Free Speech Claims v. Memory in Court: Griswold v. Driscoll and Teaching the Armenian Genocide

• In Event: 1567 - Section on Sociology of Law Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 1: Disputing

Abstract

A growing body of scholarship has examined effects on collective memories of criminal trials against perpetrators of mass violence. Research has documented representational power of court proceedings, but also narrative constraints resulting from the institutional logic of criminal law. This paper goes beyond such work in three ways. First, it examines a court case in which knowledge production and dissemination is not a byproduct, but the issue itself. At stake are free speech claims versus sensitivities of groups who suffered from mass violence that they argue constitute crimes against humanity or genocide, and whose identity is wed to the acknowledgment and appropriate labeling of such violence. Second, it takes seriously the strategic use of trials as tools of cultural production. Third, going beyond formal law with its institutional logic and rules of the game, the paper considers the trial as a stage on which conflicting parties negotiate the history of past atrocities for audiences inside and outside the courtroom. Memories, values, and identity claims resonate more strongly than the formal matter at stake. The paper focuses on Griswold v. Driscoll, a case before the Federal courts in Massachusetts between 2006 and 2009. It involved students, teachers, free-speech lawyers, scholarly organizations, Turkish-American and Armenian-American organizations and the Massachusetts Department of Education. Court documents and interviews with key actors provide empirical evidence.

Authors

• Joachim J. Savelsberg, University of Minnesota

• Brooke Chambers, University of Minnesota