jonathan zimmerman and sydney wilkinson talk about their book free speech and why you should give a -- the book explores the history and controversies over free speech through political cartoons the national archives hosted this event and provided the video. many thanks to everyone at the national archives for hosting this event as someone who obviously reviewers the ideals that are reflected in our nation's founding documents, which we've been working hard to approach in reality. the national archives for me is one of the most moving inspiring places in the world, and it's a great setting for this great book because john's insigni's book brilliantly transmits our founding ideals to a younger generation inspiring them to continue the enduring efforts to

translate those ideals into present day reality for everyone. so i'm going to start with you john. why did you write the book? who are your ideal readers? what message? do you want to convey? well, the real reason i wrote the book is that sydney wilkinson emailed me and asked me to write it and we'll get an email from her you act i were talking about one of the great cartoonists of our era of all times. i mean to be like a football player was asked if you wanted to play with tom brady, you know, like the answer is yes, and when i started to write it i realized what my my real message was. it was a message to people younger than me, which by the way is almost everyone at this stage but mainly to my students and also to my young adult daughters because in my experience many people in the younger generations have developed a skepticism about a free speech and in some places

have even developed an animosity towards it and this was very much crystallized for me during this kind of seminal meeting that i had with married that tinker married that tinker of course being the 13 year old girl, who wore the black farm band to school in des moines iowa not 65 was sent home and later sued with the others and this became the tinker v des moines case in which the supreme court upheld student speech rights. anyway, mary bethinker came to my class at the university of pennsylvania, and she told her story with the armband. and then the students started asking questions and the first question was look ms. tinker you were fighting the good fight. you were fighting the war in vietnam. um these people today that spew hate racists and sexists hate these homophobes and transphobes. they just want to hurt people. why should they be allowed to speak? and very bad tinker had a very pointed response, which i'll

never forget. he said listen at my middle school in des moines. there were students that had dads and uncles and brothers that were risking their lives in southeast asia. you don't think they were hurt by this not-nosed kid telling them that their loved ones for maybe gonna die for a lie. of course. they were speak hurts. and that's actually precisely why we need to protect it. because it hurts. there's always going to be an impulse to stamp it down. but when you do, it's actually the people at the bottom that are going to be hurt. and i mean really heard ie censored and that was mary about southern messick, you know, some of the other students said look free speech. it's just something about power people with power use that term to protect their own speed than to prevent others from using it and very good said no, you've got it wrong. it's the opposite. in 1965. i was at 13 year old girl. speak was the only power that i had.

um and across time and this was the real message of the book people without power have used free speech to challenge their circumstances and to challenge their oppression, which is really what he was doing because until that time students really didn't have any rights not ones that the constitution recognized. so that's really what i want to communicate to my students and others the radical history of potential of free speech. i hadn't known that story about sydney being the instigator of the book sydney. i have to say john has such a great sense of humor. i never know when he's teasing, but i gathered this was literally how how the book came into existence. can you tell us what what prompted you to reach out to him and to contribute your your brilliant cartoons? well, i've been cartooning for almost 40 years and i depend on the free speech amendment every

single day really and i've seen so many times when people have criticized me and saying she can't say that i was once speaking at a cartoonist convention and we had visitors from the the middle east all men and i was on the podium and i was speaking and they said to the host is she allowed to say that. which by the way was the title of molly ivan's book the great and very provocative writer of who died about 10 years or so ago, but any rate, it's crucial for cartoonists and around the world have been imprisoned and sometimes even killed because of their cartoons. they've gone into exile or or

underground even a after the cartooning controversy in the 2000s a a an artist in in seattle did a cartoon about drama mohammed day and it was teasing it was sort of making fun of the controversy. it wasn't an attack on islam and yet she was put on a fat twat list. and went into has gone underground and his you know it that shouldn't be in the united states of america. so and that's current that was you know within the last 10 years and the other thing i really want to say and i'll say it again is that i've been called everything. and i've been picketed our paper has been picketed, but we invite the picketers in and they then get a place in the in the paper

