This week, David Cole, the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) National Legal Director, wrote in The Nation that critics have accused the organization of "no longer defend[ing] those with whom we disagree." Former supporters have referred to the organization as a "caricature of its former self" that is "leaving the First Amendment behind." Cole, on the other hand, contends that the organization "continue[s] to believe that the First Amendment is the foundation of our democracy, and we defend it for precisely that reason." Despite citing plenty of commendable examples, his defense misses the degree to which internal partisan shifts have watered down the ACLU's mission.
Cole cites, as one historical example, the case of Skokie, Illinois, in which that state's ACLU chapter defended the rights of neo-Nazis to march through a town that was home to hundreds of Holocaust survivors. This case is cited as a fundamental example of free speech defense, and for good reason: The right to free speech must be defended even in the most heinous of circumstances, for the most heinous of people.
