesn’t negatively impact our fund raising efforts. It’s a business baby!
“We’ve got to save our phony Baloney jobs!”
We need to petition the IRS to revoke the ACLU’s tax exempt status. Hit em where it really hurts.