Is the ACLU getting too Woke?

[Kolohe]

You could (and perhaps people have?) make an equal protection and/or poll tax argument if say, the polling place that people had to go was well outside the center of population for that particular polity.

E.g. county seat of a few thousand people, where over half the county lives, but the only polling place in the county was at the county fairgrounds (or racetrack) at the far end of the county.

[Eric the .5b]

I'd say the gas issue is probably countered by the fact people are generally expected to go to their specific (and usually nearby) precinct locations to vote. Suppression usually happens by having fewer voting booths/machines in those precincts when they have large minority populations.

I have no idea whether the ACLU suit is worth the time and effort.

[lunchstealer]

Per my email update, the ACLU is suing Georgia claiming that the state's failure to provide prepaid postage on mail-in absentee ballot envelopes, thus requiring voters to buy a stamp, constitutes a poll tax, which is unconstitutional and which, according to the ACLU, also disproportionately affects the poor and minorities.

My take is that the ACLU is missing the the real issue here, which is that Georgia's attempted cost saving is actually a pretextual tactic to suppress the youth vote. Based on the anecdotal evidence of my own family, Millennials and younger have never noticed, let alone used a postage stamp.

Hell I'm solidly Xer and last week I used a stamp for the first time this year

[Warren]

However much I might (only half-jokingly) argue for restricting suffrage to those who can pass a test on history, statistics, economics, and basic medical facts, whoever has the right to vote should have as few barriers as possible.

I think those two sentiments are at odds with each other.
I'd like to return to having to actively registering to vote. If you want to vote, you should have to go online or mail in your registration at least two months before the election. Having even a small barrier would keep the politically unengaged out of the polling booth. The flip side is that the hyper-engaged (far-left/right, single issue, etc.) have that much more influence.

[Andrew]

The answer to the question in the thread title appears to be yes: ACLU sues Betsy DeVos over new campus sexual assault regulations

[JD]

Hell I'm solidly Xer and last week I used a stamp for the first time this year

You really never sent a letter or a postcard or anything before? I don't have to use stamps much, but it happens sometimes.

Recently we've had to send out a bunch of envelopes and packages that are too large to be standard letter size but still small enough to go first-class, and the stamp situation has been kind of a pain. The USPS has made sending letters and postcards easier by selling stamps that don't have denominations, they're just "letter" or "postcard" value no matter what the actual monetary cost is at the time. But that same move has made sending anything else more difficult, because if you need a specific monetary value it's hard to find.

[Warren]

I like the USPS but I'd like to see it privatized. And then they'd get rid of everything I like about it.

[lunchstealer]

Hell I'm solidly Xer and last week I used a stamp for the first time this year

You really never sent a letter or a postcard or anything before? I don't have to use stamps much, but it happens sometimes.

Recently we've had to send out a bunch of envelopes and packages that are too large to be standard letter size but still small enough to go first-class, and the stamp situation has been kind of a pain. The USPS has made sending letters and postcards easier by selling stamps that don't have denominations, they're just "letter" or "postcard" value no matter what the actual monetary cost is at the time. But that same move has made sending anything else more difficult, because if you need a specific monetary value it's hard to find.

That was for the first time this year, not the first time ever. I used to mail several bill payments per month and the odd letter or post card but not much. But by grad school I had full time access to email, so email and phone were 99% of how I kept in touch with people. If you didn't use email/phone I lost touch with you.

[Jasper]

Hell I'm solidly Xer and last week I used a stamp for the first time this year

You really never sent a letter or a postcard or anything before? I don't have to use stamps much, but it happens sometimes.

Recently we've had to send out a bunch of envelopes and packages that are too large to be standard letter size but still small enough to go first-class, and the stamp situation has been kind of a pain. The USPS has made sending letters and postcards easier by selling stamps that don't have denominations, they're just "letter" or "postcard" value no matter what the actual monetary cost is at the time. But that same move has made sending anything else more difficult, because if you need a specific monetary value it's hard to find.

That was for the first time this year, not the first time ever. I used to mail several bill payments per month and the odd letter or post card but not much. But by grad school I had full time access to email, so email and phone were 99% of how I kept in touch with people. If you didn't use email/phone I lost touch with you.

I use one stamp a month becasue the guy that cuts my grass in FL doesn't know how to use Apple Pay or Venmo.

[Eric the .5b]

The answer to the question in the thread title appears to be yes: ACLU sues Betsy DeVos over new campus sexual assault regulations

The ACLU gives a rather detailed response to criticism they've been getting on that suit.

Specifically, we challenge a provision that allows schools to ignore any sexual harassment or assault that takes place off campus, such as in a student’s apartment, even if the perpetrator and victim are in the same classes and the incident has lasting effects on the campus environment. We challenge a provision that says colleges and universities can ignore widely known incidents of sexual harassment or assault if a formal complaint is not filed with a handful of school officials. It says that schools will not be held liable for responding unreasonably to claims of sexual harassment, so long as they are not “deliberately indifferent.” And it redefines “sexual harassment” to provide that it includes only those actions that are “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive,” meaning that the school is free to ignore “severe” sexual harassment if it’s not “pervasive,” and can ignore “pervasive” harassment if it’s not also “severe.”

