Major funding for backstory is provided by an anonymous donor, the National

Endowment for the Humanities, the University of Virginia, the Joseph and

Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation.

From the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, this is backstory.

Welcome to backstory, the show that explains the history behind today's

headlines. I'm Brian Ballot.

I'm Joanne Freeman. And I'm Ed Ayers. Joanne, Brian, our colleague Nathan

Colleen, I are all historians. And each week we explore the history of a

topic in the news. Okay, so Brian, Ed, let's begin today's show in the

hallowed chamber of the United States Supreme Court. We'll hear our

argument first this morning, number 861278. In December of 1987, the

Court's nine justices heard from a rather odd couple. The case before them

was Hustler V. Falwell, a publisher of pornography versus a polarizing

preacher. The justice has faced a novel argument that Hustler magazine had a

first amendment right to make fun of the Reverend Falwell without fear of being

sued. Here's how Hustler's lawyer put it. In this situation, the new area that

has sought to be protected is satirical or critical commentary of the public

figure, which does not contain any assertions of fact. In other words,

satirizing a public figure, no matter how cruel or insulting, should be free

speech that's protected by the first amendment. The battle began with a fake

ad in Hustler a few years earlier. It spoofed popular compari LeCourre ads of

the early 80s that featured celebrities provocatively recounting their first

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