In Conversation: On Free Speech in America

Dr. Micah W. Kubic has served as the Executive Director of the ACLU of Florida since January 2019. In this role, he leads one of the largest advocacy organizations in the state, defending and strengthening the rights that belong to everyone under the Constitution. Prior to this position, he served in the same role at the ACLU of Kansas for four years. He has more than twenty years of experience in civil rights and racial justice work. Micah holds bachelors’ degrees from the George Washington University, as well as a master’s degree and a doctorate in Black Politics from Howard University. His first book, Freedom, Inc. and Black Political Empowerment, was published by the University of Missouri Press in 2016.

Ellis Cose is the author of several books, including the bestselling The Rage of a Privileged Class, Bone to Pick, and The Envy of the World. A former contributing editor for Newsweek magazine, and chairman of the editorial board of the New York Daily News his writing has appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, Time magazine, USA Today, and the Washington Post among other publications. Free speech has long been one of American’s most revered freedoms. Yet now, more than ever, free speech is reshaping America’s social and political landscape even as it is coming under attack. With The Short Life and Curious Death of Free Speech in America (Amistad) Ellis Cose wades into the debate to reveal how this Constitutional right has been coopted by the wealthy and politically corrupt. The problem, Cose makes clear, is that ordinary individuals have virtually no voice at all. It is no coincidence that historically huge disparities in income have occurred at times when moneyed interests increasingly control political dialogue. Over the past four years, Donald Trump’s accusations of “fake news,” the free use of negative language against minority groups, “cancel culture,” and blatant xenophobia have caused Americans to raise question about the First Amendment. Cose offers an eye-opening wholly original examination of the state of free speech in America today, litigating ideas that touch on every American’s life.