The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) a week ago applauded President Joe Biden's intend to cancel education loan debt, so it describes as \”a racial justice issue.\” That puzzling position encapsulates how far the venerable organization has strayed in the mission reflected in its name.
Under Biden's new policy, borrowers earning up to $125,000 annually will be eligible for $10,000 indebted relief or twice that quantity when they qualified for Pell Grants as students. The 43 million approximately beneficiaries include many affluent individuals who could readily manage to pay off their loans, while the cost, which is projected to become a minimum of $300 billion, is going to be borne by taxpayers, including Americans of relatively modest means.
Some of the people picking up the tab never attended college, while others struggled to do this without borrowing money or have already repaid their loans. But in the ACLU's view, that seemingly unfair redistribution of resources is what racial justice demands.
\”This debt burden falls heaviest on Black Americans-especially Black women,\” the ACLU says. \”Student debt cancellation will help secure financial stability and mobility for people of color-particularly Black Americans-who are disproportionately burdened with student debt while providing immediate financial relief and peace of mind for millions of Americans.\”
Whatever you may think of that argument, it's absolutely nothing to use protecting civil liberties. The 14th Amendment guarantees equal protection underneath the law, but it does not promise to eradicate racial disparities in educational or economic success.
As the ACLU sees it, however, any such disparities result from \”centuries of structural inequities and racism.\” The us government therefore includes a duty to make sure equal outcomes, which requires wide-ranging interventions, including welfare programs, education spending, job training, affirmative action, public housing, tax credits, and state-subsidized health care.
To provide you with a feeling of how far afield that create takes the ACLU in the defense of constitutional rights, the organization argues that \”broadband access for all\” is really a racial justice issue because \”people without broadband access are disproportionately Black, Latinx, Indigenous, rural, or low-income.\” The ACLU describes the individual Protection and Affordable Care Act, so it urged the Supreme Court to uphold, as \”a great civil rights law\” because \”it is not possible to completely have fun playing the economic, social, and civic lifetime of our nation without stable coverage of health.\”
If \”stable health coverage\” is really a prerequisite for fully taking part in \”the economic, social, and civic lifetime of our nation,\” same with stable housing, stable employment, along with a stable way to obtain food, clothing, and transportation. Such reasoning expands the ACLU's pursuit to include virtually any domestic policy issue.
The ACLU's embrace of the broad progressive agenda alienates potential allies who do not necessarily accept that agenda but support vigorous advocacy for civil liberties. Additionally, it weakens the ACLU's resolve for the goals that when defined the organization, such as the defense of First Amendment rights.
According to an internal staff memo that was leaked in 2022, ACLU attorneys who're considering defending a potential client's to express opinions they find repugnant-the sort of function that the organization has proudly served through the majority of its history-should consider how that may conflict with \”other values\” based on the ACLU. \”Speech that denigrates [marginalized] groups can inflict serious harms,\” the memo warned, \”and often will impede progress toward equality.\”
A case the final Court will hear during its next term further illustrates how the ACLU has lost its way. The business argues that a Colorado woman that has religious objections to gay marriage should nevertheless be instructed to apply her artistic talents in designing websites for same-sex weddings, notwithstanding the First Amendment's restrictions on compelled speech.
A consistent defense of civil liberties is the ACLU's raison d'etre. But because the business becomes increasingly indistinguishable from myriad progressive advocacy groups, it is sacrificing the foundations that made its work worthy of wide support.