to respond and then it goes back and forth among readers. so my my belief is that really comfortable virtual cartoons just like controversial statements records movies books. they don't end occur a conversation. they begin one and sometimes it takes something pretty controversial just to get people to really engage in the issues. so for me, it's free. speech. and is is just it's like the platform on which i stand and so do the cartoonists of the rest of the cartoonists in the united states of america. thank you very much. i recently was reminded that you are one of many not many a small group of illustrious cartoonist from around the world who was interviewed for a forthcoming book that is going to focus

specifically on cartoon censorship. well getting back to this wonderful book with a wonderful in prose and in pictures john since the book is aimed at students and presumably their teachers as well. it's especially interesting for them to understand their own free speech rights and and the challenges to them. so they understand that this is not just affecting other people and other times in history and other parts of the world. so what do you tell them what's their state in these issues now? well, there's steak is enormous. it's enormous because before mary that tinker schools could silence anybody that they wanted anniversities in some places as well and it's really only in the last half century that young people have received any kind of speech rights that again are you know enforced by law and by

courts, but i think the most important thing to remember is all these rights are extremely tenuous and they are always under attack. and that's precisely why we have to study their history and we have to be vigilant about protecting them. so right now there's a case that this managed to the supreme court about a cheerleader in northeastern, pennsylvania who was disciplined by her school for a text message that he sent on a saturday from a convenience store. this is after she had failed to make clear leading team and she texted f school after leading and the school suspended disciplined her and said he couldn't be on the cheerleading team and they said that they needed to do this in order to protect order. okay. well, that's always what sensors say is it not there's going to be some terrible consequence people are going to say or do or

think the wrong thing and we've got a blotted out. um, but of course where does this end most educators that i know did not get into the business in order to monitor people's snapchats and instagrams. and i think this is a really important compelling example of why a we have to be aware of how recent this history is that there have been any rights at all and be in most importantly we have to be vigilant about protecting them. i'm proud to say that that current case the mahoney case is an aclu case as was the tinker case as have been every single one of the supreme court's free speech cases going all the way back to the 1940s and the implications as you as you indicate john are are enormous because schools are basically saying they have authority to regulate anything that might

potentially disrupt the school. i think i can't see an exception to that or that would essentially squelch meaningful free speech for students. but what about teachers? what's what's their stake in this? well, i would say in some ways. the steak is even greater because alas, i think the courts have been even less attentive and protective of teacher rights and they have a student rights. so, you know in 2007 a teacher named deborah mayor was teaching a fifth grade class. out the war in iraq actually was in 2003 the case was in 2007 and she was teaching a lesson from the student approved magazine time for kids which included a description of a picture of an anti-war protest in which there are many around the time. we invaded iraq and a kid in the class asked her, you know ms mayor. have you ever been to an anti-war protest and respond? he said yes, as a matter of fact i drove by one in bloomington this is indiana the other day and i honk my horn and approval.

because of that he was not reappointed by the school and the courts of upheld that you know arguing that teachers essentially have to sell their free speech rights district and exchange for their jobs, and i think a lot of us wonder how the teachers can actually model discourse and indeed democracy if we hamstring them in that way. you know, i'd like to ask you both a question. i found the book so which i read twice and learned a lot both times and i know a fair amount about free speech myself. i just finished teaching a entire semester long law school seminar on freedom of speech and i still learned a lot and found it, you know completely appropriate level for me, but obviously you're also aiming at a younger audience what age range do you contemplate? i'll first ask you john and i'm

very curious whether you had to change your arguments or your presentation in any way and then i'd like to hear from sydney on that as well. no, definitely. i mean the answer is no i mean first of all, i'm amazed you're at a twice. you must be store for entertainment. i guess the pandemic does that but you know, i to take the first few question, i mean, i think we imagine anyone from you know age 11 or 12 up reading it. i think that we condescend to our young people often by assuming that they either can't understand or won't care about these questions. but as the mahoney case illustrates, i think that in some ways these questions are more urgent for young people than anybody else i and we absolutely wrote it in an idiom and in a tone that we hope can really be understood by anybody from middle schoolers up. and it's sydney. i know that you have some of the cartoons. maybe this is an appropriate

