Minute, but Nadine Strossen. Tell us about your. Oh, peter, im delighted to be here. My career has basically been as a civil, libertarian and human rights crusader. In addition to being a constitutional law professor, which is how i have earned my living. But as a volunteer, i was the National President , the American Civil Liberties union, the aclu for 18 years. Many people are surprised to learn that is a volunteer position because it is very demanding in terms of time. In fairness, the aclu uses the title president for the chair of the board. We do have a paid full time ceo, the executive director. But in my educational capacity, i about rights, including freedom of speech, and in my advocacy capacity, i advocate for a very broad interpretation and enforcement of those rights, including free speech. Where do you teach common law . At new York Law School in the heart of manhattan and still full time teaching. I took emeritus status several years ago. Peter, i love teaching. Thank goodness my students seem to like me, but i perceived that there has been an increasing attack on free speech from across the political spectrum and seemed to me to be much more important. Use my time to both educate and advocate in front of audiences beyond my classroom. And so, in fact, i wrote the book that youre kindly going to interview me about. It was published in 2018. I wrote it the year before, and since 2017 i have been making more than 200 public presentations per year all over United States, all over the world, about the attacks on free speech and why we should resist the calls to censor. So thank you for giving the opportunity to vent and in fact, we should note that your book is coming out in the fall of 2023, is entitled free speech. What Everybody Needs to know. But going back to hate and the aclu has the aclu been consistent in its support of free speech, in your view . Yes, it has the aclu is probably best known for a case we handled back in the 1970s, the socalled skokie case from skokie illinois, a town with a large jewish population, many of whom were holocaust survivors. Yet the aclu, despite its strong support for equal rights, racial justice, an opposition to any kind of discursive nation, including antisemitism, nonetheless came to support of the free speech rights. A group of neonazis who wanted to demonstrate in skokie provocatively because of the large jewish holocaust survivor population, the aclu can tin tenus to take that very unpopular position. Peter, lets face it, most people support freedom of speech by me or people me, but not for day. And in the skokie situation, the aclu easily won that case in the courts of law, including the United StatesSupreme Court, because it involved what the court has called the bedrock principle of freedom of speech, viewpoint, neutrality, content neutrality. Government must remain neutral with respect to the idea, the viewpoint, the message, the content. But that was a very unpopular position in the court of public opinion. The aclu lost 15 of our members who resigned die free speech supporters who said this goes too far for us. And fast forward to 2017, 50 years later, right . The aclu does exactly same thing in charlottesville. We came to the defense of the unite the right white supremacist demonstrators, charlottesville, virginia, and the court sided with us that they had a free speech right to demonstrate, no matter how loathsome and vile their ideas might be. And yet thats also very unpopular in the courts of public opinion. So we continue to do it and it continues be an uphill battle to to people. What i like think of as the golden rule of free that if you dont defend freedom even for speech that you loathe, then freedom not going to exist for a speech that you love. And those are two examples you use in hate your book. Eight what is the component of hate in free speech laws . There is absolutely no concern of hate speech in First Amendment law. Peter precisely because the Supreme Court has never recognized as a category of speech that is defined in terms of the hateful or content consistent with the viewpoint neutrality principle. The court says we have to defend freedom even for the thought that we hate, even for the hateful thought. If you disagree with it, if you loathe it, answer it back. Ignore it, support the people who are the targets of it but dont empower government to outlaw one persons hateful idea. If somebody else is beloved idea, its so completely subjective. And still today, 2023 no hate speech definition in law. And let me one amendment, if i may. I will repeat that there is no concept of speech that is defined by its hateful message or content. However, if you get beyond the content of the message and look at it in its overall, our First Amendment law does allow government to punish speech with any message, including a hateful message, in particular and circumstances if it presents an emergency, see it directly, imminently, causes certain specific harm. And the Supreme Court, you and i were talking beforehand, recently decided case very strongly with the very lopsided pro free speech ruling that defined but very narrowly the concept of a punishable truth. Read true is the adjunct that the court uses to distinguish it from the more fuzzy way we use in everyday speech. So if the speaker utters a hateful message directed at a individual and intends to instill a fear on the part of that individual that he will be subject to attack, that can be punished. Its not just because of the hateful message is because of the instill