Defending Pornography, Hate Speech and the ACLU: Nadine Strossen on The Unspeakable

The Unspeakable Podcast

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.8 • 784 Ratings

🗓️ 29 April 2024

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, Meghan talks with legal scholar, former law professor, and legendary free speech advocate Nadine Strossen.

Nadine was president of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008 and she’s the author of many books, including Defending Pornography, which has just been reissued nearly 30 years after its original publication. In this wide-ranging conversation, Nadine talks about pornography, campus speech codes, generational divides when it comes to ideas about words causing harm, and changes in institutions like the ACLU.

This week, almost the entire conversation is available to everyone, but paying Substack subscribers get a fascinating and very funny tangent at the end about a subject (mostly) unrelated to free speech: the subject of choosing not to have children. Nadine always knew she never wanted kids and she talks candidly about what was behind that impulse and how she feels about it now that she’s in her 70s.

GUEST BIO

Nadine Strossen, New York Law School Professor Emerita and Senior Fellow at FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), was national President of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008. An internationally acclaimed free speech scholar and advocate, who regularly addresses diverse audiences and provides media commentary around the world, Strossen also serves on the Advisory Boards of several organizations that promote free speech and academic freedom.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's Megan. Before we get to the episode, I want to tell you the latest about the unspeak easy
0:04.4	and our retreats for the rest of this year. Our Seattle retreat next month is full, but spots
0:10.4	are available for several others, including our first ever co-ed retreat in Chicago on June 4th and 5th.
0:17.4	That one will feature three guest speakers, including legendary free speech champion and
0:22.5	former ACLU president Nadine Strausson, who also happens to be the guest on the podcast this week.
0:28.4	You're about to hear her. We will also be joined by Eric Smith, professor of rhetorics and co-founder
0:34.1	of free black thought, and journalist and author Lisa Selen Davis,
0:39.0	who does extraordinary work on the new gender movement and has also been on the podcast very
0:44.2	recently, a many-time visitor to this podcast, just like Eric.
0:48.0	For information about this retreat, as well as our retreats this fall in Toronto and in
0:53.2	upstate New York, go to the unspeakeasy.com.
0:57.0	Space is limited. That's the whole idea. These things are small. So get in touch now.
1:05.4	Even on issues where we are constantly told that we are so retrograde and we're backsliding and we're
1:12.8	never going to solve problems of racism or sexism.
1:16.0	I dissent.
1:17.4	I very strongly dissent.
1:21.7	Welcome to the unspeakable podcast.
1:23.8	I'm your host, Megan Dom.
1:25.5	My guest is legal scholar, former law professor, and legendary free speech
1:30.1	advocate Nadine Strausson. Nadine was president of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008,
1:38.3	and she's the author of many books, including defending pornography, which has just been reissued
1:43.7	nearly 30 years after its original
	...

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