Brooklyn Law School presents the Brooklyn Law Review symposium, Incitement At 100 – And 50 – And Today: Free Speech and Violence in the Modern World on April 12, 2019 at Brooklyn Law School in New York. Register online.
This year marks the centennial of the first Supreme Court cases to give serious consideration to free speech, decided in response to convictions of dissenters who opposed American participation in World War I and allegedly incited interference with the war effort. By coincidence, 2019 also marks the 50th anniversary of Brandenburg v. Ohio, the 1969 case that established the modern rule for when political speech can be suppressed for inciting lawless action and, conversely, when it is constitutionally protected.
This Brooklyn Law Review symposium brings together noted free speech scholars and practitioners to consider the history of the incitement cases, their relevance today in a world of social media and terrorism anxiety, and their enduring importance. The panels in this day-long event will span the time horizon from 1919 to 2019 and beyond: looking back to those foundational cases, examining the constitutional status of dissenting political speech today, and speculating about the future of free speech as the nation moves into its second century of serious protection for dissenting political speech.
