Susan Benesch
Susan Benesch (born 1964) is an American journalist and scholar of speech who is known for founding the Dangerous Speech Project. Benesch is a free speech advocate, recommending the use of counterspeech rather than censorship to delegitimize harmful speech. Early life and education Benesch was born in 1964 in New York. She is of Czech ancestry on her father's side, and her family was described as "upper-middle class". Benesch described herself as descending from "immigrants, refugees and people who were killed because other people had been taught to hate them". After graduating from Columbia University, she worked in journalism, including as staff writer for the Miami Herald in Haiti and St. Petersburg Times correspondent in Latin America. She is fluent in Spanish. Benesch earned a JD at Yale in 2001 and an LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center in 2008. Career Benesch worked for the NGOs Amnesty International and Human Rights First, and is currently the faculty associate of Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. She is also an adjust professor at American University. She founded the Dangerous Speech Project in 2010 with a grant from the MacArthur Foundation. Views In regulating "dangerous speech", Benesch seeks