[Music]
20:17 with a hell of a year for the
first amendment nowhere was more central
to this culture war than the campuses in
universities across america including
right here at the University of Nevada
Reno to un our students became infamous
for their speech in the past year found
themselves embroiled in two of the
biggest free speech controversies of the
of the past couple of years student
Peter Satana bitch became the face of
white nationalism when a picture of him
snarling holding a tiki torch at the
unite the right rally in Charlottesville
went viral on the complete opposite end
of the political spectrum if you can
call it that graduate colin kaepernick
went on to the NFL and used his position
to highlight police brutality and racial
injustice by taking a knee during the
national anthem
both men became incredibly controversial
for their speech there were calls in
campaigns for both men to be expelled
for their opinions but regardless of
whether you believe with one agree with
one of them or both of them are neither
the First Amendment protects both of
those men and their opinions from
censorship and retaliation by the
government that’s a good thing and I
want to tell you why it’s becoming more
common for me to hear that we should
have lower protections for speech that
specifically you should criminalize hate
speech I hear this from the left a lot I
think a lot of progressives envision a
world where people like Colin Kaepernick
can take a knee and protest of racial
injustice without fear of retaliation
from the government without fear that
the president will pressure the NFL to
fire him but they also want to live in a
world where a government school like UNR
can expel a student like Peter Satana
bitch for his hateful views that is a
fantasy and more than that it’s
dangerous I’m a progressive it’s not
hard for me to pick between white
nationalism and racial justice one is
abhorrent one is it overdue
demand for equal rights but what would
happen if I gave the government the
right to decide which of those men was
too hateful to speak president Trump is
a pretty useful barometer he called the
marchers at Charlottesville very fine
people while reserving his ire for
blacks football players who taken me as
sons of bitches your hate speech may not
be the government’s idea of hate speech
I sure as hell know it’s not mine but
even if you happen to agree with Trump
can you be confident that the next
president the next government will agree
with your worldview you shouldn’t be
that’s why above all I am an
anti-authoritarian I know that the US
government has a long history of
wielding its raw power against the
vulnerable communities that speak truth
to that power against those who seek to
change the status quo and because I want
every student to be able to take a knee
without fear of government censorship I
am a true believer in the First
Amendment but even as a First Amendment
attorney I find a lot of the common
tropes and myths about the First
Amendment really unsatisfying so I want
to go through three of these myths dust
them off and hopefully in the process
will come up with three practical rules
for exercising your free speech rights
powerfully and strategically so the
first one is one I suspect we all
learned in kindergarten if you remember
your nursery rhymes please feel free to
join me sticks and stones may break my
bones but words will never hurt me
does anyone as an adult actually believe
this it’s it’s manifestly untrue I’m a
free speech attorney precisely because I
believe that words matters right it’s
ludicrous to protect free speech by
denying its very power so why do we lie
to kids right why do why do we fabricate
this thing for them well it’s because
humans of all ages can be vicious it’s
just true and when a kid is at the
receiving end of injustice a taunt
hateful language
we want that kid to be empowered not
diminished in February
notorious troll Milo analyst had a
planned speech at UC Berkeley
students and others in the community
went nuts there were protests there were
riots things were set on fire the
administration cancelled his talk in
April there was a repeat same thing
except this time it was Ann Coulter she
was going to speak school officials said
there’s gonna be riots they cancelled
her talk those two individuals and in
Milo man they became martyrs they got to
take on the role of victims of liberal
censorship they went on media tours the
media ate it up they got more attention
for being silenced than they ever did
for trying to peddle their actual
substantive views so I think it’s
helpful to think of professional
provocateurs and trolls as we would
those schoolyard bullies yeah their
words can hurt there’s no point in
denying that but the better question is
how do we respond to that
right and a troll a provocateur wants
you to censor them right that’s part of
the goal it feeds into their power it
gives them something else to sell so we
don’t have to march to that tune you
don’t have to play that role and we can
think of them like these bullies yeah
the words hurt but there’s also power
incest there’s power in refusing to be
goaded into a fight or to play the role
of censor don’t do it but some words
wound in ways that are different from
others which brings us to miss number
two I hear this one a lot particularly
online we all know that hate speech
isn’t protected by the First Amendment
not so as that anecdote about Trump
hopefully made you think hate speech can
be in the eye of the beholder ear of the
be here I guess that’s word in just this
week in Spain a man was arrested for the
hate crime this is real
calling cops slackers on Facebook police
are covered under the Spanish hate crime
law that’s what criticizing your
government looks like in a country
without a First Amendment but we don’t