time for you to to show some of them and comment on them and i'd love to hear john's comments about them as well. yeah, please both of you. feel free to jump in. i um, i just gonna share my screen here. here's the book title. but because this isn't a new it's i'm going to talk about the starting with the cartoons. and of course, they've been big in the news here the last couple decades but pointed editorial political controversial cartoons go way back. and so i thought i'd start with the guy who sort of credited to be the father of western cartooning and i'm sure you're all guessing exactly who it is,

which would be martin luther. 500 years ago martin luther was a protesting the influence of the pope and rome on his german community and his beliefs and to illustrate his feelings towards rome. he hired local artists and used the fairly new printing press to create woodcuts to illustrate his point and let's see here. i it's where i'm just well, i would have flunked that that test. i would never have answered martin luther. there we go. here's one of them with a couple of his supporters sticking out

their tongues bearing their bottoms and farting in the face of the pope. now this is not an image that i would have used in a daily newspaper and in my world, but he the the consequences of free speech for him were possible death at the time of so, we'll just fast forward 300 years. this is a clipped history. to a german immigrant to the united states who became america's greatest cartoonist ever and that is thomas nass. this is a one of his iconic images of rich people in new york of the time but he was also known for criticism criticizing absolutely skewering a guy named

boss tweed who was the political that democratic political leader of or democratic party political leader of his time and tweed said i don't care what they printed in the newspapers. my constituents can't read but stop them -- pictures and what people forget about nest was that also he was a huge supporter of abraham lincoln and anti-slavery. he was against slavery and and lincoln called him my best recruiting sergeant. this is his brilliant engraving done. just two weeks after the immense patient proclamation was signed we can talk about cancel culture

later, but he did do controversial cartoons that people still don't like and he has been canceled several times by several organizations and yet this is what he did for america. um fast forward again to the early 1900s and then we get into some of the things that we talked about in the book with women's suffrage these women not only protested in marched but about 20 or more cartoonists came out or women came out of the their normal lives and started cartooning for suffrage and as you know women went to jail, i was paul was in prison for her priest speech rights, so these women were using their pens. this is neil brinkley any man who loves and reverse his mother

and his country should idolize if he worships at all the three graces suffrage preparedness and americanism. sorry my dogs going off on the mailman. he's right. yeah exactly. and also at this time margaret sanger was actively agitating for rights for women for birth control and getting attacked by police and driven off the stage time and time again, so this is from our book go ahead and speak freely. and fast forward again to the man who was probably our most eloquent ever user of free speech martin luther king. who's a whole his his only weapon was his free speech and he used it as we all know

brilliantly and he paid for it of course with his life, but to put it in modern terms. i mean if you switch how you look at things the police who were were suppressing and attacking him we find your speech to be hurtful dr. king. it was more than hurtful. of course. onward in my career religions have been the most in skinned and sensitive. it's okay if you're praising them, it's a blasphemy if you're not we need to see it so we know what to ban. this was in a portion of the book about religion. and and to prove that we we shouldn't be taking them quite so literally after the danish cartoonist debacle cartoon, is

there were many cartoon cartoons defending or protesting the the attack on the cartoonists, but i was trying to go for a different point of view and this one is the big fat book of offensive religious cartoons with all our major religious leaders, including muhammad third from the right. and it is that to make the point i made earlier that it's okay if people are laughing if you're showing a religious figure or a political figure happy and laughing. that's okay. it's just criticizing when the image becomes their boat and this cartoon went around the world many many times after all the cartoon controversies and never has been, you know, never with a problem.

back to our book what jonathan has said and what i think the basic point of our book is is that you can't just muzzle people and think that he hated hated or hateful ideas will just go away. i fixed it. no, not exactly so and the the one thing i'd like to leave you with about cartoonists. is that any any teacher knows that it's usually a boy in the back of the room drawing bad images of the teacher. it's just in a compulsion that some people have to make fun of the authority figure in front of them and cartoonists who who are prominent take on the biggest biggest authority figures. there are this man, i'll leave

