If you give the government the power to stop the right-wing marching in the street, Glasser says, they will acquire the power to decide who they think is dangerous enough to stop.. Campaign finance reform based on limits is what we've had for nearly 30 years, and it has not worked very well. This was the joke of the eighties sitcomFamily Ties, which lampooned American liberalisms assumption that it had a hegemonic grip on bothyouth and cool. The organization held a unique place in American society, Kennedy told him, dedicated to neither right nor left, but to defending the root ideas that held us together. ira glasser political party. Around that same time, TV news began to push another angle. The ACLU receives no funding from the federal government. Ira Glasser: And this turned out to be my political life in a way that totally fulfilled, I mean totally in an unimaginably terrific way, all of those dreams and ambitions and desires that couldn't be articulated when I was 15 and 16 and 18 and 19, and that no adult could give a vocational shape to because and partly these organizations used to . In 1896, the Democratic Party . Next thing you know, Forsyth County, Georgia, might be banningHosea Williams from marching on Martin Luther King Day. The result? He believes what he says will convince you. In both these cases the government argued that barring such ads was necessary to achieve fair elections even though the rights of individuals to criticize their government would be curbed. Glasser later explained, The ACLU has become, not totally but theyve become more of a political, partisan, what they call progressive organization.. Glasser and Stern met in person for the first time Wednesday. Organizations have the right to change. He was executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1978 to 2001, helping to turn it. Moreover, they inevitably lead to curbs on speech that everyone agrees should be protected by the First Amendment. google hiring committee rejection rate. [2] He earned a graduate degree in mathematics from Ohio State University. An objection to this sort of public financing is that it will be too expensive. This approach would also eliminate the need for a government agency like the FEC to regulate citizen speech. Its imperative for us to know the history that led Ira and his colleagues to take their positions and stake out their values, he adds. And then theres Nazis and flags which are concrete, Maher detailed. These three cases created the constitutional framework that has constrained all campaign finance legislation during the past two decades. That does not seem to be an amount that is prohibitive for a democracy to spend in order to assure fair access to the voters. 3. It sought to enjoin them from publishing such ads, and it wrote a letter toThe TimesthreateningThe Timeswith criminal prosecution if it published such an ad again. Glasser was obsessed with the Dodgers as a kid, becoming a fan at the age of 9, in 1947, when Jackie Robinson joined the team. The events in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 have deeply affected my generations view of free speech, Perrino says in a statement about his new film, Mighty Ira: A Civil Liberties Story.. Thats a good guess, Glasser replied, to audience laughter. He is the host and producer of the radio and television series This American Life and has participated in other NPR programs, including Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Talk of the Nation.His work in radio and television has won him awards, such as the Edward R. Murrow Award for . For the next 23 years, he defended the principle of free speech across the political spectrum. What monster could agitate, in the courts, to bring about a repeat of such a scene? And while incumbents in the House of Representatives outspent challengers by 1.5 to 1 in 1976, they outspent challengers by 4 to 1 in 1992. In 1974, in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, Congress enacted a new and even more elaborate statutory scheme. the christ hospital human resources. In 1977, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) went to court to defend the rights of American Nazis to march through the streets of Skokie, Illinois, home to many Holocaust survivors. Burt Neuborne & Erwin Chemerinsky, "No, Ron DeSantis' battle with Disney isn't just political grandstanding," San Francisco Chronicle (May 2) (excerpt): We think the Supreme Court was wrong in Citizens United when it granted full free speech rights to corporations like Disney. Ira Glasser, 'Social justice requires free speech' FAN 329.4 Ira Glasser: "speech restrictions are like poison gas: They seem like a good weapon when you have the gas and a detested enemy is in your sights. It is this demand that is driving the need for the supply of money. "When people say they want to ban hate speech, what they mean is they want to ban speech that they hate . Those insurance bond requirements had been a classic mechanism by which white Southern towns used to ban civil rights demonstrations, Glasser said. FECA did not just limit the expenditures of candidates and political