Testing the Honesty of STACLU, Part 2

Gribbit has responded to my questions. In his response, he admits that he was wrong about the order of the two examples, but misses the larger falsehood in his post. Here's his initial claim, again:

We have seen this already. The ACLU fought to gain equality for after school projects so that a gay tolerance group could meet on school grounds after the school day. The fight went all the way to the United States Supreme Court and they won. Shortly there after, the ACLU sent a letter to all Washington public high schools reminding them of this victory and demanded that they comply. However, when a bible study group in another state attempted to gain the same recognition, the ACLU then asked the Supreme Court to reverse itself. They cannot have it both ways.

He then admits a partial error:

I will admit that I did make an error in my initial statement of this situation yesterday. I stated that the ACLU asked the Supreme Court to reverse a decision that they had won in a previous case. That isn't correct and I apologize.

The truth of the matter is that they opposed the application of the Equal Access Act in the Good News v Milford Central case as well as the initial challenge of the Act's Constitutionality in Westside case in 1985. THEN they used it to strong arm Washington Schools into accepting the gay/lesbian tolerance group.

Now, this isn't actually as bad as it looks. It's not really dishonest, though it is lacking in nuance and clearly misunderstands both the Equal Access Act and the court rulings cited. For example, he seems to believe that the EAA only applies to religious student groups:

the Equal Access Act was passed by Congress to end growing discrimination against student religious groups that began to occur in public schools.

But in fact, the Equal Access Act does not specify religious groups. The wording prevents schools from discriminating against any student group on the basis of what is discussed at those meetings:

(20 U.S.C. §§ 4071-74) DENIAL OF EQUAL ACCESS PROHIBITED Sec. 4071. (a) It shall be unlawful for any public secondary school which receives Federal financial assistance and which has a limited open forum to deny equal access or a fair opportunity to, or discriminate against, any students who wish to conduct a meeting within that limited open forum on the basis of the religious, political, philosophical, or other content of the speech at such meetings.

So in fact, the law does prevent discrimination against gay student groups as well as religious student groups and the ACLU was right to use it to defend the right of such groups to meet on school grounds, despite Gribbit's inflammatory language that they "strong armed" schools into doing so. This same law is used, and rightly so, to defend both types of clubs, but I doubt Gribbit would accuse the ADF of "strong arming" schools into allowing bible clubs (nor would I - the law is the law and Bible clubs should be allowed on an equal basis with any other student club).

Gribbit also mistakenly believes that the Equal Access Act applies to outside groups using school facilities; that is false. If you look at the text above from the EAA, you will see that it applies to "students...who wish to conduct a meeting." Thus, the Equal Access Act was not at issue in Good News Club v Milford. You can look at the ruling and you will see that the EAA is only mentioned one time, in a footnote. The ruling is not based on the EAA, but on the Supreme Court doctrine prohibiting viewpoint discrimination. So when he claims that the ACLU opposed the application of the EAA in Good News Club, he is wrong; the EAA did not apply in that case and was not at issue.

Good News Club was based not upon the EAA but upon the Supreme Court's doctrine prohibiting viewpoint discrimination in a limited public forum. This was the same basis upon which the earlier Lamb's Chapel case was based. But the ACLU filed a brief on behalf of Lamb's Chapel arguing for their access to public school facilities, while they filed a brief against allowing the Good News Club from having access to those facilities. Why the seemingly contradictory positions? The answer lies in the specific facts of each case and in the ACLU's amicus brief in Good News Club:

