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PODCAST

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast takes an uncensored look at the world of free expression through the law, philosophy, and stories that define your right to free speech. Hosted by FIRE"s Nico Perrino. New episodes post every other Thursday.

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All Episodes

52:01

Ep. 40 “The neurodiversity case for free speech” w/...

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast ·

2017/09/07

Would Isaac Newton succeed on the modern college campus? The genius who discovered the laws of motion, but who also obsessed over alchemy, was introverted and prone to unpredictable mood swings. Scholars believe he may have had autism, which is one of the many neurological conditions that contribute to “neurodiversity” in the world. And according to one new theory, the way modern colleges regulate speech is particularly chilling for neurodivergent people, like Newton, who are estimated to make up at

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01:04:02

Ep. 39 Judge Richard Posner on the First Amendment

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast ·

2017/09/05

Last week, Judge Richard Posner suddenly retired from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after nearly 36 years on the bench. The 1981 President Reagan appointee authored over 3,300 judicial opinions during his tenure and is widely considered one of the most vocal, provocative, and influential appellate court judges of all time. On today’s episode of So to Speak, we hear Judge Posner’s candid thoughts on the First Amendment as we play for you a conversation he had with Professor Geoffrey Stone on

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01:08:08

Ep. 38 “After Charlottesville” w/ former ACLU...

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast ·

2017/08/22

Nadine Strossen knows the dangers of Nazism. Her father was liberated from the Buchenwald concentration camp one day before he was scheduled to be sterilized. If American soldiers arrived a day later, Strossen would never become the first female president of the ACLU. She wouldn’t even be alive. After Charlottesville, there has been vigorous debate about the so-called limits of free speech. Should white supremacist and neo-Nazi ideologies enjoy full First Amendment rights? And if so, should civil

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01:00:08

Ep. 37 Fredrik deBoer on the growing distrust of...

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast ·

2017/08/10

Fredrik deBoer has been in and around academia his entire life. He’s a fourth generation Ph.D. who has blogged about education issues since 2008. Writing from a socialist perspective, he regularly tackles campus free speech debates. Last month, deBoer wrote a piece for The Los Angeles Times arguing that recent efforts to shut down conservative speakers on campus have contributed to an environment where 58 percent of Republicans say colleges have a negative effect on the country. On today’s episode

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01:03:54

Ep. 36 The life of Louis Brandeis w/ Jeffrey Rosen

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast ·

2017/07/27

During the summer of 1919, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis changed his mind about free speech. Earlier that year, he voted to uphold the conviction of Charles Schenck for opposing the military draft. A year later, he was the lone dissenter in a case dealing with nearly the same issue. In 1927, he wrote what some consider to be the greatest defense of free speech ever penned by a Supreme Court justice in the case Whitney v. California. Why did Brandeis change his mind? On today’s episode of

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50:20

Ep. 35 Et tu, hecklers? Howard Sherman on defending...

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast ·

2017/07/13

In Shakespeare’s 1599 play “Julius Caesar,” the title character is warned by a soothsayer to “beware the Ides of March.” After protesters attempted to shut down a modernized production of the play in New York’s Central Park last month, theater companies may now be warning each other to “beware the ire of hecklers.” On today’s episode of So to Speak, we speak with Arts Integrity Initiative Director Howard Sherman about the controversy surrounding The Public Theater’s production of “Julius Caesar,”

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59:33

Ep. 34 The 100th anniversary of the Espionage Act of...

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast ·

2017/06/29

It was 100 years ago this month that the Espionage Act of 1917 was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, making it a crime to interfere with the operations of the United States military. During its lifetime, the act has had a troubled history with the First Amendment. It has been used to criminalize wartime dissent, restrict press freedom, and prosecute government whistleblowers. On today’s episode of So to Speak, we speak with University of Washington School of Law scholar Ronald Collins

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01:04:05

Ep. 33 The Slants win at the U.S. Supreme Court!

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast ·

2017/06/20

Simon Tam likes to quote Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous line — paraphrased from transcendentalist Theodore Parker’s earlier statement — that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” That said, Tam likes to add that the arc doesn’t bend on its own. It takes courageous individuals willing to stand up for their rights for justice to be achieved. Tam can now add himself to the list of those who bore the cost of standing up for their rights — and found justice. Yesterday,

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01:03:44

Ep. 32 Tyler Cowen on the complacent campus

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast ·

2017/06/15

George Mason University Professor Tyler Cowen has spent the better part of the last 40 years on college campuses. That’s why when he wrote in his new book “The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream” that college campuses are “among the segments of American society where the complacent class exercises its strongest influence,” we wanted to learn more. On today’s episode of So to Speak, we ask professor Cowen why he believes college campuses are complacent and what impact,

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01:03:47

Ep. 31 Campus free speech round table: spring 2017...

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast ·

2017/06/01

FIRE President and CEO Greg Lukianoff once declared 2014 the year of the heckler. But after high profile examples of mob censorship at the University of California, Berkeley, Middlebury College, and Claremont McKenna College, has 2017 become the new year of the heckler — at least on college campuses? On this week’s episode of So to Speak, host Nico Perrino is joined by his FIRE colleagues Will Creeley, Samantha Harris, and Joe Cohn to help answer this and other questions about free speech on campus

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01:12:07

Ep. 30 Eugene Volokh and new frontiers in the First...

