drawing upon black communities in 19th century. not a historical novel. i definitely mix-and-match and move things around. that makes a book not just about slavery or the underground road, but ideas of how grace has changed over time. the first section is realistic and sticks to historical record. i started moving things around. i guess that my motto was that. i won't stick to the facts, but i will stick to the truth. i was allowed to get the larger american truth. >> all $92,000 a book tv is available online. just visit online to watchful programs on your favorite authors.

>> we are joined by author nadine straw sin. we will talk about her book. hate, why we should resist it with free speech, not spencer ship in a minute. >> i am delighted to be here. my career has basically been as a civil libertarian and civil rights crusader in addition to being a constitutional law vprofessor which is how i have learned -- earned my living. i was the national president of the acl -- aclu. many are surprised that that is a volunteer position because it is very demanding, in terms of trying. we do have a full-time ceo, the executive director there.

i educate about life including freedomat of speech and night advocate for a very broad interpretation and enforcement of those rights including free speech. >> i teach inte the heart of manhattan. >> still full-time? >> i love teaching. thank goodness my students seem to like me. i have perceived that there has been ann increasing attack on free speech from. it seems to be much more important to use my time to both educate and advocate in front of audiences beyond my classroom. in fact, i wrote the book that you will kindly interview me about. published in 2018. i wrote it the year before. since 2017 i have been making

more than 200 public presentations per year all over the united states, all over the world about the attack on free speech and why we should resist the calls to sensor. so thank you for giving me the opportunity. >> your book that is coming out in the fall 2023 is free speech, what everyone needs to know. going back to the aclu, have they been in support of free speechst? >> yes, it has appeared probably best known for case we handled back in the 1970s. from a town with a large jewish population in illinois. many were holocaust survivors. the aclu despite its support for racial justice in opposition to

any kind of discrimination including anti-semitism, —-dash the neo-nazis wanted to demonste their provocatively because of the large jewish and holocaust survivor population. the aclu continues to take that very unpopular provision. most people support freedom of speech t. in this situation, the aclu easily won the case including the united states supreme court because it involved what the court has called the bedrock principle of freedom of speech. the viewpoint neutrality. government must remain neutral with respect to the idea of the content.

but that was a very unpopular position in the court of public opinion. the aclu lost 15% of our members that resigned. saying this goes too far for us. fast forward to 2017, 50 years later, the aclu does exactly the same thing in charlottesville. we came to the defense of the white supremacist demonstrators in charlottesville virginia. and again f the court sided with that they had a right to demonstrate. no matter how wild their ideas may be and that is also very unpopular in the courts of public opinion. we continue to do it. it continues to be an uphill battle to explain to people what i like to think of as a golden

rule of free speech. if you don't expand freedom, even the speech that you both it will not give a gift that you love. >> those are examples that you use in your book hate. what is a component in free speech? >> there is absolutely no concept of hate speech and first amendment law. the supreme court has never recognized a category of speech that is declined in the hated or hateful content. the court says, we have to defend freedom even for the thought that we hate, even for the hateful thought. weif you disagree with that, if iyou loathe it, answer it back. do not empower government to

outlaw it. one person's hateful idea is another person's beloved idea. >> no hate speech definition and law. >> 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 the overall context, our first amendment law does allow government to punish speech with any message including a hateful message in particular facts and circumstances. if it presents an emergency. directly imminently causes certain specific harm. we were talking beforehand, deciding a case very strongly

that it is very narrowly a concept of a punishable truth threat. distinguishing it fromm the more fuzzy way we use threats in everyday speech. the speaker utters a hateful message directed at a particular individual. instilling a fear on part of that individual that he will be subject to attack. not just because of the hateful message, it's because of the intentional instilling of fear. >> i would defend your right to do it. >> but if i threatened to harm you physically, that crosses the line. >> exactly. we saw a good example of this in charlottesville. when the fascists were demonstrating their chanting messages you will not replace us

, jews will not replace us, i cannot say it without getting chills down my spine as a daughter of a holocaust survivor that is protected speech. they were brandishing lighted tiki torches approach encountered demonstrators. that constituted unprotected threats. rosadly, law enforcement was not there to enforce against true threats. >> can you tell us your parents story. >> born in berlin in 1922 as what ultimately became defined under laws as a half jew or a jew of a second degree.

his mother's family had actually converted years earlier. he was actually raised as a lutheran and had basically no connection to his jewish background, but it did not matter. it was a racial definition. nor did it matter that his father had fought in world war i because of the jewish background in his mother's family and also to my father's enormous credit, i am so proud of him. opposed to on working against hitler. for that reason, a double reason he was imprisoned in the labor camp. he almost died. the strategy was to work people to death as well as killing them my father by american troops.

