Uploaded September 2024 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
During the spring semester of 2024, protests raged across many American campuses over the Israel-Hamas war and other volatile issues. In some cases, these demonstrations devolved into hate-filled rhetoric, physical encampments, mass arrests, and destruction of property. The turmoil led to questions about the future of protest on campus, and whether reasonable limits can be devised to prevent interference with the educational and research processes that are the central purpose of universities. On international, legal, environmental, and social topics, grassroots movements and advocacy groups have long driven social change in America, often beginning with campus protests. But in an era of deep divisions in the country’s politics, can the right to protest be preserved without indulging hate speech and compromising public safety?
Featured:
David Cole, until recently national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, is back teaching constitutional law, national security, and criminal justice at Georgetown University Law Center. One of the country’s leading authorities on free expression, he has been published widely in law journals and the popular press, including the The Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New York Review of Books, The Wall Street Journal, and The Los Angeles Times.
Justin Hansford is a Howard University School of Law professor and the executive director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center. He was previously a Democracy Project fellow at Harvard University, a visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center, and an associate law professor at Saint Louis University. He holds a B.A. from Howard University and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, where he was a founder of the Georgetown Journal of Law and Modern Critical Race Perspectives.
Anemona Hartocollis reports on higher education for The New York Times. Since joining The Times in 1997, she has covered West Africa, joined a family of Syrian refugees crossing from Macedonia to Sweden during the great migration of 2015; and followed New York City schools, courts, and hospitals. She authored “Coping,” a column about life in New York, and previously reported for The Detroit News, New York Newsday, and The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Nadine Strossen, the John Harlan Professor and former dean at New York Law School and past national president of the American Civil Liberties Union, is a leading expert and frequent commentator on Free Speech issues. She has testified before Congress on multiple occasions and lectures widely at colleges and universities around the United States. Her book “HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship” has been selected by many as a “common read” for incoming first-year college students.
Sanford J. Ungar (moderator), president emeritus of Goucher College, is director of the Free Speech Project at Georgetown University, which documents challenges to free expression in American education, government, and civil society. Director of the Voice of America under President Bill Clinton, he was also dean of the American University School of Communication and is a former co-host of "All Things Considered" on NPR.
Recorded on September 4th, 2024.
During the spring semester of 2024, protests raged across many American campuses over the Israel-Hamas war and other volatile issues. In some cases, these demonstrations devolved into hate-filled rhetoric, physical encampments, mass arrests, and destruction of property. The turmoil led to questions about the future of protest on campus, and whether reasonable limits can be devised to prevent interference with the educational and research processes that are the central purpose of universities. On international, legal, environmental, and social topics, grassroots movements and advocacy groups have long driven social change in America, often beginning with campus protests. But in an era of deep divisions in the country’s politics, can the right to protest be preserved without indulging hate speech and compromising public safety?
Featured:
David Cole, until recently national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, is back teaching constitutional law, national security, and criminal justice at Georgetown University Law Center. One of the country’s leading authorities on free expression, he has been published widely in law journals and the popular press, including the The Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New York Review of Books, The Wall Street Journal, and The Los Angeles Times.
Justin Hansford is a Howard University School of Law professor and the executive director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center. He was previously a Democracy Project fellow at Harvard University, a visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center, and an associate law professor at Saint Louis University. He holds a B.A. from Howard University and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, where he was a founder of the Georgetown Journal of Law and Modern Critical Race Perspectives.
Anemona Hartocollis reports on higher education for The New York Times. Since joining The Times in 1997, she has covered West Africa, joined a family of Syrian refugees crossing from Macedonia to Sweden during the great migration of 2015; and followed New York City schools, courts, and hospitals. She authored “Coping,” a column about life in New York, and previously reported for The Detroit News, New York Newsday, and The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Nadine Strossen, the John Harlan Professor and former dean at New York Law School and past national president of the American Civil Liberties Union, is a leading expert and frequent commentator on Free Speech issues. She has testified before Congress on multiple occasions and lectures widely at colleges and universities around the United States. Her book “HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship” has been selected by many as a “common read” for incoming first-year college students.
Sanford J. Ungar (moderator), president emeritus of Goucher College, is director of the Free Speech Project at Georgetown University, which documents challenges to free expression in American education, government, and civil society. Director of the Voice of America under President Bill Clinton, he was also dean of the American University School of Communication and is a former co-host of "All Things Considered" on NPR.
Recorded on September 4th, 2024.
