Twelve Fallacies About Free Speech, Refuted

At Areo, Greg Lukianoff (An attorney who is the President and CEO of FIRE, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) wrote this article to refute twelve fallacious arguments about free speech. Here are the fallacies:

  • Free speech was created under the false notion that words and violence are distinct, but we now know that certain speech is more akin to violence.
  • Free speech rests on the faulty notion that words are harmless.
  • Free speech is the tool of the powerful, not the powerless.
  • The right to free speech means the government can’t arrest you for what you say; it still leaves other people free to kick you out.
  • But you can’t shout fire! in a crowded theatre.
  • The arguments for freedom of speech are outdated.
  • Hate speech laws are important for reducing intolerance, even if there may be some examples of abuse.
  • Free speech is nothing but a conservative talking point.
  • Restrictions on free speech are OK if they are made in the name of civility.
  • You need speech restrictions to preserve cultural diversity.
  • Free speech is an outdated idea; it’s time for new thinking.
  • I believe in free speech, but not for blasphemy.

Visit Areo for Lukianoff's responses to each of these fallacies.

In response to the fallacy that free speech is an outdated concept, Lukianoff gave this succinct defense of John Stuart Mill, from On Liberty (available from free at this link):

John Stuart Mill’s central arguments in On Liberty remain undefeated, including one of his strongest arguments in favour of freedom of speech—Mill’s trident—of which I have never heard a persuasive refutation. Mill’s trident holds that, for any given belief, there are three options:

A) You are wrong, in which case freedom of speech is essential to allow people to correct you.
B) You are partially correct, in which case you need free speech and contrary viewpoints to help you get a more precise understanding of what the truth really is.
C) You are 100% correct. In this unlikely event, you still need people to argue with you, to try to contradict you, and to try to prove you wrong. Why? Because if you never have to defend your points of view, there is a very good chance you don’t really understand them, and that you hold them the same way you would hold a prejudice or superstition. It’s only through arguing with contrary viewpoints that you come to understand why what you believe is true.

Lukianoff ends his article with this:

Free speech is valuable, first and foremost, because, without it, there is no way to know the world as it actually is. Understanding human perceptions, even incorrect ones, is always of scientific or scholarly value, and, in a democracy, it is essential to know what people really believe. This is my “pure informational theory of freedom of speech.” To think that, without openness, we can know what people really believe is not only hubris, but magical thinking. The process of coming to knowing the world as it is is much more arduous than we usually appreciate. It starts with this: recognize that you are probably wrong about any number of things, exercise genuine curiosity about everything (including each other), and always remember that it is better to know the world as it really is—and that the process of finding that out never ends.

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What Should be Done about the Way Many Schools are Preaching Critical Race Theory to their Students?

Bari Weiss has written a column that includes a comprehensive discussion with Christopher Rufo and attorney/writer David French. It is a highly civil and insightful discussion. She begins her column with this:

If you are reading this, I suspect you are disturbed by an ideology that segregates people by race; that insists on a racial hierarchy in which entire racial groups are monolithically good or bad; that does away with race-blind tests in the name of progress; and that insists that any inequality of outcome is evidence of systemic discrimination.

Those are bad ideas at odds with our most foundational American values. On Friday, Andrew Sullivan published an essay arguing that CRT removes the “bedrock of liberalism.” I agree.

The question is: What should be done about it? . . . The idea of banning ideas should make any American shudder.

In my discussion below, everything I write is a paraphrase other than the bits of text that are in quote marks.

At min 35 in the discussion French asserts that the many new statutes banning there teaching of critical race theory "flat out violate the constitution." I agree with Weiss and French. There is a big difference between teaching about a subject and preaching that subject in a way that makes students feel that they are compelled to agree. French disputes that the CRT movement has deep radical control over America's institutions, even though it is influential. He believes that we have the means, including our legal system, of addressing this ideology. He worries that overblowing the force of CRT is mustering a anti-First Amendment pushback on the political right (e.g., regulating big tech and anti-CRT legislation).

Rufo "strongly disagrees, urging that CRT is overwhelming American institutions from coast to coast, and that these are extraordinary and dangerous times. He argues that the State does not have free speech rights. They, through public schools, have a state run monopoly and a captive audience (that consists of children, even young children) upon which they are forcing compelled speech that takes the form of "racial poison." Children should not be compelled to express belief in racial essentialism, racial discrimination, the need for collective guilt or the need to acknowledge that one is responsible for the crimes of one's ancestors. He argues that the State, though Departments of Education, already have the power (and obligation) to implement the school curricula.

French responds (at min 45) that much of the proposed legislation is not necessary in that there are already robust Constitutional protections against compelled speech. Further, many of the bills are not limited to K-12 education. Unconstitutional grant-making is already illegal by the theory of "unconstitutional conditions." We need to take these bills "bill by bill." There might need to be a lot of litigation about this, in that many of these bills are wildly vague. French completely agrees that compelled CRT speech is improper (with or without the new bills). Some of these bills improperly take aim at some of the foundational principles of traditional liberalism.

Rufo argues that these new ("race neutral") laws are necessary to protects one's right to conscience. He argues that communities ought to be able to enforce their own values in their own institutions, which they fund. He argues that many of the laws allow the teaching of CRT as a theory, in a contextual way, but you can't force your students to believe them. You cannot teach CRT as a dogma. He argues that the State has much more "shaping power" in K-12, grades that students are required to attend. He argues that the public should also do whatever it can to shape the values instilled by public colleges, including criteria for grant-making, which many of these new laws seek to protect.

