There are no plans to disband the conference, or its association with the ACLU, but now the organizers are confronted with the question of how to limit debates only to those with whom we already agree. Pathetic. Honoluluweekly.com

The local ACLU board rejects a Honolulu debate between its national president and right-wing Justice Clarence Thomas. Why?

Robert M. Rees

Those who ponder the fate of liberalism and whether it has become muddled and politically correct, as its critics charge, might consider the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawai‘i and its board. Comprised of some of Hawai‘i’s leading proponents of free expression, the ACLU Board of Directors has nevertheless determined that Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court, because he holds unpopular and right-wing views, ought not to be invited to Hawai‘i for a debate with the ACLU’s own national president, Nadine Strossen.

The occasion for the debate was to have been the Davis Levin First Amendment Conference, an event established and funded by this writer and administered by the ACLU to honor attorneys Mark Davis and Stan Levin. The sole purpose of the conference, in the spirit of the First Amendment, is to offer pitched debates on constitutional issues. People like the Christian Coalition’s Ralph Reed and Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court have participated, thereby exposing their views to the harsh light of challenge from a leading liberal.

When Justice Scalia was here on Jan. 27 of this year for his debate, he, Strossen and others discussed the possibility that Justice Thomas might be a candidate for the next debate. After all, Thomas holds views precisely antithetical to those of the ACLU, and Thomas versus Strossen on affirmative action would be as significant as Scalia versus Strossen on constitutional interpretation.

The idea was enthusiastically approved by a First Amendment Conference subcommittee, made up of three ACLU board members and three volunteers, including this writer. However, before the invitation could be extended, the subcommittee received strong objections from three other members of the ACLU board.

Attorney Daphne Barbee-Wooten, writing in an April 9 letter to the subcommittee, stated that “Faye Kennedy, Eric Ferrer and I are the only African Americans in the Hawai‘i ACLU chapter. We strongly object to ACLU bringing and sponsoring Clarence Thomas to Hawai‘i.” The primary argument against extending the invitation, as Barbee-Wooten wrote, is that, “Bringing Clarence Thomas sends a message that the Hawai‘i ACLU promotes and honors black Uncle Toms who turn their back on civil rights. …”

On April 23, the subcommittee, after considering the objections, again voted unanimously to extend the invitation, but only if the ACLU of Hawai‘i’s board of directors agreed. Not satisfied with an upcoming vote by the entire local board, Barbee-Wooten asked that the national ACLU conduct what she called an “affirmative-action investigation” into the “racial insensitivity” of the six-member subcommittee. Attachments to her written request of April 30 argued, “The fact that Clarence Thomas has benefited from the very civil-rights advances he seeks to dismantle, makes his invitation particularly racially sensitive.”

With all this as background, the ACLU of Hawai‘i board met on May 21 to consider whether to extend the invitation. The directors were overwhelmingly opposed, not only in voting against the invitation, but in their defamation of Thomas.

Eric Ferrer, one of the three original objectors, maintained that Justice Thomas is “an anti-Christ, a Hitler, and it’s like having a serial murderer debate the value of life.” Still, warned Ferrer, “There’s a chance, even a likelihood, that a lot of people might like his views.” Former ACLU President Roger Fonseca, who, as a member of the subcommittee had twice voted to extend the invitation to Thomas, suddenly changed his mind. As Fonseca said to the board on May 21, “I didn’t want to invite him then, and I still don’t. If not Hitler, he is a Goebbels.”

Another member of the subcommittee joined the recantation to the board: “After the committee met,” explained Pam Chambers, “I went out to my friends. To a person, I got a bad reaction. … This [switch] shows we are sensitive.”

To this, Barbee-Wooten added, “I have the inside scoop on [Thomas]. Anita Hill wasn’t the only one. When he came [to Hawai‘i for a visit], he went to strip clubs. … He’s married to a white person.”

Another board member, civil-rights activist Faye Kennedy, objected that the ACLU ought not to “provide these anti-civil liberties poster boys with such pleasant, stress-free, sunny Island junkets that they send back jolly thank you notes as Scalia did.”

By now warmed up, others joined in the sort of vilification that Thomas himself once described as a lynching. One board member called him “an intellectual fraud,” and another proffered that Thomas’ “intellectual capacity is not there.”

Fonseca added, “Thomas is an asshole.”

