what everyone needs to know." host: author netty and strossen, the last time i saw you with that freedom fest in memphis in july. a lot of people would be wondering why the former president of the aclu was at a libertarian convention. why were you there? nadine: first of all, peter, i do not only preach to the choir. i think that would be a waste of my time. i speak to just about anybody who is anybody interested and open-minded to hear my civil libertarian perspectives. i put the emphasis on that phrase because there is a lot of overlap between civil libertarians and libertarians.

if people think they are anti-civil liberties, i would love to have the opportunity to persuade them that is not the case. two: you're also a board member of the foundation for individual rights and expressions. nadine: i am a senior fellow of fire. until recently, the acronym stood for the foundation for individual rights in education. a little more than a year ago, fire, recognizing the speech's oppressive atmosphere that is becoming pervasive on college campuses was spreading to our larger society, it received a lot of support and encouragement to expand its activities supported free speech beyond campus. it kept the same acronym but no stand for the foundation for individual rights and expression. i became one of the first senior

fellows. peter: knitting strossen, how did free speech get embedded in our constitution? nadine: the history of free speech predates not only the constitution but also the revolution. a wonderful history has been written by steve solomon, professor at nyu, about how the vigorous experience of dissent through all forms of expressi on, famously the boston tea party and demonstrations, that was embedded in the concept of rebelling and becoming an independent country. even before there was a constitution or a bill of rights that expressly protected these freedoms, they were completely

ingrained in our national culture, our national sense of self identity. the united states could not have existed without the most robust freedom of speech and dissent. peter: at what point in your career or life did free speech become the work of your books, the aclu, etc.? nadine: long before i had the ability to write, i had a sense of the importance of individual expression. the more i read, the more i see this as being innate in humans. you see examples from around the world throughout history. it starts as our sense of self exploration. who am i? what is the essence of my beliefs and identity? i know i started asking those questions i was just at the beginning of my educational

career vis-a-vis kindergarten teachers and my parents. i was thrilled when i learned there are actual legal protections for what seemed to me instinctively and intuitively should be a fundamental human right. peter: your most recent book "free speech,", you look at the five criteria you talk about. content and topic, medium, place, speaker, and type of regulations. walk us through some of these legal issues involved in free speech. nadine: the united states supreme court, first of all, i think it is important to note the clerk did not become protective of free speech until the second half of the 20th century. most of our history, the first amendment with its wonderful theoretical guarantee of free speech was honored as a

practical reality, especially people who were dissenting, protesting government policy were regularly subject to censorship. that certainly continued through the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century. no coincidence, the famous warren court under the leadership of chief justice earl warren, which was very protective of civil rights, also began to strongly protect free speech because censorship was being used as a tool to suppress not only civil rights demonstrators themselves but also the national media which was covering them. our free speech jurisprudence is relatively new. it is very fact specific because the first amendment contains an appropriately general standard. congress or government shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. well, that is not absolute because not every restriction is an abridgment and not every

abridgment is unjustified. the court has developed about five criteria it regularly takes into account to evaluate whether any particular speech restriction is constitutionally justified or not. if i could pause, it is really important to stress that strong as our current free speech protection currently is, it is not absolute. so many detractors of freedom of speech, including many politicians and sadly many in the media and many students and faculty members, have this distorted caricatured version of free speech in their heads when they say, it is ridiculously absolute and no exceptions can ever be made. free speech champions even deny free speech can cause harm.

no, no. jurisprudence sensibly says free speech that is the most dangerous make an should be restricted. but the censorship that is the most dangerous should also be restricted. the criteria you mentioned are regularly taken into account in determining the appropriateness of the particular restriction. medium is really important because the constitution itself only refers to freedom of speech and of the press. the press was the only other medium that existed at that time. since then, every time there have been a new medium, the supreme court has examined whether it should be subject to the same speech protection the press traditionally has received . recently, we are going through debates about online communications. we have many cases in front of the supreme court about social media in particular.

peter: when do you expect those to be heard? nadine: the supreme court already heard a couple of arguments on these cases on the first day of its current session. these are hard cases so that are not expected to be decided until close to the end of the term next summer. peter: speaker, why is speaker important when it comes to free speech and the supreme court? nadine: it cannot taken for granted whoever is speaking, whatever individual or group, has a free speech right. although, the way the jurisprudence has developed, the supreme court has held regardless of who you are and regardless of what group and form your group is organized in, you have a free speech right. this is very controversial among the public with respect to corporations in particular. there is a lot of anger about

supreme court decisions recognizing for-profit as well as not-for-profit corporations have free speech rights. that is one of the reasons why people are so irritated by the supreme court's controversial decision and the citizens united case. i have to tell you, among the justices, that proposition was not controversial at all. they disagreed about other aspects of the case, in particular whether the regulations were justified, but all of them unanimously agreed people have not only freedom of speech individually but the right to form organizations that will amplify individual speech. for more than 100 years, the court without controversy has ruled corporations to have free speech rights. peter: are you supportive of the citizens united case? nadine: i agree with most of it.

some of the details about particular regulations i might disagree with. the two points that received the most public controversy, i think the court was exactly right. people have the right to organize and corporate form for purposes of engaging in speech. and number two, spending money two advocate for political causes or for or against the election of a candidate's a form -- candidate is a form of expression or a restriction on the amount of money you can spend to advance those messages is a restriction on free speech rights. peter: nadine strossen, it was back in the late 1910's i believe that oliver wendell holmes used the phrase, "you cannot yell fire in a crowded theater," of course, a supreme

court justice at the time. nadine: i am frowning, actually, i'm smiling because you gave me a great opportunity in paraphrasing that statement. you do what 99.99% of people do which is to mis-paraphrase it because you left out a really important word. i was on a panel a few years ago within justice stephen breyer. he did the same thing, so you are in good company. he is in good company. but what he said is you may not falsely shout fire in a crowded theater. that gets to the essence of the justification for restricting speech. if the theater is on fire, you want people to shout it. in that context, the speech is lifesaving and so it should be protected. that gets to the point we have to look at every restriction in a very fact-specific way. what is the benefit of allowing the speech?

what is the danger of allowing the speech? that word makes a big difference. peter: should speech be more restricted during time of national emergency? nadine: no. exactly the contrary. let me cite a recent decision that came from a federal district court that ruled favorably on the aclu challenge to a puerto rican law that suppressed covid-related disinformation. it was at the beginning of the pandemic. the aclu immediately brought a lawsuit to challenge it representing two prominent members of your profession, two investigative journalists, who said especially during a time of national crisis whether a terrorism attack or a virus attack, it is especially important for people to have access to information in the chaos, the fog of war, the controversies and lack of

precise information and details about what is causing this virus, it is especially important for reporters to be uninhibited and doing their best to pursue the truth. but as these respective reporters said, even the most conscientious journalists in those circumstances will sometimes get it wrong. the judge in granting our request the law be struck down as violating the first amendment made that point very strongly. he said it is especially important when we are facing a national security threat including a public health threat that freedom of speech is the least inhibited. people have the right to disagree and to debate and to have alternative perspectives, but government should not be the arbiter of truth. that would be bad not only for individual liberty but also for public health. peter: nadine strossen served as president of the aclu from 1991

to 2008. still involved with aclu? nadine: yes, i'm on the national advisory board of the aclu and stay in regular contact with national leaders. peter: i think we are going to tick some people off because i'm going to show two examples. here is a recent press release by the aclu saying they submitted a motion to file an amicus brief arguing and overly broad gag order imposed on donald trump by the judge in one of his court cases, you work supportive -- you are supportive of former president trump's ability to speak. i'm going to read from your first book, " in defense of pornography." we are as committed as any other famous -- feminist but we believe suppressing words and images will not advance these crucial causes.