faresight was a syrian cartoonist who criticized the syrian regime he was taken beaten and his hand stamped stomped on to break them so he couldn't draw again. but his first cartoon in the hospital will show you the spirit of a cartoonist. from his hospital bed. so there you have it. there's there's the cartooning spirit and just try to keep us down. thank you. that is so remarkable. i have to ask both of you. i'm thinking of you know, the great like gilbert and sullivan other great teams of collaborators, which came first the cartoons or the cat. sports well, well, i i wrote the

text first and then and then sydney wrote the cartoons, but i think actually the cartoons are really what make the book because i'm a words guy and i i think that if you look for example at that terrific one about both of the king, which is my favorite cartoon in the book, i think you get this kind of it's not just visual. it's almost a guttural in bahane event of what the book is really trying to say, especially, you know, the awful racist white cops. you know what you're saying is hurtful to us. well, of course it is, i mean just like mary that's on band was hurtful to kids who had dads fighting in vietnam. that's what steve does but that's the worst reason to try to censor it because once you make that into your rubric again, there's not going to be any speech left. well since you talked about the mlk cartoon and sydney, you talked about you gave the

history of thomas nest with respect to emancipation and abolition. i i had not known about that. so yeah, this is why i read your book twice every time i interact with either of you john do you want to explain there are so many i wouldn't even say arguments today, but even assumptions that if you really care about racial justice, then you have to be very skeptical of free speech and we see this all the time we see finds on college campuses hate speech is not free speech. in fact, even politicians who some of them graduated from law school say that and there's this assumption that yeah in in the good old. is you know, maybe it was people like martin luther king who were being aided, but now we know it's not that way. it's white supremacists. it's unite the right even

supreme court justice elena kagan a couple of years ago famously said, you know free speech the first amendment is being weaponized to oppressed people who lack power. yeah story and john bring it forward to the present, please. well, well, you know, i think there has been something that switched i do think in a way it's generational although justice kagan is young and anymore, but i think that we've lost sight of the radical potential of free speech, you know free speech is now it's like sandra johnson said patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, right? you'll hear people say this thing about free speech and those are people that haven't really thought much about like those women suffragists that we just saw in these cartoon. i mean, come on look at this. panel right here. we've got the first female director of the aclu the most important free speed organization and history the united states in the world.

we've got the first woman to to win the pulitzer for cartoon. how far would women rights have gotten without free speech the answer isn't nowhere right you we wouldn't be here in this configuration without free speech. without the people that exercise free speech to challenge sexism and other kinds of gender discrimination, and i think we just need to look outside of our moment. look at one level justice kagan is right surely awful people have and continue to you know embrace and yes weaponize-free speak and for anyone who wants to read more about that reading these instructions book about hey, and he's very explicit about it. there's no reason to deny or no cartoons in it, right? it's a great book nevertheless even without cartoon, but to me the point of that book is we shouldn't try to print or wish away the presence of hate.

it's a part of us and a part of our lives and indeed a part of our speech. but the answer to it is not to create some grand pruba either a university president, you know, or you know a tech company guru who's to then tell us what's hateful and what isn't. that isn't the way democracy work. it's not the way america works. we can't do it. sydney another argument that is constantly being made against the robust free speech that you and john are advocating so effectively but a strong counter argument which john alluded to is is is heard or harm, but i know from critics that they'll say no those words are trivializing. i mean, we really feel deep psychic. emotional trauma and and they're even physiological implications

manifestations and and by the way, there are free speech problems, too, because this hurtful realmatizing insulting speech that denies our humanity silences us and and chills our free speech. so if you really cared about free speech for everybody, especially the oppressed. why are you making fun? you know sydney? how dare you create an image of of the prophet don't you know, how hurtful and traumatizing that is to muslims around the world. how do you answer that? well, first of all. a cartoon can't blow anybody up or decapitate anybody it is just an idea and it is a way of reframing the argument. i i think that i mean the danish

cartoonists controversy is is kind of a good example the the danish imam who who really started who was offended and went and really tried to get support in other countries and you know, it ended up being riots in in pakistan with people killed later. it's sort of it just left. he was he was appalled by what had been unleashed by by that. by that fury and the i think the the editor of the paper also might have you know learned lessons from from how you know how that everything was set off, but i i just have to factor the

