I recently kvetched about the American Civil Liberty Union’s (ACLU’s) movement against defending freedom of speech and towards social-justice initiatives, objecting both to the kinds of issues that the ACLU is now tackling (taking the side of those offended by “hate speech” and rejecting defense of the First Amendment), and to their entering an area that is already full of other people doing similar work. (The only organization doing anything similar to the ACLU is the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education—FIRE), which formed to fill the lacuna left when the ACLU stopped working on college issues.)
I was thus pleased to see NYT op-ed writer Michelle Goldberg take a similar position in her Monday column (click on screenshot below). In her view, the ACLU’s defense of “awful speech” is essential in ensuring social justice:
It’s a short piece and can be summarized briefly. First, this isn’t the first time the ACLU has been divided (there was internecine dissent in 1978 over the ACLU’s defense of the Klan.) Still, it’s pretty clear there’s a generational split over free speech, both in the A.C.L.U. and in liberalism writ large.
Second, people seem slow to realize that defense of free speech is essential for guaranteeing civil liberties and the rights of minorities. Without the First Amendment, Black Lives Matter protests, for example, could have been banned, and protests are being banned now. Goldberg:
I wonder, however, if this divide could soon fade away, because events in the wider world are conspiring to remind the American left how dependent it is on a robust First Amendment. Civil libertarians have always argued that even if privileged people enjoy more free speech protections in practice, erosions of free speech guarantees will always fall hardest on the most marginalized. This is now happening all over the country.
She gives two examples. One is the spate of anti-protest bills being passed by many states:
In a number of states, Republicans have responded to last year’s racial justice uprising by cracking down on demonstrators. As The Times reported in April, during 2021 legislative sessions, lawmakers in 34 states have introduced 81 anti-protest bills. An Indiana bill would bar people convicted of unlawful assembly from state employment. A Minnesota proposal would prohibit people convicted of unlawful protesting from getting student loans, unemployment benefits or housing assistance. Florida passed a law protecting drivers from civil liability if they crash their cars into people protesting in the streets.
I’m not sure about the legality of punishing people for being convicted of unlawful assembly, but it seems like a form of double jeopardy—like denying convicted felons who have served their sentences the right to vote. The Florida drivers’ law seem simply ridiculous.
Goldberg’s second example is the widespread passing of laws prohibiting the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in public schools. (Trump started this by banning CRT training for federal employees.) While I have my beefs about some tenets of CRT, I don’t think it’s the place of any government, federal or state, to declare what cannot be taught. (Evolution is an exception, for that is an empirically supported theory ubiquitously accepted by scientists.) Curricula fall under the ambit of schools and school boards.
As Goldberg says, “the credibility of your defenders matters”. What she means is that organizations that are evenhanded in defending the First Amendment or free expression are organizations most likely to be listened to and respected. For they are following a principle, not an ideology.
Goldberg ends her piece with a nice aphorism:
. . . in the end, the A.C.L.U. has usually, in the teeth of internal conflict, stuck to its mission. Maybe every generation has to learn for itself that censorship isn’t a shortcut to justice.
My only beef here is her repeated claim that the ACLU is sticking to its mission. Yes, it is to some extent, but it’s increasingly abandoning the classical mission of defending everyone’s speech in favor of going after those said to purvey “hate speech.” See my kvetch for examples of the latter.
“While I have my beefs about some tenets of CRT, I don’t think it’s the place of any government, federal or state, to declare what cannot be taught.”
The states’ Departments of Education are responsible for the schools curricula. It is well within their right to decide what is and is not taught in each class.
And that sir is why the American system of Education is such a failure. When Alabama and Texas decide what the schools curricula is, we are all in deep trouble.
When I paid attention to ed policy, in the main, textbook adoption states like New York, California, Texas, Missouri, and another state pretty much controlled the textbooks purchased by school districts all over the country. In these states, textbooks are usually adopted by state school bureaucrats. California higher ed and the state’s approved textbooks brought us whole language reading instruction and at least one or by now two generations of kids, many of whom never learned to read properly. So depending on education bureaucrats to save us from benighted politicians might not work as well as you hope.
I am not sure what you are trying to say. Is the textbook the key to a great education for the student? If that is the case then any old teacher will do and the standards in say Iowa are just like Alabama. I don’t think so.
Randall: In those years, about a decade ago, in most states including mine, state departments of education adopted standards kids must meet but the actual material used to teach to those standards was contained in textbooks selected by committees of teachers from each local school district. The textbooks actually steered the material taught. And, for the most part, the textbooks were those prepared for the five or six textbook adoption states, with perhaps a few changes. For the most part, school districts in my state bought California textbooks.
