by Nat Hentoff

About the author: Journalist Nat Hentoff writes frequently on free speech and other civil liberties issues. He is the author of numerous books, including Living the Bill of Rights: How to Be an Authentic American and First Freedom: The Tumultuous History of Free Speech in America.

More than 6,000 New Yorkers gathered at New York City’s Foley Square in November 1999 to exercise their free-speech right to protest the presence of 18 members of the Ku Klux Klan, who were there because of their right to express their views. The Klan stood in silence because the courts had denied them sound equipment.

The fiercely hostile crowd included children whose parents wanted them to share their revulsion against these racists. As the cursing and hooting rose to a crescendo, a young woman said to...