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Comment by bell-cot | Hacker News Reader

Vague memory is that the ACLU ran off into the organization disfunction weeds quite a few years ago, with the CEO and Board suing each other, and other fun.

But at least from a quick skim of their Wikipedia page, there's no sign of that being true.

Anyone else have a similar memory? Or "true story, but it actually was {name of some other organization here}"?

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You might be thinking of the Southern Poverty Law Center -

"In 2019, founder Morris Dees was fired, which was followed by President Richard Cohen's resignation. An outside consultant, Tina Tchen, was brought in to review workplace practices, particularly relating to accusations of racial and sexual harassment. Margaret Huang, who was formerly the Chief Executive at Amnesty International USA, was named as president and CEO of the SPLC in early February 2020."

> Southern Poverty Law Center

That organization is one of the most harmful organizations in the US. In my opinion.

Tough call between them and the Lincoln Project.

I mean the fact that they can run a false flag in order to incite hatred towards a major political party, get caught, and get away with it with zero consequences is just mind-blowing.

See: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/30/lincoln-proj...

Wait until you hear about how many feds that the DOJ won't confirm or deny were involved in jan 6.

There are hundreds at last count, but the saddest part isn't how the DOJ is hiding it, it's that our media is letting them.

Helping them, not just letting them.

They're exercising their right to free speech (specifically free political expression, which is more or less the same thing under US law).

If you think that's a bad thing, you're arguing that there should be limits to it, which is counter to what seems to be the majority opinion of... well, the members the Lincoln Project oppose, judging by this thread.

I'm not just pointing this out to be smug, but because I genuinely believe a majority of the people on the right who claim to be free speech absolutists in this thread would agree with you upon reading your comment, because it's a reasonable concern to have. Almost no one is actually a free speech absolutist, when push comes to shove it usually comes down to an objection to which speech is being censored, and how often.

Something can be simultaneously bad, but necessarily allowed.

Is your opinion nazi-adjacent? That would explain it

When you start labeling non-violent political interest groups as "domestic terrorists" for the simple reason of "we disagree with them morally", you should lose all legitimacy.

Agreed. The USA government lost all of its legitimacy when it did that.

yeah the guy who made them a big deal "ira glasser" basically chose some guy he had known for not that long as his successor. mostly because he was gay and latino. and that guy ended up not believing anything that the ACLU stood for and taking it to just be an arm of the democratic party. (Anthony d romero)

https://nypost.com/2022/01/31/ex-aclu-head-ira-glasser-slams...

Not sure if directly relevant but they are focusing on DEI so this is across staff. That has led to some tension between the old guard (white supremacist / civil rights supporters depending on view) and new guard (equality / human rights focus).

They had bylaws historically which emphasized "wholly without political partisanship" as well, though I think that's probably long gone by now.

I don't think there were ever white supremacists at the ACLU. Who would that have been? I think DEI is a heavy mistake to pursue. I get the incentive but the method is lacking and everyone will lose.

Sorry, the view is more that traditional civil liberties reinforces white supremacist power structures (I think the ACLU actually has a page on this?). So that those in the ACLU perusing what were some of those "traditional" civil liberties things (free speech etc) were supporting white supremacy. The ACLU has moved away from that towards some of the speech = violence approach which then basically allows a violent response.

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