The current president of the ACLU of Hawai‘i, Pam Lichty, opined that, “[Thomas] is a lesser version of Scalia, and not of a high level of quality.” She concluded, “In my role as president, I am very cognizant of how we’re perceived.”

To bolster the case against Thomas, his opponents presented a letter solicited from the members of the Hawai‘i Civil Rights Commission. “We are appalled at the thought that the ACLU of Hawai‘i may invite Justice Clarence Thomas to speak,” the commission’s letter stated. When the director of the commission, Harry Yee, was asked his primary rationale for objecting, he replied that it was because he had heard no press had been invited to hear Scalia. When told this wasn’t accurate, he asked, “What value is there to having a rubber stamp for [Justice] Rehnquist and [Justice] Scalia? … It’s a waste of time.”

Arguing for the invitation was a lonely crowd comprised of ACLU Executive Director Vanessa Chong and board members Tom Gill, Andrea Low, Lunsford Phillips and Patrick Taomae. Low had to leave before the vote, but submitted written testimony arguing that “the principled position to take on this vote is not to be bullied by race baiting.”

The final vote was 12-to-3 against inviting Thomas. Immediately thereafter, evidently based on the view that its earlier request for an “affirmative-action investigation” had served its tactical purpose, the complaint was withdrawn.

Reached in New York City, and reacting to this writer’s description of events, Strossen said, “Some of the attacks on Thomas — that he is dumb, that he doesn’t write his own opinions — are racist, the same things I used to hear about [former Supreme Court Justice] Thurgood Marshall. I suspect I know Thomas better than anyone on the [Hawai‘i] board. My students absolutely adore him, and they know it’s important to have a dialogue with those with whom you disagree.”

At last report, via e-mail at the end of May, Strossen indicated she was considering the recommendation of a colleague in New York that, in protest, she decline any invitation to debate anyone other than Thomas at the Davis Levin First Amendment Conference. “I am disappointed in our [Hawai‘i] organization,” Strossen wrote.

There are no plans to disband the conference, or its association with the ACLU, but now the organizers are confronted with the question of how to limit debates only to those with whom we already agree.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), June 22, 2001

Answers

Whatever happened to "I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it"? (Voltaire)

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), June 22, 2001.

Lars,

The modern version reads:

"I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it, but in the meantime I think I’ll rip you a new one"

-- So (cr@t.es), June 22, 2001.

Lars: Whatever happened to "I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it"?

It was a stupid decision not to invite him. But the decision had nothing to do with curtailing Justice Thomas's rights.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), June 22, 2001.

LN--

I agree. If they were to demurr in supporting CT's right to speak at, say the Maui Kiwanis, then they would be abdicating their raison d'etre. As it is, they are a private group and have a perfect right to exclude anyone.

I wonder if that means they support the Boy Scouts in their exclusion of gay scoutmasters?

Still, as you say, it was a "stupid decision". It makes them look afraid to hear dissenting opinion. It makes them look rigid and petty.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), June 22, 2001.

Lars, I did a search of the ACLU web site and did not find out whether they filed a brief in the recent BSA case. The general tenor of the press releases I dredged up was that, if the BSA excluded gay scouts and scoutmasters, then no government institution could legally support or approve that policy.

A NYCLU press release read (in part):

"The Constitution demands protection, but not endorsement, of the views of exclusionary organizations like the Boy Scouts of America. The Boy Scouts of America should not be denied equal access to generally open public facilities, but it should not receive special privileges or sponsorship from our public schools."

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), June 23, 2001.

It's certainly within their rights to invite whomever they please. However, this man rose up from a very poor background and became a Supreme Court Justice. If they chose not to invite him, who's missing out?

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), June 23, 2001.

That sounds good to me. When I was a scout, we met in the Jr High. No reason that Scouts can't meet in churches or private homes. I don't think they should receive public support and I doubt if they want it.

I had not thought of checking www.aclu.org. I just did so, I wanted to see if they were involved in the Horowitz "free speech" issue. I guess they are not legally involved but they have made a public statement in opposition to his censure at Brown U.

Brown

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), June 23, 2001.

Sort of a bare minimum statement--

Carl Takei, president of Brown's American Civil Liberties Union chapter, said the organization deplores the theft. "It's an action that in our minds can never be justified," Takei said.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), June 23, 2001.