Slippery slopes and proposals for reinstituting group libel law

[Cohen,David]

Wandering way afield of the original topic, but just to address these
points, Jews (at least, the non-Jews-for-Jesus Jews) don't believe that
Jesus was the messiah, thus we don't call him "Jesus Christ."  "Christ"
means "messiah," so in that sense, it is a statement of opinion.  Thus,
most Jews just use "Jesus," his given name.

Also, the problem people (Jews and non-Jews alike) have with "calling
Jews 'Christ killers'" is that it sounds like the statement is calling
"all" Jews "Christ killers."  I know I didn't kill him, and I'm pretty
sure most of the Jews who have ever existed didn't either.  Maybe some
individual ones did, but the statement you've referred to has a very
different connotation than "some Jews at some point in history killed
Jesus."

David S. Cohen
Associate Professor of Law
Drexel University College of Law
(215) 571-4714

-----Original Message-----
From: conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Lynne Henderson
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2007 3:27 PM
To: Nelson Lund; Volokh, Eugene
Cc: conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: Re: Slippery slopes and proposals for reinstituting group libel
law

I don't see how calling Jews "Christ killers" *isn't* a statement of
fact! 
It is a factual claim about who is responsible for the death of  Jesus,
not 
a "mere" opinion.  Good giref, this was  one of the bases for
persecution of 
Jews for centuries.
One could argue, no, it was Pontius Pilote and the Romans who factually 
crucified the man known as Jesus, but at the crowd's behest and urging. 
This isn't mere opinion--it is both fact and attribution of collective 
guilt.
As for whether Jesus was the Messiah, that is belief, but factully in 
ordinary terms he is known as "Jesus Christ," no?
Lynne Henderson
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nelson Lund" <nlund at gmu.edu>
To: "Volokh, Eugene" <VOLOKH at law.ucla.edu>
Cc: <conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2007 12:08 PM
Subject: Re: Slippery slopes and proposals for reinstituting group libel
law


> One more small point in support of Eugene's argument: In the opinion
of 
> some, referring to Jesus of Nazareth as "Christ" would be implicitly
to 
> express an opinion, not a fact.
>
> Nelson Lund
> George Mason
>
> Volokh, Eugene wrote:
>
>> One striking thing I've noticed about slippery slope arguments
>> in "hate speech" or "group defamation" contexts is how the slippery
>> slope is often directly visible in the restriction supporters' own
>> arguments.  So Malla begins by arguing in favor of an "innocent[]
legal
>> change": "accept[ing] group defamation claims." She stresses that
>> "allowing group libel claims would not get rid of most inflamatory
>> opinions, but it would reach claims about facts."
>>
>> Yet now she seems to be suggesting that calling Jews "Christ
>> Killers" would itself be actionable as group "libel per se."  Yet
>> calling Jews "Christ Killers" isn't a claim about facts:  It's a
claim
>> about theological and moral desert, which makes it a quintessential
>> claim of opinion.  The theory is that the Jews of Christ's time were
>> morally responsible for Christ's being crucified, and that the Jews
of
>> today are tainted with this moral guilt of Jews 2000 years ago.  It's
a
>> morally repugnant opinion, but it's an opinion, not a claim about
facts.
>> It isn't even an opinion that implicitly asserts certain defamatory
>> facts.  (At most it asserts facts about Christ's existence and the
>> circumstances of his death, but those factual claims are not
themselves
>> defamatory, and more importantly these sorts of religious claims must
be
>> treated as something much like opinion in any event.)
>>
>> Yet it looks like the "innocent[] legal change" of allowing
>> "group libel claims" would not just erode the actual malice standard
>> present in conventional libel law (more on that in earlier posts),
but
>> also erode the requirement that the false statements be facts, not
>> opinion.  So it would damage libel law broadly -- and it would
certainly
>> make the "group libel" exception broader than it was originally
claimed
>> to be.  And people wonder why some people with a broad view of free
>> speech protection worry about slippery slopes.
>>
>> Eugene
>>
>>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: Malla Pollack [mailto:mpollack at ajsl.us] Sent: Wednesday, March
07, 
>>>2007 7:10 AM
>>>To: 'Harry Pohlman'; Volokh, Eugene
>>>Cc: conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
>>>Subject: RE: Proposal for reinstituting group libel law
>>>
>>>Very good question, thans for raising it.  Actually some assertions
have 
>>>always been libel per se -- no need to prove actual harm. I think 
>>>claiming a group consists overwhelmingly of rapists, Christ Killers,
etc 
>>>is close enough to move easily from individuals to groups.  As for
group 
>>>reputation the BBC news just published that Isreal has an extremely
low 
>>>international reputation with people (not governments). So they must 
>>>consider some type of
>>>evidence relevent to such questions.   Presumably, if the allegedly 
>>>libelous
>>>statement did not consitte libel per se, one could do a survey -- as
a 
>>>trademark attorney I can vouch for public serveys being used as trial

>>>evidence consistently (though some early cases did raise hearsay 
>>>problems, courts have stopped that line).
>>
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> _______________________________________________
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