So much for freedom of speech!
A.C.L.U. May Block Criticism by Its Board
By STEPHANIE STROM
The American Civil Liberties Union is weighing new standards that would discourage its board members from publicly criticizing the organization's policies and internal administration.
"Where an individual director disagrees with a board position on matters of civil liberties policy, the director should refrain from publicly highlighting the fact of such disagreement," the committee that compiled the standards wrote in its proposals.
"Directors should remember that there is always a material prospect that public airing of the disagreement will affect the A.C.L.U. adversely in terms of public support and fund-raising," the proposals state.
Given the organization's longtime commitment to defending free speech, some former board members were shocked by the proposals.
Nat Hentoff, a writer and former A.C.L.U. board member, was incredulous. "You sure that didn't come out of Dick Cheney's office?" he asked.
"For the national board to consider promulgating a gag order on its members — I can't think of anything more contrary to the reason the A.C.L.U. exists," Mr. Hentoff added.
The proposals say that "a director may publicly disagree with an A.C.L.U. policy position, but may not criticize the A.C.L.U. board or staff." But Wendy Kaminer, a board member and a public critic of some decisions made by the organization's leadership, said that was a distinction without a difference.
"If you disagree with a policy position," she said, "you are implicitly criticizing the judgment of whoever adopted the position, board or staff."
Anthony D. Romero, the A.C.L.U.'s executive director, said that he had not yet read the proposals and that it would be premature to discuss them before the board reviews them at its June meeting.
Mr. Romero said it was not unusual for the A.C.L.U. to grapple with conflicting issues involving civil liberties. "Take hate speech," he said. "While believing in free speech, we do not believe in or condone speech that attacks minorities."
Lawrence A. Hamermesh, chairman of the committee, which was formed to define rights and responsibilities of board members, also said it was too early to discuss the proposals, as did Alison Steiner, a committee member who filed a dissent against some recommendations.
In a background report, the committee wrote that "its proposed guidelines are more in the nature of a statement of best practices" that could be used to help new board members "understand and conform to the board's shared understanding of the responsibilities of its members."
But some former board members and A.C.L.U. supporters said the proposals were an effort to stifle dissent.
"It sets up a framework for punitive action," said Muriel Morisey, a law professor at Temple University who served on the board for four years until 2004.
Susan Herman, a Brooklyn Law School professor who serves on the board, said board members and others were jumping to conclusions.
"No one is arguing that board members have no right to disagree or express their own point of view," Ms. Herman said. "Many of us simply think that in exercising that right, board members should also consider their fiduciary duty to the A.C.L.U. and its process ideals."
When the committee was formed last year, its mission was to set standards on when board members could be suspended or ousted.
The board had just rejected a proposal to remove Ms. Kaminer and Michael Meyers, another board member, because the two had publicly criticized Mr. Romero and the board for decisions that they contended violated A.C.L.U. principles and policies, including signing a grant agreement requiring the group to check its employees against government terrorist watch lists — a position it later reversed — and the use of sophisticated data-mining techniques to recruit members.
Mr. Meyers lost his bid for re-election to the board last year, but Ms. Kaminer has continued to speak out. Last month, she was quoted in The New York Sun as criticizing the group's endorsement of legislation to regulate advertising done by counseling centers run by anti-abortion groups. The bill would prohibit such centers from running advertisements suggesting that they provide abortion services when they actually try to persuade women to continue their pregnancies.
Ms. Kaminer and another board member, John C. Brittain, charged that the proposal threatened free speech. "I find it quite appalling that the A.C.L.U. is actively supporting this," Ms. Kaminer told The Sun.
The uproar their comments produced at the April board meeting illustrates how contentious the issue of directors' publicly airing dissent with policies and procedures has become at the organization.
Some directors lamented that Ms. Kaminer and Mr. Brittain had shared their disagreement with the paper, and Mr. Romero angrily denounced Ms. Kaminer. "I got frustrated and lost my temper," he said yesterday. "In retrospect, that was a mistake."
At the meeting, Mr. Romero did not denounce Mr. Brittain. But board members said he had demanded that Ms. Steiner step outside the meeting room, where he chastised her for the look on her face when he was criticizing Ms. Kaminer.
"Anthony went on to say that because I was Wendy's 'friend' and did not appear ready to join him in 'getting rid of her,' (by, among other things, lobbying her affiliate to remove her as its representative) I was no better than she was, and then stormed off angrily," Ms. Steiner wrote in an e-mail message to the board.
Later in the meeting, Mr. Romero asked another board member, David F. Kennison, to step outside after Mr. Kennison apologized for failing to object to Mr. Romero's attack on Ms. Kaminer.
Mr. Kennison reported in an e-mail message that Mr. Romero "told me that he would 'never' apologize to the target of his outburst and that his evaluation of her performance as a member of this board was justified by information he had been accumulating in a 'thick file on her.' "
When Mr. Kennison asked whether Mr. Romero intended to start such a file on him, "he asked me what made me think that he didn't already have a file on me," Mr. Kennison wrote.
Mr. Romero said Mr. Kennison had provoked him. "I do not have a file on Wendy," he said.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Kennison said his biggest concern was the relationship between the board and the A.C.L.U. staff.
"I think of the board as the brain and the staff as the fang and the claws," he said, "and the brain should govern the fangs and claws rather than the other way around."
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