New South Wales. Legislative Assembly Committee on Law and Safety

An interim report for the inquiry into measures to combat right-wing extremism in New South Wales. The report considers the Crimes and Summary Offences Amendment Bill 2025 and puts forward some considerations for Parliament when debating the Bill. The Bill was introduced on 19 November 2025, following a neo-Nazi protest outside Parliament House on 8 November 2025. The event was widely condemned.

The protest shows the current laws have been failing to prevent right-wing extremists from mobilising and recruiting. Legislative change is required to address the worrying rise of right-wing extremism.

The Crimes and Summary Offences Amendment Bill 2025 is an important step in combatting right-wing extremism. The Committee has considered the Bill in the context of a broader inquiry into measures to combat right-wing extremism in New South Wales. 

The Committee strongly supports the Bill as a key measure to combat right-wing extremism in New South Wales. At the same time, the Committee acknowledges the risk of constitutional challenge to any law that may restrict the implied freedom of political communication.

Parliament of New South Wales, 2026. 21p.

By JM Berger

Can legal codes and court rulings function as extremist ideological texts? 

Academics usually define extremism as a set of beliefs that fall outside the norms of the society in which they are situated, but entire societies have at times been organized around recognizably extreme beliefs. This paper will examine the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Scott v. Sandford, 60 US 393 (1856), more commonly known as the Dred Scott decision. Widely considered the worst Supreme Court decision of all time, the opinion written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney decreed that Black people, whether enslaved or free, could never become citizens of the United States and that they had no rights under the Constitution. 

This paper will analyze the Dred Scott decision to consider whether and how it implements and institutionalizes many widely recognized tropes of extremist ideology. The paper will conclude with a discussion of empirical frameworks that can enable and empower the study of lawful extremism. 

United States, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Montery. 2023, 57pg