French compares to teaching religion. The Constitution allows teaching about Christianity, but not teaching it "as truth."

Weiss asks French what he would suggest to combat CRT if these new state laws are unconstitutional. He suggested local courageous control of schools. Get involved in your child's school. Many non-elite public schools are not steeped in CRT. There are many opportunities to speak up. In K-12, the state is already given lots of leeway to determine curriculum. Laws affecting that cannot be unconstitutionally vague.

French: The question is not whether these ideas are good. The question is what are the limits of constitutional protection? Many of these bills attack compelled speech, but the First Amendment already protects students from compelled speech. Right now, no school has the right to force a student to wrote a letter of apology to students for one's "white privilege."

Rufo urges that these bills are necessary because students are being forced to do such things. Rufo states that he has a database of more than 1,000 institutions where students are currently being forced to engage in such behavior.

French responds: "Then file a lawsuit." He admits that only the Idaho statute comes close to being constitutional. The other statutes ban the expression of particular viewpoints. (Min 1:02:00). This is lawful only in narrow circumstances (re state employees). The universities do not have First Amendment rights, but the professors do, and based on French's experience as an attorney, most of these new laws will be struck down as speech codes, if challenged in court.

French "wants to hear" from those who promote CRT. He disagrees with many of these ideas, but he wants to hear them, understand them and, I many cases, reject them. But he does not want to ban these ideas from the marketplace of ideas.

Weiss to French: Aren't the CRT promoters trying to erase the ability of people like French to reject CRT?

French: There is no doubt that many of these people want to shut him up. There are speech codes and they generally fail in the courts. Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) indicates that at one time 80% of colleges had speech codes.  As a result of litigation, only about 25% of them currently have speech codes.

At min 111, both French and Rufo, who have Multi-racial families, describe how they talk with their own children about their "identities and about what it means to be American." It was a heartfelt ending to a vigorous and engaging conversation.

Follow up Tweet by David French:

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About Lindsay Shepherd

Today I learned about the 2017 case of Lindsay Shepherd, a graduate student/teaching assistant at Wilfrid Laurier University (WLU) in Waterloo, Ontario. Her crime was to allow an even-handed classroom discussion about a Canadian law compelling the use of particular pronouns according to Jordan Peterson.

Her case also reminded me of the importance of (at least sometimes) secretly recording conversations.

Here is what happened, thanks to her foresight in recording a massively dysfunctional conversation Shepherd was forced to have with her supervisor, Nathan Rambukkana.

Shepherd is now an author. You can follow her at https://twitter.com/NewWorldHominin

Here is an excerpt from a review of Shepherd's new book, Diversity and Exclusion: Confronting the Campus Free Speech Crisis::

This continuing campaign against Shepherd based on a pursuit of ideological purity should be regarded as a dark stain on the entire academic community. Throughout the book it is clear that Shepherd’s love of teaching is what defines her commitment to “open inquiry and the pursuit of truth.” As such, that unnamed college missed an opportunity to hire a first-rate educator – not to mention a heck of a storyteller. Sadly, demonstrable ability and commitment are now less important on campus than political alignment. That said, given her obvious attributes of drive, character, intelligence and sense of opportunity, it seems highly unlikely we’ve seen or heard the last of Lindsay Shepherd. As her experiences at Laurier make plain, she has an awful lot to say. And she’s not afraid to say it.

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How Pervasive is the Teaching of Critical Race Theory?

Last month, Andrew Gutmann started speaking out against critical race theory, as it was being taught at his daughter's private expensive Manhattan school, Brearley School. In his letter to the Brearly community, he accused Brearly of teaching children illiberal and indoctrinating antiracism initiatives and divisive obsession with race. Gutmann has founded Speak Up For Education. .

Today, Gutmann authored an opinion piece at The Hill. Here is an excerpt:

There appears to be widespread belief that opposition to critical race theory is a view held solely by the political right. This perception is wrong. It is certainly true that the conservative media has almost exclusively embraced viewpoints unfavorable to critical race theory while the liberal-oriented media has been overwhelmingly approving. But our polarized media does not seem to accurately reflect the view of most Americans.

Since my letter became public, I have received several thousand supportive emails and messages from people across this country, including many from self-described Democrats and liberals. The tone of most of the messages sent to me is not at all political in nature; instead, the tenor is one of desperation and powerlessness.

I have received emails from parents expressing devastation that their kids, as young as five years old, are coming home from school after being taught to feel guilty solely because of the color of their skin. I have received messages from grandparents feeling hopeless that their grandchildren are being brainwashed and turned against their own families. And I have received notes from teachers brought to tears because they are being required, day after day, to teach fundamentally divisive, racist doctrines and being forced to demonize their own students.

Perhaps the most powerful – and most frightening – of the notes I have received are the several dozen from those who identify themselves as having immigrated to America from the former Soviet Union or from countries in formerly communist Eastern Europe. These emails are never political in nature and are nearly identical in message: These first-generation Americans all write that they have “seen this movie before.” They are familiar with the propaganda, the tactics of indoctrination and the pervasive fear of speaking up that plague today’s United States. Simply put, they cannot believe this is happening here.

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