This particular item has nothing to do with laws about free speech. The ACLU provides legal support to fight government silencing of free speech. But there are always more cases than it can fight. The ACLU has, in the past, supported lots of truly hateful speech on principle. However, as others have pointed out, there's a presumption of good faith. ie, that the hateful speakers really are being silenced, and need legal help. These days, the "pro-free-speech" crowd that gets publicized in the WSJ opinion page and Fox News are completely bad faith actors, seeking to incite hatred and violence, making irresponsible claims, backed by tons of money, and then crying "free speech" when their bad faith is pointed out. The ACLU is, reasonably, calling that crap out as not worth providing legal support to, since those actors are not sincere, they are just troublemakers, sowing discord because it works to their advantage. The ACLU ultimately must stand up for its core principles, and not be sucked into minute parsing of legalistic technicalities, because the bad guys are playing that game to destroy the ACLU and what it stands for, not because they believe in "free speech".