Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment is a non-fiction book written by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Anthony Lewis about freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of thought and the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Author

Anthony Lewis twice received recognition for his writing with the Pulitzer Prize.^[1][2] Lewis was a columnist for The New York Times prior to his 2001 retirement.^[1] His first Pulitzer Prize award came in 1955 in recognition for journalism with the Washington Daily News reporting on a member of the military dismissed from the United States Navy; the individual was subsequently allowed back into military service due to investigative journalism work by Lewis.^[2] In 1963, Lewis received his second Pulitzer Prize for his work for The New York Times reporting on the Supreme Court of the United States.^[2] He was recognized with the Nieman Fellowship by The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.^[2]

Previous published works authored by Lewis include Gideon's Trumpet (1964) about Clarence Earl Gideon and the U.S. Supreme Court case Gideon v. Wainwright,^[3][4] Portrait of a Decade: The Second American Revolution (1964),^[5][6] and Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment (1991) discussing the U.S. Supreme Court case New York Times Co. v. Sullivan.^[7][8] Lewis edited the compilation work Written into History: Pulitzer Prize Reporting of the Twentieth Century from The New York Times (2001).^[9][10]

Contents

Freedom for the Thought That We Hate analyzes the value of freedom of speech and presents an overview of the historical development of rights afforded to U.S. citizens by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.^[11] The book starts with a quote from the relevant portion of the First Amendment, "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech or of the press...."^[12][13] Lewis analyzes the impact of this clause, and refers to the writer of the United States Constitution James Madison who felt that freedom of the press would help to serve as a form of separation of powers to the government.^[13] The author notes that this virtue of striving to curb excess actions from the government through speech of its citizens, "tells us why Americans should scent danger when a government tries to stop a newspaper from disclosing the origins of an unpopular war ... or accuses a newspaper of endangering national security by disclosing secret and illegal wiretapping."^[13]

Lewis warns that in a state where controversial views are not allowed to be spoken, both citizens and reporters merely serve as advocates for the system itself.^[13] He recounts key events in history where fear led to overreaching acts by the government, particularly from the executive branch.^[13] The author walks the reader through the process by which, "it took more than a century for (our) courts to begin protecting speakers and publishers from official repression in the United States."^[14] "Any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States" was deemed a criminal act by the government in 1798 as led by then President John Adams,^[15][12] and this legislation in the form of the Alien and Sedition Acts was utilized for political impact against members of the Republican Party.^[13] Thomas Jefferson was elected the next President in 1800; Lewis gives this as an example of the American public's dissatisfaction with these actions against freedom of speech by John Adams.^[13] After ascending to the presidency in 1801, Jefferson issued pardons to those convicted under the Alien and Sedition Acts.^[12] Later historical events recounted by Lewis interpreted as affronts to freedom of speech include President Woodrow Wilson's support of law criminalizing speech critical of the draft during World War I, and McCarthyism during the Second Red Scare fomented by a fear of communism.^[13]

During this period of time with increased fear among the American public due to World War I, and attempts at suppression of criticism by the government, the First Amendment was being given wider examination in the Supreme Court of the United States.^[13] Lewis notes that Associate Justices Louis Brandeis and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. began to interpret broader support for freedom of speech imparted by the First Amendment.^[13] Holmes wrote in the case of Schenck v. United States his view that freedom of speech must be defended except for situations where "substantive evils" are caused through a "clear and present danger" due to such speech.^[13] Lewis reflects on his view of speech in the face of imminent danger in an age of terrorism: "The law of the American Constitution allows suppression only when violence or violation of law are intended by speakers and are likely to take place imminently. But perhaps judges, and the rest of us, will be more on guard now for the rare act of expression — not the burning of a flag or the racist slang of an undergraduate — that is genuinely dangerous. I think we should be able to punish speech that urges terrorist violence to an audience some of whose members are ready to act on the urging. That is imminence enough."^[15]

The book recounts an opinion written by Brandeis and joined by Holmes in the 1927 case of Whitney v. California which further developed the notion of the power of the people to speak out: "Those who won our independence ... believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty... and that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people, that public discussion is a political duty. They knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction. ...They eschewed silence coerced by law."^[14] The title of the book is derived from an admonition by Justice Holmes in a dissenting opinion in the 1929 case of United States v. Schwimmer that the First Amendment is particularly necessary amidst eras in U.S. history where there is a risk of suppression of speech and dissent due to increased fear and upheaval: "If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought - not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate."^[12][14]

In the 1964 Supreme Court case of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the court rule that speech surrounding issues of public impact "should be uninhibited, robust and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials."^[12] Lewis praised this decision and posited that it laid the groundwork for a press more able to perform investigative journalism with regards to later controversies including Watergate and the Vietnam War.^[12] The author examines the 1971 U.S. Supreme Court case of New York Times v. United States, expressing support for the decision of the court which allowed the press to discuss previously classified material relating to the Vietnam War.^[13] The author then goes on to question the actions of the media with regards to privacy, observing, "Nowadays, it is hard to imagine any revelation so intimate that it would offend the public's sense of decency."^[13] Lewis cites the view of Brandeis who supported "the right to be let alone".^[13] Lewis warns that during periods of heightened anxiety the free speech rights of Americans are at greater risk, "There will always be authorities who try to make their own lives more comfortable by suppressing critical comment."^[12] He concludes that the evolution of interpretation of the rights afforded by the First Amendment has created stronger support for freedom of speech in the United States, "But I am convinced that the fundamental American commitment to free speech, disturbing speech, is no longer in doubt."^[12]

