Everyone’s ACLU

Everyone’s ACLU

Los Angeles Times: The American Civil Liberties Union is vilified by conservatives as a left-wing lobby disguised as an advocate for free speech for all. And certainly it’s true that many supporters of the organization are liberal in their political views. But to its credit, the ACLU often puts its commitment to free expression above those opinions. An example is its support for a student group at the University of Nevada, Reno, that invited Jim Gilchrist, an extreme opponent of illegal immigration, to take part in a panel discussion.

If some students and faculty had had their way, Gilchrist — a founder of the Minuteman Project, which encourages civilians to patrol the border to prevent illegal immigrants from entering the United States — would have been disinvited. “We’re hoping there is a way we can prevent his visit to our community,” one professor told the Reno Gazette-Journal. To which the Nevada ACLU responded: “Canceling Mr. Gilchrist’s appearance would be tantamount to allowing a segment of the university community to exercise a ‘heckler’s veto’ concerning controversial speakers.” The university administration and faculty senate took the same position, and last Thursday, Gilchrist came and debated immigrant-rights advocate Miguel Acosta.

If the ACLU were just another liberal organization, it wouldn’t have supported Gilchrist’s right to speak. Nor would it have argued, as it did in 2004, that law-enforcement officers violated Rush Limbaugh’s privacy rights by seizing his medical records.

Obviously the ACLU embraces political positions that aren’t accepted by every supporter of its overarching philosophy. Its support for Roe v. Wade, for example, is rejected by opponents of abortion who nevertheless would characterize themselves as civil libertarians.

Whatever one thinks of the positions taken by the ACLU, the notion that it would protect only speech it agrees with is false. Ask Jim Gilchrist.