Free Speech Handbook: A Practical Framework for Understanding Our Free Speech Protections

by Ian Rosenberg, Mike Cavallaro (Illustrator)

Overview

In this volume of the World Citizen Comics series, Ian Rosenberg and Mike Cavallaro create a practical framework for understanding and appreciating the First Amendment.

Freedom of speech is fiercely defended in America and has been since the First Amendment was written. But how does it work, and what laws shape it? Drawing on parallels between ten seminal Supreme Court cases and current events, Free Speech Handbook lays out the fundamentals of First Amendment law in an accessible and engaging way.

This book is part of the World Citizen Comics series, a bold line of civics-focused graphic novels that equip readers to be engaged citizens and informed voters.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250619754
Publisher:	First Second
Publication date:	11/30/2021
Series:	World Citizen Comics
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	1,072,535
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	3 Months

About the Author

Ian Rosenberg has over twenty years of experience as a media lawyer, and has worked as legal counsel for ABC News since 2003. A graduate of Cornell Law School, he is an Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker, and teaches media law at Brooklyn College. He is the author of The Fight for Free Speech: Ten Cases That Define Our First Amendment Freedoms (NYU Press 2021).

Mike Cavallaro is from New Jersey and has worked in comics and animation since the early 1990s. His comics include Eisner Award–nominated Parade (with fireworks), The Life and Times of Savior 28 (written by J.M. DeMatteis), Foiled and Curses! Foiled Again (written by Jane Yolen), Decelerate Blue (written by Adam Rapp), and The Nico Bravo series.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 The Women's March and the Marketplace of Ideas 1

Chapter 2 Take a Knee and the Pledge of Allegiance 31

Chapter 3 Libel, Actual Malice, and the Civil Rights Movement 69

Chapter 4 Student Speech from the Vietnam War to the National School Walkout 93

Chapter 5 Stormy Daniels, Prior Restraints, and the Pentagon Papers 114

Chapter 6 Flipping Off the President and Fuck the Draft 138

Chapter 7 Samantha Bee, Seven Dirty Words, and Indecency 152

Chapter 8 Saturday Night Live, Hustler, and the Power of Parody 170

Chapter 9 Nazis in Charlottesville, Funeral Protests, and Speakers We Hate 197

Chapter 10 Social Media, Public Parks, and the "Vast Democratic Forums of the Internet" 221

Afterword 241

Glossary of Legal Terms 246

Selected Bibliography 248

Editorial Reviews

★ 11/01/2021

Taking a rare general-interest approach to constitutional issues that doesn’t speak down to its audience, this savvy nonfiction graphic narrative provides an excellent introduction to the little-understood theory and practice of free speech in America. Adapting his 2021 The Fight for Free Speech, Rosenberg breaks down the issue into ten concepts (e.g. prior restraint and press freedom, protections for hate speech). With art by Cavallaro (the Nico Bravo series), each offers a dramatic and intelligent analysis of the core cases and their broader real-life effects. Rosenberg links modern controversies to historical precedent to demonstrate how debates evolve (for example, connecting Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest to a 1935 case of Jehovah’s Witness schoolchildren refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance). As a media lawyer, Rosenberg is a staunch free-speech advocate but keeps speechifying to a minimum in his nuanced takes, as when he notes how the Supreme Court’s decision to allow convicted sex offenders to keep using Facebook “doesn’t tell us what can be done to mitigate the problems created by social media trolls and hate mobs,” or points out that “what Stormy Daniels had to say about Trump’s sex life is not as important as her ability to say it.” Cavallaro’s cartoony drawings, meanwhile, are accessible and smartly highlight emotion and conflict. This informative and inspiring guide looks past free-speech clichés to home in on how such rights are not chiseled in stone but fought over on an ever-shifting battlefield. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"A captivating read for any engaged citizen in today’s turbulent marketplace of ideas."
—Juju Chang, Emmy Award–winning co-anchor of ABC News’ Nightline

"This remarkable book is a joy. It celebrates the First Amendment in a manner that readers young and old can savor and learn from."
—Floyd Abrams, First Amendment lawyer and author of The Soul of the First Amendment

"Part of a series of vivid graphic books offering civics education, this volume traces the evolution of the First Amendment as it has been interpreted in American society and through various free speech laws." New York Times, a "What to Read" selection

"[An] informative and inspiring guide."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Teens learning about free speech in history or civics classes will appreciate this accessible overview."—Booklist

From the Publisher