So yeah, they realized some stances they had has fucked over a huge group of people that weren't listened to for centuries \o/.
For people like me, ACLU went from a pretty dangerous org to an org I actively support.
From my perspective, they went from defending nearly all speech to excluding from their defense efforts a bit more speech that is highly likely to cause harm.
In other words, they expanded a bit what counts as the equivalent of "shouting 'fire!' in a crowded theater".
It doesn't seem too outrageous to say that Skokie and Charlottesville were far from equivalent, and shouldn't be treated the same.
In Skokie, the verdict was that a peaceful march couldn't be blocked no matter how hateful the speech.
In Charlottesville, the ACLU essentially made the same argument to a judge, despite evidence that the intent wasn't peaceful. The judge was persuaded, the march happened, and tragedy followed.
The ACLU has since come to the conclusion that they were wrong to make that argument. There was enough evidence (that the intent of participants was to provoke violent clashes with the counter-protestors rather than march peacefully) for the ACLU to have refused to defend the case.
They went from defending Nazis to calling people Nazis.
I’ve always hated Nazis but I’ve also always wanted speech to be free, and the ACLU is the one who changed their tune.