parties, it applied to individual citizens as well, even if their advocacy was independent and unconnected to particular candidates or political parties. Skokie was home to thousands of Jews, including many survivors of the Holocaust, to whom the mere idea of Nazis walking past their door evoked not only the terrors of the camps, but the shame and regret of inaction as Hitlers party ascended in Germany. As such, he was aware of the ACLUs vast expansion under Glasser and its role in broadening the First Amendments protection for free expression for all Americans. The ACLU was central to what liberalism meant once, and not just because it had a history of pursuing social justice cases likeBrown v. Board of Education(taking on school segregation) andMapp v. Ohio(helping create the exclusionary rule to protect against abusive prosecutions). Liberals who denounce thedecision fail to appreciate what a great ruling it was for the First Amendment, and what a huge victory it was for freedom of speech and against government censorship. Mighty Iratraces the reasoning of people like Glasser and ACLU attorneys like David Goldberger, as they connect their decision to defend Nazi leader Frank Collin in Skokie to their years of advocacy in the sixties for black civil rights workers in the South. How the ACLU got woke, became political, and changed its mission. For example, the major stated purpose of campaign finance reform was to avoid corruption by limiting big contributions to candidates. "Skokie passed three new laws," Glasser explained in the podcast. The so-called "Party of God" is an umbrella group for radical Shiites ideologically aligned with and funded by Iran. As Frank noted, Democrats held a majority in the House of Representatives from the early 1930s all the way to the mid-1990s, with two short GOP interludes. This is why, in the eighties of our youth, Tip ONeills role as House Speaker felt like a lifetime appointment. Constructing such a system of public financing will be a complicated task. Although dicta in some of the opinions gave hope to both sides, the holdings themselves in Shrink left the law basically where it was before. Fearful of government reprisal based on the government's threatening letter from the previous case, the Timesrefused to publish the ad. The episode ended up looking like a powerful affirmation of constitutional principle, helping explain why Robert Kennedy as Glasser notes, hardly a man of the left a guy who had worked for Joe McCarthy and wiretapped people had urged Glasser to join the ACLU in the first place. As his . Ira is one of America's unsung champions of civil rights and liberties. That he supports the First Amendment.. 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As friend David Sirota points out in his terrific and funny bookBack To Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now, two of the three top-grossing movies in 1975 were the anti-puritanical romp,The Rocky Horror Picture Show,andOne Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, an anti-authoritarian drama written by beat novelist Ken Kesey. took on someone from the left (Michael Kinsley? Everybodys in favor of free speech as long as its theirs, Glasser said, agreeing with Maher when he said that the principle doesnt work if theres an exception., Maher told Glasser that he was one of the guests on his Real Time show whom he would most like to hug because his work had affected my life, saying that free speech was the outspoken hosts business.. Responding against the resolution are Ira Glasser, ACLU executive director; Nadine Strossen, ACLU president; Leon Botstein, president of Bard College; and Barry Lynn, executive director for Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Once again, little attention was paid to the unintended ways in which such reforms would provide the government with unprecedented powers to curb citizen speech. TheWest Wingset does not have such an experience, though, so calls for companies like Facebook and PayPal and Google to impose civilized restraints make more sense to them. Glasser wanted viewers to know why he believes the ACLUs step back from defending free speech is dangerous for the preservation of basic constitutional freedoms in the United States. Bill Clinton supposedly changed all of this. The documentary includes 99-year-old Berkeley resident Ben Stern, a Holocaust survivor who, in the late 1970s, tirelessly contested the ACLUs position on the Skokie case. Over the years he and Buckley have . Nor are we fans of delegating government powers to profit-driven corporations. t206 walter johnson portrait; family jealous of my success For example, even under Buckley, limits on contributions are permitted. For these reasons, the ACLU opposes limits on contributions and expenditures. Suppose, however, that she has a very wealthy individual supporter who doesn't own a newspaper, but who is willing to give her the money to run a full-page ad on behalf of her candidacy. Credit Solution Experts Incorporated offers quality business credit building services, which includes an easy step-by-step system designed for helping clients