cartoonists for being able to to say look you know, there's there there is a conflict here. there is a conflict between the bat with certain values that have that are sort of new in our country and but that's not the end of the end of the conversation. you know, it's it's a conversation. it's not a one side says something and that's the end of it. the other thing yeah, the other thing that i'd add there on this subject when i think the danish cartoon episode is good example is to me it really embodies the condescension that lurks within so many of these calls for censorship, right? they're always offered in a protective video, right? it's like oh, you know those sensitive muslims we have to protect them. what do you really saying about them right if you saying that we need to withdraw this image signals or anybody else that's

from the focus public sphere. i think you're saying in some ways that they're less than human that they can't exert the same kind of self-control that the rest of us can and again, this is all in the guys of saying like, you know, how you're so down with muslim people to me. it's insulted which isn't to say that it could be censored obviously, right? but it's just to me there's a real tension and i only there that was actually one of the points of fleming rose the jillian's post and editor one of the reasons why i he thought that was the appropriate to solicit those cartoons. it was a way of showing that these people are not only fully human. they are fully danish and it is part of our tradition in this country and at this newspaper to make fun of every religion, so including whatever, you know protestantism or whatever the predominant religion is there. well, i just one point on that when they first were published and before the outrage happen several newspapers in the united

states published them just as news articles, you know, no big deal the austin statesman american and one of the denver papers and there was no controversy because people didn't know they were supposed to be outraged but then when the the controversy started none of our major papers would publish them that you know, the i can't even say this word, right but puscellaneous response of like the new york times saying well. you know, we're just not going to show them. we're not gonna show or our readers the supposedly the smartest best greatest readership in the entire world couldn't take and and process the fact that these were drawings on paper. well, it doesn't the the new york times completely decided to

in all editorial cartoons at least in its overseas additions because oh don't get me started on that, but needless to say even if they were hiring cartoonists, i wouldn't be one of them, but they used to run a roundup of cartoons and their sunday paper and it was very very popular and that was a range of points of view and now they've even if they even got rid of that so so this is to a topic that you had alluded to earlier sydney a cancel culture, right? that's so it's true government officials are still censoring speech as in the case now pending in the supreme court, but we have a tremendous problem of self-censorship. not only among supposedly fearless newspaper editors, but also among students and teachers which i think is a very serious problem. well, i'm not a student or a

teacher, but i think jonathan spoke to that about you know that a free spree speech protects kids, but you got to get out and exercise your your rights. i mean, it's it's good for your muscle memory to remember that we have conversations and they can get animated and he did but it's you know, one of the one of the problems it seems to me right now is you know, you you look at the you look at the nbc or the cnn news on one side and the fox news on the other and it's like they all are talking to themselves and we need a little cry. let's have some more yale vests. i'm happy with i just hear it from pulitzer prize-winning cartoonist john john. what do you say to a 13 year old kid who doesn't want to be

ostracized by her classmates for saying something that's unpopular. she doesn't want to be falsely accused of being a racist or some other kind of music. look look i the first thing i do is say i get it and this is not just in i mean, it's not a gratuitous example because this happened to me at the university of pennsylvania after 2016 election, you know, trump voters came out to me in my office. um, and you know, i would always say look i i'm glad you're telling me i really wish you'd say this in class because to sydney's point. i think we'd learn more. this is really a cultural and educational question to me, you know, if we're self-centering if we're budding our tongues. we're not learning from each other in ways that we could and often they would say look it's easier for you to say buddy, you know, you're not gonna have to face the wrath that that i that i would and they're not entirely wrong. i mean it bryn mawr college near where i teach you may recall there was a student that posted

something on the net in 2016 saying hey, there's a trump rally in westchester. did anyone going and could i get a ride and she was so vilified by other students including with physical threats and called the worst kinds of names that he dropped out of bryn mawr. so, you know, this is a huge problem. i think it's a problem. that's bipartisan. i don't want anyone to think that it's only people on the left doing the cancel. mean look at all these state legislatures. they're saying that you know schools can't teach the 1619 project. what is that? if not cancel culture. it's projected by republicans. look at liz cheney. yes. yes. i canceled pretty bad the entirely by republicans. yes, how can we encourage young people to risk? um, the sense or sensor of their peers and and of their teachers by the way, we've seen some