None of this has anything to do with the fair process rights of the respondent.

Emphasis in original.

[nicole]

[Warren]

[nicole]

That is the correct response.

[Hugh Akston]

Well they got it half right anyway.

[thoreau]

Well they got it half right anyway.

And they even got the more important half right!

[thoreau]

They're getting very, very close to linking JK Rowling's speech to violence. Very close. Not there yet, but close.

Yes, of course, the ACLU has the same right to critique speech as anyone else. No, they did not call for censorship of Rowling. As long as the question is about rights and whether the line into wrongs has been crossed, the answers are "Yes, they have the right" and "No, they didn't cross the line into censorship."

If this is about brands and priorities, let me just note that historically the ACLU has defended all sorts of speech that most or all ACLU donors disliked, and they didn't bother to critique it because the "You really shouldn't be saying that" stance already had ample defenders. I'm not saying that every second spent tweeting against JKR is a second that could have been spent ending qualified immunity (their social media intern is hardly in a position to do other things). Joining the "You shouldn't be saying that" ranks is a weird look for an organization that has happily filed lawsuits on behalf of anti-abortion protesters AND on behalf of abortion rights. I'm less interested in what else their social media intern could be doing and more concerned about what it portends for the organization's next wave of staffers and donors if they start cultivating the "We want you to know what sort of speech we dislike" brand instead of the "We stand up for your right to say any freaky shit" brand.


EDIT TO REMOVE A JOKE THAT ONLY MADE SENSE WHEN I HAD SOME OTHER STUFF IN A DRAFT POST

[Eric the .5b]

They're getting very, very close to linking JK Rowling's speech to violence. Very close. Not there yet, but close.

Speech isn't utterly detached from violence, and lack of any link to violence should never be a standard for free speech, because we couldn't even have political conversations.

Casting shade towards writers like Rowling and Morgan is among the least-concerning things they've done in recent memory. Considering that the ACLU also had a prolonged thread of tweets quoting the "I Have a Dream" speech a few weeks back, I imagine if we had more best-selling fiction writers being openly racist and hyping up the threat of scary black men attacking good white people, they might say something about that, too.

[D.A. Ridgely]

[thoreau]

I originally posted the NYT story about an alleged racist incident at Smith College in another thread. But then I noticed this detail:

Smith College officials emphasized “reconciliation and healing” after the incident. In the months to come they announced a raft of anti-bias training for all staff, a revamped and more sensitive campus police force and the creation of dormitories — as demanded by Ms. Kanoute and her A.C.L.U. lawyer — set aside for Black students and other students of color.

The ACLU now demands racial segregation of housing?

[Jennifer]

I'm disappointed in the ACLU here, but not surprised by Smith. This is the same college whose engineering department professors publish papers to complain that engineering is inherently sexist because it requires "rigor," remember.

Smith is located in Northampton, whose downtown is full of the sort of precious little boutique shops and restaurants that all claim to hate capitalism while selling things like $12 coffee drinks.

[Rachel]

I originally posted the NYT story about an alleged racist incident at Smith College in another thread. But then I noticed this detail:

Smith College officials emphasized “reconciliation and healing” after the incident. In the months to come they announced a raft of anti-bias training for all staff, a revamped and more sensitive campus police force and the creation of dormitories — as demanded by Ms. Kanoute and her A.C.L.U. lawyer — set aside for Black students and other students of color.

The ACLU now demands racial segregation of housing?

I noticed that detail in the Smith story, and it sounds off to me for several reasons. As in, Smith College, as part of the 5-College Consortium, has had the option for woke racial housing since at least 2001. They just probably just use the word culture or community or some bullshit like that.

Edit: I went to Hampshire College my freshman year, right up the road from Smith. Hampshire featured Women of Color, Men of Color, Asian-something, Queer & Questioning, Culturally Diverse-something, and some other ones I'm forgetting. I know Smith and Amherst had very similar things, because the diversity houses used to get together for woke-gatherings. All were welcome, but not really.

[thoreau]

I originally posted the NYT story about an alleged racist incident at Smith College in another thread. But then I noticed this detail:

Smith College officials emphasized “reconciliation and healing” after the incident. In the months to come they announced a raft of anti-bias training for all staff, a revamped and more sensitive campus police force and the creation of dormitories — as demanded by Ms. Kanoute and her A.C.L.U. lawyer — set aside for Black students and other students of color.

The ACLU now demands racial segregation of housing?

I noticed that detail in the Smith story, and it sounds off to me for several reasons. As in, Smith College, as part of the 5-College Consortium, has had the option for woke racial housing since at least 2001. They just probably just use the word culture or community or some bullshit like that.

Good point. I wonder if the actual demand was for even more funding for segregated housing or whatever.

[thoreau]

I'm disappointed in the ACLU here, but not surprised by Smith. This is the same college whose engineering department professors publish papers to complain that engineering is inherently sexist because it requires "rigor," remember.

Actual footage of that article being written:

[thoreau]

Anyway, now I know how to keep these damn woke kids off my lawn: Tell them it isn't designated for their skin tone. The ACLU will back me on this.

[thoreau]

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news ... s-kirchick