have to protect speech just out of
paranoia that our government will warp
but we think speech and hate speech are
there’s also an upshot in the late 1960s
a KKK leader named Charles Brandenburg
was arrested on criminal charges of
incitement to violence for holding a KKK
rally the speech was as a pourraient his
vicious racist as you might imagine but
the KKK lawyers took it all the way up
to the Supreme Court and they challenged
this crime said they had a free speech
right to be a KKK member and the Supreme
Court thought about it and said you’re
right before we allow the government to
punish you for your speech it has to
pass such a high bar there has to be an
immediate and specific risk of actual
physical violence to a real person and
this KKK rally well there’s a group of
white racists there wasn’t anyone around
that they were intending to actually
engage in violence against that case in
a vacuum might be tough to swallow I
think particularly a fair person of
color it’s not the end of the story at
about the same time a lion of the civil
rights movement named Charles Evers was
giving a huge speech to a gathering of
n-double-a-cp supporters who had come
together to boycott late owned racist
businesses that didn’t allow black
Americans to come into their business
and as he’s giving his speech Evers gets
worked up and really passionate and he
says I’ll wring the damn neck of anybody
who breaks this boycott so what’s he
done right he’s he’s fantasized about
some future violence it’s type
aesthetical he’s not pointing at Bob
there right so the Brandenburg case has
just come out at the Supreme Court in
the n-double a-c-p lawyers look at that
and say well this can’t be right
how can a KKK leader get a
get-out-of-jail-free card right but our
civil rights guy is
evers is being sued for incitement by
the same white owned businesses that he
was protesting mr. Evers challenged
these charges to and he went all the way
up to the Supreme Court and the Supreme
Court said well I guess were constrained
by that Brandenburg case to give you
your free speech rights to I want to be
clear by the way that I don’t see
anything equivalent between the KKK and
the n-double-a-cp
but the court is an odd place it’s a bit
stripped of context in history it’s a
kind of bastion of privilege and all
they boiled it down to was is this
theoretical future violence or is there
an immediate and specific risk of harm
to a real person they said well from
that point of view these look the same
now I know a lot of people are skeptical
that in practice the rights that are
extended to people like a KKK leader
actually trickle down to somebody like
an N double ACP leader they’re not wrong
to be skeptical our country has always
taken a while to distribute its rights
equally among its citizenry right think
of the right to vote did we all get it
at the same time regardless of sex
regardless of race absolutely not or
even in today’s world do you think your
constitutional rights at arrest look the
same regardless of your race your right
to carry it done do you think that looks
the same with you’re black or you’re
white again no but if the answer to
eliminate or lessen the very
constitutional protections that allow us
to hold the government accountable when
it violates our rights
hell no instead making sure that
constitutional rights are evenly
distributed it’s a process right and
it’s our job the First Amendment is no
different right so when the Supreme
Court when the powers that be give that
right to somebody like Brandenburg a KKK
leader it’s our job civil rights leaders
those who believe in equal rights
injustice to ratchet everybody up to
that same level of protection for
constitutional rights and that’s
precisely what the n-double-a-cp did and
that’s all of our job to that’s what I
do as a
free-speech attorney and that’s what you
need to do as students you need to make
sure that these theoretical rules filter
down on the ground so our students up
for it that brings us to our third and
final myth today’s students are just
snowflakes I hear it all the time
usually meant as an insult by the way as
beautiful as snowflakes are so because
of the First Amendment public schools
and universities cannot ban people from
hate from campus simply because their
views are hateful so that means that
over the past year black and Jewish
students have had to leave their dorm
rooms and walk to class passing by
people who have called for their
extermination it means that women’s
students have had to walk by speakers on
campus who called feminism a cancer LGBT
students have had to walk by people
saying transgenderism is a medical
disorder right no adult has to go to
work and walk by people saying they’re
less than human or that they shouldn’t
exist
I don’t think students are snowflakes I
think they’re badasses because they bear
the brunt of that First Amendment on
campus were these professional
provocateurs come right now
when I say that silencing your political
opponents isn’t the answer it’s not
because I think that’s weak it’s because
I think it’s not strategic so if
silencing your enemies isn’t an answer
what does empowerment look like in the
First Amendment well sometimes it’s just
sheer numbers the week after
Charlottesville a group of people
planned a rally on Boston Common that
they termed the free speech rally they
were all right folks and this is a week
after Charlotte’s though only a handful
the permit merger the permit holders
showed up but 40,000 plus members of the
Massachusetts community and from across
the country engaged in a counter protest
ringing Boston Common standing strong
right sending a very powerful message of
resistance together
that’s a blizzard of snowflakes right
there’s no weakness in that
but sometimes just a single person will
