Please join authors and experts Nadine Strossen and Greg Lukianoff for an evening of discussion on, fittingly, the power and changing shape of public discourse. Both speakers will draw from their most recent publications (both 2023), Strossen’s Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know and Lukianoff’s The Canceling of the American Mind.
But this is not a discussion about grievances or current opinions on right and wrong platforms for communication; rather, these two leading voices will speak—literally—to the history of debate, as well as what we gain from exposure to varying points of view.
From the earliest days of social organization and the early structure of societies and states, dynamic and public forums on relevant issues helped to inform populations, underpin policy, and fuel intellectual pursuits and exploration that enhanced the world as a whole. This program, as well as our event highlighting the pivotal contributions made by the Clionian Debating Society in a time of great evolution in Charleston, find a home at the Library Society precisely because they speak to our mission of forging connections and offering pathways for expression and lifelong learning.
Tickets: Members – $10 // General Admission – $15
To purchase, click here or call 843.723.9912 during Box Office Hours (11:00AM–4:00PM, Monday through Thursday).
About Greg Lukianoff:
Greg Lukianoff is an attorney, New York Times best-selling author, and the President and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). He is the author of Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, Freedom From Speech, FIRE’s Guide to Free Speech on Campus, and he co-authored The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, with Jonathan Haidt. Most recently he co-authored The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Destroys Institutions and Threatens Us All—But There Is a Solution (due out October, 2023). Greg is also an Executive Producer of Can We Take a Joke? (2015), a feature-length documentary that explores the collision between comedy, censorship, and outrage culture, both on and off campus, and of Mighty Ira: A Civil Liberties Story (2020), an award-winning feature-length film about the life and career of the former ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser.
About Nadine Strossen:
Nadine Strossen, the John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita at New York Law School and a past President of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) from 1991-2008, currently serves as a Senior Fellow with FIRE. As a leading expert on constitutional law and civil liberties, she has testified before Congress on multiple occasions. She sits on the advisory boards of the ACLU, Academic Freedom Alliance, Heterodox Academy, National Coalition Against Censorship, and the University of Austin. The National Law Journal has named Strossen one of America’s “100 Most Influential Lawyers.” Her many honorary degrees and awards include the American Bar Association’s prestigious Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award (2017). In 2023, the National Coalition Against Censorship (an alliance of more than 50 national non-profit organizations) selected Strossen for its Judy Blume Lifetime Achievement Award for Free Speech. She is the author of HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship (2018) and Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know (due out October, 2023). She is also the Host and Project Consultant for Free To Speak, a 3-hour documentary film series on free speech scheduled for release on public television in fall 2023.