incidents. unfortunately where teachers are not standing up for unpopular viewpoints. they're not all like you john. well, look, i mean, i think this is where the history piece becomes so important, you know recognizing that almost everybody that we've been taught to celebrate and appropriately as you know, a tribune of social justice was also a great tribune of free speech right up to mary beth. and i should tell you that after mary beth came to my class. i mean, i did see a difference in the way that the students related to this question because you know, i do think history can inspire as well as inform. and when you read about figures like mary bettinger or margaret sanger, you know and what they risk? by raising their voices i think it can inspire you to raise yours. okay. well, that's i'm getting some questions from the audience and believing in audience free speech i would like to turn to

the first one. i see of those. is there a place where the right to free speech is rightfully curtailed like when it insights violence. sure. look i mean nadine is the expert on this not me but no right is absolute right? you can't call it the white house and say you're gonna murder the president right or to take like a more obvious example from higher ed, you know, i couldn't say to a student. i like the sweater you're wearing and if you wear it again on tuesday, i'll give you an egg, right. is that a limit on my speech? will of course it is by the way one that i'm very happy to accept. i most forms of sexual harassment or verbal right and they're illegal so obviously there are limits on things things that we can say. but i think it's really important to go back to tinker in the school case that if an institution, especially a public

institution wants to limit speech the burden should be on that institution to show why it's absolutely necessary to do so and that's what tinker said by the way tinker did not say that the kids can say whatever they want at all times right a kid can't stand up in the in in the middle of math class and start calling their teacher a racial or sexual slur right tinker did not say you can say whatever you want what tinker said, is that if the school wants to restrain you the school has to show that what you were saying created a material substantial disruption to learn. so that's a really good example for me about a kind of i think very reasonable women and again we can argue and discuss about where those limits should be and none of this is easy, right, you know a kid wearing the part of the bible that some people then i said some people i think inner diets homosexuality or gay behavior, right? should they be able to wear that

passage in school? well, will that disrupt somebody's learning again. they're hard calls in there, but i think the larger point is that the burden has to be on the institution. all right, not on the speaker to show that you know, this is such a risk that you can't say it in this environment. you also alluded john to the fact that all of us as professionals and as human beings engage in appropriate yourself censorship, right just because we have the right to say something doesn't mean that always say it and in that in sydney, i wanted to ask you if you have any constraints self-imposed optics or people that you would not include in your cartoons and here i'm going to quote something that was often said by the detractors of the danish cartoons, including people that i used to think of as supporting free speech saying

oh, but those cartoons were punching down and it's not fair appropriate to punch down. well, first of all. they it was at a time when people were being beheaded and burned in cages and there was a fairly dramatic or behavior that i think people were repelled by that was done in the name of the muslim religion. i would don't and i don't think that was you know by any means it should be taken as the whole. the whole religion, but but it was part of what was happening in the history of that of the time.

um, i yeah, there are things that i didn't do and and making fun gratuitously making fun of any religion was one of them. i wouldn't just go out and and, you know do a cartoon about a muslim or a catholic or anybody else and i also to the first cartoon that i showed about from martin luther. i i worked for a family newspaper. i didn't do nudity. i didn't do sex. you know, there were there were sort of a stand it kind of informal standards. and the reason i didn't do them would be that they would detract from the point of the cartoon people would just get upset by the fact that there was nudity and likewise. i wouldn't you know, i wouldn't include a religious figure gratuitously if it wasn't. know what it was out something

that had to do it it just you know, i didn't go around picking on cripples, right? you know, it's right right and i mean decency. you know, i would just add anybody knows sydney will consider any of her work for the first past four decades that they'll see, you know, she doesn't do any of this gratuitously. she's not trying to offend anybody but sometimes she will. right just by virtue with the fact that you know, she's dealing with important and emotional political and cultural questions and i think the real question for all of us is when people are upset. do you concede to that and also i'd add in the case of you know, the the muslim cartoons. do you concede to their bullying and their violent threats so for me as an american destroying the best analogy to this dispute is