make a difference one of my favorite
stories from the last couple of years
free speech one of my favorite free
speech victories from last few years is
a musician who was really appalled that
the KKK was planning to march in his
hometown of Charleston and so using the
tools at his disposal he got out his
sousaphone that’s one of these big
breasts for a instrument boom boom and
he got out on the street he got next to
the KKK and he just moved but we thought
but along with them it’s the main thing
you should you should look up the video
it’s worth watching and without saying a
single word he he stripped these
fascists bare they couldn’t even bear to
go on marching they were so humiliated
you can’t keep up a straight face of
fascism with a goofy to the line behind
you it’s just hard to do so look I
believe in the First Amendment
fundamentally first and foremost because
I know it’s the greatest tool we have to
keep the government out of regulating
the conversations that spark every
change in the world if you want to keep
having conversations that change the
world you should embrace this First
Amendment to messiness and all and even
though those three myths might might not
be true I hope they started to reveal a
few real nuggets of truth about how we
can strategically exercise our powerful
First Amendment rights number one know
your history know that when rights are
extended to the power and powerful and
privileged then it’s our job to make
sure that everybody benefits from those
rights understand that the same first
amendment that first extended to a KKK
member was used strategically by civil
rights leaders to cover the n-double
a-c-p leader as well that’s success
story and we have to keep doing it
number two don’t try and silence your
way out of the debate as we’ve seen from
free speech week have we seen from the
free speech rally people trying to
co-opt the term free speech just feeds
them power we can’t let them do that
free speech as a concept its power is in
its indivisibility its equal for the KKK
leader and the n-double-a-cp leader
alike right so don’t dance
that tune you don’t have to give the
provocateur the censorship she’s
desperately hoping that you give her so
that brings us to number three dance to
your own tune
figure out for yourself when you go to a
counter-protest
in numbers or alone with your tuba
figure out when you hold an alternative
and more loving event across campus
figure out when you think there are
ideas that are just fundamentally
unworthy of debate and the way that you
figure out how to handle these conflicts
how to handle speech that you abhor can
be a great guideline for how you handle
conflict throughout the rest of your
life my name is Lee Rowland I’m an
unabashed progressive I’m a skeptic
I’m an anti-authoritarian for all of
those reasons I believe in a robust and
indivisible First Amendment join me
[Applause]
20:17 with a hell of a year for the
first amendment nowhere was more central
to this culture war than the campuses in
universities across america including
right here at the University of Nevada
Reno to un our students became infamous
for their speech in the past year found
themselves embroiled in two of the
biggest free speech controversies of the
of the past couple of years student
Peter Satana bitch became the face of
white nationalism when a picture of him
snarling holding a tiki torch at the
unite the right rally in Charlottesville
went viral on the complete opposite end
of the political spectrum if you can
call it that graduate colin kaepernick
went on to the NFL and used his position
to highlight police brutality and racial
injustice by taking a knee during the
national anthem
both men became incredibly controversial
for their speech there were calls in
campaigns for both men to be expelled
for their opinions but regardless of
whether you believe with one agree with
one of them or both of them are neither
the First Amendment protects both of
those men and their opinions from
censorship and retaliation by the
government that’s a good thing and I
want to tell you why it’s becoming more
common for me to hear that we should
have lower protections for speech that
specifically you should criminalize hate
speech I hear this from the left a lot I
think a lot of progressives envision a
world where people like Colin Kaepernick
can take a knee and protest of racial
injustice without fear of retaliation
from the government without fear that
the president will pressure the NFL to
fire him but they also want to live in a
world where a government school like UNR
can expel a student like Peter Satana
bitch for his hateful views that is a
fantasy and more than that it’s
dangerous I’m a progressive it’s not
hard for me to pick between white
nationalism and racial justice one is
abhorrent one is it overdue
demand for equal rights but what would
happen if I gave the government the
right to decide which of those men was
too hateful to speak president Trump is
a pretty useful barometer he called the
marchers at Charlottesville very fine
people while reserving his ire for
blacks football players who taken me as
sons of bitches your hate speech may not
be the government’s idea of hate speech
I sure as hell know it’s not mine but
even if you happen to agree with Trump
can you be confident that the next
president the next government will agree
with your worldview you shouldn’t be
that’s why above all I am an
anti-authoritarian I know that the US
government has a long history of
wielding its raw power against the
vulnerable communities that speak truth
to that power against those who seek to
change the status quo and because I want
every student to be able to take a knee
without fear of government censorship I
am a true believer in the First
Amendment but even as a First Amendment
