It might strike some people as hypocritical that the ACLU fired its senior policy counsel, Kate Oh, for using racist language, both because the organization wants to pretend it’s a defender of free speech and because there was nothing about Oh’s language that was racist. For others of us, however, it’s comical with a twinge of irony.

A judge ruled on Wednesday that the A.C.L.U. had illegally fired an employee, Kate Oh, from her job as senior policy counsel. The group had accused her of using language that was racist and that singled out people of color in the office.

Michael A. Rosas, an administrative law judge, said that the A.C.L.U.’s accusation that she had targeted people of color “is not borne out by the facts.” He noted that her complaints were not about colleagues but superiors within the organization, and that she had also complained about white managers.

So what was it that Oh said that was so egregious, so racist, that the once stalwart defender of free speech felt compelled to toss her out the door?

In one instance, she told a manager that she was “afraid” to talk with him. In another, she said that she had considered a conversation with a superior to be “chastising.” And in a meeting, she repeated a satirical phrase [which the New York Times found too satirical to put in writing?] likening her bosses’ behavior to suffering “beatings.”

The final straw leading to Ms. Oh’s termination, according to the A.C.L.U., came when she wrote on social media that she was “physically repulsed” having to work for “incompetent/abusive bosses.”

It may well be that Oh’s bosses were incompetent or abusive. It may also be that Oh was over-sensitive and felt “afraid” because safetyism is kind of a big thing amongst the people in the organization’s employ, believing that entitlement to “safe spaces” trumps managerial oversight and criticism. Sometimes, employees need to be chastised if they aren’t doing a good job, even when they’re female. But the reason the ACLU concluded it was racist wasn’t because it was, well, racist, but because at least some of the people is was leveled against were…of color.

A.C.L.U. managers and their lawyers argued that the language Ms. Oh used may not have been overtly or intentionally racist, but that it nonetheless caused harm to Black employees. And when their warnings to her went unheeded, the organization said, it was justified in firing her.

So an employee can’t challenge her bosses for sucking at their jobs and bosses can’t challenge employees for sucking at theirs? So it appears at the ACLU, which can’t seem to figure out which side of the free speech divide it wants to be on and whether race somehow insulates employees from incompetency because saying so, whether right or wrong, hurts their feelings.

This position struck some legal experts as unusual — even hypocritical. The organization, which has a long history of defending the right to free speech even at its most odious and offensive, argued in legal filings for an expansive definition of what constitutes racist or racially coded speech.

Who these “legal experts” might be goes unsaid, but if they were in fact legal experts, they would be well aware that the ACLU defended the free speech of neo-Nazis in Skokie in 1977. It can’t live on that legacy forever.

In recent years, as the A.C.L.U. adopted a political posture more aligned with liberal and progressive social justice groups, some critics have accused it of veering away from its commitment to free speech and the principle that it might not like what someone says but will defend their right to say it. The organization rejects that criticism, noting its defense of clients like the National Rifle Association in a major First Amendment case.

Not liberal. Progressive. Social justice. But not at all liberal. One would hope the NYT knows the difference. Its former reporter, the exceptional Michael Powell, now with The Atlantic, does. I sure as hell do. And the fact that every once in a while, when it’s politically acceptable as its self-interest is at stake or its woke staffers won’t throw a clot, they take on a case that would suggest there is still some lurking sense of concern for civil rights buried deep below its overarching cause of social justice.

An administrative law judge has ordered the ACLU to reinstate Kate Oh, who was fired in 2022, with back pay.

Judge Rosas noted that while the A.C.L.U. legitimately sought to promote “a work culture free of discrimination, harassment and retaliation,” it also invalidated legitimate workplace concerns Ms. Oh had raised.

Her language may have been harsh and impulsive, the judge found, but it was not sufficient grounds for terminating her. “Oh’s language,” said Judge Rosas, “was typical of heated commentary by employees in many a workplace criticizing their managers or working conditions.”

The ACLU has promised to appeal, because free speech takes a back seat when cash is involved, and what kind of principled civil liberties defender would it be if it gave a woman her job back for not uttering anything racist?

The A.C.L.U. said it planned to appeal and insisted that Ms. Oh had engaged in “abusive behavior toward colleagues of color” and “rank insubordination.”

Are “colleagues of color” incapable of being incompetent? It doesn’t matter if you’re not allowed to say so.