So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast

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Ep. 18 Campus Free Speech Round Table: Fall 2016 Semester in Review Dec 29, 2016

Show notes

A precipitous decline in the percentage of schools maintaining severely restrictive speech codes. A proliferation of bias response teams. "Security fee" or "speech tax?" Donald Trump. Milo Yiannopoulos. Penis drawings. These topics and more are covered in our recap of the fall 2016 semester, featuring Foundation for Individual Rights in Education vice presidents Samantha Harris and Will Creeley. Also, we take a listener question.

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Ep. 17 ACLU National Legal Director David Cole Dec 15, 2016

Show notes

In July, the ACLU tapped Georgetown University Law Center Professor David Cole to be its new national legal director. In that role, Cole will oversee nearly 300 lawyers and a docket of about 1,400 state and federal lawsuits.

On today's episode of "So to Speak," Wall Street Journal Supreme Court Correspondent Jess Bravin interviews Cole about his new job and explores some of the hottest topics in the First Amendment world: flag burning, campaign finance reform, what can legally be done about rising concerns over "fake news," and more.

Cole also speculates on what the future may hold for the ACLU and the First Amendment after President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration.

This is the first podcast in our exclusive partnership with the First Amendment Salon.

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Ep. 16 Free Speech Profiles: Attorney Martin Garbus Dec 01, 2016

Show notes

Attorney Martin Garbus' client list is a who's who of the world's foremost artists, politicians, corporations, scientists, and political dissidents.

In a career spanning a half century, he's represented actors Sean Connery and Al Pacino, authors Tom Brokaw and Nancy Reagan, and even Nobel Prize winners Vaclav Havel and Andrei Sakharov.

Although Garbus holds a diverse practice, he is perhaps most famous—and in some circles, infamous—for his work in First Amendment law.

In today's episode of "So to Speak," we dive deep into some of Martin Garbus' most interesting—and sometimes scary—career moments. His smuggling a list of political prisoners out of the Soviet Union, his involvement with Daniel Ellsberg in releasing the Pentagon Papers, and his defense of the mercurial comedian Lenny Bruce are just some of the stories we will touch upon.

This is the inaugural episode in a series that will profile the careers of some of the world's most prominent free speech advocates.

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Ep. 15 Denying the Holocaust Nov 17, 2016

Show notes

In 1996, Emory University Professor Deborah Lipstadt found herself in a peculiar situation: she and a team of lawyers would have to defend the truth about the Holocaust against British historian and famed Holocaust denier David Irving.

It was a quirk of the English legal system that allowed the battle to play out in court. In England, the burden of proof in libel cases rests on the defendant, not the plaintiff. So, when David Irving filed a libel lawsuit against Professor Lipstadt and her British publisher for critical statements Professor Lipstadt wrote about him in her 1993 book "Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory," it was up to Professor Lipstadt to justify her criticism.

Sixteen years after Professor Lipstadt won her legal battle, the story of her encounter with Irving is now the subject of the recently released movie "Denial."

Deborah Lipstadt is our guest on today's episode of "So to Speak." During our conversation, Professor Lipstadt revisits the Irving trial, explains its implications for free speech and academic freedom, and elaborates on the unique phenomenon of seeing one's life acted out on the big screen.

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Ep. 14 NYU Professor Stephen Solomon's 'Revolutionary Dissent' Nov 03, 2016

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The time of America's founding was full of raucous debate and widespread dissent. Americans built effigies, wrote pamphlets, sang songs, and gathered at liberty trees to protest British rule.

But while citizens of the 13 colonies, and later America, might have acted like they had a right to express themselves in the myriad ways that they did, the spectre of seditious libel—illegal statements criticizing the government—often hung over their heads.

In "Revolutionary Dissent: How the Founding Generation Created the Freedom of Speech," New York University journalism professor Stephen D. Solomon chronicles how early Americans such as Paul Revere, James Madison, Alexander McDougall, and others fought seditious libel laws and developed their understanding of the right to freedom of speech along the way.

We sit down with Professor Solomon in today's episode of "So to Speak" to discuss his new book. We also learn why anyone who cared about free expression at the time of America's founding associated it with the number 45.

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Ep. 13 spiked's Brendan O'Neill on the Fight for Free Speech Overseas Oct 20, 2016

Show notes

"How do you make the case for freedom of speech these days?," asks Brendan O'Neill in the latest episode of "So to Speak."

The question is a serious one for O'Neill. As the editor of the online British current-affairs magazine "spiked," he is on the front lines every day fighting to preserve free speech and a free press in a legal environment that doesn't have a First Amendment.

In a part of the world that just last year imprisoned a man for four months for singing a controversial song before a soccer match, O'Neill says that there are many laws that can land people in hot water for speaking their minds in the United Kingdom. For example, he says that England has among the worst libel laws in Europe.

In England, unlike the United States, the libel laws are greatly weighted in favor of the person who sues, says O'Neill, who notes that about 80 percent of libel actions go in favor of the person suing. As a result, he regularly considers the libel laws when editing content for "spiked."

"It's a rich man's law, which is used to silence criticism, and political views, and difficult, awkward views that people don't like," he says.

