Worst Instincts: Cowardice, Conformity, and the ACLU

When an organization committed to free speech succumbs to pressure to suppress internal criticism and disregard or "spin" the truth, it offers important lessons for other associations, corporations, and governments. Wendy Kaminer, a renowned advocate of civil liberties, calls on her experience as a dissident member of the American Civil Liberties Union national board to tell an inside story of dramatic ethical declines that has much to teach us about the land mines of groupthink.

Materials cited in this book, including records of ACLU meetings, memos, and correspondence from board and staff members, are available in the Beacon Press archive at the Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

What happens when an organization with the express goal of defending individual rights and liberties starts silencing its own board? Lawyer and social critic Wendy Kaminer has intimate knowledge of such a conflict between individual conscience and group solidarity. In this concise and provocative book, she tells an inside story of the dramatic ethical decline of the American Civil Liberties Union, using it as a case history to detail the many vices of association.

In Worst Instincts Kaminer calls on her experience as a dissident member of the ACLU national board to discuss the virtues of dissent itself as an essential tool for preserving the moral character of any group. If an organization committed to free speech can suffer from pressure to suppress differing opinions, and disregard for truth, this pressure must surely be rampant in other associations and corporations, as well as government. Kaminer clarifies the common thread linking a continuum of minor failures and major disasters, from NASA to Jonestown. She reveals the many vices endemic to groups and exemplified by the ACLU’s post-9/11 ethical decline, including: conformity and suppression of dissent in the interests of collegiality; self-censorship by members anxious to avoid ostracism; demands to close ranks and launch ad hominem attacks against critics; elevation of loyalty to the institution over loyalty to the institution’s ideals; substitution of the group’s idealized self-image for the reality of its behavior; and deference to cults of personality.

Publishers Weekly

Kaminer (Free for All) weighs in on her disillusionment with the ACLU after serving on the national board in post-9/11 America. She contends that under the stewardship of Anthony Romero, who stepped into the executive director position one week before the September 11 attacks, the ACLU has become increasingly partisan, personalized and focused on fund-raising at the expense of its core beliefs. Kaminer describes herself as a "dissident member" of the board, and revisits her many battles with Romero and his supporters as she fought their refusal to challenge the government's terrorist watch lists or aid Guantánamo Bay detainees-as less financially stable groups spearheaded the cause. Kaminer admits that she "can't claim objectivity," and she is least effective when she allows herself too much leeway on this point, for example, psychoanalyzing those she disagrees with or peppering her writing with references to Branch Davidians and "the Kool-Aid." However, her depiction of how group members not only follow the herd but also ostracize the "troublemaker" is compelling, and her book is brave and informative. (June)

Wendy Kaminer is the author of many books, including Free for All: Defending Liberty in America Today; I’m Dysfunctional, You’re Dysfunctional: The Recovery Movement and Other Self-Help Fashions; and Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety. Her articles and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Nation, the Atlantic, Newsweek, and the American Prospect, and her commentaries have aired on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. Kaminer lives in Boston.