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3 Temp. Pol. & Civ. Rts. L. Rev. 9 (1993-1994)
The Keynote Address: Progressive Civil Liberties

handle is hein.journals/tempcr3 and id is 13 raw text is: The Keynote Address: Progressive Civil Liberties MARI J. MATSUDA* Thank you Professor Guinier. I've said this to Professor Guinier in private, but I'd like to say it in public before this audience. When she stood proud before the nation with all her dignity in the face of the vicious lies that were told about her, she stood for all women, for all women of color in particular, and she did us proud. Thank you very much. I'd like to thank the organizers of this conference. I know that many of you worked long and hard to make this possible. I'd like to thank those of you in the audience who took the time to come in on a weeknight to think hard about issues of race, gender and politics. I think you're here because you all know that we have a lot of work to do. I have some concern that the talk that I've prepared is complex. It's not an easy version of First Amendment analysis, and there may be parts that are difficult to follow if you haven't been exposed to legal theory before. I'm asking you to stay with me because I'm trying to work these things through. This is the first time that I'm presenting this particular piece. I've been speaking for several years now on the issue of hate speech, but I'm trying tonight to answer a particular question that is raised by the call to this conference. That is, as pro- gressive people, what do we make of the civil liberties tradition? How can we work with it to meet the needs of people we care about? PROGRESSIVE CIVIL LIBERTIES Somewhere tonight, in this city, a woman will pay with her body the price of patriarchy. With a fist to her face, with her sweat and terror, once again she will learn the lesson of her value in this world- as she did as a child, when she first asked the meaning of the word rape, as she turned that meaning over in her head, thinking, how can © 1994 Mari J. Matsuda. All Rights Reserved. * Professor of Law, Georgetown University. B.A. 1975, Arizona State University; J.D. 1980, University of Hawaii; LL.M. 1983, Harvard University. The following is an expanded version of the keynote address that Professor Matsuda delivered at the Race, Gender & Free Speech symposium held in Philadelphia on March 24 and 25, 1994. This piece is a written adaptation of the spoken word, not a formal law review article. The footnotes have been added.