Nazis in Skokie: Freedom, Community, and the First Amendment

Nazis in Skokie: Freedom, Community, and the First Amendment
ISBN-10
0268009686
ISBN-13
9780268009687
Category
History / Social History
Pages
227
Language
English
Published
1985
Publisher
University of Notre Dame Press
Author
Donald Alexander Downs

Description

In 1977, a Chicago-based Nazi group announced its plans to demonstrate in Skokie, Illinois, the home of hundreds of Holocaust survivors. The shocked survivor community rose in protest and the issue went to court, with the ACLU defending the Nazis' right to free speech. The court ruled in the Nazis' favor. According to the "content neutrality doctrine" governing First Amendment jurisprudence, the Nazis' insults and villifications were "neutral"--not the issue, as far as the law was concerned. But to Downs, they are at issue. In Nazis in Skokie he challenges the doctrine of "content neutrality" and presents an argument for the minimal abridgment of free speech when that speech in intentionally harmful. Draawing on his interviews with participants in the conflict, Downs combines detailed social history with informed legal interpretation in a provocative examination of an abiding tension between individual freedom and community integrity, and between procedural and substantive justice.

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