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November 07, 2005
You Can't Say That!
I finished David Bernsteins You Cant Say That! The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties From Anti-Discrimination Laws on Friday. It was rather short at around 160 pages and I was familiar with many of the arguments and cases he cited. His main point is obvious from the title: many laws meant to remedy discrimination conflict with the first amendment and to often judges and policy makers choose to support anti-discrimination laws at the expense of the first amendment. This includes restrictions of assembly for instance with private clubs and religious groups forced to admit members or employees who will not follow the groups mission. It also includes examples of people who were sued for their choice of roommates and along with dating services who work by large categories like age or religion and an all female health club that was sued for discrimination. Some cases also include compelling non-racist speech from admitted racists and
There were two chapters of the book that were fairly new for me. The first was the section on government suppression of political speech because it is discriminatory. Specifically Bernstein dealt with the Department of Housing and Urban Development under the Clinton administration. There were many cases of HUD prosecuting people for speaking out against various housing projects proposed for their neighborhoods on the grounds that the speaking out was discriminatory. I had not heard of these cases and the idea of the federal government prosecuting people for complaining is fairly disturbing. This prosecution of course violates their right to free speech and their right to petition the government for grievances.
The other chapter I thought had fairly new information was the one about the failure of the American Civil Liberties Union to defend civil liberties. I had been bothered by the ACLU for a while, even though I have a fairly libertarian mind set. Bernstein lays out why people like me are bothered by the ACLU. Partly this is because the ACLU is really 51 separate organizations each with its own agenda (one national organization and one for each state). Second, many of these individual chapters of the ACLU when faced with the choice of defending civil liberties or fighting discrimination choose to fight discrimination. That may seem ironic given the very name American Civil Liberties Union, but the ACLU is made up of individuals with agendas that do not always favor civil liberties. Thankfully other organizations like FIRE have arisen to do the ACLUs job.
Posted by Pete at November 7, 2005 08:47 AM
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