we are convinced censoring sexu expression would do more harm than good to women's rights and safety. we adamantly oppose any effort to restrict sexual speech, not only because it would violate our cherished first amendment freedoms, but also because it would undermine our equality, our status, our dignity, and our autonomy. nadine: thank you so much, peter. that second statement was not only for me but we indicated it was on behalf of a group of women that had formed an organization called feminists for free expression. we were taking a different perspective from one that was very dominant among feminists at the time in the late 1980's and early 1990's. the assumption there is an inherent conflict between women's rights on one hand and freedom of speech, sexual expression or pornography on the

other hand. the assumption was if you support women's safety, dignity, and equality, which i certainly do as a lifelong feminist, then somehow you must also support censorship of sexual expression which state referred to by the stigmatizing term pornography. a whole group of us women, including the aclu women's rights project which was famously founded by ruth bader ginsburg, we argued exactly the opposite based on experience. if you give the government power to censor sexual expression, that power is predictably going to be used disproportionately to silence expression that is especially important for women and advocates of women's rights. we see that to this day, peter. you are kindly referring to my book that was published in 1995. the full title is "defending pornography, free speech, sects,

and the fight for women's rights." a lot of important information in the subtitle. i think the publisher was trying to be provocative with the title. earlier this year, they asked to republish the book as part of the nyu classics series, asked me to write a new preface because there had been so many recent attacks on sexual expression, in particular expression about gender identity and sexual orientation. and that stigmatizing term pornography has been wielded by state legislators and executive officials around the country who are attacking under that rubric, attacking books by and about lgbtq+ individuals, seeking to remove them from public libraries, from school libraries, and from school curricula. the term pornography has very

negative connotations. most people tend to use it for whatever sexual expression they dislike. but let us not forget that if we empower the majority under that rubric to go after sexual expression that is unpopular, it is really going to include and endanger a lot of expression that is especially important not only for advocates of lgbtq rights but also reproductive freedom, the right to contraception, and gender equality. peter: house social media added a new, complex layer to the issue of free speech? nadine: yes, for many reasons. let me start with this. every time there has been a new communications medium throughout history going back as far as the printing press, those of us who support free speech and human rights, very excited, a wonderful opportunity for more people to have more information about more subjects and

participate in more debates. but those who have a more authoritarian orientation are a little bit concerned about giving so much power to individuals. there is a desire for control. every time we have a new medium, government predictably responds by trying to suppress that medium. that definitely happened with the whole online medium back in the 1990's when the internet first became widely known to the public and to politicians and the press. scientists had known about it for a while. immediately, congress passed a very suppressive law called the communications decency act which was supported by almost every member of congress on both sides of the aisle, signed by then president bill clinton. fortunately, the aclu succeeded in our constitutional lawsuit

which gave rise to a landmark supreme court decision called reno, as an janet reno, bill clinton's attorney general, versus aclu. this goes back to one of the first questions you asked me. the supreme court did consider whether in the context of this new medium the first amendment free-speech rights should be as robustly protected as it has been safe for the traditional printed medium. i was thrilled 9-0 the justices unanimously agreed with the aclu that online expression should be subject to the highest level of first amendment protection. this gives me an opportunity to make a really basic point that responds to one of your earlier questions as well. freedom of speech is not only the right of individuals to choose what to say and what not to say, but it is also the right of individuals to choose what to

listen to and what not to listen to. if we suppress speech on a new medium such as social media, that is impacting not only the speech rights of the medium owner itself, the platform itself, of the speakers who want access to the platform, but all the rest of us who want to hear what that speaker has to say. that is why, you mentioned the donald trump case, i am very supportive of the aclu's excellent brief which i read arguing very respectfully to the judge that the gag order went too far. because that was violating not only the free-speech rights of donald trump who is a leading presidential candidate, whether people like it or not, that is the reality. that is why it is especially important for the rest of us to get to hear what he has to say

to inform our decisions as voters. peter: but, in a dean strossen, facebook, x, google, private companies, you cite an example in your book "hate" that in 2018, facebook blocked a post with passages from the declaration of independence referring to merciless indian savages. doesn't facebook have that right? nadine: yes. what you're talking about is a really important distinction between a legal right and whether something is right as a matter of morality or public policy. my book "hate," the subtitle is "why we should resist it with free speech and not censorship." i oppose government suppression of hate speech but i for everybody to exercise self-restraint and not engage in hate speech themselves and not listen to or be supportive of

hateful messages other people are issuing. i defend the right of these platforms. as i defend the right of newspapers and c-span to make determinations about who should have access and who should not have access to very important platforms. but i also disagree with particular judgments made in the exercise of that power and would like to persuade these companies to be more speech friendly. peter: i want to quote from "hate." nothing strengthens hate groups more than censoring them as it turns them into free speech martyrs. free expression is the foundation of human rights, the source of humanity, and the mother of truth. nadine: i am quoting their a nobel prize-winning chinese dissident. i'm not going to try to

pronounce his name. he was speaking from prison. he was imprisoned for having tried to exercise their what would be protected free speech rights here. i think it is one thing to say we absolutely deplore ideas that are hateful or suppressive of women's equality. we may dislike some of donald trump's ideas, to use some of your examples. but you may think you are suppressing those ideas by suppressing speech, but you are kidding yourself because throughout history, to this day, there has been a very widespread phenomenon sometimes called the forbidden fruits phenomenon. sometimes it is called the streisand effect after the famous example involving barbra streisand. when you try to suppress certain expression, it paradoxically

draws people's attention to the expression and leads more of them to view it or this into it -- listen to it than otherwise would have happened. years ago, there were online photographs of one of barbra streisand's beachfront properties. she tried to have it suppressed. suddenly, interest in viewing those photographs enormously spiked. we can look at an example of suppression of hateful speech that backfired. it was in germany 1918-1933 when hitler was rising to power. the weimar republic had many laws against hate speech which it strictly enforced, including against nazis. hitler himself was subject to a gag order for a couple of years, not allowed to make any public speeches. the verlander anti-semitic

publication, the publisher was prosecuted many times. sadly, we know this did not suppress the rise of nazi ideology. conversely, the nazis loved these trials because they became propaganda platforms for them to spew hateful ideas and gain attention and sympathy they otherwise never would have. peter: two take that example, let me quote again from "hate." no matter who we are as individus and no matter to which society and group we belong, week can and must increase our capacity to resist the hurtful potential of hateful, scrivener tory words that target us -- discriminatory words that target us. is a call for censorship?