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast ·

2017/05/18

Where are the new frontiers in First Amendment law? Where do scholars and the courts see the potential for expanding First Amendment protections in the future? What technological developments pose challenges to existing First Amendment protections? Our guest on today’s episode of So to Speak will help us answer those questions. Professor Eugene Volokh is the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law at UCLA and the founder of the popular legal blog The Volokh Conspiracy. Before receiving his

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02:13:37

Ep. 29 Former ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast ·

2017/05/04

Ira Glasser is one of the most consequential civil liberties figures in American history. He ran the ACLU as its executive director from 1978 until his retirement in 2001. In the process, he transformed the organization from a small, $4 million nonprofit with offices in a few cities into a household name with an annual budget of $45 million, a $30 million endowment, and staffed offices in every state, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. This week is the 50th anniversary of when Glasser started with

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51:31

Ep. 28 ‘Sex and the Constitution’ with professor...

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast ·

2017/04/20

Sex and the Constitution are not two topics often thought of together. But University of Chicago Law School professor Geoffrey R. Stone seeks to change that with the publication of “Sex and the Constitution: Sex, Religion, and Law from America’s Origins to the Twenty-First Century.” The newly released, 700-page book is 10 years in the making. Stone’s comprehensive review extends all the way back to the ancient Greeks and Romans to explain how sex came to be legislated in America. Professor Stone is

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35:28

Ep. 27 The ‘heckler’s veto’ strikes Heather Mac Donald

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast ·

2017/04/17

On April 6, Manhattan Institute Fellow Heather Mac Donald was standing in Claremont McKenna College’s Athenaeum preparing to give a lecture to an empty room. An empty room was not what Mac Donald expected when she traveled to California from her New York City home to deliver a lecture on her new book, “The War On Cops.” But outside the auditorium, close to 300 people had surrounded the Athenaeum, preventing prospective audience members from entering. They were protesting Mac Donald’s defense of law

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46:50

Ep. 26 Putting money where your mouth is: campaign...

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast ·

2017/04/06

From Buckley v. Valeo (1976) to Citizens United v. FEC (2010), legal disputes over the constitutionality of campaign finance laws have captured the general public’s attention for decades. At the heart of the debate is a question of whether money donated to political candidates or spent influencing elections is speech protected by the First Amendment. And, if it is, are there countervailing interests outweighing those core First Amendment interests? Even within the free speech community, the debate

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54:34

Ep. 25 Bob Corn-Revere on censorship: the ‘bastard...

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast ·

2017/03/23

New technologies and the censorship instinct seem to go hand-in-hand. From the first days of the printing press, to the rise of radio and the telephone, to the advent of the internet, innovations in mass communication are often followed by a fear of what will happen if these novelties are left unrestricted — or uncensored. On today’s episode of So to Speak, we speak with former Federal Communications Commission chief counsel and current Davis Wright Tremaine partner Bob Corn-Revere about what it

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39:48

Ep. 24 How Daryl Davis, a black man, defeats the KKK...

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast ·

2017/03/09

Daryl Davis, a 58-year-old black man, has a question: “How can you hate me if you don’t even know me?” For nearly three decades, Davis has been interviewing members of the Ku Klux Klan to find an answer to that question. However, in the course of his research, he found something he didn’t expect to find: friendship. You see, while Davis was actively learning about the Klan members, they were passively learning about him, seeing that their prejudices were unfounded and becoming his friend. Today,

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51:19

Ep. 23 Rob Corry, ‘speech code slayer’

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast ·

2017/02/23

In 1994, law student Rob Corry joined with eight other students to file a legal challenge to a Stanford University speech code. It was the first-ever lawsuit filed under California’s recently-enacted “Leonard Law,” which applies First Amendment protections to private, non-sectarian colleges in the state of California (like Stanford), and which the students argued made Stanford’s restrictions on free speech unlawful. Winning wasn’t going to be easy: Corry would be representing himself and his

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58:46

Ep. 22 Flemming Rose, Editor of ‘the Muhammad Cartoons’

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast ·

2017/02/09

Flemming Rose didn’t set out to put himself at the center of one of the biggest free speech controversies in recent memory, but 12 years ago he found himself in just that position. In 2005, Rose commissioned and published what are now widely known as “the Muhammad cartoons.” Protests against the cartoons resulted in an estimated 200 reported deaths; there were attacks on the offices of Rose’s employer, the Danish newspaper ‘Jyllands-Posten’; and Rose was placed on Al-Qaeda’s hit list. To this day,

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34:59

Ep. 21 The ‘Turkey Purge’ w/ Prof. Beth Baron

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast ·

2017/01/27

We continue our conversation about the Turkish government’s crackdown on civil society with Middle East Studies Association (MESA) President and City University of New York Professor Beth Baron. MESA has sounded the alarm bells about the threat to academic freedom posed by the Turkish government. In August 2016, they sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry regarding persecutions and prosecutions of scholars and academics within Turkey. www.sotospeakpodcast.com Follow us on Twitter:

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