Nat Hentoff

Hentoff spent half a century as a columnist for The Village Voice, a jazz critic and a self-described "Jewish atheist civil libertarian", and he lost friends on the left with regularity. He attacked campus speech codes in the 1980s and 1990s, defended the speech rights of people he despised, and broke with most of his colleagues by opposing abortion and euthanasia on grounds he described as consistent with his defence of life and liberty. He then criticised George W. Bush's surveillance and detention policies and Obama's continuation of them just as fiercely. His book Free Speech for Me, but Not for Thee is the place to start.