nadine: not at all. this is a call to recognize even if we had strict censorship laws, ideas will find a way to express themselves. hateful ideas will migrate from one social media platform to another. people also come up with different means, -- memes, more subtle ways of expressing the same hateful ideas. you will never suppress the harmful speech completely. it is like any prohibition strategy. you cannot completely eliminate the supply, so you have to work on the demand side. try to encourage people to not seek out the hateful disinformation, expression, and if they are exposed to it to

reject it, not allow it to tear them down if it is a matter of insulting their dignity. i put my money where my mouth is. there is a tremendous amount of anti-semitic speech that has been especially virulent in the wake of the hamas terrorist attacks and israel's response. i was commissioned to write a piece defending freedom of speech, even for anti-semitic speech. one of my friends said, that must be hard for you as a jewish person whose father was a holocaust survivor, many of my relatives were murdered by the nazis. it is actually not hard because knowing the history of nazi germany, i'm absolutely convinced that no matter how well intended censoring anti-semitic or other hate speech might be, it is doomed to fail. the only hope for resisting the hateful ideas and actions is by

going after the ideas which you do through education. in after the action which you do by enforcing the criminal law. in the weimar republic, the nazis literally got away with murder. they were not punished for violent attacks. here in the united states, we have many reports of assaults and threats recently that have not been sufficiently punished. peter: i wanted to address that. what you say to the jewish students feeling threatened or have been assaulted because of the issue going on in gaza and israel? nadine: as i said earlier, freedom of speech is not at all absolute. first of all, and actual assault or physical attack is completely illegal and must be punished to the full extent of the law. but freedom of expression that constitutes what the courts call a true threat or genuine threat

should be punished. it is not constitutionally protected. here is how the supreme court has sensibly defined a true threat. it is a little bit narrower than what we use for everyday speech. when the speaker is targeting a particular visual or small group of individuals and it tends to instill a reasonable fear they are going to be subject to attack, that is a punishable true threat and should be punished. this is really important. the speaker does not have to intend to actually carry out the attack. it is enough that the target reasonably fierce being subject to attack because that already inhibits that person's freedom of movement. we have read many accounts of jewish students not only being physically assaulted including one really disturbing account at my, moderate, harvard, which

must be investigated. if the accounts are accurate, there must be punishment. but we have also read many accounts of language that arguably meets that standard of a true threat. for example, at cornell earlier this week, there was an arrest made of a student who issued very anti-semitic, threatening language that specifically identified members of the cornell community who were using a particular dining facility which was frequented by jewish students because it honored kosher laws. i believe and more importantly the fbi and other law enforcement agencies agree it satisfied the standard for a true threat sufficient to arrest the student and subject him to criminal prosecution. peter: another issue, nadine

strossen. we have read reports about law schools pulling offers to students who have signed on to the anti-israel letters. these students were expressing their free speech. now, they are being punished professionally. nadine: let's be clear about this, peter. number one, it is a difficult issue. but number two, i think the legal parameters are quite clear. on the one hand, students certainly have the free-speech right to engage in the most obnoxious, controversial viewpoints as long as they do not cross the line to targeted threats or harassment. number two, employers have no obligation to hire any particular individual, under federal law. i should note there are some state and local laws that do

prohibit employers from discriminating on the basis of political beliefs. i would advise all employers to make sure they are acting consistent with state and local laws. that gets to the harder question which is, even if you have a right to do something, is it right to do so? we have had many, many conversations recently about the problem of so-called cancel culture as opposed to a free speech culture. what that is trying to signify, the essence of it is this. we should exercise some self-restraint in advocating or implementing overly punitive, disproportionately harsh responses to people whose speech we dislike. even if we have the right to do that, maybe in the aggregate it creates the kind of culture where people are so afraid of

adverse ramifications, social, employment, or academic, that they engage in rampant self-censorship, not there and to express their views on certain hot button topics -- not daring to express their views on certain hot button topics. surveys continue to indicate throughout our society, including on campus where free speech should be the most robust, people are so afraid of being subject to cancellation measures, including loss of potential jobs, but also just social stigmatizing and ostracizing, that they are not discussing the most important topics. certainly, the october 7 attacks in the political situation in the middle east more generally are very important topics. i would urge employers to exercise some self-restraint with the goal of fostering a free speech culture. let me mention one other point.

these young people are not fully developed in terms of the portions of their brain that enable us to make judgments, to such an extent that the united states supreme court has held imposing the death penalty and other harsh penalties on minors is unconstitutional. college students are not minors, but evidence indicates many of them are not yet fully formed thoughtful individuals. believe in a more merciful, hopeful, restorative justice kind of approach. that is a term we have heard supported by politicians all across the spectrum saying we have been too punitive in our society and that does not do any good in terms of likely rehabilitation and constructive reintegration into society. even people who have committed

homicide are now being offered restorative justice approaches. it seems to me people who are advocating violence, especially when they are so young, that maybe we should err in favor of giving them another chance. that is not a matter of first amendment rights. that is just a matter of what the right thing to do is for society as a whole. peter: cancel culture is a topic you address in your latest book. good afternoon. thank you for joining us on this book to be in depth discussion with the former president of the aclu, nadine strossen. she is the author most recently of "free speech: what everyone needs to know." prior to that, in 2020, "hate" came out. we talk about a bit about her first book, "defending

pornography." it came out in 1995 and is being reissued next year i believe you said by nyu press. if you would like to participate in this conversation, we would love to hear from you. if you live in the east and central time zones, 8201 mountain and pacific. you can try our text number. that is for text messages only. please include your first name and city if you would. at some point, we will also scroll through our social media sites. if you would like to join and make a comment that way, you can do so. nadine strossen, you mentioned your father was captured or taken prisoner during the holocaust.

tell us about your parents. nadine: yes. my father, i am so proud of him, peter. key was not just a holocaust survivor. he was an opponent of the nazi regime before he was imprisoned and after he was liberated by americans. let me say a word about that. under the pernicious, racist, nuremberg laws, he was called have to -- a half jew or jute of the second degree. he was under so much pressure to divorce his wife and bravely stood by her under an enormous amount of economic, political, and other pressure. when my father was imprisoned, it was not only for the crime of being a have to -- half jew but

also because of his anti-nazi political activities. because of that double discriminatory factor, he was slated to be sterilized. the nazis had a program not only of genocide but of eugenicide. he literally had a date scheduled. one day before he would have been sterilized, he was liberated by americans. i recently learned from one of my uncles that the individual member of the american military who dug my father out, apparently there had been a bomb right before, was black. that still gives me chills. unfortunately in the united states, thank god we did not have death camps, but we had jim crow. this brave man who liberated my father was subject to norman's discrimination back home. all of this feeds into my passion for human rights, as

does the story on my mother's side. her father was an immigrant to the united states from what is now croatia in the early part of the 20th century. he was a pacifist, a marxist, and a conscientious objector in world war i for the crime of objecting to the crime of the united states' war policy and refusing to serve, he was sentenced by the court in new jersey where he lived to stand outside the courthouse with his hands and feet splayed against the courthouse walls so passersby could spit on him. peter: free speech was an issue during world war i. nadine: interestingly enough, that was the issue that gave rise to the aclu. it was originally the civil liberties bureau of an organization called the american

union against militarism. it's prime focus was defending free speech rights of the thousands of individuals who were imprisoned or prosecuted simply for peacefully expressing opposition to the war. unfortunately, they did not get there in time to assist my grandfather. but i think it is wonderful, poetic justice i have been active in that organization my whole life. peter: nadine strossen, under grand harvard -- undergrad harvard, law school, harvard, law professor to this day? nadine: i took a break from teaching in 2019 despite loving my students, and i got feedback from them, too. i started to see the attacks against freedom of speech from both ends of the political spectrum were becoming so random -- rampant i decided it was even more important for me to spend my time writing and speaking more broadly about those issues.

freedom of speech, intellectual freedoms, civil discourse. even more important than teaching my students other aspects of constitutional law. i have been doing about 200 public presentations per year since then. if i could also mention, i am the host of a newly issued three-part public tv series called "free to speak" which aired starting last month and is on public tv around the company -- country and is also available on youtube. peter: given the topic to talk about and we have talked about today, what is the biggest critique you get? nadine: i think i have already alluded to it, which is that i would absolutely support free speech to the detriment of other values. thank you for giving me an opportunity to reinforce why that is a misplaced critique.