attorney I find a lot of the common
tropes and myths about the First
Amendment really unsatisfying so I want
to go through three of these myths dust
them off and hopefully in the process
will come up with three practical rules
for exercising your free speech rights
powerfully and strategically so the
first one is one I suspect we all
learned in kindergarten if you remember
your nursery rhymes please feel free to
join me sticks and stones may break my
bones but words will never hurt me
does anyone as an adult actually believe
this it’s it’s manifestly untrue I’m a
free speech attorney precisely because I
believe that words matters right it’s
ludicrous to protect free speech by
denying its very power so why do we lie
to kids right why do why do we fabricate
this thing for them well it’s because
humans of all ages can be vicious it’s
just true and when a kid is at the
receiving end of injustice a taunt
hateful language
we want that kid to be empowered not
diminished in February
notorious troll Milo analyst had a
planned speech at UC Berkeley
students and others in the community
went nuts there were protests there were
riots things were set on fire the
administration cancelled his talk in
April there was a repeat same thing
except this time it was Ann Coulter she
was going to speak school officials said
there’s gonna be riots they cancelled
her talk those two individuals and in
Milo man they became martyrs they got to
take on the role of victims of liberal
censorship they went on media tours the
media ate it up they got more attention
for being silenced than they ever did
for trying to peddle their actual
substantive views so I think it’s
helpful to think of professional
provocateurs and trolls as we would
those schoolyard bullies yeah their
words can hurt there’s no point in
denying that but the better question is
how do we respond to that
right and a troll a provocateur wants
you to censor them right that’s part of
the goal it feeds into their power it
gives them something else to sell so we
don’t have to march to that tune you
don’t have to play that role and we can
think of them like these bullies yeah
the words hurt but there’s also power
incest there’s power in refusing to be
goaded into a fight or to play the role
of censor don’t do it but some words
wound in ways that are different from
others which brings us to miss number
two I hear this one a lot particularly
online we all know that hate speech
isn’t protected by the First Amendment
not so as that anecdote about Trump
hopefully made you think hate speech can
be in the eye of the beholder ear of the
be here I guess that’s word in just this
week in Spain a man was arrested for the
hate crime this is real
calling cops slackers on Facebook police
are covered under the Spanish hate crime
law that’s what criticizing your
government looks like in a country
without a First Amendment but we don’t
have to protect speech just out of
paranoia that our government will warp
but we think speech and hate speech are
there’s also an upshot in the late 1960s
a KKK leader named Charles Brandenburg
was arrested on criminal charges of
incitement to violence for holding a KKK
rally the speech was as a pourraient his
vicious racist as you might imagine but
the KKK lawyers took it all the way up
to the Supreme Court and they challenged
this crime said they had a free speech
right to be a KKK member and the Supreme
Court thought about it and said you’re
right before we allow the government to
punish you for your speech it has to
pass such a high bar there has to be an
immediate and specific risk of actual
physical violence to a real person and
this KKK rally well there’s a group of
white racists there wasn’t anyone around
that they were intending to actually
engage in violence against that case in
a vacuum might be tough to swallow I
think particularly a fair person of
color it’s not the end of the story at
about the same time a lion of the civil
rights movement named Charles Evers was
giving a huge speech to a gathering of
n-double-a-cp supporters who had come
together to boycott late owned racist
businesses that didn’t allow black
Americans to come into their business
and as he’s giving his speech Evers gets
worked up and really passionate and he
says I’ll wring the damn neck of anybody
who breaks this boycott so what’s he
done right he’s he’s fantasized about
some future violence it’s type
aesthetical he’s not pointing at Bob
there right so the Brandenburg case has
just come out at the Supreme Court in
the n-double a-c-p lawyers look at that
and say well this can’t be right
how can a KKK leader get a
get-out-of-jail-free card right but our
civil rights guy is
evers is being sued for incitement by
the same white owned businesses that he
was protesting mr. Evers challenged
these charges to and he went all the way
up to the Supreme Court and the Supreme
Court said well I guess were constrained
by that Brandenburg case to give you
your free speech rights to I want to be
clear by the way that I don’t see
anything equivalent between the KKK and
the n-double-a-cp
but the court is an odd place it’s a bit
stripped of context in history it’s a
kind of bastion of privilege and all
they boiled it down to was is this
theoretical future violence or is there
an immediate and specific risk of harm
to a real person they said well from
that point of view these look the same
now I know a lot of people are skeptical
that in practice the rights that are
extended to people like a KKK leader
actually trickle down to somebody like
an N double ACP leader they’re not wrong
to be skeptical our country has always
taken a while to distribute its rights
equally among its citizenry right think
of the right to vote did we all get it
at the same time regardless of sex
regardless of race absolutely not or
