The ACLU and Free Speech Absolutism

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has, since 1920, ardently defended the freedom of speech in America and abroad, in the courts and in Congress, in law and in society. The ACLU has always stood by a robust philosophy: “I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.

Famously, in 1978, the ACLU represented a neo-Nazi group in Chicago arguing that, despite municipal objections and the hateful nature of their organization, the group had the first amendment right to stage a march for their cause.

In 2019, the ACLU defended Conroy et al., a pair of students who, over a weekend, went to a shooting range, legally purchased firearms, and posted photos of their weapons on social media. Another student claimed the photos made him afraid to attend school and the school disciplined Conroy despite the fact that there were no threats of violence contained within his post. The ACLU successfully argued that the school disregarded Conroy’s constitutional rights and won the case on appeal.

In 2021, the ACLU defended Brandi Levy, a high school sophomore who, following cheerleading auditions, posted to social media an image captioned “f*** cheer,” after being denied varsityship. The cheer coach suspended Brandi from the team for a full year and, on appeal to the Third Circuit and affirmation to the Supreme Court, successfully argued that even Brandi’s lewd and vulgur remarks were protected by the first amendment.

This is necessary.

The principles of free speech absolutism do not attempt to argue that all speech is equally valuable, nor that all speech is positively valuable whatsoever. Indeed, a free speech absolutist can acknowledge that the incessant tantrums of Don Lemon and Brian Stelter do not even come close to the intellectualism of the Edgar Allen Poes in this world. Rather, free speech absolutism acknowledges that to establish anyone as an arbiter of freedom, necessarily, invites the political adjudication of our most fundamental rights.

It is easy to declare the black and white cases—the plainly hateful and copiously debunked—as “bad” speech. But what about the vast majority of greys? Who, among us, is so celestial in their very nature that they can be trusted to, with complete accuracy, declare speech false or true, hateful or not, bad or good? Who among us is so above political influence that the granting of such extraordinary power—something we expressly avoided in our Constitution by abolishing the “Office of the Censor” which existed in Great Britain—that we can trust them to be fair in all instances?

A free speech absolutist does not need to prove that all speech is valuable; they only need to prove a fundamental truth: among the superfluous, and hateful, and disgusting speech, the centrality of the freedom of speech—the intellectual, unique, political insights of the individual—are entirely implicated.

But how the mighty have fallen.

Once defending literal Nazis, gun wielders, and child cursors, the ACLU has now updated their policies to reject cases that may cause offense or negatively reflect on their values which, until recently, used to be the freedom of speech.

Once bowing to the writings of Evelyn Beatrice Hall, Voltaire, and Plato, the ACLU now employs lawyers such as Chase Strangio who insist that it is “100% a hill (they) will die on” to halt the circulation of Abigail Shrier’s “Irreversible Damage”.

The opinions and thoughts of the majority do not need protection. The ideas of the minority do. In practice, the opinions that the vast majority of people share are rarely attacked, but the revolutionary opinions—like those of Early Abolitionists and Suffragettes, like those who claimed the Earth was a ball or that we orbit the Sun, like those who proudly argued that homosexuals had a right to marriage—those ideas were once the ideas of minorities.

To truly progress as a society, the absolute freedom of speech is not only beneficial, but unequivocally necessary, and those who attempt to deny that inescapable reality are either foolish, bitter, or both.