Tanner Lectures on Human Values: “A Defense of Free Speech from Its Progressive Critics”

Progressives have increasingly lost faith in the First Amendment—at least as it has been interpreted and applied by the Supreme Court.  They argue that free speech has been “weaponized” by big business as a deregulatory tool; that hate speech inflicts harms that warrant its regulation; that free speech is obsolete in the internet age; and that it subjects campaign finance regulation to unjustified judicial scrutiny.  Each of these criticisms is widely shared in the legal academy, often taken as given.

These lectures will offer a defense of the First Amendment from its progressive critics. I am a progressive myself.  But I will argue that the progressive case against the First Amendment, while offering important insights, is not just unpersuasive, but counterproductive.  I seek to offer in short, a progressive defense to the progressive critics of free speech today.

About the speaker

David Cole is the Hon. George J. Mitchell Professor in Law and Public Policy at Georgetown University Law Center and former National Legal Director of the ACLU.  He writes regularly for the New York Review of Books and is legal affairs correspondent for The Nation. He is the author or editor of ten books, including No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System, and Engines of Liberty: How Citizen Movements Succeed.

David has litigated many pathbreaking cases in the Supreme Court, including Texas v. Johnson, which extended First Amendment protection to flag burning; Bostock v. Clayton County, which established that Title VII bans discrimination on the basis of transgender status and sexual orientation; and National Rifle Association v. Vullo, which held that government officials cannot use their regulatory authority to coerce private parties into blacklisting a disfavored political organization.  He has received many awards for his civil liberties work.

Commentators:

Ulrich Baer, University Professor, Departments of German and Comparative Literature, Faculty of Arts & Science; Director, Center for the Humanities, New York University

Joshua Cohen, Distinguished Senior Fellow, Department of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley

Catharine A. MacKinnon, is the Elizabeth A. Long Professor Emerita of Law at Michigan Law and the long-term James Barr Ames Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School

Susan Neiman, Director of the Einstein Forum (Potsdam), American philosopher and writer