Historian James Loeffler will give the Stahl Center for Jewish Studies’ annual Distinguished Lecture on “The Crime of Menticide: Antisemitism and Hate Speech in American Law,” on April 11 at 7 p.m. at the Golda Meir Library, Fourth Floor Conference Room. The lecture also can be viewed on Zoom at bit.ly/JamesLoeffler.
Loeffler, Felix Posen Professor of Jewish History at Johns Hopkins University, will explore the question: Can law stem hate speech without violating the First Amendment? In 1977, a group of Holocaust survivors from Skokie, Illinois, filed a class-action lawsuit to stop a planned neo-Nazi march by alleging menticide — the psychological equivalent of genocide. Nazi words and symbols constituted a form of violence, they claimed, not constitutionally protected speech. In this lecture, Loeffler discusses the episode’s larger implications for the contemporary debate over antisemitism and free speech in American law.
The lecture is cosponsored by UWM’s Center for 21st Century Studies, the Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, the UWM History Department and the Honors College.