i continue to be fully committed to the full range of human rights, not only civil liberties in the united states, but i also have been very active in the international human rights movement. i remain absolutely convinced that without the most robust freedom of speech, including freedom to engage in speech that is seen as controversial, harmful, and dangerous, without that, we are never going to make progress on any other human right. you and i may have a certain concept of what speech we consider to be dangerous. but when you look at the pattern across history and around the world, disproportionally government, not surprisingly, considers speech to be dangerous that is critical of government policies, that seeks to reform and challenge the status quo.

that is why throughout most of u.s. history, before the supreme court began to strongly enforce free speech, during the civil rights movement, not coincidentally during the second half of the 20th century, until that point, government censorship suppressed the abolition movement, the movement for women's suffrage, the movement for labor rights and unionization, antiwar speech, pacifist speech, socialist speech, lgbtq writes speech, basically all speech advocating for in my view bringing to reality the ideals set forth in the declaration of independence, that free and full and equal rights for all of us. peter: i believe, and tell me if i am wrong, margaret sanger's original brochure or pamphlet was outlawed in the u.s., advocating abortion rights. nadine: even advocating, at that

point, she was advocating information to women about their reproductive functions, information about contraception methodologies, and she was repeatedly subject to prosecution and imprisonment. interestingly enough, she was one of the aclu's original clients. she was also prevented from speaking on campus, which is very interesting because today it would be somebody probably opposing what i would call reproductive freedom on college campuses likely to be censored. again, if we want to have freedom for the speech we agree with, we have to be willing to give freedom to speech we disagree with or our own speech is going to be endangered. peter: i want to quote from an article he wrote for "tablet" magazine in 2022. because many campus communities skew liberal or progressive and because progressive views tend to disproportionately dominate

fields that favor workers with academic degrees, self-censorship is particularly acute among non-progressives, conservatives, libertaris, moderates, the politically indifferent, and even old-style liberals. many left-leaning members of campus communities explicitly admit or boast they would deny employment or other professional opportunities to academics with conservative views about public policy issues. nadine: yes. this is a pattern that continues to be documented. the most recent in-depth survey i am familiar with came out a few weeks ago from fire and college pulse. it was a detailed survey, examination of 248 campuses which showed self-censorship is rampant among students and faculty members alike in every

context including classes, extracurricular activities, conversations between faculty members and students. interestingly enough, the self-censorship does come even on the part of those on the left end of the political spectrum but not the extreme left end of the spectrum. that said, the survey also underscored, as have other data, that a lot of censorship efforts are coming from the right. those tend to be government laws, executive decrees, legislation. some of the rationales both the left and right use are the same. famously, college students and faculty members on the left started talking about repressing speech that made them uncomfortable or that was divisive. usually, that meant speech about issues of race or gender that

were not sufficiently progressive. conservatives would make fun of that nomenclature, mock liberal or progressive snowflakes. and yet, we have seen this raft of laws passed by mostly conservative state legislatures around the country that outlaw expression about race or gender that makes people uncomfortable or that is divisive. they are targeting the 6019 project and so called critical race theory. again, i'm going to be a broken record here, if we care about freedom for the speech we agree with, we have to mutually defend the same principles that are also in some circumstances going to protect speech we disagree with. the fact that speech may make you uncomfortable for maybe divisive is not a reason for censoring the speech, either direct censorship through government legislation or soft censorship through cancel culture.

it is a reason for responding to that speech and developing habits of resiliency so it does not have a negative impact on us, but it is not a justification for suppression. peter: it was in 1988 that the term aclu played on a large stage and became part of america's lexicon. let's listen. [video clip] >> he is the one that said that, not me. i am the one that probably says i am not a card-carrying member of the aclu. [applause] you see, i don't want to take away the tax exemption from our churches. i do not believe child pornography should be legalized. and i do believe that in god we trust ought to stay on our currency. [applause] i believe we are one nation under god.

[applause] he is entitled to his opinion. we believe in free speech. we believe in tolerance. i think i have a right to ask this question. if you respect the aclu so much, will he take their advice when it comes to appointing justices for the supreme court of the united states? peter: nadine strossen, what was the effect of george h.w. bush using the aclu as a beating post at that time? nadine: as you might imagine, it drew a tremendous amount of attention to the aclu and gave us an opportunity, including through the national media, to respond to those charges. interestingly enough, there was a movie made about this, "the american president," that lionized the candidate who said i am a proud card-carrying member of the aclu.

he actually gave a speech we wish michael dukakis had given in real life. to his opponent, he said i am a member of this organization which defends all fundamental freedoms for all people no matter who you are, no matter what you believe. the question is, why are you not a member of the aclu? our membership numbers shot up. sadly, this shows when people see a dramatic threat to civil liberties, including free speech, is when they tend to be supportive. otherwise, they tend to take it for granted and not realize it is always under siege and requires, to quote a phrase it's riveted to thomas jefferson, eternal -- attributed to thomas jefferson, eternal vigilance. peter: have your political views altered in the past couple of decades? you were at freedom fest. nadine: my political views have

more or less been centrist liberal throughout my life. but much more important to me than my views on policy issues are my views on neutral, fundamental civil rights, civil liberties, and human rights issues, where i continue to believe no matter who you are or what you believe that you are entitled to these freedoms and basic rights. i will defend them for you. the organizations i have been active with are organizations mutually committed to the defense of those principles and have undertaken to actually defend them on behalf of of the immediate beneficiaries who widely vary in terms of their political beliefs. the ultimate beneficiaries are every single one of us. when freedom of speech is defended for the nazis, as the aclu famously did in the late

1970's in the case coming out of illinois which had a large jewish population, many of whom were holocaust survivors, the positions we took in that case rebounded to the benefit of anti-nazi, pro civil rights demonstrators in washington, d.c. let me stress the lead aclu counsel in that case was eleanor holmes norton, now the longtime representative in congress of the district of columbia. she was then a new staff lawyer at the aclu. i saw an interview she gave less than a year ago on this topic saying she was so proud of having defended freedom of speech and a case called brandenberg versus ohio, but the same principle involved.

it involved the leader of the kkk. she said although she knew the beneficiary of the case would be a nazi that the really important beneficiaries would be her colleagues in the aclu, the student nonviolent coordinating community, and other civil rights organizations. peter: let's take some calls. let's begin with carl in chicago. please go ahead. you are on with arthur nadine strossen. caller: yes. what is your take on the polarization of social media and the intervention of moneyed interests and how it is undermining free speech. peter: before she answers that, what is your take? caller: i have been an over

65-year member of the aclu. i am a big free speech advocate. peter: thank you for calling in. nadine: thank you so much for that great question. ellis is a colleague and friend of mine, the only writer in residence at the aclu. he is very prolific, quoting the book that you cite. he wrote a history of the aclu. the point he makes is a very important one which is freedom of speech depends on a robust speech protective enforcement of the first amendment by the supreme court. that is a necessary but not sufficient condition for having meaningful, real, freedom of speech for everybody in this society.

beyond the legal protection, we need to do other things which is to make sure everybody has the necessary educational, financial, and technological resources to meaningfully exercise free speech. this is one of the reasons why the aclu has been so supportive of free speech for the online media, including social media, from the beginning. because it drastically reduced the cost of reaching an extremely large audience. you no longer need to use the really expensive broadcast media to disseminate your political message. we look at movements such as the black lives matter movement or the #metoo movement which existed for a long time but never really got traction until social media came along making it much cheaper, easier, and faster to reach a larger audience. peter: jim is in california.

