ACLU still defending free speech

Earlier this month the ACLU argued before the US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in defense of a high school student expelled for temporarily posting to Snapchat a picture of his friends dressed in World War II–era clothes at a thrift store with the caption: “Me and the boys bout to exterminate the Jews.” He took it down shortly thereafter—and apologized for what was a stupid and deeply offensive joke—but the school expelled him nonetheless. We argued that while the anti-Semitic message was deeply offensive, it was also protected by the First Amendment when uttered outside of the school, and could not be the basis for punishment. In doing so, we were only doing what we have always done—defending speech rights for all, even those with whom we disagree.

Since Charlottesville and the guidelines, we have defended the First Amendment rights of countless individuals and groups whose views we do not share. They include: Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, the NRA, anti-Semitic protesters outside a synagogue, racist and homophobic college students, and the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity. Most recently, we called on Georgetown Law not to fire conservative scholar Ilya Shapiro for his “lesser Black woman” tweet about Biden’s promise to name a Black woman to the Supreme Court; criticized the FBI’s tactics in investigating the conservative group Project Veritas; and hailed Elon Musk’s decision to re-platform Donald Trump. We didn’t agree with the speech of any of these individuals or groups—but that didn’t stop us from defending their First Amendment rights.

https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/aclu-free-speech/

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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