Beyond the Burning Cross by Edward J Cleary

Beyond the Burning Cross by Edward J Cleary

Does our abhorrence of racism allow us to ban certain forms of speech? This is the simple yet subversive question that Edward J. Cleary posed to the U.S. Supreme Court when, in 1991, he defended a white student who had burned a cross on a black family's lawn in St. Paul, Minnesota, violating a local ordinance against hate crimes. As a progressive, Cleary detested everything his client stood for. But in this compelling argued book he describes how he overturned the St. Paul ordinance--and convinced the Court to rule that "burning a cross is reprehensible. But St. Paul has sufficient means . . . to prevent such behavior without adding the First Amendment to the fire."

As Cleary retraces his path from St. Paul to the courtroom in Washington, he juxtaposes the stories of previous First Amendment cases with a personal account of the unlikely alliances (with both the A.C.L.U. and a group engaged in defending the Ku Klux Klan) and antagonisms that grew out of the case. Ultimately, he shows us why a law that bans expressions of racism is as dangerous as a law that bans protests against those expressions. In Beyond the Burning Cross, Leary has given us an unparalleled insider's report of a watershed event in constitutional history that is as absorbing as any thriller.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780679747031
ISBN 10	0679747036
Title	Beyond the Burning Cross
Author	Edward J Cleary
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Random House USA Inc
Year published	1995-09-26
Number of pages	336
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.