good afternoon. caller: hello. thank you very much. wonderful discussion on free speech. my question is a little off topic. 14th amendment cases saying president trump should not be allowed to be on the ballot because of the rebellion because -- clause in sections three and four of the amendment. as i read that, it seems clear what they are talking about in the use of those words is the civil war, not anything that is happened subsequently or would happen subsequently. but they did not use the word civil war because it was not a term in use in 1868. if you put in the word civil war instead of insurrection, the argument fails. i am a retired attorney. it seems an absurd argument.

i'm interested in your position in the aclu position. peter: thank you for calling in. nadine: thank you so much, jim. i don't know if the aclu has a position on this. i'm not involved in the day-to-day activities anymore. i can tell you i do not have a firm position because i recognize i have been so focused on just the huge and proliferating number of free speech issues it is all i can do to try to keep on top of those. on this issue, i do know enough to know it is extreme and complicated. it has been subject to enormous debate and disagreement, including among people who often agree with each other. and that some experts have recently re-examined and revised their positions. the pieces i have read about it, one that was intuitively appealing to me, and i'm not saying i have reached a final

conclusion, but it was written by michael mcconnell, a very respected conservative law professor at stanford. he said we should go easy here, recognizing the impact of the interpretation that would disqualify somebody from the ballot is deeply threatening to democratic values potentially. that we should perhaps err in favor when there is a debatable interpretation of interpreting the disqualification narrowly because what is involved is, again, this goes back to a point i made about free speech, it is the right not only of the speaker but the audience. not only would donald trump be deprived of the opportunity to run for president, but about 50% of the public that seems to support him would be

>> you a definitive conclusion -- i don't have the expertise but that would be a concern i have. peter: how did you end up being raised in the twin city area? nadine: my father was working for the ashland oil company. he was initially working for the archer daniels midland company which was based in minneapolis. we talked about our common minnesota origins. they transferred him to minneapolis. they were subsequently overtaken or that division was overtaken which was transferred to ohio. i have minnesota and midwestern roots, as we say there. host: our next call is from julian minneapolis. caller: hi, i had missed that so that's interesting.

i have two things that i have thought. one is i think that one is relevant to the subject of your book and speech. my first is my favorite tagline is that euphemism is the enemy of the people. we cannot talk freely about things openly, directly, and i think this is kind of along what you are saying about self-censorship. that we are inclined to use nice words rather than direct true words. the other thing that i think about with regard to free speech and communications between peoples particularly who disagree or don't understand is i think hate speech is almost always fear speech. host: is what? caller: fear. host: fear speech. caller: yup.

so if you agree or disagree with that notion in my head, but if you have any agreement with that, how does the perspective that we take, readers of your book, the perspective -- they are talking hate speech versus fear speech. they are coming from hate, they are coming from fear. how does that influence response and the opportunities for true communication? host: thank you for calling in. guest: those are great points so let me start with the first one. euphemism. self-censorship isn't always bad, right? so if we are self censoring and using euphemisms for a constructive purpose, to convey the same idea but in a more

respectful way, that is effective communication. we tried to use the language that is not going to alienate people but that is more likely to make them receptive to our ideas. as a lawyer, i would say that is effective advocacy. if, however, we use euphemisms to cancel an entire idea as opposed to conveying the same idea in a more respectful, courteous manner, that is a horse of a different color. we should never censor ideas not only as a matter of self expression but also because that is the lifeblood of democratic discourse. i think so much of george orwell's dystopian novel 1984 and remember the language which was eliminating words that conveyed controversial ideas

with the specific goal of suppressing the idea. and the united states supreme court said in a famous case involving a four letter word that i still am not allowed to say on broadcast tv but i probably cannot c-span -- i can't. but i won't. ok. so talk about different media having different levels of free speech. the supreme court said, make no mistake about it, you cannot eliminate a particular word without also altering or eliminating the particular idea. so your second point, julie is --is hate speech fear speech? you are getting to one of the reasons i say if what you are trying to eliminate, and i believe it is, is not the speech itself but the underlying attitude, you are astutely

trying to figure out what is the attitude? what is causing that person to voice -- to harbor and then to voice hate: ideas --hateful ideas? a lot of evidence does indicate that what is most likely to lead people to other other groups of people, to discriminate against them, to engage in hateful speech against them is fear, fear that these people are threatening their autonomy, their identity. i think of the hate speech in charlottesville, virginia, in 2017, they unite the right demonstrators. "you will not replace us." "jews will not replace us." i get chills when i say that. the ideology that reflects is this notion that white people

feel embattled, that they are endangered, that they are losing political and economic and cultural power in this country, and it is that fear that triggers the hate so if we are effectively to de-amplify the hate and reduce it, we have to address its underlying cause, and we don't do that by suppressing the message. we do that by educating them about the benefits that they are not going to be harmed, that their own lives and well-being and those of their children are going to be enhanced by the growing diversity and pluralism of our great country. host: julie's call reminded me about bernard professor jonathan ryder, who you have written about. what is the case here? caller: -- guest: jonathan is a friend and colleague of mine and he is one of many professors who have been sanctioned for simply

using a racial epithet. i'm not even going to use the euphemism for that epithet because a law professor has been punished for even using the euphemism, so i have a right to say it but i'm not going to be foolhardy and in danger my career and my status as an accepted human being, but even when you have a strong pedagogical purpose, jonathan is an expert on culture including music, and he was teaching about rap and other music where this is a very common, essential aspect of the lyrics, where culture indicates that when it is used by those performers in their communities, it doesn't have the stigmatizing intent or impact that it can if it is used by a racist sheriff against a black person. but there is just such -- let me

say, i do not at all defend the use of any epithet in any stigmatizing or insulting way but i just wish we could be a little bit more discriminating. for example, in my field, martin luther king wrote a historical letter from the birmingham jail that i consider to be one of the most clarion calls for full and equal human rights for everybody including black americans. in that racial but that two times and professors have been sanctioned for even assigning that wonderful letter to their students because of the use of that word. i think that, you know, to decontextualized what was the speaker intending -- decontextualize what was the speaker intending? huckleberry finn, another great example where i think that was

one of the most powerful indictments of slavery and of racism that has ever been written in the use of that term was to underscore the antiracism , antislavery message, and yet it is treated as if it was coming out of the mouth of a white supremacist. i think that kind of lack of distinction and judgment is ultimately certainly not good for free speech but even more importantly, i don't think it's good for human rights and equal rights for blacks and other racial minorities. host: next call, michael. broward county, florida. caller: hi. hello. you mentioned education a few times. this could be taught even in kindergarten. these are basic human issues. you mentioned education. if you are not educated, then you do not have the freedom of thought. you don't even have the ability to think, like you said.