even in today’s world do you think your
constitutional rights at arrest look the
same regardless of your race your right
to carry it done do you think that looks
the same with you’re black or you’re
white again no but if the answer to
eliminate or lessen the very
constitutional protections that allow us
to hold the government accountable when
it violates our rights
hell no instead making sure that
constitutional rights are evenly
distributed it’s a process right and
it’s our job the First Amendment is no
different right so when the Supreme
Court when the powers that be give that
right to somebody like Brandenburg a KKK
leader it’s our job civil rights leaders
those who believe in equal rights
injustice to ratchet everybody up to
that same level of protection for
constitutional rights and that’s
precisely what the n-double-a-cp did and
that’s all of our job to that’s what I
do as a
free-speech attorney and that’s what you
need to do as students you need to make
sure that these theoretical rules filter
down on the ground so our students up
for it that brings us to our third and
final myth today’s students are just
snowflakes I hear it all the time
usually meant as an insult by the way as
beautiful as snowflakes are so because
of the First Amendment public schools
and universities cannot ban people from
hate from campus simply because their
views are hateful so that means that
over the past year black and Jewish
students have had to leave their dorm
rooms and walk to class passing by
people who have called for their
extermination it means that women’s
students have had to walk by speakers on
campus who called feminism a cancer LGBT
students have had to walk by people
saying transgenderism is a medical
disorder right no adult has to go to
work and walk by people saying they’re
less than human or that they shouldn’t
exist
I don’t think students are snowflakes I
think they’re badasses because they bear
the brunt of that First Amendment on
campus were these professional
provocateurs come right now
when I say that silencing your political
opponents isn’t the answer it’s not
because I think that’s weak it’s because
I think it’s not strategic so if
silencing your enemies isn’t an answer
what does empowerment look like in the
First Amendment well sometimes it’s just
sheer numbers the week after
Charlottesville a group of people
planned a rally on Boston Common that
they termed the free speech rally they
were all right folks and this is a week
after Charlotte’s though only a handful
the permit merger the permit holders
showed up but 40,000 plus members of the
Massachusetts community and from across
the country engaged in a counter protest
ringing Boston Common standing strong
right sending a very powerful message of
resistance together
that’s a blizzard of snowflakes right
there’s no weakness in that
but sometimes just a single person will
make a difference one of my favorite
stories from the last couple of years
free speech one of my favorite free
speech victories from last few years is
a musician who was really appalled that
the KKK was planning to march in his
hometown of Charleston and so using the
tools at his disposal he got out his
sousaphone that’s one of these big
breasts for a instrument boom boom and
he got out on the street he got next to
the KKK and he just moved but we thought
but along with them it’s the main thing
you should you should look up the video
it’s worth watching and without saying a
single word he he stripped these
fascists bare they couldn’t even bear to
go on marching they were so humiliated
you can’t keep up a straight face of
fascism with a goofy to the line behind
you it’s just hard to do so look I
believe in the First Amendment
fundamentally first and foremost because
I know it’s the greatest tool we have to
keep the government out of regulating
the conversations that spark every
change in the world if you want to keep
having conversations that change the
world you should embrace this First
Amendment to messiness and all and even
though those three myths might might not
be true I hope they started to reveal a
few real nuggets of truth about how we
can strategically exercise our powerful
First Amendment rights number one know
your history know that when rights are
extended to the power and powerful and
privileged then it’s our job to make
sure that everybody benefits from those
rights understand that the same first
amendment that first extended to a KKK
member was used strategically by civil
rights leaders to cover the n-double
a-c-p leader as well that’s success
story and we have to keep doing it
number two don’t try and silence your
way out of the debate as we’ve seen from
free speech week have we seen from the
free speech rally people trying to
co-opt the term free speech just feeds
them power we can’t let them do that
free speech as a concept its power is in
its indivisibility its equal for the KKK
leader and the n-double-a-cp leader
alike right so don’t dance
that tune you don’t have to give the
provocateur the censorship she’s
desperately hoping that you give her so
that brings us to number three dance to
your own tune
figure out for yourself when you go to a
counter-protest
in numbers or alone with your tuba
figure out when you hold an alternative
and more loving event across campus
figure out when you think there are
ideas that are just fundamentally
unworthy of debate and the way that you
figure out how to handle these conflicts
how to handle speech that you abhor can
be a great guideline for how you handle
conflict throughout the rest of your
life my name is Lee Rowland I’m an
unabashed progressive I’m a skeptic
I’m an anti-authoritarian for all of
those reasons I believe in a robust and
indivisible First Amendment join me
[Applause]
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