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Nat Hentoff (born June 10, 1925) is an American civil libertarian, free speech absolutist, pro-life advocate, anti-death penalty advocate, jazz critic, historian, biographer and anecdotist, and columnist for the Village Voice, Legal Times, Washington Times, The Progressive, Editor & Publisher, Free Inquiry and Jewish World Review. He was named as one of six 2004 NEA Jazz Masters, the first non-musician to win this prestigious award.
In recent years, he has become a vocal critic of the organization he once supported, the American Civil Liberties Union, for its support of government-enforced campus and workplace speech codes [1] and affirmative action, which he considers to be state-sponsored racial and ethnic discrimination. In effect, he has criticized the ACLU from the left, accusing it of not standing up strongly enough for free speech and other civil liberties. He now serves on the board of advisors for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a civil liberties group more radical than the ACLU. Hentoff's book, Free Speech for Me â?? But Not for Thee outlines his views on free speech and excoriates those who favor any form of censorship.
He is strongly critical of Bush Administration policies such as the Patriot Act and the civil liberties implications of the recent push for "homeland security." He was also strongly critical of Clinton Administration policies such as the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.
In February 2003, Hentoff signed a letter circulated by Social Democrats, USA advocating the removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq on human rights grounds, citing reports detailing Hussein's disregard for fundamental liberties.
Despite what are generally considered leftist views, he developed pro-life views in the 1980s.[2]Both a Jew and an atheist, Hentoff declared that his views had nothing to do with faith, and that shortly after he "came out" as a pro-life, several of his colleagues at The Village Voice stopped speaking to him. In October 2005, Hentoff was honored by the Human Life Foundation at the Third Annual Great Defender of Life dinner.
Hentoff was educated at Boston Latin School, Northeastern University, and Harvard.
Books
- Does Anybody Give a Damn?: Nat Hentoff on Education Random House; (1977)
- Our Children Are Dying
- A Doctor Among Addicts
- Peace Agitator: The Story of A. J Muste ISBN 0-9608096-0-0
- The New Equality
- The First Freedom: The Tumultuous History of Free Speech in America
- The Day They Came to Arrest the Book ISBN 0-440-91814-6
- The Man from Internal Affairs
- Boston Boy: Growing Up With Jazz and Other Rebellious Passions ISBN 0-9679675-2-X
- John Cardinal O'Connor: At the Storm Center of a Changing American Catholic Church
- Free Speech for Me â?? But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other ISBN 0-06-099510-6
- Listen to the Stories: Nat Hentoff on Jazz and Country Music
- Living the Bill of Rights: How to Be an Authentic American ISBN 0-520-21981-3
- The Nat Hentoff Reader ISBN 0-306-81084-0
- The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance ISBN 1-58322-621-4
- The Jazz Life ISBN 0-306-80088-8
- Does This School Have Capital Punishment?
- I'm Really Dragged But Nothing Gets Me Down
- Jazz Country
- This School is Driving Me Crazy
Quote
"I'm a Jewish atheist civil-libertarian pro-lifer."
External links
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify the biographical information on this page under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.
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