never pass up an opportunity to think members of our military. without him i would not have existed at all. not only was my father's life in danger, but he was also subject to sterilization. he literally had an appointment to be sterilized in the camp and one day before that appointment the camp was liberated by americans. my father immediately put his language o ability and was enlisted by the predecessor of the cia to help them trap nazis and they arrange for him to gain refugee status in the united states where i was born. >> he became a businessman taking advantage of his background in science and chemistry. he had always wanted to be a

doctor. the first thing hitlerd did, en before imprisoning and enslaving them was to remove them from medical school. when my father came to this country, he never had the opportunityer to pursue his chon profession. he made darn sure his kids had every educational opportunity. i will never take for granted the opportunity to pursue my passion professionally. >> let's go back in history. you are not that old at the time .. i had graduated from law school in 1975. i had already started to take cases as a volunteer lawyer for the aclu which has a fairly large legal staff but it is tiny compared to the total number of -- total number of lawyers who volunteer ourur time on these

cases. everybody was talking about the cases. not only with the aclu. it epitomizes american law. very counterintuitive notion. especially the most dangerous hated and hateful ideas must be defended even by people who are on the receiving end of those dangerous ideas. peter, my story is much less dramatic than that of the national direct your of the aclu at the time of the case. ca wonderful teller in human rights champion. after he was executive director of the aclu he became the founding executive director of the human rights watch and then the open society foundation. he was himself a holocaust survivor. he was born in 1933.

his extended family was completely murdered by the nazis his immediate family narrowly escaped. after the case he wrote a book called defending my enemy which is so powerful. one of the points that he makes is that he hates nazi -ism so much as you can understand from his personal history. as much as i love free speech i loathe the nazis even more than i love free speech. if i was convinced that censoring the nazis would have prevented the holocaust, i would've been all in favor of it there were anti-hate speech laws in germany in the 30s when the nazis rose to power. the nazis were repeatedly prosecuted and convicted.

they actually loved it because these trials became propaganda platforms for them. all kinds of attention that they otherwise never would have and sympathyth that they otherwise never would have. the same thing happens today. i will not compare anyone to the nazis today. as far as i know they are not advocating genocide. they love it. they get attention that they otherwise would be lacking. >> should those people be shouted down, shut down, not allowed to speak on the college campus. >> ignore it. respond to it. but not to engage and disrupt the of censorship. that constitutes a violation. not only the speakers right to

convey ideas and information, but also the audiences right to receive information and ideas. the first person that made that point so powerfully in our country'ss history was frederick douglass. again showing one person's loved speeches and other persons hated speech. trying to speak to a pro abolition speech in boston. he was subject to attack by a violent mob which presented -- prevented his speech from going forward. so then another platform was obtained a few days later. he said shouting down a speaker is a double wrong. it violates the free speech of the audience as well as the speaker. >> this bookk hates, why we

should resist it free speech not censorship is -- a series published by oxford university prep. a wonderfulof colleague and frid of mine. jeffrey stone, professor at the university of chicago. provost at the university of chicago. i thinknk best known people may not have associated, but is best known contribution, he was the author of the so-called chicago free-speech principal which is now been adopted by dozens of universities all across the country. those principlesit basically reaffirm a university's commitment to the very ideas that you and i have been talking about. freedom even for the laws that we hate as the predominant value not only in a free society, but

in particular in an academic institution. a pursuit of truth and especially importance. the chicago principles recognize that they are very important and should be pursued whenever possible voluntarily but never at the cost of an idea. if i have an idea and i can convey it in a way that is respectful and courteous, i should do so. but i should never self censor a particular idea. people see the idea itself is somehow undermining civility. >> the other thing you talk about is the issue of technology , social media and how that has changed. >> as is true throughout human history, every time a new

communications technology is invented it becomes a great optimism and celebration. but a great fear and attempted censorship. you know, the very fact that free speech proponent celebrate it will be easier, cheaper, faster to reach a broader audience more quicker, that becomes a concern for those that want to maintain control. >> we saw it with radio, tv, cable tv. with the internet not a surprise that that is the first impulse. the communications back virtually no member of congress on either side of the aisle voted against it. they were so afraid that this

powerful new technology would somehow endanger children. the united states supreme court nine-zero upheld the same protection that the print media has always received in a case i'm so call —-dash proud. whether they have continued to uphold these free-speech and i say very proudly. there are hateful expressions can fade by social media and a print that is probably true on every other communications medium but we should not blame the medium. theff potential online with more effective counter siege and information. >> agree to disagree twitter,

facebook and et cetera should be allowed to monitor content on their site and take down what they want as they are private companies. >> they should have the right to do that but i would like to persuade them. the fact that we have a right to do something does not mean that it is right to do so. i wish that there would be more public pressure to encourage the powerful communications platform to trust, you know, people to make wise decisions about what they say and don't say they listen to and don't listen to. in the end, i think that censorship whether it's done by private powerful actor or by a government actor will not have the intended impact.