This case calls for the Court to delineate the margins of its holding in Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District, 508 U.S. 384 (1993), in which the Court held that the Free Speech Clause required, and the Establishment Clause did not prohibit, the provision of access to a public high school auditorium by a religious group. Several of the undersigned amici submitted a brief in Lamb's Chapel in support of the Court's holding because various factors in the case combined to ensure that a reasonable observer would not perceive the religious activity at issue to be endorsed or sponsored by the school. The overwhelming lack of these factors in this case counsels the opposite result. Lamb's Chapel involved use of a public school during the evening hours; this case involves access shortly before the end of the school day and immediately thereafter. The event in Lamb's Chapel was open to all members of the community, while the audience in this instance is limited to the school's elementary students. That case involved weekly use for five weeks; this one involves weekly use throughout the school year. That case involved similar uses by scores of community groups while, here, there are less than a handful of other outside groups, and not a single one of them holds meetings at the time requested by the Good News Club. In Lamb's Chapel, no school employee was involved in the showing of the film; in this case, it can be reasonably assumed that the age of the children and the timing of the meetings would necessitate the school's involvement and facilitation. Finally, that case involved the showing of a film series, while this one involves adults teaching a class using a format that is indistinguishable from typical classroom instruction.

These differences, in combination, create a seamless web between classroom instruction and religious indoctrination, such that a reasonable elementary school student would be unable to appreciate that the former instruction is schoolsponsored while the atter is not. Accordingly, the requested access is proscribed by the Establishment Clause and was therefore properly denied.

Now, if Gribbit wants to argue that the ACLU's position distinguishing between the two situations is hair splitting and that they were wrong in Good News Club, I'll actually agree with him. I don't find the arguments in the brief convincing or compelling enough to overcome the presumption against viewpoint discrimination, and I think the Court rightly rejected those arguments and ruled correctly in the case. But this statement from Gribbit:

The truth of the matter is that they opposed the application of the Equal Access Act in the Good News v Milford Central case as well as the initial challenge of the Act's Constitutionality in Westside case in 1985. THEN they used it to strong arm Washington Schools into accepting the gay/lesbian tolerance group.

Is false. The Equal Access Act applies only to secondary schools and only to student groups, so it was irrelevant in Good News Club. And while it's true that they initially opposed the Equal Access Act application in Mergens, the facts in Mergens were rather unusual and resulted in a convoluted plurality opinion (4 justices concurring fully, two more concurring in part but dissenting in part, two other justices concurring in part but dissenting in a different part, etc). I haven't seen the ACLU's brief in the Mergens case, so I can't say for sure whether they opposed the EAA itself or the particular application of it. But the fact is that they have consistently supported the application of that act in many cases over the last 20 years, both for gay student clubs and for religious clubs. And since the law does apply to both such clubs, it's inflammatory and false to claim that it's "strong arming" to force schools to comply in one case, but "standing up for their rights" in forcing schools to comply in the other. Both gay clubs and Bible clubs are perfectly legal in public secondary schools, and any school that refuses to recognize either of them should be "strong armed", whether by the ACLU or the ADF. And if he's going to accuse the ACLU of applying the Equal Access Act only for one and not the other, why is he not criticizing the ADF for not supporting the right of gay student groups to meet in public schools?

Overall, Gribbit did better than I expected here. I don't think he can fairly be accused of being dishonest, only of being sloppy in his research (which is ironic since he addressed the post to "our non-reading, 'I can't do my own research' trolling types." Someone capable of doing their own research and reading should have been able to figure out that the Equal Access Act had nothing to do with the Good News Club case because it applies only to secondary schools and only to student-led groups.

Update: Aww, gee, I missed this little addendum to his original post that I questioned:

Welcome Science Blog visitors... I believe you are all mindless lemmings if you've followed that mental midget's link here, but none-the-less you've found your way here so follow this link to "The Rest Of The Story".

With a link to the post I critiqued above. Now that much of what he said in "the rest of the story" turned out to be false (though I doubt intentionally so), I wonder if he'll now post "the rest of the rest of the story". Here I've gone out of my way to be nice to him, give him the benefit of the doubt and even conclude that he was merely mistaken rather than dishonest (and that's hardly a matter of great shame - I once claimed that the Lamb's Chapel decision was based on the Equal Access Act myself, until Volokh straightened me out about it). And he's calling me a "mental midget" and my readers "mindless lemmings". Such hostility in response to civil and good-natured correction. But it does make one wonder, since it turns out that he's the one who has gotten so many of his facts mixed up, why he insists on claiming that the one who corrected him is a "mental midget".

