A recent article on Reason's Volokh Conspiracy, written by guest-blogger Samantha Barbas, points to a 1930s New Jersey law as the most sweeping hate speech measure in American history. The piece's title, 'The Anti-Nazi Law,' signals the statute's intended target, although the available excerpt offers no further detail on its provisions or enforcement.
The source itself flags an editorial error: the post was initially attributed to Eugene Volokh, but was later corrected to name Barbas as the author. That correction does not alter the underlying claim about the law's historical scope, but it does mean the analysis comes from a guest contributor rather than the site's usual byline.
Given that there is only one source, no independent comparison is possible. Readers relying on this article should treat it as a single, anecdotal interpretation of a largely forgotten legal episode, not a consensus account of early American hate speech jurisprudence.