intentional instilling of fear. So Nadine Strossen if i called you a name. Yes, that would be. I would defend your right to do it. Yes. But if i threaten to harm you physically, yes. That crosses the line. Right. And we saw a good example of this in charlottesville. Cooter, because when the fascists were demonstrating their chanting odious, you will not us will not replace us. I cant say it. Getting chills down my spine as the daughter of a holocaust survivor. But is protected speech. However, when they were not only chanting those messages, they were doing so bring dashing lighted tiki approaching counterdemonstrators at a menacingly close distance that constituted unprotected true threats. And sadly, Law Enforcement was not there to enforce the constitutional prohibition against true threats. They need straws. And can you tell us your parents story . My fathers story is the holocaust survivor story. He was in berlin in 1922 as what ultimate lead became just defined under the odious racist nuremberg laws as a half or a of the second degree, his mothers family had actually converted years earlier. They were part of the famous meyer mendelssohn family. He was actually raised as a lutheran and had basically no connection to his jewish background. But that didnt matter. Was not a religious. It was a racial definition. And nor did it matter that his father was arya and who had fought in world one because of the jewish background in his mothers family, and also to my fathers enormous credit, im so proud of him as a young teenager. He was opposed to and working against for that reason. He was those double reasons he was imprisoned in the forced labor camp at dauphin park, where he almost died. The strategy was to work. People death as well as, killing them more directly through gassing. My father was liberated by american troops and i, you know, never pass up opportunity to thank members of our military without whom i wouldnt have existed at all. Because not only was my fathers in danger and he almost died of mercy, but he was also subbed act to sterilization. He literally had an appointment to be sterilized in the camp and one day before that appointment, the camp was liberated by american. So my father immediately with language abilities was enlisted by the predecessor of the cia to them and trap nazis. And they arranged for him to gain Refugee Status in the United States where i was born and what kind of career did he have here in the states . He became businessmen taking advantage of his background in science and chemistry. He had always wanted be a doctor. But the first thing that hitler did to have be even before imprisoning and enslaving them was to remove them from medical school. So unfortunately, when my father came to this country, you never had the opportunity pursue his chosen profession, but he made darn sure that his kids had every educational opportunity. And i am so grateful every single day and well never take for granted the opportunity to pursue my passion professionally. So lets go to the seven days of the skokie case and that history. And you were not that old at that time. You had not gone through law school. I take it i had your being very flattering i had graduated from law school in 1975. I had already started to take as a volunteer lawyer for the asl sue, which has a fairly large legal staff but is tiny compared the total number of lawyers in law firms, faculties, even corporations, government who volunteer our time to handle aclu cases and everybody talking about the case, though not only within the aclu, it kind of american. And this very counterintuitive notion that even especially the most dangerous and hated and hateful ideas must be defended, even by people who are on the receiving end of those dangerous ideas. Peter, my story personally is much less dramatic than that of the National Director of aclu at the time of, the skokie case. A wonderful towering human rights champion worldwide now whose name is nir after he executive director of the aclu, he became the founding executive director of human rights watch. And then the open society foundation. Ari was himself a holocaust survivor. He was born in berlin in 1933. His extended family was completely murdered. The nazis, his immediate family narrowly escaped and he, after the skokie case, he wrote a book called defending my enemy, which is so powerful and one of the points that he makes is that he hates nazi ism so much as you understand from his personal he said, you know, much as i love free speech, i loathe the nazis even more. I love free speech. So if i work that censoring the nazis would have prevented the holocaust. I would have been all in favor of it. He then goes on to tell what is not nearly as well known as it should be that there antihate speech laws in germany in thirties when the nazis rose to power, the nazis were repeated prosecuted and convicted even hitler served some time in prison and they actually loved it because these trials became propaganda platforms for them where they attained all kinds of attention that they otherwise would have and sympathy that they otherwise never would have. The same thing happens today, and im not going to compare anybody today to the nazis, far as i know, theyre not advocating. But you know, those people who get shut down shouted down deplatformed on College Campuses they love it. They get attention that they otherwise would be lacking. But those people be shouted down, shut down, not allowed to speak on a is the answer to speech that we detest is