Teachers know my kids well. Principals know my kids by name and know the different challenges in classrooms. The county school board knows my community well and knows the differences between local schools. The state education department knows my city by reputation. The federal department of education does not know how anything about my county or even how to pronounce my state’s name.
Who should determine the education of my children?
From my experience, empowering good principals is the cornerstone of providing a good education.
I don’t think knowing your kids and educating them are the same thing. I for one went to elementary school in different states but I don’t recall a teach having problems pronouncing the state or knowing what county we were in. What that has to do with math and science….maybe nothing? The same standards should apply regardless of what state or county you are located. If one state requires 4 years of English in high school and another says 3 is just fine is that because the kids in the second state are just better in English?
Different kids have different needs and a national one size fits all approach works badly for almost of them. Education should be tailored to different communities and to different students which requires a significant amount of local control.
A school with a large number of ESL should teach math differently than one that does not. A college town should teach differently than an impoverished town.
Empowered principals can hire teachers appropriate for the community and ensure the education is tailored for their students.
“A school with a large number of ESL should teach math differently than one that does not. A college town should teach differently than an impoverished town.”
Regarding ESL, does the different way math should be taught involve the students’ primary language? The concepts remain the same regardless of the language. Just how is it that “A college town should teach differently than an impoverished town”? Does one’s economic status dictate one’s motivation and intellectual curiosity and motivation? Again, the math concepts are the same.
Certainly, at the university level the First Amendment guarantees academic freedom.
You appear to be advocating an absolutist approach regarding the authority of departments of education here (at least as regards primary and secondary schools). Does that mean you believe Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District was wrongly decided?
You make my point perfectly. If teaching Intelligent Design was mandated/prohibited by the federal DOE, it could change from Obama to Trump to Biden.
Fortunately, this was a Supreme Court decision.
No, your point would be that each state does what they please. And that is the problem. Look at how this country stacks up. Are you proud of that. I am not.
I had understood you were arguing for local control of school curricula. It was the local Dover school board that mandated the teaching of intelligent design. It was a federal court that ruled that mandate unconstitutional.
The result was that the Dover school board WAS voted out of office in the next election. The new school board chose not to appeal the decision, which is why Kitzmiller is a decision by a federal trial court not by the US Supreme Court (or even by an intermediate level federal appellate court).
I’m having a hard time seeing how any of this makes your point — perfectly or otherwise.
I was pretty ticked off after reading Chase Strangio’s comment yesterday (calling for censorship), so I sent a letter to the ACLU at 125 Broad St, 18th Floor, New York, NY 10004. My text can be summed up in two words: for shame.
What prevents any government, federal or state, from decreeing that creationism be taught or from prohibiting evolution from being taught is the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. The US constitution does not otherwise require that a subject be taught merely because it is based on an empirically supported theory ubiquitously accepted by scientists.
“Maybe every generation has to learn for itself that censorship isn’t a shortcut to justice” – I suspect that Goldberg is on the money with that remark. For some reason, people have a cognitive disability when it comes to imagining a scenario in which the boot is on the other foot.
The Foundation for Individual Rights did a podcast episode specifically addressing the ‘Free Speach is harmful to minorities’ meme.
https://www.thefire.org/clear-and-present-danger-podcast-episode-41-free-speech-and-racial-justice-friends-or-foes/
It is quite mystifying to see the shift in views on free speech that have occurred just during the last decade. As a man in my early 40s and having been raised in an ultra-religious household, which certainly was not immune from holding certain subjects taboo, whether was serious philosophical discussion regarding the objections to faith or objecting to watched R-rated movies for their lewd content, I grew up viewing free speech as a wholly liberal ideal. And I still do.
Yet, now it seems if you sort people into their self-identified groups, it is the left who is restricting speech more and more often, and people such as my parents (now in their 70s) going on about how they can’t lose their freedom of speech. Of course, I realize their old biases still hold and they are talking out of both sides of their mouth when it comes to the topic on free speech, but it is thoroughly disappointing to see the left losing sight of what free speech defenders such as Hitchens put forth not all that long ago. On a refreshing note, a younger YouTuber I follow who helped found the Justice Democrats had a pretty pure take on the topic recently when it came to blowback he receiving for inviting a particular guest on to his show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yzb94OxMUw
The new FL law is not ridiculous, it’s horrifying.