Update #2: I left the following comment after the post linked to above, but it appears that he has banned me from commenting (or at least forced moderation, since my comment did not appear after being sent). That's his right, of course, it's his blog. But since I did jump through his hoops and I've been unfailingly polite in this exchange (while he's engaged in several insults), one has to wonder how he justifies it. Anyway, here's the comment I left:

Leaving aside your sneering insults, calling me a "mental midget" and my readers "mindless lemmings", I just thought you'd like to know that you still have many of the facts wrong in this post. The Good News Club case had nothing to do with the Equal Access Act, which applies only to secondary schools and only to student-run organizations (Good News Club involved an elementary school and an outside community group). I've posted a reply with more detail in it. Can we expect a clarification of this clarification?

One really is left wondering why you would respond with such hostility to a perfectly civil response correcting a mistake. To someone who values accuracy, such a correction ought to be welcomed so that one can avoid making the same mistake again. There's no shame in that. I once believed and claimed that the Lamb's Chapel case was based upon the Equal Access Act myself, but Eugene Volokh corrected me. I didn't respond by calling him a mental midget, I responded by thanking him and by deciding that, in the future, it's probably a good idea to actually read court rulings before presuming to know what they are based on. Seems a good policy for anyone, doesn't it? So as I said, there's no shame in just being wrong, and as I wrote on my own blog, I don't think you were being dishonest here. I think you just spoke before bothering to check the facts (twice, in this case). We've all done that at one time or another, of course. The test of one's intellectual honesty, I think, is in how one handles having one's mistakes pointed out.

And indeed, this is the real test. If he responds with more vitriol or by banning me from viewing his blog (which seems rather likely at this point) he will have failed the test. An intellectually honest person would respond to someone pointing out one's errors in a civil manner by saying thanks and not making the same mistake again. Someone who doesn't care about truth or accuracy responds with insults.

Update #3: Indeed, he did not post the comment. Instead, he posted his own comment that reads:

Actually... I've been waiting on you Meatless... Just so I could ban you... Thanks for stopping by.

Meatless? Oh the irony of calling me, of all people, meatless. One has to wonder why he needed me to post a 4th comment in order to ban me. He already had my IP address. At any rate, I guess we've got our answer. He doesn't really care whether his statements are true or not. They make the ACLU look bad and that's all that matters, the truth be damned. And anyone who dares to point out his mistakes, even if doing so in a civil manner, is to be called names and banned. Is there anyone surprised? I didn't think so.

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Last night I noticed a post at StopTheACLU that included a claim that I highly doubt, but the comments were closed. It was written by Gribbit, so I found the same post on his blog and left two comments. This should actually be a really good test of the intellectual honesty of the StopTheACLU crowd…

So Ed, or Gribbit if you're reading (insisting folkk have a blog makes me think you might be)- should there be a retraction and more substantial apology?

This saga just keeps getting better. Check out the poll he has in the sidebar on the left side of his site. I chose "Yes", since I've caught him in a lie before, and it appears I'm in the majority on this issue! Whoever votes "Yes" gets his or her IP address posted on his blog for some reason, followed by a vague threat. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but let me just say that this man has some anger management issues that he needs to work out.

Gribbit is one of the two main posters at StopTheACLU, along with Jay.

Hi there Ed. So we can add you into the long and odd list of people that attack Gribbit? Cool. I think there's six of you now. How often are you going to do hit pieces on Gribbit? Some bloggers (BV) are almost exclusively Gribbit Bashing Bloggers.

I can'r wait to hear what Grib says about you guys once he's behind a microhone also and not just behind a keyboard.

Kender-

I think you're missing the point completely. I'm attacking the attitude that accuracy doesn't matter. The fact that this attitude is being displayed by Gribbit is entirely incidental. I was perfectly polite in informing him that his claims about the issue were mistaken, and I laid out the evidence for why they were mistaken reasonably and completely. The only one doing the attacking here is him. He responds to perfectly valid criticism with name-calling and sneering rather than concern for truth. I will "attack" that sort of behavior every time I see it. Isn't that what any intellectually honest person should do?

Ed - The "Meatless" bit was directed at our blogging buddy Meatbrain, who left a comment that was subsequently deleted by Gribbit and replaced with the line you quoted. It doesn't matter that much, because I think your point has been made.

