Professor, Historian Discusses Free Speech and Antisemitism

On Wednesday, James Loeffler, a historian and professor of modern Jewish history at Johns Hopkins University,  spoke to students about free speech, antisemitism, and the rights of hate speech victims in his talk, titled “Words Like Arrows.” The event was organized by the law, jurisprudence, and social thought department, and began with an introduction from James J. Grosfeld Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought, Lawrence Douglas.

Loeffler’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the Haaretz newspaper. He is currently completing a book titled “Exceptional Hatred: Antisemitism and the Battle over Free Speech in Modern America,” which grapples with the “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. 

Loeffler began the lecture by challenging an old Jewish saying, “Don’t stick your head in the wolf’s mouth.” Loeffler said that he would be “sticking [his] head in the wolf’s mouth” during his talk by initiating difficult conversations about ongoing American crises of antisemitism and free speech. He argued that history can help us understand and alleviate these crises in the future. To illustrate his argument, Loeffler discussed the Skokie Affair of 1977, during which a neo-Nazi group announced a march through the Chicago suburb of Skokie, an area home to a large number of Holocaust survivors. The neo-Nazi group intentionally chose Skokie due to its large Jewish population, hoping to attract publicity and test their right to free expression under the First Amendment.Despite being met with protest and a class action lawsuit from Skokie’s Jewish residents, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) backed the neo-Nazi group, arguing that the organization’s actions were protected by the First Amendment. Both the ADL and ACLU argued that the First Amendment should protect all speech, regardless of whether it is hateful or offensive.

After setting the scene for the audience, Loeffler stepped into the shoes of Skokie’s angered Jewish residents. “Why can’t we have the law work to protect our civil rights when these groups are invoking and endorsing violence?” he asked. For Loeffler, the issue of hate speech exposed the fundamental crisis of liberalism: Can the law deliver the justice it promises?

Loeffler explained how Skokie residents attempted to fight back in court using two main strategies. The first strategy appealed to precedent, citing the 1952 case Beauharnais v. Illinois, in which the court ruled that hate speech could be banned without violating the First Amendment. The second strategy invoked the term “mentacide,” or psychic assault, claiming that the march would trigger profound trauma for Skokie residents.

However, in the 1977 case National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skoki, the Supreme Court ultimately did not analyze either of these arguments nor issue an explicit ruling on the constitutional issue of hate speech. Instead, they remanded the case to the lower courts, who ruled that the neo-Nazi group was allowed to march as the swastika is a form of free speech protected under the First Amendment. The neo-Nazi group garnered substantial publicity from the legal battle and announced the march’s relocation from Skokie to Chicago. As a result, the Skokie residents’ counterprotest never took place. Without legal remedies, the Jewish residents fighting against the neo-Nazi protest produced an alternative solution to the dilemma — a counterprogram where they educated Americans on the Holocaust and its harmful effects. For this reason, Loeffler indicated that Supreme Court intervention might not always be the best option in certain cases — sometimes, the most advantageous and just social outcomes are brought about by the people themselves. 

Loeffler then pivoted to the present, outlining the two legal legacies of the Skokie case: the expansion of the legal category of hate crimes and the rising use of civil litigation to attack and bankrupt white supremacist groups. 

Loeffler argued that Skokie’s legacy, and particularly the legal arguments employed by Jewish residents, can provide us with new ways of conceiving of and protecting citizens against hate crimes today. 

“Where should we draw the line between physical safety and emotional security? What remedies are possible?” Loeffler asked. 

Students found Loeffler’s talk was insightful and had lessons that they would carry with them.

“I think that right now, college students are seeing the First Amendment questioned in ways that it really hasn’t been in our lifetimes,” Alex McIntosh ’26 said. “I think [Loeffler] did a terrific job in contextualizing the moment [by] showing us that actually these challenges aren’t novel, that they’ve been tried before and rejected before. And that we should reject them again.”

Lauren Siegel ’27 contributed to the reporting of this article.