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Nazis Permitted To March In Skokie, Ill.

1978

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals invalidates a city law passed in Skokie, Ill., home to 5,000 Holocaust survivors, to prevent a neo-Nazi group from holding a march there. The Court rules in Collin v. Smith that the group should be permitted to march in their uniforms, distribute anti-Semitic leaflets and display swastikas. The court does not deny the group’s symbols are offensive to many observers, but concludes that “public expression of ideas may not be prohibited merely because the ideas are themselves offensive to some of their hearers.” The U.S. Supreme Court will refuse to review the case.