Judging Freedom - Is the ACLU Doing it's Job_

Episode Date: February 2, 2022

The former head of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Ira Glasser says the group no longer defends all free speech. Glasser claims it cherry-picks cases that fit a new “progressive�� agenda.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello there, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for a Judging Freedom pop-up. Today is Monday, January 31st, 2022. It's about 2 o'clock in the afternoon on the East Coast, the northeast of the United States, which is covered with a foot of snow, but it looks beautiful and we're dug out. Today, I want to talk to you about Ira Glasser. Who? Ira Glasser is probably the greatest defender of human freedom, particularly freedom of speech that conservative Republicans, of which many are listening now, have never heard of. Why? Because for 20 years of his life, Ira Glasser ran the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union. The American Civil Liberties Union, under Ira Glasser, had been a champion of civil liberties. I'll give you an example.

American Nazis famously, infamouslyously wanted to march on the public streets of Skokie, Illinois, a town that is predominantly Jewish. The ACLU defended their right to do so, took the case all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, and they prevailed because the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of association. And even though the town of Skokie resisted this, the Supreme Court said, you can't because you're governed by the First Amendment. Ira Glasser, who is Jewish, obviously has nothing whatsoever in common with the Nazis who marched in Skokie, nor did his team of ACLU lawyers and investigators. But they were such purists in defense of the freedom of speech. It didn't matter who you were or what your message was.

If the government was trying to silence you, you could count on the ACLU to defend you. No longer. Ira Glasser was on Bill Maher's show, my friend Bill Maher, just the other day, and he was on the show because he has been blasting the entity, which he didn't create, but he brought into its fullness. He was blasting the ACLU. Because today, the ACLU, when confronted with a free speech case, wants to know, what are you saying? What's your message? Well, that's as bad as the government. The First Amendment keeps the government out of the business of speech. And when the government wants to suppress speech that it hates or fears, the ACLU for 60 years had been in the business of defending the speech, whether it

agreed with it or not. What more repellent speech could there possibly be for the ACLU than Nazis marching in Skokie? And they courageously and at their own expense defended the Nazis' right to do so all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States. But for some reason, the current, the modern ACLU, and I say this with somewhat of a heavy heart because some of these folks are my friends. When I was a professor of law at Brooklyn Law School, there were several faculty members, very, very high up, high ranking in the ACLU. Knowing them as I did then and do now, I'm going to guess that they're against this new policy. But nevertheless, the policy is there. The old ACLU would defend you no matter what you said.

The new ACLU will defend you only if it finds merit in your speech. They're almost as bad as the government. Judge Napolitano, judging freedom.