Defending My Enemy: Skokie and the Legacy of Free Speech in America

A new edition of the most important free speech book of the past halfcentury, with a new essay by the author on the ensuing fifty years of First Amendment controversies When Nazis wanted to express their right to free speech in 1977 by marching through Skokie, Illinois—a town with a large population of Holocaust survivors—Aryeh Neier, then the national director of the ACLU and himself a Holocaust survivor—came to the Nazis’ defense. Explaining what many saw as a despicable bridge too far for the First Amendment, Neier spelled out his thoughts about free speech in his 1977 book Defending My Enemy. Now, nearly fifty years later, Neier revisits the topic of free speech in a volume that includes his original essay along with an extended new piece addressing some of the most controversial free speech issues of the past halfcentury.

Touching on hotbutton First Amendment topics currently in play, the second half of the book includes First Amendment analysis of the “Unite the Right” march in Charlotteville, campus protest over the Israel/Gaza war, book banning, trigger warnings, rightwing hate speech, the heckler’s veto, and the recent attempts by public figures including Donald Trump to overturn the longstanding Sullivan v. The New York Times precedent shielding the media from libel claims. Including an afterword by longtime free speech champion Nadine Strossen, Defending My Enemy offers razorsharp analysis from the man Muck Rack describes as having “a glittering civil liberties résumé.