Constitution Day: First Amendment Presentation

On September 18, ASL will celebrate Constitution Day by offering a presentation by Associate Professor Stewart Harris on "The Jew Who Beat Henry Ford." Professor Harris will recount the story of Aaron Sapiro, a Jewish labor organizer who filed a lawsuit against Henry Ford for libel for Ford's anti-Semitic editorials in Ford's own paper, The Dearborn Independent. (See a Time magazine article from March 1927 about this issue.) Sapiro's lawsuit caused Ford to end publication of the newspaper. Professor Harris will then discuss the issues of "group defamation" and the freedom of the press.

The presentation will be in the Trial Courtroom on Tuesday, September 18, from noon to 1 pm.