Corruption and crooked politics have worsened in the American Civil Liberties Union in the years since 9/11, former ACLU national board member Wendy Kaminer said.
‘Money was pouring into the ACLU,’ Kaminer said. ‘Affiliates who didn’t fall in line got cut off.’
Boston University School of Law alumna Kaminer and The Boston Phoenix Executive Editor Peter Kadzis spoke at C. Walsh Theater to a crowd of about 25 people as part of the 102nd season of the Ford Hall Forum, in partnership with Suffolk University, in an open discussion on first amendment rights and the ACLU.
As a former American Civil Liberties Union national board member, author and social critic, Kaminer said she set out to promote free speech after her past experience with the ACLU where the executive board members has ‘lost their integrity,’ she said.
Kaminer said current ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero, who was appointed days before 9/11, was given more ‘power’ through the newly acquired money, which frustrated some of the other members of the ACLU.
‘People didn’t like being browbeaten by Romero . . . an outsider from the ACLU,’ she said. Romero began a policy of ‘depressing dissent, individualism, honesty and privacy,’ Kaminer said.
It was a ‘war between dissonance on the board and leadership on the board,’ she said. ‘It started with Romero, but it will end with the board.’
In 2006, the ACLU adopted the John Adams Project where they defended Guantanamo Bay prisoners, Kaminer said. But she said the ACLU did not fully represent the detainees.
The ACLU ‘essentially ducked the plan of Guantanamo,’ she said. They did not ‘directly represent people in Guantanamo,’ but ‘represented only high value detainees.’
By this point the ACLU was ‘trying to save money,’ Kaminer said. She said the John Adams Project received funds from board-approved money transfers.
It was ‘funded by unauthorized transfers from reserves,’ she said.
Kaminer said the ACLU has gone through significant change over the past few years.
‘Change can be good or bad,’ she said. It just has to be ‘honest.’
Ford Hall Forum Executive Director Alex Minier said the goal of the discussion was to emphasize the importance of free speech and first amendment rights.
‘We do not endorse speakers,’ Minier said. ‘We honor and promote free speech.’
Minier said the organization depends on contributions from individuals and supporters. Marilyn and Bob Wiener, who have reserved seats on the front row, are two of these contributing members.
Even after living in Sarasota, Fla. for four years, the couple said they still attend the forum week after week because of the high profile people it attracts.
It is ‘the number of celebrity speakers,’ Marilyn said.
Over the past 100 years, the Forum has hosted Margaret Sanger, W.E.B. DuBois, and Malcolm X during times where the speakers would have been ‘blacklisted’ elsewhere, Minier said.
Suffolk junior Will Sutton said he attended the Forum because of a recommendation from his professor. He also said he wanted to be ‘more informed.’
‘It was a nice look inside the management of the ACLU,’ Sutton said.
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