The First Amendment in Five Minutes

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MONICA DUFFY TOFT

Before joining The Fletcher School, Professor Monica Duffy Toft taught at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government and Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. While at Harvard, she directed the Initiative on Religion in International Affairs and was the assistant director of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies. She was educated at the University of Chicago (MA and PhD in political science) and at the University of California, Santa Barbara (BA in political science and Slavic languages and literature, summa cum laude). Prior to this, she spent four years in the United States Army as a Russian linguist. Monica’s areas of research include international security, ethnic and religious violence, civil wars and demography.


Her most recent books include: Securing the Peace (Princeton, 2011); Political Demography (Oxford, 2012); and God’s Century (Norton, 2012). In addition she has published numerous scholarly articles and editorials on civil wars, territory and nationalism, demography, and religion in global politics.


Monica is a research associate of the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford and at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She is a supernumerary fellow at Brasenose College, University of Oxford, a Global Scholar of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Minorities at Risk Advisory Board and the Political Instability Task Force. In 2008 the Carnegie Foundation of New York named her a Carnegie Scholar for her research on religion and violence, in 2012 she was named a Fulbright scholar, and most recently served as the World Politics Fellow at Princeton University.


 

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TRANSCRIPT:

Monica Duffy Toft: So I’ve been asked to choose an amendment that I think is important and valuable, and so I think: the First Amendment. 


And it’s not only because it’s the First Amendment, it’s what it says. 


And it says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” 


And I think from the Constitution this sets up the rest of the Constitution about what it means to be an American citizen and the value of our individual liberties because it sets us apart. As individuals we have the right to speech, we have the right to association, we have the right to religion, we can think, we can act, we can associate freely. 


And as a scholar of international relations, when you poll people around the world and they ask, “What is it that you think is most important about the United States that you think sets the United States apart,” more often than not people point to the First Amendment and to the freedom of speech, the freedom of assembly, the freedom of religion as first and foremost what makes the United States special—that we privilege individuals as citizens, and our Constitution protects that. 


We need to keep that in mind as citizens, and I have to tell you around the world people acknowledge that and respect that about the United States. 


I really have a hard time with this this idea of freedom of assembly and freedom of speech regardless of the nature of that speech. 


I mean there are exceptions to that, about whether it promulgates violence or potentially promulgates violence, and I tend to come down on the liberal side, that people should have freedom of...

[nicoleuggy]

People who get offended that easily need to grow a pair and shut up. It is merely impossible to avoid offensive/evil language and personalities. If the first amendment is abolished how are we supposed to communicate? Let alone be ourselves?

[josegera]

I am not an American citizen but it makes me sad that a video like this has a very little attention. American citizens are loosing their rights, and it will affect the rest of the world.

[AnnLaustsen]

How about we get this guy to tell the youtubs algorithm and its employees about the 1st ammendment?

[JediNiyte]

What I want to know is this:  do private citizens have a leg to stand on if they don't like you using profanity in conversation, assuming you're not inciting violence or committing libel or slander?

I'm talking about using F-bombs in the normal course of conversation.

[dontwanttojoingoogle]

I loved watching this. Thanks for posting it.

[FajarAndiPatappari]

Oh man... Studio lightning is too bright..

[mickeyme-bmpe]

Yes Australia lacks this hugely - please save Australia :)

[Mealwormies]

I’m in a journalist class and the question I need to answer for this video is, “What does this video mean for you as a high school journalist” like I’ve watched this video 5 times and still don’t know what the hell is going on and how to answer it. Can anyone help me?

[SupremeKingSovereign]

From what I have seen, you are still allowed pray to who you want to pray to and go to the church you want to go to. You are not allowed to attack who you want to attack though.

[altha-rfet]

The 1st amendment applies to government interaction with press not other people's interaction with press

[sarahemmett]

no, no, no it was GEORGE MASON who insisted on the BOR and he ruined his friendship with Washington over it. They never spoke again!

[exoticcats]

I’m just wondering... is what COPPA doing okay then?

[JT]

Why does YouTube keep just getting slower and worse?   

[juancervantes]

Like the way you explained thank you very much

[charlesmiller]

I associate with people like me CHRISTIAN, GUN OWNER, MARRIED TO A WOMAN and anyone who thinks different CAN fill in the blank

[stephenerdmann]

The topic is limited  by a current understanding of the expanded nature of "government" which is more insidious today and can be phrased as the

[buildingglocks]

This guy was there during the first amendment

[beckiterry]

It's says people have a right to assemble Civally

[twizteddreamz]

Question would the ability to speak without a mask be under the 1st amendment?

[guenterlohnert]

The title of this strange video is totally misleading! (“The First Amendment in Five Minutes”) First of all you should be told what is actually written in the first amendment. None of it is explained. The old man immediately starts to babble something.