RAG RADIO / Thorne Dreyer : Civil Liberties Lawyer and Author Marjorie Heins

'First Amendment Hero' Marjorie Heins.

Rag Radio podcast:
Civil liberties lawyer Marjorie Heins,
author of 'Priests of Our Democracy'

By Rag Radio / The Rag Blog / February 14, 2013

Coming next week: Jonah Raskin reviews Priests of Our Democracy.

Marjorie Heins, a civil liberties lawyer, writer, and teacher -- and author of the new book, Priests of Our Democracy: The Supreme Court, Academic Freedom, and the Anti-Communist Purge -- was Thorne Dreyer’s guest Friday, February 8, 2013, on Rag Radio, a syndicated radio show produced at the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin, Texas.

Priests of Our Democracy.

Heins' new book, Priests of Our Democracy, "tells of the teachers and professors who resisted the witch hunt of the early '50s, those who collaborated, and those whose battles led to landmark Supreme Court decisions." The book tells how the anti-communist excesses of the 1950's "impoverished political discourse in ways that are still being felt," and how "First Amendment academic freedom... is in peril today."

Listen to or download Thorne Dreyer's interview with Marjorie Heins, here:


Marjorie Heins founded and directed the ACLU’s Arts Censorship Project and was the founding director of the Free Expression Policy Project. She twice was named a “First Amendment Hero” by the Boston Coalition for Freedom of Expression and won the Luther McNair Award from the Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts for significant contributions to civil liberties.

Her earlier book, Not in Front of the Children, won the American Library Association's 2002 Eli Oboler Award for best published work in the field of intellectual freedom. Her other books include Strictly Ghetto Property: The Story of Los Siete de la Raza; Cutting the Mustard: Affirmative Action and the Nature of Excellence; and Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy: a Guide to America's Censorship Wars

A graduate of Harvard Law School, Heins has taught as a visiting professor at Boston College Law School, Florida State University Law School, the University of California-San Diego, New York University, Tufts University, and the American University of Paris.

Marjorie Heins was also active in the ‘60s-‘70s New Left and underground press movement and was a contributor to New York’s RAT and a staff writer at the San Francisco Express-Times.

Rag Radio has aired since September 2009 on KOOP 91.7-FM, an all-volunteer cooperatively-run community radio station in Austin, Texas. Hosted and produced by Rag Blog editor and long-time alternative journalist Thorne Dreyer, a pioneer of the Sixties underground press movement, Rag Radio is broadcast every Friday from 2-3 p.m. (CST) on KOOP, and is rebroadcast on Sundays at 10 a.m. (EST) on WFTE, 90.3-FM in Mt. Cobb, PA, and 105.7-FM in Scranton, PA.

The show is streamed live on the web by both stations and, after broadcast, all Rag Radio shows are posted as podcasts at the Internet Archive.

Rag Radio is produced in association with The Rag Blog, a progressive internet newsmagazine, and the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation. Tracey Schulz is the show's engineer and co-producer.

Rag Radio can be contacted at ragradio@koop.org.

Coming up on Rag Radio:
THIS FRIDAY, February 15, 2013: Musician and Music Journalist Hector Saldaña of The Krayolas.

The Rag Blog