TOPIC
Professor Thomas Healy explores the evolution of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s views on free speech and considers what that evolution tells us both about the value of free speech and about the nature of the judicial process
PRESENTER
Professor Thomas Healy researches and writes in the fields of constitutional law, freedom of speech, legal history, civil rights, and federal courts. His book “The Great Dissent: How Oliver Wendell Holmes Changed His Mind – and Changed the History of Free Speech in America” won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. It was also selected as a New York Times Book Review editor’s choice and was named one of the fifteen best non-fiction books of 2013 by the Christian Science Monitor.
Professor Healy received his B.A. in Journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was a James Kent Scholar, Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and Book Review and Essay Editor of the Columbia Law Review. Prior to joining Seton Hall Law, he clerked for Judge Michael Daly Hawkins on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and was an associate at Sidley Austin Brown and Wood in Washington D.C., where he practiced appellate litigation and worked on several cases before the United States Supreme Court. He also worked for many years as a newspaper reporter, first in North Carolina and later as Supreme Court Correspondent for the Baltimore Sun. He has written essays and book reviews for The Atlantic, The Nation, The L.A. Review of Books, and other publications.
Note to Viewers: This video is made available to promote education and discussion on issues related to state intermediate courts of appeal. The views expressed in the video, however, are strictly those of the Presenter and do not reflect any opinion of the Council or its members on any issue.