I can'r wait to hear what Grib says about you guys once he's behind a microhone also and not just behind a keyboard.

Why? Is there some reason to think that he can speak any more coherently than he can write?

Or will the unfortunate few who happen to tune into this audio circle-jerk be hearing the debut of all-grunt radio?

Hi there Ed. So we can add you into the long and odd list of people that attack Gribbit?

In what dictionary is "attack" defined as "to point out egregious errors"?

For someone who has a rather prominent graphic of a tough-looking bulldog on his website, this gribbit character comes off as being a bit thin-skinned.

By MisterDNA (not verified) on 14 Jun 2006 #permalink

Capt. Rational wrote:

Ed - The "Meatless" bit was directed at our blogging buddy Meatbrain, who left a comment that was subsequently deleted by Gribbit and replaced with the line you quoted. It doesn't matter that much, because I think your point has been made.

Ah. Well, my comment still hasn't shown up anyway, so he obviously banned me from commenting as well. Which is his right, as I said, but it doesn't help his case any.

Yup, that was me. I reposted the comment of yours that was deleted, Ed, prefaced with 'Why are you afraid to permit Ed Brayton to reply here?'. It was gone within minutes.

Ah. Well, don't make it personal. The issue isn't really whether he will allow me to post there; he has every right to ban anyone he wants. The issue is why he chooses that route rather than accepting valid criticism and correcting his accusations. The issue is truth and accuracy and his apparently desire to avoid them at all costs.

Yes, Gribbit can ban who he wishes. But the very act of banning someone who, like yourself, presents facts that demolish his arguments is clear evidence of the intellectual cowardice so common among the right-wing bloggers.

Ed writes:

He doesn't really care whether his statements are true or not. They make the ACLU look bad and that's all that matters, the truth be damned. And anyone who dares to point out his mistakes, even if doing so in a civil manner, is to be called names and banned. Is there anyone surprised? I didn't think so.

And a lemming responds:

Methinks it ain't the first time this guy has had his less than rigorous grasp of the facts pointed out. But then again, who needs facts when everyone just...just KNOWS the ACLU is up to no good. Only a NAZI liberal commie atheist NAMBLA fan would ask them to prove it.

"Only a NAZI liberal commie atheist NAMBLA fan would ask them to prove it."

You left out Zionist illegal aliens doing double duty as anti-Western terrorists.

Dude, I see what you mean about the bulldog motif. What is it with right-wing bloggers and dog analogies? "Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiller," "Ankle-Biting Pundits," lots of graphics of fierce-looking dogs, and now this guy. So right-wing bloggers identify with hierarchical pack-animals who have been abused and brutalized to the point of becoming mean, mindless and dangerous. What does that say about their mindset?

I was also amused at the boast that "This site prays for our troops." I didn't know you could do THAT with JavaScript. Or is he using ColdFusion?

All joking aside, these guys are what the brownshirts of an American fascist movement would look like.

Their stupidity is made up for by their self-righteous aggressiveness.

I've run into this mindset for years now. I used to post on a number of boards that dealt with political issues. On my side the idea was to discuss issues, figure out where others are coming from, and perhaps come to a common ground. "Hey, maybe I'm wrong" I was thinking, my political affiliation changed pretty much 180 degrees over the last 20 years or so, so maybe my information was incorrect, or I was misinterpreting some element of it.

Instead of something approaching a discourse the response was slights, insults, threats, the inevitable "if you don't like it, leave," comments when explaining why I believed invading Iraq was a bad idea in '02, etc. etc. It's been my experience that conservatives don't discuss political/social/economic, etc. issues to expand their knowledge, find out what others think, etc., they do so to posture and pose, to "prove" how smart they are and how "stupid" everyone who disagrees with them is. Most of the time they don't have the guts, or the mental wherewithal to be these arrogant blustering blowhards in face-to-face conversations, but safely behind their keyboard, oh then they "prove" they're "real Americans."

By dogmeatIB (not verified) on 15 Jun 2006 #permalink