Georgetown University’s Free Speech Problem

Modern minds, even sophisticated ones, increasingly struggle to recognize two completely orthogonal concepts: A) The content of speech (which we might disagree with or even find offensive) and B) the right to speak. That a large university purporting to uphold free and open inquiry (see comments) refuses to recognize this distinction and promptly act on it is an embarrassment.

FIRE's Headline: "Georgetown’s investigation of a single tweet taking longer than 12 round-trips to the moon." The money quote:

“It’s laughable that Georgetown Law’s administrators would need even one day to pore over a tweet,” said FIRE Executive Director Robert Shibley. “But if they’re determined to use their magnifying glasses on the tweet until they find something punishable, they’ll be investigating until their retirement.”
Here's Georgetown's policy strongly in favor of free speech.

Continue ReadingGeorgetown University’s Free Speech Problem

Two Versions of Free Speech

Tara Henley describes two versions of free speech citing to Jacob Mchangama's excellent new book. Henley's article is "Who gets to speak?If we want a free society – we must affirm freedom of speech for everyone, including Joe Rogan and the truckers." Here's an excerpt:

Danish lawyer Jacob Mchangama is set to publish his brilliant debut next week, Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media. In it, the human-rights advocate chronicles “elite panics” of the past, which, he points out on Twitter, hold relevance for the current moment.

Elite panics involve an outbreak of angst among the wealthy and powerful — and they’ve been happening for millennia. And, while such outbursts can reflect real concerns, Mchangama writes in his book, “it is notable that they tend to erupt whenever the public sphere is expanded.” He goes on to explain: “Upon the introduction of new technology that gives access to those previously unheard, the traditional gatekeepers of public opinion fear that the newcomers will manipulate the masses through dangerous ideas, and propaganda, threatening the established social and political order.”

These conflicts, Mchangama notes, represent a clash between egalitarian and elitist conceptions of free speech. One sees free speech as a right for all; the other would have it be a privilege for those enlightened enough to use it properly.

Continue ReadingTwo Versions of Free Speech

Definition of Cancel Culture

Greg Lukianoff defines "cancel culture," documents its existence and urges that we not give in to its perpetrators who claims that it does not exist:

A culture of censorship—of shaming, shunning, and attempting to destroy people’s lives for ideological reasons—exists in America, and Americans have a name for it: cancel culture.

Let’s not abandon that name in a vain attempt to please the people most responsible for perpetuating the problem.

Continue ReadingDefinition of Cancel Culture

Social justice Is Compatible with Free Speech

Ira Glasser served as the fifth executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1978 to 2001. The following is an excerpt from is recent article (at FIRE): "Social justice requires free speech."

Prevailing political power has always been antagonistic to social justice and has sought relentlessly to restrict speech advocating social justice. That is why social justice has always required speech to nurture and grow its movements.

That was true for the nascent labor movement in the early 20th century; the anti-war movement around 1917 (and again in the 1970s); the birth control movement around 1916, when Margaret Sanger distributed informational leaflets on the streets of New York; the movement to gain the right of women to vote; the anti-lynching movement when the crusading journalist Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) used the only weapons she had — articles and speeches — to rally opposition to the epidemic of lynching; and, in our time, the gay rights and civil rights movements. All of them and others depended critically on speech rights, and all would have been extinguished without speech rights. That is why John Lewis (1940-2020) said that “Without freedom of speech and the right to dissent, the Civil Rights movement would have been a bird without wings.”

Progressives forget that at their and our peril.

Continue ReadingSocial justice Is Compatible with Free Speech

In 2021, 111 Professors Were Targeted for Protected Speech

From the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE):

“Scholars Under Fire: 2021 Year in Review” documents last year’s attempts to penalize scholars for speech and research that, even when controversial, is protected by the First Amendment. FIRE documented 111 attempts to target scholars for their speech in 2021, all of which have been added to FIRE’s Scholars Under Fire Database. This reflects a dramatic increase from 30 attacks against scholars in 2015.

“Even one attack on free speech is one too many,” said FIRE Research Fellow Komi German, one of the report’s authors. “Our colleges should be built on the foundation that differences of opinion should give rise to debate and discussion — not sanctions and firings. If you asked someone which country had 111 scholars targeted in 2021, they might guess an authoritarian regime like China or Russia, not a democratic nation like the United States.”

Here is the executive summary.

Continue ReadingIn 2021, 111 Professors Were Targeted for Protected Speech