Free Speech: Protest Testing The Limits Of Protection

Free Speech: Protest Testing The Limits Of Protection

As controversy rages over protests, encampments, and arrests at hundreds of college campuses around the country, in reaction to the war in the Middle East, free speech is once again at the forefront of national debate. Time and again in American history, the nation has been gripped by the complex question of whether certain speech is or is not protected by the First Amendment. Recently, college presidents have been under fire for failing to protect free speech or for going too far in tolerating free speech. Some have been forced to resign and others have called in the police. Students have been attacked; others have been suspended; student political organizations have been banned. What’s going on and where does the First Amendment fit into all this?

Guest – Nadine Strossen, a leading expert on constitutional law and the First Amendment. Nadine Strossen is Professor of Law Emerita at New York Law School and served as President of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 until 2008. She is a Senior Fellow with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Education and is on the advisory boards of the ACLU, Academic Freedom Alliance, Heterodox Academy, National Coalition Against Censorship, and the University of Austin. The National Law Journal has named Strossen one of Americas “100 Most Influential Lawyers,” and in 2023, the National Coalition Against Censorship selected her for its Judy Blume Lifetime Achievement Award for Free Speech.

She is the author of HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship (2018) and Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know (2023). Her book Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Womens Rights was named a New York Times notable book of 1995, and was republished this year as part of the New York University Press Classic series. https://www.google.com/books/edition/HATE/KKZTDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover

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