Free speech is under assault.  Progressives question its value when weighed against egalitarian concerns.  The White House has targeted universities, lawyers, and the press, among others, for expressing views the administration disfavors.  And a majority of students report believing it’s justified to shout down speakers they don’t like. Professor Cole, who has been defending First Amendment rights for more than forty years, including landmark cases in the Supreme Court, will reflect on the essential character of free speech in our polarized society.  His current client, Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia student facing deportation for his pro-Palestinian speech, will follow with an account of his own defense of First Amendment freedoms.  

David Cole is the Hon. George J. Mitchell Professor in Law and Public Policy at Georgetown University Law Center and former National Legal Director of the ACLU.  He writes regularly for the New York Review of Books and is legal affairs correspondent for The Nation. He is the author or editor of ten books, including No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System, and Engines of Liberty: How Citizen Movements Succeed.    

David has litigated many pathbreaking cases in the Supreme Court, including Texas v. Johnson, which extended First Amendment protection to flag burning; Bostock v. Clayton County, which established that Title VII bans discrimination on the basis of transgender status and sexual orientation; and National Rifle Association v. Vullo, which held that government officials cannot use their regulatory authority to coerce private parties into blacklisting a disfavored political organization.  He has received many awards for his civil liberties work.