The ACLU is now effectively a progressive left donor and political group. You can see the ACLU affiliate donations at the Open Secrets reporting (here is the link to Opensecrets.org’s ACLU page). These aren’t directly from the ACLU but “affiliates” like the ACLU Foundation and then individual state ACLU affiliate groups like “ACLU of Alabama.” They donated over $1m to lobbying in 2023 alone.

I don’t want to donate to a far-left political organization that doesn’t defend First Amendment principles and free speech. As a former donor who cares a lot about the classic ACLU free speech causes, I have no interest in funding a progressive left political organization. I stopped donating years ago.

PP here - that donation happened over 20 years ago. My bad for not looking at the date. But there are many more recent examples.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I put the ACLU and the SPLC in the same bucket.

They are both organizations that have lost their way and are no longer credible.

+1

I used to have regular donations scheduled for both, and have stopped because they have both lost their way. In fact, in the case of the ACLU, it’s become the exact opposite of what it used to be. It is now fighting for suppression of free speech, not in the defense of free speech.

I hope there is a huge backlash from supporters.

The ACLU used to care about small donors, and they defended people who could not possibly mount their own free speech defense.

But in recent years they have turned to relying on fewer and much wealthier donors. At the same time, they’ve abandoned their principles of defending free speech and engaged in speech suppression cases. It’s not a coincidence.

Unfortunately I do not think the loss of small donors will change the direction of the organization. They can rely upon and do the bidding of their extremely wealthy donors and survive.

I’m not trying to be dim but I don’t understand why any wealthy donor would want to continue to support the ACLU? Who stands to gain from it?

A wealthy donor has a lot more sway than many, smaller donors.

It’s a problem in a lot of organizations. If you’re getting large donations from wealthy donors, you’re going to mold your organization to their wishes, or else you lose your donation.

“ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEW YORK–The American Civil Liberties Union announced today that Peter B. Lewis, chairman of The Progressive Corporation and a long-time ACLU member and donor, has made a gift of $7 million to the Trust for the Bill of Rights, ACLU’s endowment fund.”

https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/individual-donor-sets-record-7-million-donation-largest-ever-endowment-gift-aclu


Sounds like these donors want the ACLU to be the progressive organization it has become.

Anonymous wrote:Is this the person she worked for: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronald-newman-13467714/
He is now at the state department.

It seems that Oh was not the only person to find him a difficult boss. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/aclu-executive-ronald-newman_n_620ec196e4b06212585a8620
although it is not clear if it was him that was the problem, or if he was a good person trying to do good things in a difficult culture.

too bad because he seems like he was an accomplished person who came from a nice middle class part of tennesee. https://www.memphisdailynews.com/news/2007/feb/23/student-receives-diversity-scholarship-by-departing-from-comfort-zone/print

He went to an excellent high school https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_High_School_(Memphis,_Tennessee)

Looks like the ACLU is a mess, and maybe Ronald was doing his best he could given the culture there, trying to get things done. The ACLU trying to solve this complicated problem by accusations of racism was a rather stupid move.

That HuffPost article provided the context for the "beatings will continue until morale improves" comment. It seems that the head of the ACLU wrote an all staff email that acknowledged the abusive boss but categorically rejected any change.

Is this the person she worked for: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronald-newman-13467714/
He is now at the state department.

It seems that Oh was not the only person to find him a difficult boss. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/aclu-executive-ronald-newman_n_620ec196e4b06212585a8620
although it is not clear if it was him that was the problem, or if he was a good person trying to do good things in a difficult culture.

too bad because he seems like he was an accomplished person who came from a nice middle class part of tennesee. https://www.memphisdailynews.com/news/2007/feb/23/student-receives-diversity-scholarship-by-departing-from-comfort-zone/print

He went to an excellent high school https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_High_School_(Memphis,_Tennessee)

Looks like the ACLU is a mess, and maybe Ronald was doing his best he could given the culture there, trying to get things done. The ACLU trying to solve this complicated problem by accusations of racism was a rather stupid move.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ironic

You wanna know the real irony? Who published the article in the original post?