Publication history

Freedom for the Thought That We Hate was first published by Basic Books in New York in 2007.^[16][17][18] A subsequent edition was published in 2008 in New York and London by Basic Books.^[19][20] Perseus Books Group released an e-book version of the work, in 2010.^[21][22]

Reception

Freedom for the Thought That We Hate received a positive reception in reviews; writing for The Christian Science Monitor, Chuck Leddy of the National Book Critics Circle called the book "wonderfully accessible and passionate".^[13] Leddy's review concluded, "Lewis blends a profound understanding of First Amendment jurisprudence and history with an enjoyable writing style that his readers have long come to admire. In our war-torn era where dissent and open-minded debate have become problematic, Lewis compels us to remember the crucial function free speech serves in our democratic form of government."^[13]

Nat Hentoff, author of The First Freedom: The Tumultuous History of Free Speech in America (1980) and Free Speech for Me — But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other (1993), wrote favorably of the book: "What distinguishes us from all other nations is the range and depth of the First Amendment's expressive individual liberties against government control of what we say and think. Having researched and written about it for more than 50 years, I can attest that the most compelling readable account of its tumultuous and often imperiled history is the newly published Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment by Anthony Lewis."^[14]

Writing for The Hartford Courant, National Book Critics Circle Bill Williams noted, "Long-time legal affairs writer and Pulitzer Prize-winner Anthony Lewis recounts dozens of landmark court cases while eloquently conveying the simple majesty and importance of the First Amendment in this splendid account, which ought to be required reading in every high school and college."^[12] Adult services librarian at the Urbana Free Library Anne Phillips observed in a review for The News-Gazette, "Anthony Lewis' Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment is a succinct and eloquent account of our nation's history of struggle with this seemingly simple concept of freedom of expression. As we know, it is not simple, and the struggle continues. Lewis presents the conflicts inherent in this guarantee of free speech and a free press and makes clear the complexities and implications of our evolving interpretation."^[23]

Columnist Robyn Blumner of the St. Petersburg Times noted, "Former New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis has encapsulated the difficult birth, fitful adolescence and inconstant maturation of the free speech and press clauses of the Constitution."^[24] Blumner's review concluded, "Lewis comes to his subject with great experience and depth. He was a Supreme Court reporter during the Warren court, when it was rousing the long-moribund protections of the First Amendment. ... Lewis always stood as an eloquent guardian of our rights. Freedom for the Thought That We Hate strongly communicates Lewis' high regard for the courageous judges who have molded our nation's free expression rights into a bulwark against censorship and imposed orthodoxy. It is worth picking up this slim volume simply to be reminded of the growing pains it took to get here."^[24]

Law professor Jeremy Waldron assessed the work in a May 2008 review for The New York Review of Books and was critical of Lewis' broad stance towards freedom of speech with regards to hate speech: "It is not clear to me that the Europeans are mistaken, when they say that a liberal democracy must take affirmative responsibility for protecting the atmosphere of mutual respect against certain forms of vicious attack."^[25] Waldron later elaborated on his critical assessment of Lewis' position on hate speech, in his 2012 book The Harm in Hate Speech, in which he devoted a chapter titled "Anthony Lewis's Freedom for the Thought That We Hate" to the subject matter.^[26] Waldron emphasized two points, "First, the issue is not the thought that we hate, as though defenders of hate speech laws wanted to get inside people's minds. The issue is publication and the harm done to individuals and groups through the disfiguring of our social environment by visible, public, and semipermanent announcements to the effect that in the opinion of one group in the community, perhaps the majority, members of another group are not worthy of equal citizenship. ... Second, the issue is not just our learning to tolerate thought that we hate—we the First Amendment lawyers, for example. The harm that expressions of racial hatred do is harm in the first instance to the groups who are denounced or bestialized in the racist pamphlets and billboards. ... The question is about the direct targets of abuse. Can their lives be led, can their children be brought up, can their hopes be maintained and their worst fears dispelled, in a social environment polluted by these materials?"^[26]

See also

• Censorship in the United States
• First Amendment to the United States Constitution
• Freedom of speech by country
• Freedom of Speech (painting)
• Freedom of speech in the United States
• Freedom of the press
• Gideon's Trumpet
• Gideon v. Wainwright
• National Coalition Against Censorship

References

Further reading

• Cram, Ian (2006). Contested Words: Legal Restrictions on Freedom of Speech in Liberal Democracies. Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0754623653.
• Curtis, Michael Kent (2000). Free Speech, "The People’s Darling Privilege": Struggles for Freedom of Expression in American History. Duke University Press. ISBN 0822325292.
• Godwin, Mike (2003). Cyber Rights: Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age. MIT Press. ISBN 0262571684.
• Grossman, Wendy M. (1997). Net.wars. NYU Press. ISBN 0814731031.
• Krotoszynski, Ronald J. (2009). The First Amendment in Cross-Cultural Perspective: A Comparative Legal Analysis of the Freedom of Speech. NYU Press. ISBN 0814748252.
• McLeod, Kembrew (2007). Freedom of Expression: Resistance and Repression in the Age of Intellectual Property. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0816650314. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Nelson, Samuel P. (2005). Beyond the First Amendment: The Politics of Free Speech and Pluralism. The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0801881730.

External links

• Freedom for the Thought That We Hate, description at Perseus Academic
• Nieman Watchdog, profile of author Anthony Lewis