Marjorie Heins (b.1946) is a First Amendment lawyer,

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

and founder of the

Free Expression Policy Project The Free Expression Policy Project (FEPP) is an organization devoted to assisting researchers with assembling information related to freedom of speech, media democracy, and copyright, and advocating for these issues. Civil liberties lawyer Marjor ...

.Beth Saulnier
"The Talking Cure"
''Cornell Alumni Magazine'', Sept./Oct. 2013.

Education

Heins received a B.A., with distinction, from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

in 1967. She received her J.D. (magna cum laude) from

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

in 1978. She was admitted to the bar of Massachusetts in 1978 and New York in 1993.

Career

Heins started as a journalist in the 1970s in San Francisco on publications including the underground

San Francisco Express Times ''San Francisco Express Times'' was a counterculture tabloid underground newspaper edited by Marvin Garson and published weekly in San Francisco, California from January 24, 1968, to March 25, 1969, for a total of 62 issues, covering and promotin ...

. She was also an anti-war activist during the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

American Civil Liberties Union

In the 1980s as staff counsel at the Massachusetts chapter of the

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

(ACLU), Heins litigated numerous civil rights matters, including

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

rights and

free speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The rights, right to freedom of expression has been ...

. One matter involved a litigation against

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

for the discharge of the Dean of Students on the basis of her complaints about discrimination on the part of the university. This story is told in ''Cutting the Mustard'' (1988). Heins also investigated the Boston Police Department's treatment of the notorious Carol Stuart murder case, in which a white man murdered his wife but claimed to be a victim of a carjacking by an African American man. From 1989 to 1991, she served as editor-in-chief of the '' Massachusetts Law Review.'' In 1991–92, she was chief of the Civil Rights Division at the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office. She founded and directed the Arts Censorship Project at the

from 1991 to 1998, during the years in which arts censorship were a particularly controversial and active field. During that time, she worked on a number of high-profile arts censorship matters. Heins was co-counsel on the ACLU's ''

Reno v. ACLU ''Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union'', 521 U.S. 844 (1997), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, unanimously ruling that anti-indecency provisions of the 1996 Communications Decency Act violated the First Amendme ...

'' brief to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ultimately led to striking the

Communications Decency Act The Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) was the United States Congress's first notable attempt to regulate pornographic material on the Internet. In the 1997 landmark case ''Reno v. ACLU'', the United States Supreme Court unanimously struck ...

as an unconstitutional violation of the

First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

. Heins was also co-counsel on Karen Finley's landmark lawsuit against the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

, ''

National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley ''National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley'', 524 U.S. 569 (1998), was a Supreme Court of the United States, United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act, as amended in 199 ...

''.

Academics

Heins has taught at

Boston College Law School Boston College Law School (BC Law) is the law school of Boston College. It is situated on a wooded campus in Newton, Massachusetts, about 1.5 miles from the university's main campus in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. With approximately 800 studen ...

Florida State University College of Law Florida State University College of Law is the law school of Florida State University located in Tallahassee, Florida. The law school borders the southeast quadrant of the University's campus, near the Donald L. Tucker Center, an arena and part o ...

, the

University of California-San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...

(UCSD),

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

(NYU),

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...

, and the

American University of Paris The American University of Paris (AUP) is a private, independent, and accredited liberal arts university in Paris, France. Founded in 1962, the university is one of the oldest American institutions of higher education in Europe, and the first to ...

. At UCSD, she created courses in "Censorship, Culture and American Law" and "Political Repression and the Press: Red Scares in U.S. History and Law." At NYU, she taught "Censorship and American Culture." At the American University of Paris, she taught "Free Expression and the Media: Policy and Law." She was a fellow at NYU's Brennan Center for Justice, 2004–2007. In 2011, she was a fellow at NYU's Frederic Ewen Academic Freedom Center while researching her book, ''Priests of Our Democracy: The Supreme Court, Academic Freedom, and the Anti-Communist Purge''. She is currently an adjunct professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication of NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

Cases Litigated

Heins' litigation includes: * ''

Urofsky v. Gilmore ''Urofsky v. Gilmore'', 216 F.3d 401 (4th Cir. 2000), is a case decided before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit which concerned the matter of professors challenging the constitutionality of Virginia law restricting access t ...

'', 216 F.3d 401 (4th Cir. 2000) (argued for professors challenging constitutionality of Virginia law restricting access to sexually explicit material on work computers) * ''

'', 524 U.S. 569 (1998) (ACLU co-counsel for artists challenging NEA funding criteria as impermissibly viewpoint-based and vague) * '' Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union'', 521 U.S. 844 (1997) (ACLU co-counsel for coalition challenging

, which restricted "indecent speech" on the Internet)

Bibliography

; Books * ''Priests of Our Democracy: The Supreme Court, Academic Freedom, and the Anti-Communist Purge'' (New York: NYU Press, 2013) () * '' Not in Front of the Children: 'Indecency', Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth'' (2001; 2007) () * ''Sex, Sin and Blasphemy: A Guide to America's Censorship Wars'' (1993; rev. 1998) () * '' Cutting the Mustard: Affirmative Action and the Nature of Excellence'' (1988) () * ''Strictly Ghetto Property: The Story of

Los Siete de la Raza Los Siete de la Raza (The Seven of the La Raza, Hispanic Community) was the label given to seven young Hispanic and Latino Americans, Latinos from the Mission District of San Francisco, California who were involved in a 1969 altercation with police ...

'' (1972) () ; Other works * "Banning Words: A Comment on 'Words That Wound'", 18 ''

Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

'' 585 (Summer 1983) * "In Memoriam: Benjamin Kaplan," 124 ''

Harvard Law Review The ''Harvard Law Review'' is a law review published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the ''Harvard Law Review''s 2015 impact factor of 4.979 placed the journal first out of 143 ...

'' 1351 (2011).

Awards and honors

* 1991 - Luther McNair Award ( Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts) for significant contributions to civil liberties * 1992 - "First Amendment Hero" ( Boston Coalition for Freedom of Expression) * 1993 - "First Amendment Hero" ( Boston Coalition for Freedom of Expression) * 2002 - Eli M. Oboler Award (

American Library Association The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members a ...

) for best published work in intellectual freedom for ''Not in Front of the Children'' (2002) * 2013 -

Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award The Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award is an award created in honor of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. The Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Awards were established in 1979 to honor individuals who have made significant contributions in the vital effort ...

, for ''Priests of Our Democracy: The Supreme Court, Academic Freedom, and the Anti-Communist Purge'' * Nov. 21, 2013 - 23rd Davis, Markert, Nickerson Lecture on Academic and Intellectual FreedomJared Wadley
"Civil Liberties Lawyer Marjorie Heins to Deliver Academic Freedom Lecture"
''University of Michigan Record'', Oct. 14, 2013.