Because of the social media circus
surrounding the Johnny Depp Amber
Heard defamation trial, it was easy
to overlook one of the principal,
yet least likely actors
in the courtroom drama.
The American Civil Liberties Union,
which ghost wrote and placed the
2018 Washington Post op
ed by Heard about surviving domestic
abuse, that was the basis of the
trial. It's only the latest example
of how the group has strayed from
its original mission over the past
two decades, awash with money
after Donald Trump was elected.
The ACLU questioned the due process
rights of college students accused
of sexual assault and harassment
under Title IX rules.
It ran partisan ads against
Supreme Court nominee Brett
Kavanaugh and for Georgia
gubernatorial candidate Stacey
Abrams, a move that current
executive director Anthony Romero
told The New York Times was a
mistake. The ACLU also
called for the federal government to
forgive $15,000 per borrower
in student loans by transforming
into an organization that champion
progressive causes, the ACLU
undermined the neutrality required
to fulfill its original mission
of defending the right to free
speech, no matter how vile.
Enter another free speech
organization, the Foundation for
Individual Rights in Education
or FIRE.
For Freedom of Speech.
The law is about as good
as it's ever been when it comes to
the culture. Our argument is that
it's gotten a lot worse and that we
don't have to we don't have to
accept it.
Greg Lukianoff is FIRES President.
It was founded in 1999
to combat speech codes on college
campuses. And just as the ACLU
recedes from its mission, FIRE is
expanding its own, to go well beyond
the university, and it's changing
its name to the Foundation for
Individual Rights and Expression.
The group has raised $29 million
towards a three year litigation,
opinion, research and public
education campaign aimed at boosting
and solidifying support for free
speech values.
Pretty much from day one.
People have been asking us to take
our advocacy off campus and extend
nationally. But 2020
was such a scarily
bad year for freedom of speech
on campus and off, we decided
to accelerate that process.
Fire is also expanding its efforts
beyond legal advocacy
and into promoting what Lukianoff
calls the culture of free speech.
As Politico reports, it will spend
$10 million in national cable
and billboard advertising featuring
activists on both ends of the
political spectrum extolling the
virtues of free speech.
What is a free speech culture?
Things like, everyone's entitled to
their opinion, which is something
you heard all the time when we were
kids. It's a free country, you know.
To each their own, you know,
statements of deep pluralism, you
know, like the idea that walk a mile
in a man's shoes.
All of these things are there great
principles for
taking advantage of pluralism, but
they've largely sort of fallen out
of usage due to,
I think, a growing
skepticism about freedom of
speech, particularly on campus.
That's been about 40 years in
the making.
Lukianoff has nothing negative to
say about the ACLU, and he stresses
that FIRE has worked with the
organization since day one
and continues to do so.
But unlike the ACLU,
FIRE not only isn't at risk
of turning into a progressive
advocacy organization.
It's staff is truly bipartisan.
I think that the fact that we this
is the first nonprofit I ever worked
for, where you had people who
actually voted for, for
different major party candidates, a
fact of which I am extremely proud.
People like to argue on the
Twitters, you know, is to say,
you know, to fixate on kind of like
Ah you receive money from
conservative and libertarian
foundations and my answer
is yes. And you should be very proud
of them because we routinely defend
people who hate their guts
and we never get any foundation
saying that that they're taking back
our funding.
Lukyanov thinks that despite the
rise of cancel culture, most
Americans still understand the value
of free speech, but they need to be
encouraged to stand up for it.
It's really a pretty small minority
and largely at the top.
It's particularly pronounced on
Twitter that
is sort of anti-free speech
philosophically and
thinks that people should shut
up and conform.
I think that once you start giving
people permission to
believe in these sort of small
democratic norms, again, a lot
of people are going to reveal their
actual preferences.
There's reason to be optimistic
about it.