Bravo, Kate Oh! (The letter the NYT didn’t publish when it first reported on her case)

Kate Oh, the ex-ACLU staffer fired for daring to complain about her supervisors, is a brave woman and not a racist.

When I retired from the national ACLU in 2022, my proudest accomplishment, during 19 years there, was helping to launch the professional staff union that is now defending Kate, whom I knew well enough to admire.

Indeed, after the last presidential election, as I tried to wrap my head around the fact that more people voted for Trump in 2020 than 2016, it suddenly hit me that part of me totally understood Trump voters—that I had my own seething rage and resentment at a hypocritical and oblivious elite, but that in my case that fury was aimed at top ACLU leadership.

The ACLU does much good work. ?But it can be an oppressive place for underlings. I joked to friends—with underlying seriousness—that I was never so conscious of my lack of freedom of speech as when I was in the elevator with ACLU senior management.