In the last year, two excellent books, Mariana Valverde's Everyday Law on the Street: City Governance In an Age of Diversity and Henry Ford's War on Jews and the Legal Battle Against Hate by Victoria Saker Woeste The talk will address how social concerns about “diversity” surface in law-making and enforcement. Although the two books focus on different times and countries, they also illustrate the tensions in legal contexts that can result from growing diversity. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Woeste's book focuses on the events surrounding the litigation of the 1925 Sapiro v. Ford federal trial from the Eastern District of Michigan. In this case, a prominent Jewish lawyer, Aaron Sapiro, sued automobile manufacturer Henry Ford for defamation. In the 1920s, Ford owned the Dearborn Independent newspaper, which, at his request, "published a series of articles accusing Sapiro of leading a Jewish conspiracy to overthrow American agriculture" (Woeste 1). Beginning in 1920, the Independent launched “International Jew,” a series of anti-Semitic articles that spoke of a Jewish conspiracy to control the world. The “International Jew” was an adaptation of a Russian work called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which detailed an alleged Jewish plot to take over the world. The lawsuit ended in a mistrial and a settlement was reached before a new trial could begin. Woeste's book is divided into two parts. The first details the main players in the trial and the circumstances that led to it. The second covers the trial and its aftermath. Plaintiff Sapiro was a Jewish American lawyer nationally famous for organizing farmer cooperatives. Ford believed Sapiro's work should be stopped. “20th century farms should work. . . as bastions of individual self-sufficiency, not as . . . interconnected production units,” he believed (Woeste 142). This seems ironic given Ford's role in the mass production revolution. In 1924, the Dearborn Independent, under Ford's leadership, published a series of articles that specifically attacked Jews and Sapiro. The articles alleged the involvement of Sapiro and other Jews in agriculture and the subversion of the cooperative movement by international Jewish financiers. They described a conspiracy in which American farmers were organized into national associations controlled by Jews, including Sapiro. The articles claimed that cooperative associations were paying Sapiro for services they did not need, that he was enriching himself at the expense of farmers, and that his cooperatives were failing to get a fair price for their crops. When readers asked about the veracity of the reports and whether they were supported by documents, the newspaper could produce no evidence to corroborate them. Sapiro demanded a retraction from Ford and the Independent. His request did not mention collective defamation and was intended only to protect his personal reputation. He informed Ford that the legal requirements for defamation had been met: Sapiro's reputation had been tarnished by the Independent's articles, which contained falsehoods. When the Independent refused to publish a retraction, Sapiro took legal action. Under the law of the time, he had a strong case. A defense against defamation of public figures was to publish the truth and Sapiro was able to contradictnumerous assertions from the Independent. Moreover, he could “demonstrate the malice required for the award of damages” by emphasizing the Independent's refusal to correct factual errors even after others had identified them (Woeste 174). Sapiro's trial took place at a time when discrimination against Jews was not uncommon. While “anti-Semitism in America was muted compared to the more violent expressions” found in Europe at the time, many Jews in America still suffered from social discrimination (Woeste 3). Yet the federal judge in the case refused to allow arguments about collective defamation, limiting the case to the question of individual defamation. The mass libel laws of the time generally required that the accused publication tend to cause a "breach of the peace."1 Woeste concluded that the only legal recourse available to Jews at the time was to sue sued for individual defamation by “proving] that the publication was both false and malicious. this would cover Sapiro's legal costs. In addition to the settlement agreement, Ford signed a formal apology letter that was released to the press. The letter admitted that the Independent's articles were fiction. He also said Ford took responsibility for publishing the articles without admitting he knew their content. The agreement allowed Ford to claim ignorance of the content of the newspaper's articles in exchange for his "promise to restrict the distribution of 'The International Jew' in the United States and Europe" (Woeste 271). This promise was seen as a victory for Sapiro and the Jewish community because it deprived "The International Jew" and, by extension, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, of the power and prestige of the Ford name. But Woeste concludes that Sapiro v. Ford did not