it will never completely eliminate controversial potentially dangerous ideas. they will be driven underground to other websites where there is less opportunity to refuse them. people being less exposed to their perspectives. often opposing this because they say we like to monitor these communications so we can keep a handle on whether people are engaging in violent or dangerous conduct. hard for us to protect against actual illegal conduct. >> the former president of the aclu. agree or disagree. twitter wasad right to take a former president of the united states off of its platform. >> disagree and i disagree strongly.

it is very dangerous in the democratic republic. unaccountable powerful private sector actor, not only to deprive the commander-in-chief, the leader of the free world duly elected at that point not only to deprive him of his rights, but to deprive the rest of us of the opportunity to hear his information andf ideas. i say that not on behalf of trump supporters because of course they have that right, it is very important for everyone to hear what he has to say.e one of the reasons why trump did lose the last election was because of the suburban moderate republican voters who heard what he had to say on twitter and was held against him. >> you talk about a case in your

book, hate. a woman who was silently praying outside of an abortion clinic and got arrested. >> you know, a lot of people say to me what is so bad about antihate speech laws. these are not totalitarian countries and yet i think every american would become completely shocked if they saw how these hate speech laws are being enforced. distracts people from expressing their conscientious belief about matters that are deeply important to them and our society about religion, about politics. i think even more shocking than that example, peter, are members of the clergy who are allowing biblical passages and then a

politician will say we interpret that passage as being hateful against gay people are against women. to actually, you know, punish them. and in some cases even imprison them. that is really terrifying. writing about government suppression of ideas. iin think he would turn over in his grave if he knew how these hate speech laws were being enforced. >> how did your holocaust surviving father feel about this case? >> such a great question. my father came to hear me give a talk in san diego where he had retired in a the early 1980s. there just been at wave of graffiti on synagogues. so i was brought out to explain

the position and why we had one this case. my father listen to me very politely and he came up to me afterwards and said thank you for that very interesting talk. you have now persuaded me that the aclu does correctly interpret the first amendment.en thank you for making it clear to me that the problem is the first amendment. [laughter] the vast majority of people share their perspective. to some extent joking, but it is always an uphill battle to defendlo freedom. >> free speech. what everyone needs to know. your current book hate why we should resist it with free speech, not censorship. >> people are saying to me all the time, why are you defending freedom for such file speech.

>> because that is the speech that is attacked. if you say something nice and sweet and popular, nobody will try to c censor you. it is always tested and whatever speech is most unpopular at the time. i have to say, these terms are inherently subject to. pornography has been used against everything from feminist practice such as our bodies ourselves to the bible. the bible recently has been attacked as pornographic and certain school districts because of very vivid depictions of sexual violence and other sexual content.xu basically, if you want freedom through sexual -- you have to defend it for what other people deplore.

>> very specific areas. the rightht to say, no, you do t have the right. >> parent certainly of the right to decide what their own child should not be exposed to. but they should not be allowed to control the curriculum for other people's children. now, with that said, general standards can be made by duly elected school boards and bodies that are accountable to the general public including parents as the united states supreme court has said, a reason for her particular decision including removing a certain book is because of partisan disagreement of the idea or discrimination against the author, that is not

a justification. under the rubric, many states and local school districts are now removing books by lgbtq authors or about lgbtq characters. >> hate has endorsements from cornell west and former republican senator and nadine rights in this book that nothing strengthens hate groups more than censoring them. free speech artist. she goesth on to say that free expression is the foundation of human rights. the source of humanity and the mother of truth. thank you for being on book tv. >> thank you for having me, peter. >> nonfiction book lovers c-span is a number podcast for you. listen to authors and influential interviewers on the

afterwards podcast. here wide-ranging conversations with nonfiction authors and others were making things happen weekly hour-long conversations that regularly feature fascinating authors of nonfiction books on a wide variety of topics. taking you behind the scene of the nonfiction book book publishing. find all of our podcasts by downloading the free c-span now up or wherever you get your podcast and on our website. c-span.org/podcast. >> you have been watching book tv. every sunday on c-span to watch nonfiction authors discuss their books. television for serious readers. watch them online at any time on booktv.org. you can find us on twitter, facebook and youtube at book tv.