there's this really interesting junk here during the civil rights movement in the 1960s where there's a civil rights demonstration and peter paul and mary and harry belafonte are there and at one point harry belafonte gives a peck on the key to mary travers of peter paul and mary and immediately in the southern part of the united states the networks cut away. yeah, why because they said people are gonna be upset white people in the south are gonna be upset at the idea of a black person white person kissing now, were they correct in that affirmation they were and there were plenty of people that were upset, but that's my point. are you gonna conceive to people's big trip? and that's what they did and that's what's reprehensible. they want wrong about the upset. they were exactly right. well put so here's the another question that i think is for you sydney. do you feel memes are the new

cartooning? ah good question and yes, actually, i think they are at this democratized political cartooning what they lack is drawing, but they do the same thing. they make immediate and and pointed and funny remarks about almost instantaneously. i mean much faster than i could draw a cartoon, even if i was drawing the image that the meme had and the other reason that they're so ubiquitous is obviously they're using today's medium. i i draw i my history was drawing pen on paper and it was printed in paper that is over over over even though i i just

don't think that editorial cartoons. the traditional ones have the same impact as they do when you open a page and see it on on your table in front of you and memes. well, i mean they stick around because paper sticks around whereas a meme, you know, it's gone and then there's another one or a funny tweet or and i mean, that's why people love they are they really they're like they're refreshing during the day to take your mind off off stuff and and make you laugh and and make you think so. yeah, i i regretfully said i can see that memes are you know, they have their place and political discussion. okay, next audience question. why is free speech under threat in america? i thought the first amendment

protected it. professor it's always under threat. i mean, that's really the theme of the book so, you know, we have these four chapters where we say, you know free speech allows you to criticize your leaders and it allows minorities to challenge their oppression and it allows you to you know, consume the order and the literature in the film you'd like and it allows students and teachers to speak in school, but it's allows because all these things have been observed in the breach. that's the point right? it should allow it. right, of course, it should but it never really has you know, america is a work in progress. it is always incomplete, you know, and i as as delighted as i am to be doing this panel quote at the national archives, we're not at the national archives were on zoom. but if we were at the national archives we would be in the presence of those documents and

reason that i think we worship those documents is not because we've attained the ideals in them. it's rather because we're struggling to do that. we are in perfect like all human beings. we move and fits and starts. we're blindered and blinkered and in perfect and that's precisely why we need to study the history and we have to continue this struggle because ironically we're never actually going to get there. and if i can put on my common law professor have and also my aclu leader hat, um, no portion of the constitution including the bill of rights including the first amendment is self enforcing for most of our nation's history all of these wonderful promises of liberty lay around completely unfulfilled and constantly violated in practice, which is

why the aclu was formed more than a century ago the n-double-a-cp before that and even when you win a case in the supreme court that enforces the first amendment such as the tinker case that doesn't automatically mean that every school teacher and every school district around the country even knows about it. let alone is is actually enforcing it. yeah. i mean i should tell you that my students including some extremely well-informed students are often shocked to discover that the vietnam war was really the first national conflict that we had. it's consistently upheld the rights of people to protest it and that was in my lifetime and appearance is notwithstanding. i'm not that old all of this is really recent and that's precisely why we got to be so protective of it. it's really so so during the vietnam war a guy named cohen he walks into post office wearing a yeah. it was a college student college student. yeah college student.

yes saying f the draft. and he was arrested. and and ultimately the court said that you know that he could in fact wear that jacket, but you know by that time, i'm in middle school. i mean it's not that long ago and that's really and there were other cases. you know where people were arrested for wearing an american flag on their jeans as a pro as an anti-war protests then people arrested for a play in which you know, people made fun of soldiers. this is all during the vietnam era and the fact they were arrested shows that people still plenty of people in authority still believe that you didn't have the right to criticize the war. so if you've ever been to an anti-war protests, thank cohen, you know, and thank the other people that that laid down the line and sometimes their lives so that you had the right to say what's on your mind what i find extraordinary is the number of

