The ACLU and NAACP are wrong to blast Elon Musk for making Twitter a place of free speech, writes Michael Meyers, president of the New York Civil Rights Coalition and a former vice president of the ACLU National Board of Directors.
Tesla head Elon Musk talks to reporters at the construction site of the new Tesla Gigafactory near Berlin on Sept. 3, 2020.
Opening Twitter up to strident conservative voices and others who differ from liberal and progressive bellyaching is what is feared by the nation’s two largest “rights” organizations, the NAACP, which professes to speak mostly for half a million African Americans, and the even better-endowed American Civil Liberties Union, which used to oppose censorship of dissenting ideas.Acceding to censorship is the upshot of the NAACP and ACLU’s counsel to Elon Musk, who is buying Twitter.
Because of the broad-mindedness of my boss, Roy Wilkins, the revered and longtime executive director of the NAACP, I weathered the storm and overcame the efforts to oust me. I kept my job at the NAACP and stayed encamped with the ACLU, too, later joining the ACLU National Board of Directors. But, Wilkins and I stood alone at the NAACP in defending my right to be a voice on behalf of both civil liberties and civil rights.
My viewpoint, the same as it was 40 years ago, is now hated by both NAACP and ACLU leaders. The NAACP’s CEO said he wants Musk to ban former President Donald Trump and all “hate speech”from Twitter. And the ACLU’s executive director, Anthony Romero, speaking on behalf of the ACLU, is quoted as saying: “There’s a lot of danger having so much power in the hands of individuals,” as he fretted over haters being given equal access to vent on Twitter.
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