Has the ACLU Abandoned its Apolitical Roots?
Citing it’s involvement in the ongoing defamation lawsuit between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, a law professor and criminal-defense attorney says the ACLU is a caricature of itself.
Landwebs
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) today seems largely unable or unwilling to uphold its core values, charges Lara Bazelon in an op-ed for The Atlantic. Citing it’s involvement in the ongoing defamation lawsuit between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, in which it appears the organization allegedly accepted the promise of a $3.5 million donation from Heard in exchange for a women’s rights ambassadorship, public support, and a ghostwriter for her 2018 Washington Post op-ed, Bazelon says that the ACLU has become a caricature of itself.
Bazelon, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law and criminal defense lawyer, says that the organization’s previously apolitical willingness to stand up for all speech, regardless of the speaker’s identity, and for the accused, no matter what the accusation, has been replaced with a decidedly progressive leaning that now requires any of its lawyers that may decide to represent a client with opposing views to publicly denounce those views. Bazelon argues that this requirement is inconsistent with a lawyers’ duty to zealously represent them and that the decision to force the issue smacks of intolerance and choosing sides, precisely what a civil liberties organization designed to defend the Bill of Rights is meant to oppose.
