Fordham Law Review Volume 85 Issue 1 Article 3 2016 Free Speech and Civil Liberties in the Second Circuit Floyd Abrams Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, and the First Amendment Commons Recommended Citation Floyd Abrams, Free Speech and Civil Liberties in the Second Circuit, 85 Fordham L. Rev. 11 (2016). Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol85/iss1/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by FLASH: The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History. It has been accepted for inclusion in Fordham Law Review by an authorized editor of FLASH: The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. FREE SPEECH AND CIVIL LIBERTIES IN THE SECOND CIRCUIT Floyd Abrams* INTRODUCTION Much of the development of First Amendment law in the United States has occurred as a result of American courts rejecting well-established principles of English law. The U.S. Supreme Court has frequently rejected English law, permitting far more public criticism of the judiciary than would be countenanced in England, rejecting English libel law as being insufficiently protective of freedom of expression1 and holding that even hateful speech directed at minorities receives the highest level of constitutional protection.2 The Second Circuit has played a major role in the movement away from the strictures of the law as it existed in the mother country. In some areas, dealing with the clash between claims of national security and freedom of expression, the Second Circuit predated the Supreme Court’s protective First Amendment rulings.