Read on Twitter
THREAD: Modern 1A case law is unique in the entire world for its strength of its #freespeech protection. It didn’t arise from nowhere, it grew as a result of free speech culture. This reading list will give you an overview of how that culture evolved 1/17 https://www.thefire.org/gregs-recommended-free-speech-culture-study-list/
. @JMchangama’s @CAPD_freespeech is a FIRE-sponsored podcast that shows #freespeech has been a recurrent issue for human society since the dawn of civilization. For an international historical perspective on free speech, I can’t recommend it enough. 2/17 http://www.freespeechhistory.com/
. @tmbejan’s important book “Mere Civility” introduced many of us to the ancient Greek concepts of isegoria and parrhesia, and proposes an unlikely role model for American #freespeech: the founder of Rhode Island, Roger Williams. 3/17
https://amzn.to/3g0ya2o
https://amzn.to/3g0ya2o
Philipp Blom’s A Wicked Company is a wonderful read, and a lesson in how vibrant society can be in a strong #freespeech culture, even if the laws are outright hostile to freedom of speech, where you could go to jail for making the wrong arguments. 4/17 https://amzn.to/2ZYLMWu
In “Free Speech, the People’s Darling Privilege,” Michael Kent Curtis expertly shows how a commonly held belief in freedom of speech protected and sustained free speech in the non-slaveholding states up until the Civil War. 5/17
https://amzn.to/300Im5p
https://amzn.to/300Im5p
John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty” is the most influential work on free speech in history. It is important to remember that Mill was primarily arguing about the conformist state of Victorian CULTURE, not law. 6/17
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34901/34901-h/34901-h.htm#Page_28
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34901/34901-h/34901-h.htm#Page_28
David M. Rabban’s groundbreaking “Free Speech in its Forgotten Years, 1870-1920” focuses on the period between the enactment of the 14th Amendment and the Supreme Court’s decision to use it to give the First Amendment teeth. 7/17
https://amzn.to/3g43tt5
https://amzn.to/3g43tt5
There may be no place that #freespeech is more important than the university, and, considering that many colleges are private, that freedom is protected more by norms of academic freedom than it is by the First Amendment. 8/17
Nowhere are those norms stated with greater clarity than in the @AAUP’s 1915 and 1940 Declaration and Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure. 9/17
https://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/A6520A9D-0A9A-47B3-B550-C006B5B224E7/0/1915Declaration.pdf
https://www.aaup.org/report/1940-statement-principles-academic-freedom-and-tenure
https://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/A6520A9D-0A9A-47B3-B550-C006B5B224E7/0/1915Declaration.pdf
https://www.aaup.org/report/1940-statement-principles-academic-freedom-and-tenure
Thomas Healy’s “The Great Dissent" is an exceptional book on how cultural belief in freedom of speech persuaded Oliver Wendell Holmes to finally reinterpret the 1A to mean something in the real world after more than a century of legal toothlessness. 10/17
https://amzn.to/2D5stBK
https://amzn.to/2D5stBK
In 1940, SCOTUS ruled that public schoolchildren could be required to say the pledge of allegiance in schools, despite religious objections. 3 years later, the Court reversed itself in Barnette. While this IS a court decision it reads like poetry. 11/17 https://www.thefire.org/first-amendment-library/decision/west-virginia-state-board-of-education-et-al-v-barnette-et-al/
The Spirit of Liberty speech by Learned Hand is a quick read & a #mustread for anyone who cares about freedom: “Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.” 12/17 https://www.thefire.org/first-amendment-library/special-collections/the-spirit-of-liberty-speech-by-judge-learned-hand-1944/
Aryeh Neier, a Jewish refugee of Nazi Germany, was executive director of the ACLU during the infamous Skokie case, for which he was widely condemned. His book, “Defending My Enemy,” is his thorough and persuasive justification for taking the case. 13/17 https://amzn.to/300QqTT
Nat Hentoff’s “Free Speech for Me—But Not for Thee” is hugely influential to my and FIRE’s work. Nat was a friend, a FIRE advisor from day one, and one of our greatest #freespeech champions. We all miss him. 14/27
https://amzn.to/39wtfnw
https://amzn.to/39wtfnw
I tell people that Mill’s “On Liberty” is the best thing ever written about freedom of speech. “Kindly Inquisitors” by @jon_rauch is the best thing written about free speech in the last 40 years. I am THRILLED to hear he is writing a follow up! 15/17
https://amzn.to/3f3kPoC
https://amzn.to/3f3kPoC
“The Tyranny of Silence” by Flemming Rose is a breathtaking overview on the European scene for #freespeech following the infamous ”Mohammed cartoons.” It also shows how Weimar-era hate speech codes helped Hitler’s rise. 16/17
https://amzn.to/2D8iyLT
https://amzn.to/2D8iyLT
EXTRA CREDIT: For two foundational works on #freespeech, read John Milton’s “Areopagitica," and John Locke’s “Letter Concerning Toleration." I would have listed them earlier but 17th century prose is not for everyone! 17/17
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/608/608-h/608-h.htm
https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/locke/toleration.pdf
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/608/608-h/608-h.htm
https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/locke/toleration.pdf
