The Rise and Fall of Group Libel

The Rise and Fall of Group Libel PDF Author: Samantha Barbas
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Hate speech
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
“It is well-known that there is no "hate speech" law in the United States. This has been criticized, especially given the existence of robust hate speech laws in other nations. The absence of hate speech laws in American law has been attributed to legal, cultural, and historical factors, including speech protective First Amendment jurisprudence and long-standing skepticism of group reputation as an interest worthy of legal protection. This Article presents another reason for the absence of hate speech laws in America: the failure of a large-scale social movement in the 1940s to pass hate speech laws or "group libel" laws, as they were known. For over a decade, activists called for legislation that would impose civil liability and criminal punishment for speech that disparaged racial and religious groups. This movement was a response to the proliferation of anti-Semitic and fascist hate groups in the U.S. before and during the Second World War. Existing libel laws, which addressed the defamation of individuals, were inadequate to address the problem of group defamation. The movement to pass state and federal group libel laws produced a robust national dialogue on the problem of hate speech in the 1940s, but little in the way of actual law. The "group libel law movement" rose and fell quickly, declining-ironically-just before the Supreme Court issued its 1952 decision in Beauharnais v. Illinois, approving the constitutionality of an Illinois group libel law. By that time, the movement for group libel laws had dissipated, and many onetime proponents of such laws rejected them. The Beauharais decision led to no new group libel laws, in part because there were few remaining advocates to promote them. Had the group libel law movement persisted, the United States might have taken a different approach to the regulation of hate speech.”

The Rise and Fall of Group Libel

The Rise and Fall of Group Libel PDF Author: Samantha Barbas
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Hate speech
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
“It is well-known that there is no "hate speech" law in the United States. This has been criticized, especially given the existence of robust hate speech laws in other nations. The absence of hate speech laws in American law has been attributed to legal, cultural, and historical factors, including speech protective First Amendment jurisprudence and long-standing skepticism of group reputation as an interest worthy of legal protection. This Article presents another reason for the absence of hate speech laws in America: the failure of a large-scale social movement in the 1940s to pass hate speech laws or "group libel" laws, as they were known. For over a decade, activists called for legislation that would impose civil liability and criminal punishment for speech that disparaged racial and religious groups. This movement was a response to the proliferation of anti-Semitic and fascist hate groups in the U.S. before and during the Second World War. Existing libel laws, which addressed the defamation of individuals, were inadequate to address the problem of group defamation. The movement to pass state and federal group libel laws produced a robust national dialogue on the problem of hate speech in the 1940s, but little in the way of actual law. The "group libel law movement" rose and fell quickly, declining-ironically-just before the Supreme Court issued its 1952 decision in Beauharnais v. Illinois, approving the constitutionality of an Illinois group libel law. By that time, the movement for group libel laws had dissipated, and many onetime proponents of such laws rejected them. The Beauharais decision led to no new group libel laws, in part because there were few remaining advocates to promote them. Had the group libel law movement persisted, the United States might have taken a different approach to the regulation of hate speech.”

Hate Speech

Hate Speech PDF Author: Samuel Walker
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803297517
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Offers a chronological history of the U.S. policy on hate speech, which in most other countries is prohibited

Hate Speech

Hate Speech PDF Author: Samuel Walker
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
The First Amendment protects even the most offensive forms of expression: racial slurs, hateful religious propaganda, and cross-burning. No other county in the world offers the same kind of protection to offensive speech. How did this free speech tradition develop? Hate Speech provides the first comprehensive account of the history of the hate speech controversy in the United States. Samuel Walker examines the issue, from the conflicts over the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s and American Nazi groups in the 1930s, tot he famous Skokie episode in 1977-78, and the campus culture wars of the 1990s. The author argues that the civil rights movement played a central role in developing this country's strong free speech tradition. The courts were very concerned about protecting the provocative and even offensive forms of expression by civil rights forces. Civil rights groups, therefore, preferred to protect rather than restrict offensive speech--even if it meant protecting racist speech.

Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech

Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech PDF Author: Cass R. Sunstein
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439105359
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 554

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Book Description
Freedom of speech is one of our greatest legal rights and Cass Sunstein is one of our greatest legal theorists. This book is a must read for anyone who wants to think seriously about the free speech issues facing this generation. -- Akhil Amar, Southmayd Professor, Yale Law School This is an important book. Beautifully clear and carefully argued, Sunstein's contribution reaches well beyond the confines of academic debate. It will be of interest to any citizen concerned about freedom of speech and the current state of American democracy. -- Joshua Cohen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology How can our constitutional protection of free speech serve to strengthen democracy? Cass Sunstein challenges conventional answers with a remarkable array of lucid arguments and legal examples. There is no better book on the subject. -- Amy Gutmann, Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor, Princeton University

The Harm in Hate Speech

The Harm in Hate Speech PDF Author: Jeremy Waldron
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674069919
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
Every liberal democracy has laws or codes against hate speech—except the United States. For constitutionalists, regulation of hate speech violates the First Amendment and damages a free society. Against this absolutist view, Jeremy Waldron argues powerfully that hate speech should be regulated as part of our commitment to human dignity and to inclusion and respect for members of vulnerable minorities. Causing offense—by depicting a religious leader as a terrorist in a newspaper cartoon, for example—is not the same as launching a libelous attack on a group’s dignity, according to Waldron, and it lies outside the reach of law. But defamation of a minority group, through hate speech, undermines a public good that can and should be protected: the basic assurance of inclusion in society for all members. A social environment polluted by anti-gay leaflets, Nazi banners, and burning crosses sends an implicit message to the targets of such hatred: your security is uncertain and you can expect to face humiliation and discrimination when you leave your home. Free-speech advocates boast of despising what racists say but defending to the death their right to say it. Waldron finds this emphasis on intellectual resilience misguided and points instead to the threat hate speech poses to the lives, dignity, and reputations of minority members. Finding support for his view among philosophers of the Enlightenment, Waldron asks us to move beyond knee-jerk American exceptionalism in our debates over the serious consequences of hateful speech.

How Democracies Die

How Democracies Die PDF Author: Steven Levitsky
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 1524762946
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Comprehensive, enlightening, and terrifyingly timely.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) WINNER OF THE GOLDSMITH BOOK PRIZE • SHORTLISTED FOR THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Time • Foreign Affairs • WBUR • Paste Donald Trump’s presidency has raised a question that many of us never thought we’d be asking: Is our democracy in danger? Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, and they believe the answer is yes. Democracy no longer ends with a bang—in a revolution or military coup—but with a whimper: the slow, steady weakening of critical institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, and the gradual erosion of long-standing political norms. The good news is that there are several exit ramps on the road to authoritarianism. The bad news is that, by electing Trump, we have already passed the first one. Drawing on decades of research and a wide range of historical and global examples, from 1930s Europe to contemporary Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela, to the American South during Jim Crow, Levitsky and Ziblatt show how democracies die—and how ours can be saved. Praise for How Democracies Die “What we desperately need is a sober, dispassionate look at the current state of affairs. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, two of the most respected scholars in the field of democracy studies, offer just that.”—The Washington Post “Where Levitsky and Ziblatt make their mark is in weaving together political science and historical analysis of both domestic and international democratic crises; in doing so, they expand the conversation beyond Trump and before him, to other countries and to the deep structure of American democracy and politics.”—Ezra Klein, Vox “If you only read one book for the rest of the year, read How Democracies Die. . . .This is not a book for just Democrats or Republicans. It is a book for all Americans. It is nonpartisan. It is fact based. It is deeply rooted in history. . . . The best commentary on our politics, no contest.”—Michael Morrell, former Acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (via Twitter) “A smart and deeply informed book about the ways in which democracy is being undermined in dozens of countries around the world, and in ways that are perfectly legal.”—Fareed Zakaria, CNN

The Right to Protection from Incitement to Hatred

The Right to Protection from Incitement to Hatred PDF Author: Mona Elbahtimy
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108837565
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
Provides an explanatory framework for the challenges facing the development of the international norm prohibiting hate speech.

Advanced and Business Tort Law

Advanced and Business Tort Law PDF Author: Arthur Best
Publisher: Aspen Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Actions and defenses
Languages : en
Pages : 854

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Book Description
"Casebook with problems for law school students enrolled in Advanced Torts or Business Torts courses"--

Relational Autonomy

Relational Autonomy PDF Author: Catriona Mackenzie
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195123336
Category : Agent (Philosophy).
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
These essays explore the social and relational dimensions of individual autonomy. Rejecting the feminist charge that autonomy is inherently masculinist, the contributors draw on feminist critiques of autonomy to challenge philosophical debates about agency, identity, and moral responsibility.

The Lost Bank

The Lost Bank PDF Author: Kirsten Grind
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451617933
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
Based on reporting for which the author was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Gerald Loeb Award, this book traces the rise and spectacular fall of Washington Mutual.