Living the Bill of Rights: How to Be an Authentic American

by Nat Hentoff

Through portrayals of the famous (Supreme Court Justices William O. Douglas and William Brennan) and the not-so-famous (Anthony Griffin, a black lawyer who, as an ACLU volunteer, defended the First Amendment rights of the Ku Klux Klan), Nat Hentoff pays tribute to American citizens whose lives embody the values and principles of the U.S. Constitution. For Hentoff, that means a strict insistence on individual rights that leaves him opposed to mandatory prayer and pledges of allegiance in schools, the suppression of prisoners' civil liberties, and quota-based affirmative action programs. President Bill Clinton emerges as a particular object of Hentoff's scorn, as much for conducting an official state meeting with the chief architect of the Tiananmen Square massacre as for domestic policies, such as the failed Communications Decency Act, that are an "evisceration of basic liberties." "Unless more Americans know the Constitution and live the Bill of Rights," Hentoff argues, "the future of the nation as a strongly functioning constitutional democracy will be at risk." Although you may not agree with Hentoff's particular authorial focus--First Amendment enthusiasts will be thrilled with his emphasis on free expression, while Second Amendment advocates will have to search elsewhere for their champion-- Living the Bill of Rights should make more Americans think about what it means to be an American.

Genres: Politics, Law, History, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published June 23, 1998

About the author

Nathan Irving "Nat" Hentoff was a historian, novelist, music critic, and syndicated columnist. As a civil libertarian and free-speech activist, he has been described by the Cato Institute—where he has been a senior fellow since 2009—as "one of the foremost authorities on the First Amendment" to the U.S. Constitution. He was a staff writer for The New Yorker for over 25 years, and was formerly a columnist for The Village Voice for over 50 years, in addition to Legal Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, and The Progressive, among others. Since 2014, he has been a regular contributor to the conservative Christian website WorldNetDaily, often in collaboration with his son Nick Hentoff.

Hentoff was a Fulbright Fellow at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1950 and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in education in 1972. The American Bar Association bestowed the Silver Gavel Award in 1980 for his columns on law and criminal justice, and five years later his undergraduate alma mater, Northeastern University, awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Law degree. While working at the Village Voice in 1995, the National Press Foundation granted him the W.M. Kiplinger Distinguished Contributions to Journalism Award. He was a 1999 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary, "for his passionate columns championing free expression and individual rights," which was won by Maureen Dowd. In 2004 he became the first non-musician to be named an NEA Jazz Master by the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts.

Hentoff lectured at many colleges, universities, law schools, elementary, middle and high schools, and has taught courses in journalism and the U.S. Constitution at Princeton University and New York University. He serves on the Board of Advisors of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (F.I.R.E.) and is on the steering committee of the Reporters' Committee for the Freedom of the Press.

Reviews

[James F · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book focused primarily on the 1st Amendment, I can see it as the first in a series where each book covers a different amendment