Do you remember Sarah Jeong, who was hired by the New York Times as an editor?

Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Wikipedia says she is another Korean woman. While Oh was accused of racism against blacks, Joeng was accused of racism against white people.

The world seems to want Korean women to be compliant k-pop stars and not human beings.

Anonymous wrote:Ironic

You wanna know the real irony? Who published the article in the original post?

Do you remember Sarah Jeong, who was hired by the New York Times as an editor?

Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I put the ACLU and the SPLC in the same bucket.

They are both organizations that have lost their way and are no longer credible.

+100
Absolutely.

Correct. But they both needed to follow the money in order to stay afloat. Their traditional funding sources probably shifted far left, and thus so did their attention.

Yet another reason normal people are waking up to the destructiveness and divisiveness that is DEI. And organizations like the ACLU are squarely to blame.

Anonymous wrote:I put the ACLU and the SPLC in the same bucket.

They are both organizations that have lost their way and are no longer credible.

+100
Absolutely.

Anonymous wrote:Ironic

+1
Delicious, in fact.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My takeaway is that anyone who doesn’t recognize the very, very famous saying, “The beatings will continue until morale improves,” isn’t well read…and is quite dim if they can’t recognize the humor.

None of this is surprising, but it is sad.

The bizarre and inappropriate behavior at the ACLU speaks volumes…and underscores that the org has lost its way.

They need new leadership…and a heckuva lot of training.

I think she knew what it meant. It was said in the context of a supposed morale boosting meeting where the oganization was attempting to make up for a dismissed abusive boss. The fact that she claimed it was threatening violent language, akin to a physical threat, is absurd on its face. That's like claiming "bang the drum" is a violent phrase.

It was clearly retaliation in my opinion. But what makes it worse is that it was also likely defamation and the whole inversion of the power dynamic was very odd. Senior leadership claiming that someone two or more rungs down the ladder was threatening them because they said they felt afraid. WTF

Sadly it's a leadership problem that is now threatening the legacy of a storied organization. Shame on them, I'm definitely done donating.

Agree with all of this. The gay Black man felt threatened when a junior associate told him that she was afraid to report a bad boss - so he fired her? Crazy!

And several posters on this thread thought her language was coded and she deserved firing because of it? That's more craziness!

Anonymous wrote:My takeaway is that anyone who doesn’t recognize the very, very famous saying, “The beatings will continue until morale improves,” isn’t well read…and is quite dim if they can’t recognize the humor.

None of this is surprising, but it is sad.

The bizarre and inappropriate behavior at the ACLU speaks volumes…and underscores that the org has lost its way.

They need new leadership…and a heckuva lot of training.

I think she knew what it meant. It was said in the context of a supposed morale boosting meeting where the oganization was attempting to make up for a dismissed abusive boss. The fact that she claimed it was threatening violent language, akin to a physical threat, is absurd on its face. That's like claiming "bang the drum" is a violent phrase.

It was clearly retaliation in my opinion. But what makes it worse is that it was also likely defamation and the whole inversion of the power dynamic was very odd. Senior leadership claiming that someone two or more rungs down the ladder was threatening them because they said they felt afraid. WTF

Sadly it's a leadership problem that is now threatening the legacy of a storied organization. Shame on them, I'm definitely done donating.

My takeaway is that anyone who doesn’t recognize the very, very famous saying, “The beatings will continue until morale improves,” isn’t well read…and is quite dim if they can’t recognize the humor.

None of this is surprising, but it is sad.

The bizarre and inappropriate behavior at the ACLU speaks volumes…and underscores that the org has lost its way.

They need new leadership…and a heckuva lot of training.

Remember when the ACLU was all for separation of state and religion. But then, a case presented itself where the State of Michigan was required to purchase foot baths for Muslims on state school campuses and they came down squarely on the side of the state having to provide them?

Pepperidge Farms remembers.