Suppression of Dissent on U.S. Campuses Fueling Resistance

SKOKIE village in Illinois marked a remarkable chapter in American jurisprudence. Back in 1977, its residents were primarily Jewish Holocaust survivors.

- LITCY KURISINKAL

Frank Collins, leader of the American Nazi Party at the time, planned a rally in Skokie to uphold the 'free speech of white people', with Nazi uniforms, swastikas and banners on show. The villagers vehemently opposed such an outrageous effort and tried their best to suppress it. The Holocaust survivors tried to get a prior restraining order to stop such a contemptible act. Alas, the US courts upheld the Nazi Party's freedom of speech.

The Skokie case of 1977 is one of the most controversial in the US. It remains a landmark that established how sacred free speech and the Constitution's first amendment are in the US. But it was not an outlier case. The religious group Jehovah's Witnesses had won a case on freedom of speech and religion to distribute religious materials criticizing Catholics back in 1940. A priest's freedom was upheld by the court by reversing the local government's 'breach of peace' ordinance against him for an inflammatory speech criticizing racial groups.

In the US, free speech is not conveniently upheld and suppressed at the whims and fancies of the people in power, and is not swayed by the popular demands of the day. It is protected objectively for every citizen despite its inherent follies.