The ACLU Essay

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The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 with a vision to protect freedom of speech for the American people. The union was formed in the wake of the World War I, when the fear of communism takeover outweighed the importance of civil liberties. The ACLU later advanced as the partisan of the American middle class, largely consisting of labor. During the mid-1930’s, the ACLU worked on protecting the rights of labor against businesses, as it viewed the justice system and the state as the enemy, working alongside corporations in advancing business interests and undermining the interest of the labor. The first general counsel of the ACLU prominently defined the stance of his organization on American justice system by saying, “The decisions …show more content…

A quote by Roger Baldwin, “We are neither anti-labor nor pro-labor. With us it is just a question of going wherever the Bill of Rights leads us.” sums up the ACLU’s mission from being the forerunner of protecting labor’s economic justice to protecting their rights of speech and association. In the book, “The Taming of Free Speech: America’s Civil Liberties Compromise”, author Laura Weinrib suggests that the ACLU’s shift in focus from protecting economic aspects to protecting civil liberties of the working class was to safeguard them from inequalities in the marketplace of ideas, as they believed that the inequality in the marketplace of ideas accredited the faction with greater means the ability to capsize the debate in their favor. The ACLU, in its early days modeled itself after the radical group, Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Modeling the group with radical views were necessary in their eyes as they hoped to expose the American justice system as a tool of corporate interest, and earn the support of general population, as the ACLU had no confidence in the

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