The HBO documentary Shouting Fire: Stories From the Edge of Free Speech, directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Liz Garbus, aired on June 29 and is scheduled to broadcast throughout July. Garbus chronicles four main stories while highlighting the era of McCarthyism as well as other pivotal times in our nation’s history when the First Amendment was put to the test and articulates that since 9/11, it is under attack again.
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.
Garbus’ focal point is her ongoing interview with and commentary by her father, “legendary” attorney Martin Garbus. Interwoven are commentaries from David Horowitz (American conservative writer and activist), Daniel Pipes (commentary and analysis on radical Islam and the Middle East), Kenneth Starr (former U.S. Solicitor General who led the inquiry into President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica L. Lewinsky), Joan Wallach Scott (professor and consultant to the American Association of University Professors), Leslie Cagan (co-founder of United for Peace and Justice and a leader in the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism), and others, each articulating their views on particular cases in support of the First Amendment.
Garbus' cases are intriguing; however, the documentary seems more concerned that “academic freedom is under attack today” than it is concerned with freedom of speech in general. It has a very political overtone, takes a leftward lean, lacks detail in some of the stories, and seems to be complimentary instead of confrontational toward its edgy examples.
Shouting Fire starts with the case of Ward Churchill, tenured professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado, who was fired for research misconduct in July of 2007. In April of 2009, a jury found that the he was wrongfully dismissed. Churchill became a nationally known figure due to an essay purportedly written on September 12, 2001, the day after terrorists attacked the World Trade Center (the "9/11 essay"). Churchill’s essay and recorded lectures characterized the 9/11 terrorist attacks as an instance of "chickens coming home to roost," and vilifying the victims who had died in the World Trade Center as "little Eichmanns.”
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