ignore it to respond to it, to answer it on its merits, but not to engage in disruptive sounds worship because that constitutes a violation not only of the speakers right to convey ideas and information, but also of the audiences right to receive information and ideas and the first person who made that point so powerfully in our country as history was the great abolition crusader frederick douglass. And again, showing that one persons love speech is somebody elses hated speech. Douglass was trying speak to an approach abolition group in both them. Were not talking about the deep south in the 1860s and he was subject to attack by a violent mob which prevented his speech from going forward. And he very eloquently so another platform was obtained a few days later and he gave a very famous speech in which he said, you know shouting down a speaker is a double wrong. It violates the free speech of the audience as well as the speaker. Nadine strossen this book, hate why we should resist it with free speech, not censorship, is part of the socalled inalienable rights, which is why its a series published by. Oxford university press. The series editor is, a wonderful colleague and friend of mine, geoffrey stone, a professor at the university of chicago, former dean of the university of chicago law school. Former provost of the university of chicago, and i think best known people might not associate his name, but his best known contribution. In 2015, he was author of the socalled chicago free speech principles, which have now been adopted by dozens of universities all over the country. And what are those principles, those principles basically reaffirm a universitys commitment to, the very ideals that you and i have been talking about, freedom for the thought that we hate as the predominant value, not only in a free society, but in particular in an Academic Institution where the fearless and vigorous pursuit of truth is especially important and. The chicago principles recognize that civility and courtesy are very important and, should be pursued whenever possible, voluntarily, but never at the cost of conveying idea. So if i have an idea and i can convey it in a way that is respect artful and civil and courteous, i do so rather than a rude and way. But i should never selfcensor a particular because people see the idea itself as being somehow undermining civility. Well, with regard to hate another thing you talk about is the issue of technology in social media and how thats changed, how communicate so as is true throughout human history, peter, every time a new Communications Technology invented, it becomes a source of great optimism and celebration on the part of human rights activists and free speech proponents, but of great fear and attempted censorship on the part of those with a more authoritarian bent. So you know, the very fact that free speech proponents celebrate. Oh, its going to be easier, cheaper, faster to reach a broader audience, more that becomes of concern to those who want to maintain control. We certainly saw it with the Printing Press even in my lifetime. We saw it with no radio, tv, cable tv. And with the advent of, the internet, its not surprising that very first impulse on, the part of congress and the Clinton Administration at the time was just it something was passed called the communications decency. Virtually no of congress on either side. The aisle voted against it. They were so that this powerful new technology would somehow endanger children. Fortunately, the states Supreme Court 9 to 0 upheld the same high free speech protection for the internet that the print media has always received in a case that im so proud is called rino as in janet reno. Clintons attorney general, versus the aclu. So you again asked me whether. The aclu has continued to uphold the free speech torch, and i say yes very proudly now, of course, there are terrible, misleading, dangerous, hateful expressions that are conveyed by via social and the internet. More generally, as is true for print, as is probably true on papyrus in every other communications, medium. But we should not blame the medium. We should harness its potential all for as we can online with more effective counter speech and information. Agree or disagree, twitter, facebook, etc. Should be allowed to monitor content on their sites and take down what they want. They are private companies. They should have the right to do that. But i would like to persuade them that they should do so very circumspectly the fact that we have a right to do something doesnt mean that it is right to do so. And i think that i wish that there would be more public pressure to encourage powerful Communications Platforms to trust, you know, people to wise decisions about what they say. And dont say what they listen to and dont listen to. Because in the end, i think that censorship whether its done by a private, powerful actor or by a government actor is not going to have the intended impact. Its never going to drive away complete or eliminate controversial, potentially dangerous ideas. Theyre going to be driven underground to other websites where there is less opportunity to refute them, where people are less exposed to different perspective than their ideas are. And by the way, Law Enforcement and Counter Intelligence often oppose because they say, you know we like to monitor these communications so we can keep a handle on whether are engaging in plots and are likely to actually engage in violent or dangerous conduct if theyre driven underground, its harder