Document Type

Working Paper

Publication Date

7-8-2008

SSRN Discipline

Legal Scholarship Network; Law School Research Papers - Legal Studies; LSN Subject Matter eJournals; SRPN Subject Matter eJournals; Sustainability Research & Policy Network; Social Responsibility of Business eJournals

Abstract

The editors of the Harvard Civil Rights Civil Liberties Law Review have invited me to offer my thoughts on the relationship between civil rights and civil liberties Both are emblazoned on their masthead A few years ago one of my favorite authors historian Robin Kelley wrote a prizewinning book about white media black culture and the huge gulf between them entitled Yo Mamas Disfunktional Does a similar gap exist between civil rights and civil liberties Is the masthead dysfunctional committing CRCL by its terms to an inherently selfcontradictory agenda like a law review that billed itself as The Global Development and Environmental Protection Journal or The Review of Religion and Atheism Are civil liberties and civil rights in tension pulling in different directions Is it possible for a society to have both in full measure and without limitation If not should CRCL split up into two separate journals Part I of this Essay examines a few instances in which civil rights and civil liberties may be entirely compatible Then Part II shows how our system of civil rights and civil liberties can exhibit tensions and strains as exemplified in the area of hate speech Part III explains the source of these tensions while Part IV offers some thoughts on how to live with them I hope that what follows will prove helpful not just in this one area but will also enable us to understand better the relationship between civil rights and civil liberties in general

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