"spiked" counts as part of its mission the defense of "freedom of speech with no ifs and buts" because, as O'Neill says, "as soon as you give an inch on freedom of speech, they will take a mile."

But, despite the United Kingdom's countervailing laws, O'Neill says that the argument in favor of freedom of speech "still has real purchase and real power." And until those censorship laws are struck down and threats to free speech are extinguished, O'Neill says "spiked" will keep making those arguments.

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Ep. 12 Flying Dog Brewery: 'Good Beer, No Censorship' Oct 06, 2016

Show notes

"Two inflammatory words … one wild drink. Nectar imprisoned in a bottle. Let it out. It is cruel to keep a wild animal locked up."

When artist and illustrator Ralph Steadman wrote those words for the label of Flying Dog Brewery's "Raging Bitch" Belgian-style IPA, he had no idea that cruel imprisonment would be precisely their fate.

In 2009, the Michigan Liquor Control Commission banned the sale of "Raging Bitch" from store shelves in the state because the commission claimed the beer's name and its label, designed by Steadman, were "detrimental to the health, safety, and welfare of the general public."

Any other company might have accepted the commission's justification for censorship. But Flying Dog Brewery isn't a company to just roll over.

Flying Dog was founded in 1990 by George Stranahan, a close friend of journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who pioneered a style of journalism known as "Gonzo": first-person, satirical critiques on society and culture. The brewery has always maintained the critical, anti-authoritarian message embodied by Gonzo journalism.

So, when Michigan banned the sale of "Raging Bitch," Flying Dog didn't back down. That's not its Gonzo style. Instead, it took the brew ha-ha to court and fought back with a First Amendment lawsuit.

We wanted to learn more about Flying Dog's dog fight in defense of its art. Its lawsuit culminated earlier this year in a resounding legal victory, and the brewery created a First Amendment Society using damages awarded from the lawsuit, thus proving that every dog has its day.

So, we headed down to Frederick, Md., where the brewery is located. What's the story? Nobody had bothered to say. So we would have to drum it up on our own. Free enterprise. The American dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on beer in Frederick.

Do it now: pure Gonzo.

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Ep. 11 Robert Shibley's 'Twisting Title IX' Sep 22, 2016

Show notes

"Unfortunately, Title IX has really become unmoored from its original intention," says Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) Executive Director Robert Shibley.

Title IX is the 1972 law that prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded educational programs. The active part of the law is less than 40 words long. But in a forthcoming book entitled "Twisting Title IX," Shibley argues that these words have been "twisted" by an activist Department of Education to violate the free speech and due process rights of students and faculty members on college campuses.

In this episode of "So to Speak," we talk with Shibley about his new book, and investigate how a short law passed without much fanfare in 1972 only recently ballooned into one of today's main threats to individual rights on campus. We also learn about those on campus who are fighting back.

Plus, we take a listener question about anonymous speech.

"Twisting Title IX" will be released on Tuesday, September 27 and is available today for pre-order through Amazon.com.

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Ep. 10 Jason Riley on Being 'Disinvited' from Campus Sep 08, 2016

Show notes

Earlier this year, Jason Riley was "disinvited" from speaking at Virginia Tech due to concerns that his writings on race would spark campus protests.

The Wall Street Journal columnist, Fox News commentator, and Manhattan Institute senior fellow wasn't alone in seeing an invitation to speak on campus be revoked due to concerns that his appearance might prove controversial. He was in distinguished company.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, columnist George Will, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde, and hip hop artist Common were all similarly disinvited from speaking on a college campus in recent years.

These disinvitations are part of a troubling trend whereby individuals and groups seek to prevent controversial speakers from appearing on campus. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education's disinvitation database, since 2000 there have been 312 disinvitation attempts on campus. 128 of them have come since 2012.

Our guest on today's show had a rare disinvitation experience. Jason Riley happened to be reinvited after he blew the whistle on his disinvitation in a column for The Wall Street Journal.

The series of events that followed Riley's disinvitation is a case study not only in the power of mass media to expose risk-averse decision-making that stifles free expression on campus—but also in demonstrating the outsized influence just a few outspoken alumni can have in reversing those decisions.

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Ep. 9 Alice Dreger on Academic Freedom Aug 25, 2016

Show notes

Every year, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education puts out a list of the 10 worst colleges for free speech. And this year, surprisingly, half of the schools on the list earned their spot because they threatened faculty's right to speak out in some way.

One institution on that list was Northwestern University.

Last year, Northwestern made headlines for its extraordinary attacks on academic freedom on two separate occasions. Once for its 72-day Title IX investigation into Professor Laura Kipnis' public writings and comments about sexual politics on campus. And on another occasion, for its censorship of a faculty-produced bioethics journal that it feared would damage its medical school's "brand."

This episode of "So to Speak" is about academic freedom, and our guest is Alice Dreger.

Dreger is an historian of medicine and science, a sex researcher, a mainstream writer, and what she calls "an (im)patient advocate." She also formerly held the position of full professor in Medical Humanities and Bioethics at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, and she was a guest editor for the bioethics journal that Northwestern sought to censor.

In this episode, we speak with Dreger about the importance of academic freedom at Northwestern and beyond, why the corporatization of the modern university threatens free speech on campus, and why we must use the word "formerly" when describing her tenure at Northwestern.

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