young people mary beth tinker being a classic example, but who come to aclu and other organizations and and stand up first of all stand up for their rights when they that means they have to defy teachers and principles and i remember one case the aclu one recently first student who refused to salute the american flag. she was an african-american student in connecticut, and she said i don't want to because i don't believe that we have liberty and justice for all we have too much racism in this country, and she was actually punished which is not only file a tip of the first amendment that also of very old supreme court decision and forcing it and we had to go to court ultimately, of course we want and i will never forget the judge lectured the school. he said you're supposed to be teaching her about civics not the other way around. so i one of the messages to the young people who i hope are all

going to read your book is that they are never too young to about their rights to stand up for them. they can accomplish a lot on their own, but they have a lot of allies including the aclu sydney. can i just share my screen for that to illustrate that last point please and and share just illustrate the last point that's also from our book this colin kaepernick. so you don't have to just stand up for your rights. you can kneel for them as well. and it does take it takes a lot of courage as we said to stand up against authority in today's cancel culture climate, i think students tend to be more afraid of their peers than you know, their authorities that definitely and and there's there's a big big survey literature now showing that i

know nadine you're on the board of fire, but fire to this incredibly sponsor this incredibly extensive survey of college students and found that you know college students of every political party of every race, they're censoring themselves not because they're afraid of me because again i'm old but they're afraid of their peers, you know, and i think the pure effect is extremely strong, especially when you're young, you know, when i was 18, i really did care a lot about what other 18 year olds thought. but you know, i think that's another reason why the people that run these institutions really have to stand up and raise their voices about what a problem that is. and i haven't heard enough of that. so after the fire report, i want to see a whole bunch of university presents to stand up and say look this is bad. and what's that specifically it's bad that tens of thousands of young people report that they're not saying what they think for fear of being canceled. all right, that's bad because our job is to educate.

and that dynamic is uneducational it inhibits what we can learn from each other. um, and sorry no, we have two minutes left. so i'd like to give john you were in the middle of a closing statement or could have been if you can finish that and then i'll give sydney the same opportunity, you know learn it had who's one of my heroes and arguably the most important, you know, juris that wasn't on the supreme court. he said that the spirit of liberty is the spirit. that's not too sure of itself. and i think right now too many of us or too sure of ourselves, and that's why we're trying to stamp out speech because we know what's right, but actually we don't and the other thing that learn enhance said in the same speech is that you know, unless liberty lives in the heart of american men and women. he said women too. it's so cool in 1944 that you know, no constitutional law is going to protect it. you know, this isn't just a

matter of law. it's really a matter of culture and it's a matter of all of us to signing what sort of society we want to live in and we've got to protect liberty if we don't no politician is going to thank you, sydney. well, he speaks my mind and we are out of time. so i just want to thank everyone for tuning in. go look at them -- pictures and don't be afraid of them. one of our audience members made a great suggestion, which i'm going to use as my closing remark and that is that this what book would be a perfect graduation gift for everybody who is graduating from kindergarten to middle school and and i would say law school in college. thank williams brilliant remark.

yeah. yes, i approved. thank you all yes, and thanks to nadine straussen for being a great moderator and more. thank you. american history tv on c-span 3 every weekend documenting america's story funding comes from these television companies and more including sparklite. the greatest town on earth is the place you call home at sparklight. it's our home too. and right now we're all facing our greatest challenge. that's why sparklite is working round the clock to keep you connected. we're doing our part. so it's a little easier to do yours sparkline along with these television companies supports american history tv on c-span, 3 as a public service. c-span landmark cases explores the stories and constitutional drama behind significant supreme court decisions sunday at 9:45

pm eastern watch gideon v wainwright where clarence earl gideon tried for petty crimes was denied a court-appointed lawyer the supreme court ruled that under the sixth amendment. the accused must be provided a lawyer if they cannot afford one or the opportunity to defend themselves watch landmark cases sunday night at 9:45 pm eastern on c-span online at c-span.org or listen on the c-span radio app. in france freedom of speech is guaranteed under the declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen, but with exceptions in particular hate speech up next on american history tv a panel of journalists and law professors compare the definitions of free speech in france and the united states and explore whether france's model would work here. the national constitution center hosted this program and provided the video.