Campaign Controversy Over the ACLU

The problem with modern electoral politics is that it reduces every issue to 60-second sound bites. For an organization like the ACLU, which has taken hundreds of positions, including stands on some of the most controversial public issues of our day, it is almost impossible to communicate the substance of our work to the public in this format. The terms of combat in political debate also affords the ACLU’s critics a unique opportunity to isolate particular policies and to quote them out of the context. No one could possibly agree with every ACLU policy or position. No one in the ACLU does. Michael Dukakis doesn’t. I don’t.

The reason I work for the ACLU is that for almost 70 years the ACLU has been committed to making the Bill of Rights a reality for all persons regardless of their political views, religion, race, gender or national origin. No other group in American society can make that claim.

This unwavering commitment to protect the rights of all persons often leads us to defend the powerless and the despised. Our unpopular stands, like our defense of Japanese-Americans interned during World War II, have often been embraced years later by the majority. But not until long after many have lost precious rights which can never be fully restored.

Clearly the ACLU has an image problem. The public often confuses the ACLU with the views and actions of our clients. We haven’t done a good job of explaining in terms that people really understand that our client is the Bill of Rights.

In my years as an ACLU lawyer, I have represented a bewildering range of clients. They include Nazis, the Jewish Defense League, Palestinian activists, Republicans, Democrats, born-again Christians, whites, blacks, Latinos, people with disabilities, poor people, rich people, and middle-class people. In each case the common factor was that our clients were asserting their constitutional rights. I would challenge anyone to find a “left-wing” agenda in the cases on our legal docket.

Notwithstanding the frustrations of our current system of political debate, if truth be told we at the ACLU would rejoice in defending the right of the vice president to distort our record in the way he has even if the truth never catches up with the lie.

PAUL HOFFMAN

Legal Director

ACLU Foundation of Southern Calif.