represent a victory in stemming the spread of anti-Semitism and did not realize its potential in reducing hate speech. At the time of the litigation, there was much uncertainty about the law relating to the right to freedom of expression. The resolution of the case did nothing to clarify this law because the apology that ended it could not be enforced by law and subsequent legal developments made it difficult to suppress hate speech.2 Despite a series of fabrications that humiliated the Jewish population due to Henry Ford's concern about the Jewish presence in the United States, the American law of 1925 was incapable of protecting the real targets of his smear campaign: the Jewish people. Woeste's main concern is that Ford's apology allowed him to escape more lasting judgment. Today, dozens of editions of “The International Jew” with its hate speech can be purchased from Internet booksellers. A logical extrapolation of this book is that the Sapiro case also illustrates the inability of American law to uphold respect for diversity in the face of the overriding concerns of the First Amendment. Valverde's book, Everyday Law on the Street: City Governance in an Age of Diversity, brings us to Canada today where many of the same tensions arise over where and how to express concerns about changes in the diversity. Although Canadian law contrasts sharply with American law because it views restrictions on hate speech as constitutionally valid limits on free speech, Valverde's empirical examination of Toronto's municipal governance suggests that Canada does not is not free from conflicts over the realities of diversity, despite the fact that Toronto's motto is "Diversity is our strength". Indeed, Valverde notes that Toronto is becoming increasingly unequal and poverty increasingly racialized, even as many of its residents declare the value they place on diversity (Valverde 3). Valverde's book makes a systematic study of various venues of municipal governance in Toronto, including zoning appeals. licensing boards and courts, from 2003 to 2010. The book examines how sublegal regulations, inspections, and enforcement practices shape daily urban life in ways that affect diversity. For example, Valverde gives examples of how private citizens can use the law as a tool against culture. trends they find threatening, like when an English-speaking couple living next door to a Chinese couple felt annoyed by the smell of Chinese food. The English-speaking couple requested help from the municipality, which sent an inspector to mediate. The Chinese couple installed a new hood to contain the fumes, but their neighbors were not satisfied. They sued for nuisance, claiming the odors were unpleasant and potentially carcinogenic. Additionally, their lawyer wrote a letter to the Chinese couple telling them that their lack of English proficiency was not a defense and that they should not seek sympathy from the court. The dispute was brought to the attention of the National Council of Chinese Canadians, a group that promotes the rights of Chinese immigrants. The board claimed the suit was motivated by racism. Although the matter was ultimately settled out of court, the English-speaking couple sued the Chinese Canadian National Council for slander and defamation for claiming they were racist. Municipal public nuisance inspections are also not free from biased dynamics. In response to complaints about noise, nepotism and discrimination play a role in the allocation of municipal resources, the author claims. A resident's disparity in resources can even determine the types of inspections and services provided by the municipality, she says. Another example in Valverde's book cites a noise complaint from a bar called Maxwell's, which played loud music during hours when it was illegal to do so. The law prohibited it between certain hours followed by the clause “in such a way as to disturb public order”. The bar's lawyer argued that the standard was arbitrary and not objective. The court ultimately disagreed, concluding: "An inner-city community as opposed to a suburban community, or alternatively, a community composed primarily of retired residents as opposed to a community composed primarily of college students can tolerate a standard very different from what is reasonable for the night. sounds of time” (Valverde 65-66).3 For Valverde, this type of detention perpetuates institutional discrimination. “Those who cannot afford to buy a house or pay the high rents demanded by luxury apartment owners are considered by law as not deserving of protection from noise or as culturally predisposed to do less pay attention to the noise” (Valverde 66). The judge in the case asked for no evidence from local residents, trusting officers to determine whether the complaints were credible or frivolous. Although municipal officials do not mobilize every morning solely to protect the rights of wealthy property owners, certain cultural assumptions persist. Valverde provides many other examples such as taxi licensing, issuance of permits, adult entertainment licenses, bylaw enforcement, zoning hearings and granting.