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4.2.12 WC: 191694 Church of the Creation”. He had been denied admission to the Illinois Bar because of his neo- Nazi views. Hale was invited to appear on the Today Show to be interviewed by Katie Couric. I was asked to explain why I would even consider representing such a horrible racist and anti-Semite. Couric began by asking Hale to describe his views “in a nutshell.” He went on about how non- Europeans—by which he means Blacks and Jews—were destroying the “white race” and how he was going to change that if he were admitted to the bar. Couric then asked me why I believed a man with Hale’s views should be allowed to become a lawyer. KC: Mr. Hale should be allowed to practice law. ..why? AD: Well first of all I am not a supporter of Mr. Hale. You asked about his views in a nutshell. That’s where his views belong, in a nutshell. They are despicable, revolting views. But what I’m concerned about is the precedential effect of giving character committees the right to determine who shall and who shall not have the right to practice law on the basis of ideology and belief. Remember character committees were invented to originally keep out Blacks, Jews, gays, women, leftists...I just don’t want to see a resurrection of character committees probing into the ideology of people like Mr. Hale. If I take his case, and he’s asked me to represent him, I told him this and he knows this. All the fees will be contributed to anti-racist organizations which will fight the ideology of bigots like him. I hope the American public listening to him would reject his ideas in the marketplace but not through censorship of the kind that the character committee is trying to practice. KC: But simply espousing these views, couldn’t that lead to violence, by other individuals? AD: Well there is no question how our Constitution strikes that balance. Reading the work of Marx can lead to incitement. Reading the Bible can lead to incitement. But we don’t draw the line at the espousal of views. We draw it at incitement or violence itself and we don’t want to have a different standard for racists than we do for other people. Couric then turned back to Hale: KC: Ok, you talk about your enemies, Mr. Hale, and among them are Jews. Do you see the irony that you hate Jews and yet you are calling on Mr. Dershowitz to help you? MH: Well the fact of the matter if having a “Dershowitz” in this equation has brought our church an incredible amount of publicity and as a minister in my church, it is my obligation to bring about as much publicity as possible. 142 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017229