When the American Nazi Party threatened, in 1978, to march in Skokie, Illinois, Cohen published (in "The Nation" to which he was a regular contributor) several widely reprinted essays defending the right to present publicly even the most abhorrent political views. "The Extreme Test of Free Speech," "The Nation", 15 April 1978. When (as a part of the protest against the Vietnam War) efforts were made to forbid research of certain kinds on the U-M campus, Cohen strongly supported the freedom of faculty members to engage in the inquiries that they thought appropriate. During that war Cohen, in active protest, defended selective conscientious objection "The Case for Selective Pacifism," "The Nation", 8 July 1968, and defended some, but not all, civil disobedience. "Civil Disobedience and the Law," Rutgers Law Review, Fall, 1966. When University administrators sought to censor the showing of sexually explicit films on campus, Cohen, then serving as Chair of the University faculty, strongly defended student freedoms before the Regents of the University, with ultimate success. In the mid-1970s, when the fear of misuse led some to oppose the continuation of research in recombinant DNA technology, Cohen defended such research vigorously, both on the Michigan campus and also in "The New England Journal of Medicine" ["When May Research Be Stopped?" "NEJM" 26 May 1977].