you have the ability to meaningful exercise free speech -- meaningfully exercise free speech. we all think of that guy who did not do the nazi salute as he stood in the sea of others who were doing it and you mentioned a great example of that, in god we trust, which is on all of our money which significantly affects our freedom to think in ways we are not aware of. and even better example as far as truth and relativism is the fact that our entire education system, all the think tanks is based on a false perception of evolution so there is a truth here. evolution clearly says that it is not a synonym for competition yet we make it a competition when we guarantee 30% instead of

doing what we do in our homes. if the garbage, we don't give him a b for taking out 80%. i expected every kid to get 100 percent on every test. all my kids got a's in science class. here is an example of where we are not even -- host: we are going to have to leave it there. let's get a response from our guest. guest: you made many points. let me start with the first one which has been a theme through your other comments and that is the importance of rigorous education that is not indoctrinating but from the earliest educational levels is stimulating critical inquiry which is especially important in the sciences and where you talk but it is also incredibly important in literature and humanities and social sciences that we have to educate our

students to ask questions, to do research, to be exposed to and be able to articulate different perspectives. let me tell you the mantra that i use for my law students but i don't see any reason why it should not apply all the way down k-12 as well and that is i wanted my students to be able to understand, articulate, and advocate all plausible perspectives on all issues. that means anything that can be supported by evidence, by analysis, by reason. no unsubstantiated conclusory remarks and certainly no ad hominem arguments that are based on liking or disliking particular people. i think ultimately, that is going down not only to individual freedom but also to our democracy, a healthy democracy. host: let's follow-up michael's question with this text message from eric in michigan.

what does she think about the rights of parents in their children's elementary schools, especially concerning drug queens, pornography, and reading material? guest: let me start with the general question first, and that is that the public schools are a microcosm of our democracy. local government in action where we basically give in our democratic republic majorities have the right and any community have the power to elect government officials who are accountable to them. and that the school board, the local school board, board of education, is certainly a paradigm of local grassroots democracy in action. that said, the bill of rights was added to the constitution to make it expressly clear that we are not a pure democracy. our framers wisely recognized

that there are some rights that are so important that no majority should have the power to take them away from any minority no matter how small and despised that minority might be in the u.s. supreme court has said balancing these two concerns of most decisions get to be made by the local school board but on the other hand, if a decision about a curricular matter or a school library matter sharply and directly implicates freedom of speech, then freedom of speech trump's that -- trumps that. let's assume a school board said we are going to ban all books that are written by members of the democratic party or that are written by black people or that are written by women, that would violate the first amendment. in between, there is a lot of

latitude for decisions to be made by the local school board but i would urge, as the supreme court has, that those incisions should be made on the basis of consideration such as educational suitability and age appropriateness, not on whether the ideas of the author or the identity of the author are popular or unpopular with the political majority in a certain community. with that in mind, the way pornography has been used for a wide range of very educationally suitable material including the holocaust, the award-winning graphic novel maus, about the holocaust, in which one frame shows a woman who is partially new with her breasts exposed. i think the book might not be

age-appropriate for other reasons until you get into later grades but to say that that is pornographic and should be banned on the ground, i think that is not justifiable. host: her first book was called defending pornography, free-speech, sex, and the fight for women's rights. it is being reissued as a classic by nyu press year. steve in indiana -- i understand certain types of pornography can be restricted if it relates to living persons. can pornography that does not relate to living persons but which is generated by artificial intelligence be restricted? interesting take. guest: i assume that what you are referring to is what is sometimes referred to as revenge pornography, which is when any sexually explicit image or naked image of a person is

disseminated without that person's express permission, that that is a violation of individual privacy. i am not an expert in this area but i would assume that the privacy concerns are equally important for somebody who is no longer among the living as well as those who are still living. in all situations, it should not be an absolute prohibition. we would have to look at countervailing considerations so i can think of many artistic new representations that have occurred in film, famous films. i don't think that that should be -- presumably, that was subject to consent to so that is not a good example but let's consider on a fact by fact basis and i would not categorically draw a distinction on the basis of living or dead. host: artificial intelligence is

and will be a major part of our life and communications professor dwight ellis, do you know professor ellis? peter: i am -- guest: i am familiar with his scholarship, yes. host: what challenges do you see in the regulation or management of free speech during this age of artificial intelligence, where counter speech may be a difficult defense to harmful hate speech? guest: artificial intelligence is definitely going to complicate the equation, but in multiple directions. artificial intelligence, along with all communications tools, can be used very effectively to counter hateful attitudes including the fearful attitudes that julie from minneapolis questioned about. it can help us to identify people who have hateful ideas that are based in fear and to

craft messages, educational and persuasive messages, that are likely to dissuade them from those attitudes much more than censorship is. let's look at the potential and emphasize the potential positive and do our best to harness that. host: mike in berkeley, california. thanks for joining us. you are on with author nadine. caller: i'm interested in the intersection of academic freedom and the first amendment. i would like to have your opinion on the imposition of required statements for the purposes of academic appointment at promotion. host: are you affiliated with the university of berkeley? caller: i am emeritus. host: i know there are, in the last couple years, both ben schapiro and ann coulter have been prevented and/or protested from speaking at uc berkeley.

what is your take on that? caller: are you asking mine or nadine's? host: you. caller: i was very embarrassed being an alumni. i used to be a lawyer so i have an interest and concern about what is going on there. there is a lot of self-censorship and there was a lot of issues of impositions of students trying to keep other students from speaking, so i am very much in favor of a panoply on campus paid what is going on there and i think is very embarrassing. host: thank you for calling in. guest: thank you so much for your support of free speech and for your excellent question which gives me the opportunity to make an important point i have not yet had a chance to make witches is that first amendment freedoms include not only the right to say something

that we do want to say but the right not to say something that we don't want to say. and that freedom against compelled speech goes all the way back to a very famous case in the early 1940's in which the aclu successfully defended the rights of jehovah's witness schoolchildren not to be compelled to say the pledge of allegiance and to salute the american flag because the supreme court said that violated their freedom of conscience. interestingly enough, the supreme court said that the freedom against being forced to say something that violates your beliefs is even greater than the freedom to say something that is consistent with your beliefs because it is more intrusive into individual dignity and freedom of choice for the government to force you to mouth a certain script and that is the problem with these dei

statements that are now mandatory on so many campuses for applying to jobs, applying for promotions, and mind you, i'm not saying i oppose di goals. that is beside the point. i oppose a mandatory statement on an issue that is subject to deep debates and disagreements. to me, this is akin to the loyalty oath's which we also saw on the university of california and other campuses during the mccarthy cold war era and now, they are universally discredited. i think a future generation will look back on these mandatory statements and say they are equally repugnant to first amendment freedoms. by the way, fire has brought a lawsuit challenging the mandatory dei statements at

the university of california community college system and we brought that on behalf of a very diverse array of -- faculty members, many of whom support dei goals. host: right over your shoulder is -- something right to get those two voices. guest: unfortunately, you know, as i have said, the illiberal attacks on free speech are coming from both ends of the ideological spectrum but support for free speech also comes from all ends of the ideological spectrum. host: your most recent book,

free speech: what everyone needs to know. first of all, the format. guest: the format is prescribed by oxford university press. this is part of a series that has been published for 20 years. the name is trademarked. what everyone needs to know. and the format is question and answer which was completely congenial to me because for the last half dozen or so years, i have been giving about 200 public presentations per year and they are all in this question and answer format such as we are exemplifying today. i hear the same questions over and over because people have the same concerns so i was pretty much able to sit down at my laptop and just relive some of the person q&a experiences i had had. host: you sent us a code for a discount on this book if people want to buy it. is that correct? guest: yes. i don't know the code. it means anybody who buys the book in connection with this author event receives a discount

of 50% and that makes the book cost about $13. it is a 30% discount i think, but $13. host: i'm guessing we have it on the screen at this point. 202 is the area code if you want to call in and talk with our guest author and former aclu president. if you cannot get through on the phone line and still want to make a comment, try our text number. we will also scroll through our social media sites in case you want to make a comment that way as well. please go ahead. caller: good day. what is your take about the citizens united controversy and whether political contributions should be protected as free

