The headline – in the liberal New York Times of all places – must have been utterly mortifying to most members of the American Criminal Liberties Union – officially the American Civil Liberties Union:
ACLU Withdraws Proposals to Limit Criticism by Board Members
Reported the Times' Stephanie Strom:
"The American Civil Liberties Union announced yesterday that it was withdrawing controversial proposals that would have limited the ability of its board members to criticize the organization publicly.
"The proposals had attracted widespread criticism from board members, donors and editorial boards around the country, which regarded them as hypocritical in light of the ACLU's historic defense of free speech."
But, what happened to this AC (for censorship) LU proposal before the snowstorm of criticism from "editorial boards around the country"?
The initial ACLU reaction is not reported by the Times until the next-to-last paragraph, as follows:
"At the meeting last month, the board twice voted down motions to strike the proposals from the rights and responsibilities committee's report."
That, please note, was before the snowstorm of criticism from "editorial boards around the country."
How very good that there are such "editorial boards around the country" that were able to keep the ACLU honest to its claimed principles.
But on the record, there is still evidence that were it not for this outside editorial criticism, the ACLU would have gone right ahead with this censorship.
"Lawrence A. Hamermesh, the chairman of the committee, said it had decided to withdraw the proposals, which had been supported by nine of its 10 members."
And further evidence of this censorship in the ACLU – but for the intervention of those editorial boards – came from Robert Chester, a board member who served on the committee and supported the proposals, said he had no problem with the decision to withdraw them and emphasized that they had always been intended as guidelines, not as policies.
"This is consistent with the general practice of the board to send proposals back to committee for reformulation," Chester said.
Please consider this astounding and desperate claim: That which was twice voted by 90 percent of that ACLU committee was "only a guideline, not a policy"(!)
If that were really the case – rather than a scandal-covering sham – why did Norman Siegel, a civil-rights lawyer who headed the ACLU's New York affiliate for almost a quarter of century, criticized the proposals in an op-ed article in the Daily News on Monday?
"I'm very pleased that the committee has withdrawn its proposals from consideration, but the all-important question still remains: How could such proposals get this far at, of all places, the American Civil Liberties Union?" Siegel said in a telephone interview. "The leadership should have dismissed them immediately when they were first presented."
But, we are compelled to conclude that not one ounce of this scandalous ACLU mess was cleansed until after its expose by "editorial boards around the country."
The ACLU is badly in need of a major housecleaning.
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