Are there any modern institutions that are so strongly bolstered with hallowed traditions and fortified with well-crafted first principles that they are immune from attack by trendy ideologies? Sincerely. I'm asking.

Nazis marching at Skokie now seems like an ancient happening that is so old that it has faded into irrelevance at the new cash-flushed ACLU.

What follows is an excerpt of from a new article written by Lara Bazelon, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law, where she directs the Criminal and Juvenile Justice Law and Racial Justice Clinics. The title: "The ACLU Has Lost Its Way: The organization now seems largely unable or unwilling to uphold its core values."

Progressive causes are near and dear to my heart. I am a feminist and staunch Democrat. As a federal public defender turned law professor, I have spent my career trying to make change in a criminal legal system that is riven with racism and fundamentally unfair to those without status and financial resources. Yet, as someone who understands firsthand that the fundamental rights to free speech and due process exist only as long as competent lawyers are willing to vigorously defend extreme positions and people, I view the ACLU’s hard-left turn with alarm. It smacks of intolerance and choosing sides, precisely what a civil-liberties organization designed to defend the Bill of Rights is meant to oppose.

I used to be a proud card-carrying member of the ACLU. Today, when its fundraising mailers and pleas to reenroll arrive in my mailbox, I toss them in the recycling.