build their business credit effortlessly. In the early 1960s, Glasser taught mathematics at Queens College (CUNY) and Sarah Lawrence College. Accessibility | Theres concepts, like free speech. However, it violated a federal campaign finance law, which effectively barred expenditures for such ads on the grounds that they might influence the upcoming presidential election by criticizing President Nixon and applauding one of his possible opponents, Senator McGovern. As ACLU Director Ira Glasser put it, "it's as if you were tested and fired from your job for a drink you had at a party last Saturday night." Source: ACLU Spring 1998 National ACLU Members' Bulletin (Issue 3) - Spotlight: "Why Marijuana Law Reform Should Matter To You," by Ira Glasser. Stern continues to be a principled activist against racism and antisemitism. You dont an entrance exam on civil liberties to work in an organization called the American Civil Liberties Union?, The live audience snickered. Movie review of "Mighty Ira," Directed and Produced by Nico Perrino, Chris Maltby and Aaron Reese . By Peter Baker , Susan Glasser , Erica Thompson , Leila Philip. Thank you for inviting me to testify at today's hearing. From 1978 until he retired in 2001, Ira Glasser served as the public face of liberal tolerance, in the process giving civil libertarianism a distinctively Jewish appearance, as the film makes clear. The Supreme Court ultimately and properly struck down that aspect of the law in Buckley v. Valeo. (Its full name is the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.). It was all Glasser's idea. The spirit of Glasser and Stern's friendship, and their message that difference of opinion does not preclude understanding and. Actually, most of the speech we defended didnt reflect our values. This is a requirement now for the national ACLU employers, that before they take a case defending someones free speech they have to make sure that the speech doesnt offend or threaten other civil liberties values., In other words, before theyre going to defend your free speech, they want to see what you say, a befuddled-looking Glasser continued. Thats the point., That is the point, Maher agreed. - was directly proportional to his capacity to spend the money his supporters contributed. On the basis of this law, the U.S. government sued the three in federal court. got blasted fordefending free speech inThe Guardian. Between the New Deal and the civil rights movements of the sixties, the Democrats identification with poor and working-class people especially gave them something close to a permanent majority in congress. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties.Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. What is the ACLU doing saying that?. The former head of the American Civil Liberties Union has ripped the group for no longer defending all free speech claiming it now cherry-picks cases that fit a new "progressive" agenda. The leading social problem in America is the loss of moral coordinates, Buckley says. Ira Glasser, the noted champion of racial justice who served for 23 years as Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, visits the spot in Brooklyn where the revered cathedral of his youth once stood. Privacy Policy | Many of these groups targeted by the Federal Election Commission were hardly the sort of powerful, wealthy contributors that the public has in mind when it thinks of campaign finance reform. Brian Stelter and Susan Glasser discuss the resignations of Fox News contributors Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg. The ACLU is a nationwide, non-profit organization consisting of nearly 300,000 members dedicated to protecting the principles of freedom and liberty set forth in the Bill of Rights. You dont like it, Glasser interjected, Or, if youre anti-tobacco, you see a tobacco ad. Produced by Perrino and two of his FIRE colleagues, Chris Maltby and Aaron Reese, the film was released in October on the occasion of the ACLU centennial, and is now streaming on multiple platforms. Few today remember how completely the political tenor of pop culture changed from the seventies to the eighties. Counterpoint, $16.95 trade paper (256p) ISBN 978-1-64009-410-9Essayist and poet Griffin (The Book of the Courtesans) offers an elegant guide to the art of writing. It feels like an odd way to open a film about one of the more controversial figures of 20th century America. In the age of Trump, huge portions of the Democratic electorate are willing to take their chances on that front. The ad was a classic example of political speech protected by the First Amendment. Requiring that marchers post a $350,000 liability insurance bond, when no private insurer would grant it, was equally a violation. 