speech, and beyond that, if wealthy people and corporations have a bigger megaphone, by virtue of their wealth, what violence does that do to the value of equality of free speech? host: i think we got your opinion with that second statement so thank you, sir, for calling in. we touched on this at the beginning of the show. guest: it's a really important point and it gives me an opportunity to reinforce something i said earlier which is, for me, legal protection of free speech is only the start. it is not the conclusion of meaningful support for free speech. we have to make it equally available to everybody in this country, and we do that in many ways including through education as we have already talked about including through technological resources such as the online media and social media that mean that you don't have to be a wealthy person to reach potentially every other person

in the entire world. that is one of the benefits of these new media. beyond that, citizens united dealt with a law that had nothing to do with how wealthy or non-wealthy the speakers were. it only focused on whether the speakers were organized in a corporate form or, i should add, as labor unions. it was a law that specifically restricted spending money to advocate political messages if you were a corporation or if you were a labor union. it did not matter if you were a tiny corporation. it didn't matter if you were a poor corporation. if your goal is to make sure that equal access to speech is available regardless of how many resources the speaker has, that would require a completely different law. as a result -- by the way, in

the political science research in the wake of citizens united seems to show that wealthy individuals who are not at all restricted by the campaign finance laws are the ones that are making disproportionate contributions to elections. i happen to agree with a statement that was made by the supreme court many years ago that if we think that some people are speaking too much, disproportionate to others, the result is not to level down the speech but rather to level it up. so i am much more interested, whether we are talking about corporations or whether we are talking about wealthy individuals, my concern is how do we level up to make sure that everybody, you know, every individual and every corporation has an equally meaningful opportunity to participate in the debate. host: today's capacious concept

of hate speech is often understood as encompassing the expression of any idea that some students consider objectionable. our safe spaces are good idea -- are safe spaces a good idea? caller: if we are -- guest: if we are talking about safety against physical assaults or true threats, to go back to the topic we talked about earlier, but to the extent that a safe space means safety from an idea that you might consider to be offensive or insulting, that is in fact dangerous. i'm going to quote a former president of the university of california who said our job is not to make students -- is to make students safe for ideas, not safe from ideas. in other words, we are going to

give students the critical inquiry, habits of mind, the resilience psychologically that they can deal with unpleasant, shocking, offensive, or insulting speech and not let it undermined their sense of dignity and not be persuaded by to adopt persuaded by it. >> lorie smith is a graphic designer. should she have to design a website promoting grain -- gay marriage? plexus goes back to the question about compelled speech. i think the very same principle applies there as applied to the mandatory di statements. i will say this. if there were a type of service or product that is only

available from a few suppliers, than the right of individuals to have equal access to that service should be protected. in the case that you are about, peter, the evidence was uncontested. there were multiple, countless providers of that service, that they did not have to use. if i could say one other thing, she was making selections, not on the basis of who was seeking the service, but on the basis of what message they wanted to communicate. she does not discriminate on gender identity. she just said, there are certain messages i want to provide. a jewish website designer should not have to provide pro-nazi,

pro-white supremacy messages, regardless of the identity of who is asking for those. host: but should those websites be allowed to be online and accessible? those pro-nazi, etc. examples? guest: yes. the fact that you have not ideology is the basis for government requiring that social media platforms remove it. social media platforms have their own first amendment rights in their own editorial capacity to decide that they are not going to host particular messages or speakers. the same way that i have no first amendment right to be an honored cast on this program, no one has a right -- even donald trump did not have the right to be on twitter, even though she

was the duly elected president of the u.s., but making that distinction between the law and what is good public policy, given how important these platforms are for political discourse, i would urge those in charge of them to exercise their editorial discretion, in favor of posting platforms and speakers that comply with principles, even though they do not have to do that, i think it would be very healthy for our democratic discourse to do that. host: steve, from jacksonville, florida, hello. caller: the inequality of voices -- secondly is my point about anonymity of a lot of hate speech. on the internet and i do not

think your message really addresses that. generally, what you advocate, while admirable, it ignores the disproportionality of the mass media and it offers no social remedy to the propagation of people and false ideas, other than a hope that even more free speech will lead to good, in the end. lastly, an economics, the increase of supply of something usually does not lead to counterintuitive, happy result that people will reject it. that is all. have a good day. guest: you make so many excellent points that it is hard to know where to start. let me take what was i think is your most credible point.

i look up not because i am always trying to change my ideas. i think that holding that freedom of each is ultimately going to lead to truth is naive. i will also say this. i think it is a matter that censorship is not going to lead to the discovery and establishment of truth. even the concept to which you allude is so inherently subjective, just the concept of hate speech and pornography is so inherently subjective. one person's hateful speech, one person's misinformation is someone else's cherished and truthful speech. i think what we can predict, not only as a matter of past experience but as a matter of logic is that whoever has the

power to make the determinations about what is disinformation or what is hate speech is predictably going to make those inevitably subjected -- subjective determinations in relation to their own judgments with powerful constituencies in their community. therefore, we see the patterns that we continue to see to this day and around the world, and throughout history, that it is the minority voices, the questioning and critical voices that are the ones that are disproportionately going to be censored that includes those who are economically, relatively well off. it goes to a number of questions that we have received, precisely

because i immediately support equality and access to priests each and to other resources. i think that those who are economically disadvantaged also have the most to lose from censorship and the most to gain from free speech. host: one of the things that we do on in-depth is we ask our author what some of their favorite books are and what they are currently reading. favorite books, les miserables by victor hugo. dr. zhivago, the fountainhead, on libertyy john stuart mill, and she included a note that said, arguably co-authored by harriet taylor. we will get to that in just a second. and bleak house by charles dickens. is there a theme in these books? guest: they were books that i've

read at quite a young age, which is why i chose them, because they have been influential throughout my life. they all involve themes of justice, and they all involve themes of individual freedom, surprise surprise. they deeply resonated with me at a young age and continue to inspire me. i know to say that one continues to appreciate the fountainhead by -- even beyond adolescence, it is quite controversial. i know a lot of people, especially on the liberal end of the drum say, i like her when i was a teenager, but i have outgrown her, but i continue to find themes of individual creativity, individual

self-determination, on the part of a strong female protagonist, as well as a male lead character -- i continue to find it very inspiring. i will admit that. host: what you say to those of us who read the first 10 pages, got confused and ran away from the fountainhead? guest: that could well be. i felt that way about moby dick. to each their own. this is very subjective. but to me, what all of those books have in common is very strong themes that go beyond the particular characters or plot point that transcend the historical context. but also very memorable characters and stories. as i traveled throughout my

lifetime, what i am adhering to might be a minor aspect of the overall book, but it continues to exercise influence on my personality, of my quest to do what i can, to urge other people to realize their unique individuality and to apply whatever their talents and abilities are, to advance their own concept of justice, whatever it might be. host: who was jon stewart and who was harriet taylor? guest: he was a famous utilitarian philosopher where on berty really stands the test of time as the most powerful defense of individual freedom of speech, including against some of the very same, important recurring questions and

arguments that some astute viewers have in composing to me. he has a dedication in the book to his wife, harriet taylor, who had died a year before the book was published. it is such an over-the-top acknowledgment, that it reads as if she were a co-authored. he talks about how every word is infused with her influence and he delayed publishing edit because she was basic and he hoped she would recover enough to review it one more time. i started being curious. with such a strong credit for her, and producing this classic work, why wasn't she treated as a co-author? it turns out that other people have asked that question and some scientists at a university in england have done some

algorithmic research. professor ellis had asked about artificial intelligence and this is one of the positive uses of it, that they can analyze language patterns, in order to attribute authorship. the conclusion was, she is, at least a co-author of central aspects of the book. since there are so few female philosophers that have had such a historic role, i think it is important to at least raise her potential coauthorship, every time i refer to this classic work. host: in just a minute, in case you did not get on the screen, i will meet out the code for a discount on her most recent book , free speech, what everyone needs to know. i will read that in just a minute. we also ask our authors but they are currently reading. here is the list.

