The ACLU Board is considering adopting a policy proposal that would deprive board members of long-standing rights to obtain tapes of board meetings and could require that all meeting tapes be erased after approval of minutes. This proposal has received less attention than a recently withdrawn proposal to prohibit board members from criticizing the ACLU, but it poses a much greater threat to honest and open governance.
Why is the ACLU leadership anxious to deny board members their traditional access to meeting tapes? Why does the leadership want to erase our history?
Erasing tapes means erasing evidence. Erasing tapes or simply refusing to disseminate them to the board means that statements and decisions made at meetings can be misrepresented fairly easily. Without tapes, disputes over what was said or done can not be definitively resolved.
So first the ACLU leadership tries to silence the speech of their own board members that are critical of their decisions. Now they want to destroy any evidence that might reveal their hypocrisies further. This brought to mind the huge internal conflict from the ACLU shredding documents over the repeated objections of its records manager and in conflict with its longstanding policies on the preservation and disposal of records. Proposals and decisions like these definitely add fuel to the argument that the ACLU’s actions are not consistent with its public positions. Imagine how the ACLU would scream if the government suggested any of these things.
One thing is for sure. Actions like these bring up one question in many people’s minds. What is the ACLU trying to hide? It could be the internal conflict going on. It could be their hypocrisy that keeps getting revealed. It could be something much more. If the proposal passes we may never know. But the fact that these suggestions were proposed to begin with tells us more than enough about the ACLU’s hypocrisy and true attitude on free speech, honesty, and transparency.
As David F. Kennison, ACLU of SC Board of Directors, writes at Save The ACLU:
If these provisions are adopted, they will go a long way toward ending what is left of transparent governance at the ACLU.
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