Waubonsee Community College

Must we defend Nazis?, hate speech, pornography, and the new First Amendment, Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 163-215) and index

index present

non fiction

Must we defend Nazis?

bibliography

35172518

Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic

hate speech, pornography, and the new First Amendment

Speech in any sort of meaningful sense requires equal dignity, equal access, and equal respect on the parts of all of the speakers in a dialogue; free speech, in other words, presupposes equality. The authors argue for a system of free speech that takes into account nuance, context-sensitivity, and competing values such as human dignity and equal protection of the law

The opening salvo : naming the harm. Words that wound : how racist hate speech harms the victim. Law's earliest responses -- Pornography and harm to women : how even social scientists have sometimes failed to see the need for relief -- The assault on the citadel : legal realism shakes up orthodoxy. First Amendment formalism is giving way to First Amendment legal realism -- Campus anti-racism rules : constitutional narratives in collision, or, why there are always two ways of looking at a speech controversy -- Images of the outsider : why the First Amendment marketplace cannot remedy systemic social ills. Social science and narrative theory are questioning faith in the freemarket of ideas -- Retreat to policy analysis : "even if what the crits say is so ..." Paternalistic arguments against hate-speech rules : pressure valves and bloodied chickens. The liberals' response to the crumbling of certainty -- The toughlove school : neoconservative arguments against hate- speech regulation. ("I just let it roll off my back") -- "But America wouldn't be America anymore" : the experience ofother countries shows that adopting hate-speech rules would not cause the skies to fall; America would be even more american -- "From where I sit" -- The special problems of judges and progressive lawyers. Hateful speech, loving communities : why judges are sometimes slower than others at seeing the need for reform -- "The speech we hate" : the romantic appeal of First Amendment absolutism. Does defending Nazis really strengthen the system of free speech?