• Nazis in Skokie
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Nazis in Skokie

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In 1977, a Chicago-based Nazi group announced its plans to demonstrate in Skokie, Illinois, the home of hundreds of Holocaust survivors. The shocked survivor community rose in protest and the issue...
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  • 28 February 1986
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In 1977, a Chicago-based Nazi group announced its plans to demonstrate in Skokie, Illinois, the home of hundreds of Holocaust survivors. The shocked survivor community rose in protest and the issue went to court, with the ACLU defending the Nazis’ right to free speech. The court ruled in the Nazis’ favor. According to the “content neutrality doctrine” governing First Amendment jurisprudence, the Nazis’ insults and villifications were “neutral”--not the issue, as far as the law was concerned. But to Downs, they are at issue. In Nazis in Skokie he challenges the doctrine of “content neutrality” and presents an argument for the minimal abridgment of free speech when that speech in intentionally harmful. Draawing on his interviews with participants in the conflict, Downs combines detailed social history with informed legal interpretation in a provocative examination of an abiding tension between individual freedom and community integrity, and between procedural and substantive justice.
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Price: $29.00
Pages: 240
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
Imprint: University of Notre Dame Press
Series: Notre Dame Studies in Law and Contemporary Issues
Publication Date: 28 February 1986
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9780268014629
Format: Paperback
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“Downs has given us a thoughtful, solid work that is informed by a sense of constitutional law, by a feeling for the people involved, and by an appreciation of history as living conscience.” —American Bar Foundation Research Journal



"Mr. Downs raises points civil libertarians must consider; his book is comprehensive, knowledgeable, fair and readable." —New York Times Book Review



“Downs . . . presents a political, constitutional, philosophical, psychological, and sociological examination of the First Amendment issues involved in the Skokie incident. This case study of assaultive speech is profound, yet simply and clearly written. Highly recommended.” —Choice

Donald Downs is the Alexander Meiklejohn Professor of Political Science, Law, and Journalism at UW-Madison, and the Glenn B. and Cleone Orr Hawkins Professor of Political Science at the University. He is also the director and co-founder of the University’s Wisconsin Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy (2007-present). In 2013, Downs received the national Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Academic Freedom Award for his defense of academic freedom and freedom of thought at UW-Madison and in higher education generally. Downs also won the University's 2014 Hilldale Award in the Social Studies for " A Distinguished Career at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Research, Teaching, and Service."