In a democracy, the majority doesn’t need special protection for freedom of speech because their power is protected by the majority vote. The bully and the bigot easily get their way if they have the votes.
The fact is that only those with opinions that are unpopular with the majority or the ruling elite need the special protection of freedom of speech. It is not, in fact, a coincidence that the Civil Rights Movement, the women’s rights movement, and the gay rights movement (just to name a few) only really took off when the protections of the First Amendment became strongly interpreted beginning in the 1950s. Prior to that, without a strong First Amendment, those movements were easy to shut down.
But the powerful in higher education find this narrative inconvenient. This is because, frankly, they are unsatisfied with the amount of power they have over speech and thought (which is already immense, and regularly abused). They prefer a narrative in which they are still the underdog (which they’ve never really been) and still the hero (which they very rarely are). At the same time, they’d like to continue to censor “bad” speakers and “bad” speech — not just with new tools, but with a continued sense of self-righteousness about their authoritarian impulses.
The above is an excerpt from Lukianoff’s post in The Eternally Radical Idea article: “Mary Anne Franks, free speech, & how power rationalizes its need for more: If you’re on the side of greater control over freedom of speech, you’re not on the side of the powerless.” Excerpt:
Young people are being miseducated about the history of free speech and the First Amendment. The way I explain it now, when I speak to both high school and college students alike, is that they’re being taught that First Amendment and free speech protections primarily benefit the “three B’s”: the Bully, the Bigot, and the Robber-Baron (rich folk). While a universal interpretation of human rights does protect the three B’s, they don’t need special protection. And historically speaking, they never have…
In ancient times, powerful people were eager to have you know they were powerful. In modern times, powerful people will go to great lengths to pretend like they’re the out-group. One example was a social media movement on the left that began to coalesce during the Trump presidency. This movement represented and promoted ideas held by much of Hollywood, most news outlets, almost all higher education institutions, global businesses and the U.S. House of Representatives. What did it call itself? The Resistance. When your ideals are held by the vast majority of media, higher-ed, and banks, you’re not exactly the White Rose, are you?
Modern higher education is a trillion-dollar-plus industry. In 2021, the last year for which the government has numbers ready, higher education brought in $993 billion. For context, that’s 66 times the retail value revenue of the recording industry in 2021 ($15b). Higher education institutions in the U.S. are some of the wealthiest, most influential, and most powerful institutions that have ever existed. In fact, some schools have rainy day funds bigger than the GDP of most small countries…
We are likely going to be writing more on Mary Anne Franks’ book, “Fearless Speech,” because it’s just one part of a larger movement from the intellectual class to try to rationalize and euphemize their need for more power. It goes something like this: “We take for granted we are not very powerful. (Even though, relatively speaking, we are extremely powerful. But we like to pretend we’re not, so while we’re pretending…) We think the rest of you aren’t using your power correctly, so why don’t you give us more power over speech — and thought itself? We promise this will work out to the benefit of the powerless.”
Also consider FIRE’s Will Creely, who takes apart the premise of Mary Anne Franks that free speech protects only the powerful. He points out many examples where free speech came to the rescue of oppressed people and minorities.
