| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Stokie Supreme Court

Page history last edited by SapphireSeven 15 years ago

read: National Socialist Party of America versus Village of Skokie

 

search, read: in JSTOR, find one article pertaining to the Skokie case

 

write: 250 words about what this case teaches about message, First Amendment, kairos in the "marketplace of ideas"

 

Skokie is a Chicago suburb, Illinois. Particularly notable for their barbershop quartet.

"Skokie attorneys argued that for Jews, seeing the swastika was just like being physically attacked." This statement is brutal and crucial to the participants in this case. Hits close to home for me. Such a visual. Extremely bold statement. "Holocaust survivors set up a museum on Main Street to commemorate the people who died in the genocide." Link to Houston museum main website http://www.hmh.org/page.asp?id=46.

Significance:

Skokie case shows First Amendment protects the views that most citizens support, but also unpopular beliefs. The First Amendment makes possible what Justice Holmes called "a marketplace of ideas" where all views can be expressed whether they were popular or not.

Dealt with Freedom of Assembly in the Supreme Court. Freedom of Assembly permits the right to come together as individuals and collectively express and promote common interests. The problem here: the majority vote says the swastika is one step to far. People were able to march while the swastika was banned.

 

JSTOR: "a not–for–profit organization dedicated to helping the scholarly community discover, use, and build upon a wide range of intellectual content in a trusted digital archive."

 

The Skokie Affair, Supreme Court, 1977.

The village of Skokie seeked to regulate--limit and control--public demonstrations. Frank Collin, leader of National Socialist Party of America, sparked the appeal. The Supreme Court action granted Collin permission to demonstrate in public. Collin held the rally in Chicago. Citizens of Skokie prefer repressive, restraining the freedom of a person, public policy. How democracies maintain democracy; Skokie is a great example. Village officials had two options: a counter demonstration and a denial to Nazi march. The Nazi march included full uniforms, including the arm band swastika. Many Skokie residents considered this public display a symbolic assault and many feared retaliation. The neo-nazi's marched, minus the swastika. "Too painful for Jewish residents." The case raised serious debates over the rights of the first Amendment to unpopular political minorities. Part of democracy is viewing all citizens as equal, taking collective actions, and to have preferences equally weighed in government. The Skokie case was a victory for all minority groups to express political views without government interference.

 

 

"Despite the fact that the Nazis had deliberately chosen a heavily Jewish community to march in, the courts stuck firm to the First Amendment principle that unpopular groups must be allowed to express their political opinions."

 

"Ironically, both sides were represented by Jewish attorneys. David A. Goldberger from the American Civil Liberties Union represented the Nazis; Gilbert Gordon and Harvey Schwartz represented Smith and Skokie. The case was heard before U.S. District Court Judge Bernard M. Decker in Chicago on 2 December 1977.

Collin was brutally honest about his party's beliefs. He stated that the Nazis believed blacks were inferior, and that Jews were involved in an international financial and communist conspiracy. Further, Collin testified that the Nazis deliberately copied the military uniform style of the notorious "Brownshirts" of Hitler's Third Reich."

 

 

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.