mr. texas by lawrence tried, seven days of possibilities, one teacher, 24 kids and the music that changed their lives forever . and nothing sacred, outspoken voices in contemporary fiction. let's start with seven days of possibilities. guest: that is such an amazing book. every time i have an interesting book, i follow it up. this, a reporter for the new york times has written excellent pieces for some of the subjects that we have been tainabout that canvas free speech. i was reading under one of her recent articles and it mentioned this book. i have the title and it sounded

so fascinating, so i ordered the book and it is so inspiring, as an educator. it is about a young woman from finland who grew up in a tiny town and coming off to new york is like the opposite experience. she wants to be a jazz singer that has challenges to that dream come as musicians do. she takes a job as a teacher in a difficult public school in the bronx, where she uses music as a way to reach out to students who have all kinds of economic and educational and sociological challenges. she instructs them in gospel music and they become a gospel choir. it is an inspiration to lift the students up and to lift them to soaring heights, in terms of individual potential and

creative potential. i have not yet finished the book, but i know that she takes a field trip back to finland. as someone who loves music, as someone who is especially concerned with making sure that education, freedom of speech and self-expression through music and other vehicles is equally available to all, i just love this book. host: the other book, i am not familiar with this one. guest: i actually have an advanced reader copy with me. i recently purchased -- is now available-for-sale is a different cover, but it is something that is so important. this year, as a response to the

so-called soft censorship that has been going on in the publishing industry, where there are certain topics that are considered too controversial to deal with. there are certain authors who are not supposed to be the one who appropriately address certain topics because there is cultural appropriation or is -- you are not speaking on behalf of of somebody who -- the character does not mirror your characteristics. etc. the founders, who are friends and colleagues of mine had this idea. bernard was complaining about this to his wife who was a literature professor -- professor. she said stop complaining. start your own press, and he actually did. the stories, it is a collection

of 12 short stories that were published by mainstream presses because of controversial subject matters and perspectives. i've read several stories defined that started by a comedian who had some trouble politically -- for coming -- politically incorrect comedy. he has the audacity to write from the perspective of a gay man, which he is not. he thinks it to an old story. there was a -- it is absolutely brilliant. all the other stories are delightful, so i cannot recommend that more enthusiastically. host: oxford university press is when you need to go, and the code, in case you did not see it on the screen.

what does that stand for? that is the code to use. thank you for molding. please go ahead. caller: i took great comfort in the fact that they are allowed to speak freely and we are allowed to debate them. it was a very productive encounter, but i am concerned now that they have declared anti-zionism and anti-semitism. it is very confusing, the statement. i would like to know what you think about that and what you think about the fate of the law student body at nyu, who took the palestinian position.

host: where you from, originally, can i ask? caller: armenia. guest: it is so interesting. 70 of my colleagues were part of the academic freedom movement and are refugees from repressive governments. they believe that too many americans take free speech for granted because we have never had the experience of censorship. with respect to zionism, anti-zionism and anti-semitism, i strongly support the freedom of anybody to express views that were anti-zionist wire critical of israeli governmental policies. i defend freedom of speech through an engaging anti-semitic speech, as well as other hate

speech. i think we should resist with speech, not censorship. with respect to employers not to hire certain students, this goes back to that very complicated issue of so-called cancel culture. i believe employers have the right to choose not to hire people because of their viewpoints, although they have to make sure it is not violating particular state or local laws. again, i would ask employers, is this the right thing to do in any particular circumstance? i would really air in favor of having the employer -- rather than making a categorical judgment, engage in conversation with each individual student.

some of the students say that they were simply members of an organization that signed on to a petition that they did not know that the petition was being signed on their behalf. they did not read or approve it. to penalize them for that relatively needed connections to problematic speech, i think it starts to lead to guilt by association. you mentioned communism. i will not raise the specter of the mccarthy excess of anti-communism that we had on campuses during the cold war, when people who were even suspected of even being supported of communism in any way were blacklisted and being denied employment opportunities. i think we want, even when we

are dealing with young people in the outset of their career, i would air in favor of giving them a second chance and an opportunity to explain, rather than automatically, categorically imposing the equivalent of the professional death penalty on them. host: margaret, go ahead with your question or comment. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have a question about a case that i briefly met about in the news about right-wing, religious fanatic, republican supreme court is going to take up. it is -- guest: do you feel strongly about this margaret? caller: the first amendment -- there is an intersectionality between the first and second

amendment. but i also want to say, the older i get, i give more credence to the caveat of free speech is fine, but you cannot yell fire in a crowded theater. guest: i will say. caller: also, one of my favorite quotes is attributed to samuel johnson. i kind of give that -- i say that with the first amendment as well. the first amendment is the last refuge of scoundrels. host: we are running out of time. i you familiar with the case she is talking about? guest: not specifically, i am

sorry to say, but if i can pick up on that last point, it ties into another question that was asked. when you look at all of my writings, why am i constantly defending the most controversial speech? pornography, hate speech and citizens united? it is precisely because it is the speech that is most unpopular some of the most despised, the most controversial that people try to censor. therefore, if you wanted to support a robust freedom of speech, even for speech you dislike, you have to defend those principles. you have to defend those principles in the context where they are going to arise and be challenged, even when it is pornographers and hateful speakers and rich corporations that are exercising that free

speech. if they do not have the same free speech rights that we have, then we are not going to have those free-speech right either. host: mike, i will have -- you have to turn down the volume. dan from tacoma, washington, go ahead. caller: i tuned in late. i do not know if you covered the idea that the government tells social media companies that they need to suggest to them that they censor or tag as misinformation, this is that. maybe seeing not as a violation of the first amendment. guest: that is one that we have not covered, even though we have covered a lot of ground. first amendment with its free-speech only constrains the government, so i have made the

point that social media platforms, along with c-span and other private-sector platforms do not have a first amendment obligation. however, if the government is, in fact, putting pressure on or conspiring with a private-sector actor, such that what appears to be a voluntary speech suppression on private-sector actor but is really the government putting undue pressure on that private-sector actor, that does raise first amendment problems. the government should not be allowed to deal indirectly by pressuring social media platforms what it would not be allowed to do directly through government censorship. the kinds of disinformation you are talking about are completely

protected constitutionally so that government cannot directly require the social media platforms to take down that so-called disinformation. the issue that will be before the u.s. supreme court is that, in many cases, the government has crossed that line between permitted encouragement -- the air allowed to encourage social media companies to not publish certain information that they considered to be dangerous and misleading, but when it crosses the line for a encouragement, to prohibited coercion -- that creates a first amendment problem. host: is 2023. what danger level would you put at her free-speech? guest: i would say that it is in

severe danger, but i have to qualify that i would have said that throughout my entire adult lifetime. that is one of the reasons i have advocated freedom of speech and opposed censorship throughout my entire adult career host:. host:nadine has been our guest for the past few hours. thank you to the viewer is for