Defending My Enemy: A Conversation with Aryeh Neier

Please join the New York Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU, and the Knight First Amendment Institute on Friday, October 3, 2025 from 6 – 8pm at Columbia Journalism School for a conversation with Aryeh Neier on the Skokie case and its free speech legacy.

Aryeh Neier was the national director of the ACLU in 1977 when American Nazis demanded the right to march through Skokie, IL–a town with a large population of Holocaust survivors. Neier, himself a Holocaust survivor, found the Nazis’ ideology repugnant, but the ACLU nonetheless took on the group’s case and argued, successfully, that the First Amendment required that they be permitted to march.

Neier will reflect on the Skokie case and its contemporary significance in conversation with Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute. Introduction by Anthony Romero, ACLU executive director.

Copies of Neier’s book, Defending My Enemy: Skokie and the Legacy of Free Speech in America, will be available for purchase. Reception to follow event.

Please note: RSVP link will take you to a third-party website, eventbrite.com