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 half-century, 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 half-century. Touching on hot-button 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, right-wing hate speech, the heckler’s veto, and the recent attempts by public figures including Donald Trump to overturn the long-standing 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 razor-sharp analysis from the man Muck Rack describes as having “a glittering civil liberties résumé.”