Emergency Committee to Defend the First Amendment

40 Washington Square South ● New York, NY 10012 ● Phone 212-998-6233 ● Fax 212-995-4030

Statement of Professors Norman Dorsen and Charles Fried

Co-Chairs of the Emergency Committee to Defend the First Amendment

in Opposition to the Proposed Constitutional Amendment

Authorizing Punishment for Flag Desecration

July 4, 2005

The following statement was released today by Professors Norman Dorsen and Charles Fried, Co-chairs of the Emergency Committee to Defend the First Amendment. The Committee is composed of prominent Americans–-conservative, moderate and liberal-–including former officials of the Reagan Administration, former Republican members of Congress, senior professors of constitutional law, several former presidents of the American Bar Association, and leaders of other national organizations.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution has served us since 1791 through wars, including a Civil War, and crises of every sort without the need for amendment. It is an icon of our freedom. To amend it now comes close to vandalism.

The proposed constitutional amendment limits how people may protest and sets a precedent for banning other forms of dissent. If the flag, why not the Great Seal of the United States or the Constitution? Why not the Bible or (to be ecumenical) religious icons of all faiths? The founders of this country would have been shocked at the notion that the government could restrict ways by which the people can protest conditions in the country or the government’s own policies.

As the Boston Tea Party illustrates, the founders were familiar with symbolic protest. Moreover, the American revolutionaries were also not exactly kind to their country’s flag, the Union Jack. George Washington ordered thirteen red and white stripes sewn onto it and called it the “Thirteen Rebellious Stripes.” Pennsylvania’s first flag after declaring independence was a British flag with a coiled serpent ready to strike at the English ensign. These protests “desecrated” the country’s then-existing flag.

Totalitarian countries fear dissenters sufficiently to suppress their protests. A free nation relies on having the better argument. It is possible to burn a particular flag, but no one can destroy the symbol and meaning of the flag. No matter how many flags are burned, the American flag will still exist, untarnished and waving bravely in the breeze.

The Emergency Committee urges the Senate to demonstrate the sort of statesmanship of which it is capable by rejecting the proposed constitutional amendment.

Emergency Committee to Defend the First Amendment

Terry Anderson

Writer, former Journalist

Former Lebanese Hostage

Derek Bok

President, Harvard University (1971-1991);

Dean Harvard Law School (1968-1971)

Clint Bolick

Litigation Director, Institute for Justice

Benjamin Civiletti

Partner, Venable, Baetjer & Howard;

U.S. Attorney General (1979-1981)

John J. Curtin, Jr.

Partner, Bingham Dana & Gould;

President, American Bar Association (1990-1991)

Norman Dorsen

Stokes Professor of Law, New York University Law School

Counselor to the President of New York University

President, American Civil Liberties Union (1976-1991)

Bruce Fein

Lawyer and Journalist;

Former Department of Justice Attorney

Charles Fried

The Beneficial Professor of Law, Harvard Law School;

Solicitor-General of the United States (1985-1989)

Shirley M. Hufstedler

Of Counsel, Morrison and Forster;

Circuit Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit (1968-1979)

Martin Lipton

Partner, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz

Robert MacCrate

Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell;

President, American Bar Association (1987-1988)

Charles McC.Mathias, Jr.

Partner, Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue;

U.S. Senator (R-MD, 1969-1987)

J. Michael McWilliams

Partner, Tydings & Rosenberg;

President, American Bar Association (1992-1993)

Robert M. O’Neil

Director of the Thomas Jefferson Center;

President, University of Virginia (1985-1990)

Roswell B. Perkins

Partner, Debevoise & Plimpton;

Former President, American Law Institute

Roger Pilon

Director, Center for Constitutional Studies

The Cato Institute

E. Barrett Prettyman, Jr.

Partner, Hogan & Hartson;

Trustee, National Council on Crime and Delinquency

Roberta Cooper Ramo

Partner, Modrall, Sperling, Roehl, Harris & Sisk;

President, American Bar Association (1995-1996)

James H. Warner

Lawyer; White House Domestic Policy Staff (1985-1989)

Former Vietnam POW