02:01:25. Susan Griffin. Do you want every little town to decide which speech is permitted? Glasser asked. But if an equally wealthy individual wanted to support Perot's opponent, the law made it unlawful to do so. One candidate gets an entire newspaper's support every day, while the other is denied even one page once during the campaign. Thats the ACLU? If she owned a newspaper, she could do so. The central goal in talking and working with people who you dont agree with, notes Glasser, is to persuade them that there is a common interest between us.. Mighty Irashows Glasser debating Rudy Giuliani about Broken Windows policing, which encouraged the police to do what they already do, violate the rights of many innocent people in order to catch a few who are guilty. Its true that Giuliani was responsible for ushering in the stop-and-frisk model of policing, but that same system became the template for local Democratic politicians across the country. But, the former head of the ACLU has been criticizing the political activities of the organization and cites the Georgia Ad. Thus, providing a floor of support through public financing for all qualified candidates is a better and more likely constitutional route to reform than the failed attempt to establish ceilings by imposing legal limits on contributions and expenditures. I have been involved with this issue for nearly three decades and personally authorized the ACLU's participation in Buckley v. Valeoand also in two important campaign finance cases that immediately preceded Buckley - National Committee on Impeachment v. United Statesand ACLU v. Jennings. Standing here, he realizes sadly, has no resonance for me.. "[3] At the end of Glasser's directorship the ACLU maintained staffed offices in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico; when he became director in 1978, only about half of the states had staffed offices. Suppose Mayor Giuliani's opponent Hillary Clinton wants to respond to the New York Post'selectioneering. The eighties premise was that the post-Warren justice system let too many guilty criminals go once again, including child killers necessitating the creation of a secret star chamber of elite judges whod send an assassin to precision-target liberalisms glitches. The ACLU has become more of a political partisan, what they call progressive organization, he said. That's historically and politically true without exception. In fact, he explained how defending this group of "maybe 15 or 20 crazies" helped the Civil Rights movement. Ira Jeffrey Glass (/ a r /; born March 3, 1959) is an American public radio personality. Meanwhile, three of the top seven TV shows in 1975 were liberal dramas likeAll in the Family,which cast Archie Bunker as the recalcitrant bigot-with-a-heart who had to be gently introduced to positive social changes by comic irritants Sally Struthers and Rob Meathead Reiner. It seemed also to embrace art, music, and the power of free inquiry, opposed war, believed in self-determination and universal human rights, sided with unions over bosses, had copies ofCatch-22andThe Autobiography of Malcolm Xsomewhere in the house, and laughed at both Jerry Falwell and the This is your brain on drugs commercial. Maher laughed and said, Hes not talking about that., Glasser then said, more seriously, If youre hiring a lawyer to defend the First Amendment, you want to have a reasonable assumption that he likes the First Amendment. While he did not initiate the. Skokie seemed to establish the willingness to take an unpopular stand in defense of a principle as another prerequisite for all liberal thinkers of my generation, especially young ones. But the Court upheld the law's limits on the size of direct contributions to candidates. Glasser is an ardent proponent of freedom of speech, even today despite the proliferation of hate speech on social media. Ultimately, the ACLU argued that Skokie was a Tower-of-Babel moment for American law. But public disclosure must be timely in order to be useful. They swarmed over Mike Dukakis, a Kinsley-esque monotone nerd who looked like a dink in a tank and wouldnt defend his wife when Bernard Shaw invited America to fantasize about her rape and murder on national TV. Mighty Iraspends a lot of time on stories like Glassers unlikely friendship with William F. Buckley, or his tearful meeting years later with Skokie resident Ben Stern, who lost his family in concentration camps and vehemently opposed Glasser in the seventies. By the end of Clintons run, not much was left to connect the party to either its New Deal or Great Society legacies, and the apparently self-evident logic of his two wins versus the crushing losses of McGovern, Mondale, and Dukakis (as well as the embarrassing one-term malaise of Jimmy Carter) made old-school liberalism infamous among the pundit class. I mean, the most famous case, you defended the Nazis being able to march in Skokie, Illinois in 1977, Maher went on. He presented an image of a Democrat and sixties child who was also a winner. The ACLU believes that limitations on contributions or expenditures made by individuals or organizations for the purpose of advocating causes or candidates necessarily impinges directly on freedom of speech and association. Liberalism was pro-labor: Clinton Democrats embraced NAFTA and accelerated the Reagan-era export of the manufacturing economy, which allowed them to attract Wall Street donors and end their dependence on union money.
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