War Among Civil Libertarians

A Rigged Board Election at the NYCLU?

Comments (0) By Nat Hentoff Tuesday, Aug 20 2002

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Governor Pataki said he was "pleased" by the disgraceful lower court ruling.

Getting back to Mike's charges against the NYCLU: Susan Herman, a professor at Brooklyn Law School, whom I've consulted on constitutional questions, is a member of both the NYCLU and ACLU boards, and is one of four ACLU general counsels. She has accused Mike Meyers—in a letter to him and then to the entire national ACLU board—of having "breached [his] fiduciary obligation of confidentiality" as an NYCLU board member in his criticism of the NYCLU in the New York Post. So much for free speech and press.

photo by Statia Molewski

Michael Meyers: His only party line is the Bill of Rights.

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Harvey Silverglate, a nationally prominent constitutional lawyer who is also active in the ACLU, says: "Mike's fiduciary responsibility as a board member is to NYCLU members outside the board and to the public." Susan Herman herself concedes in her letter to Mike that "the procedures surrounding this election were far from perfect." Should such an admission, and a seriously challenged search for an NYCLU executive director, be kept from public view by a civil liberties organization?