for us to protect against actual illegal, violent conduct. Nadine strossen the former president of the aclu you agree or disagree . Twitter was right to take a former president of the United States off of its platform. I disagree. I disagree strongly. They had the right to do it. But i think it is very dangerous in a democrat republic for and on the accountable powerful sector actor not only to deprive the commander in chief the leader of the free world as he was duly elected at that right still in office not only to deprive him of his right to free speech, but to deprive the rest of us of the opportune to hear his information and ideas. And i say that not behalf of trump supporters, because, of course they have that, but those who disagree with them, its very important for them to hear what he has to say. And in fact, some experts say that one of the reasons why trump did lose the last election was because of the superb and moderate republic and voters who heard what he had to say on twitter and rebelled against it. So you talk about a case in your book, hate of a woman in england who was silently praying outside of a Abortion Clinic and arrested for, you know, a lot of people say to me, oh, whats so bad about antihate speech laws . England has them. Germany, france, these are totalitarian countries. And yet i think that every american would be completely shocked if they saw how these hate laws are being enforced all across the ideological spectrum to suppress people from expressing their conscientious beliefs about matters that are deeply important them and to our society, about religion, about about Public Policy issues. And so to have people who and i think even more than that example, peter, are members of, the clergy who are simply reading aloud biblical passages and, then a politician, a Law Enforcement official will say, we interpret that passage as being hateful against gay people or against women. And to actually, you know, punish them criminally and in some cases, even imprison them, that is really terrifying. And i think and, you know, in the country where George Orwell so presciently wrote about government suppression of ideas, think orwell would turn over in his grave if you knew how these hate speech laws were being enforced in britain, forgot to ask you how did your holocaust surviving father feel about the skokie case . That is such a great question. Let me tell you, peter, my father came to hear me give a talk in san diego where he had retired in the early 1980s, and there had just been a wave of graffiti, synagogues and some racist graffiti. Well, so i was brought out to explain the aclus position and why we had won the skokie case. My father listened to me very politely, and he came up to me afterwards and he said, well, you for that very interesting talk, youve now persuaded me that the aclu does correctly interpret the First Amendment. Thank you for making it clear to me that the problem is the First Amendment. So, you know, the vast, vast, vast majority people share that the perspective i think he was to some extent joking, but its always an uphill battle. Defend freedom for whatever thought. The person im speaking to loathes. So your new book coming out is free speech. What everyone to know. Your current book is why we should resist it with free speech, not censorship. First book was about pornography. Yes, people are saying to me all the time, peter, why are you defending freedom for such a vile speech and hate speech and misinformation . Because that the speech that is attack. But if you Say Something nice and sweet and popular, nobodys going to try to censor you so principles of free speech are always tested in the cold of whatever speech is most at the time. But i have to say these terms are subjective and epithet pornography has been used against everything from, you know, feminist classics such as our bodies ourselves to, the bible which and in fact the bible recently has been attacked as pornographic in Certain School districts because of very, you know, vivid depictions of Sexual Violence and other sexual conduct. So basically, if you want freedom for sexual expression, you consider in and then you have to defend it for other people deplore. Well, there has been a bit of noise recently. The book. Yes, in very specific areas parents have the right to say no, you cannot teach my child that. Parents certainly have right to decide their own child should not be exposed to, but they so but they should not be allowed to control the for other peoples children now. That said general curricular decisions and standards can be made by duly elected School Boards and bodies that are accountable to the general public, including parents. But as the United StatesSupreme Court has said, if the reason for a particular curricular decision, including removing a certain book, is because of partizan disagreement of the idea or discrimination against the author, that is not a justification and under the rubric of pornography and obscenity. Many states and local School Districts are now removed in books by lgbtq authors or about lgb. Q characters i hate as endorsements from both cornell west and former Tennessee Republican senator Lamar Alexander and nadine streisand writes in this book that nothing strengthens hate groups more than censoring them as it turns them into free martyrs. She on to say that Free Expression is the foundation of human rights, the source of humanity, and the mother of truth. Nadine strossen thanks for being on book tv. Thank you so much for having me