In Farrakhan v. Anti-Defamation League, Judges Susan L. Carney, Joseph F. Bianco, and William J. Nardini upheld the lower court’s dismissal of what they described as Farrakhan’s “sprawling allegations.”
District Court Judge Denise Cote (S.D.N.Y.) first dismissed the case, noting that it was based on a publication that quoted Farrakhan at length. She also noted that, after quoting Farrakhan, the ADL post titled “Farrakhan Predicts Another Holocaust” was clearly an opinion piece. The so-called “Ticketmaster Letter” ended with the hyperlinked statement that “[y]ou can learn more about Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam on our website.”
The actual quotes from Farrakhan made this action doubly difficult:
“A Jewish man said to me, ‘You know, we say never again. Never again will we be in the oven. Never again.’ I said, ‘Hold it.’ You can say that to men, but you can’t say that to God. Because the Bible says, behold the day cometh that shall burn — as a what? —as an oven. And those who do wickedly, He will slay them and leave them neither root nor branch…The War of Armageddon is to decide who will live on this earth.”
“I’m saying to the Jews: if you want salvation, if you want to get back into the paradise of God, come with the Messiah, that’s your ticket. Some of you have already recognized your brother as that. But that’s an invitation to them to break them apart from those who are about to be destroyed. God is not unjust; when he kills you, you know you deserved it.”
The Second Circuit rejected the causal effect of the publication in leading to Farrakhan being blocked on two speech platforms run by third parties — Morgan State University and Vimeo. It found that the claims were mere speculation on the underlying nexus.
It also found no concrete injury from acts like ADL-supported creation of the “U.S. National Strategy [t]o Counter Antisemitism.”
The panel, however, then held that the objections to Farrakhan as pushing anti-Semitic views were protected statements of opinion. The court ruled that whether Farrakhan and the NOI are anti-Semitic is a statement incapable of being proven true or false. It is left to the judgment of the reader and the perceived meaning of the quoted statements themselves.
Here is the opinion: Farrakhan v. Anti-Defamation League