The New Speech Politics (original) (raw)
Related papers
Silencing Speech: New American Free Speech Debates
Res Rhetorica, 2020
This article investigates the discursive production of “the silent majority” as a collective subject of Right-wing politics in the context of free speech controversies on U.S. college campuses. The discussion that follows examines the way the populist rhetoric, reified in the speech/silence dichotomy, focalizes partisan dissent and resentment and seeks to restore the nation’s past glory that was allegedly lost to political correctness and identity politics.
The Politics of Speech on Campus
Sociological Forum, 2021
This article is concerned with college-aged activists' discussions about provocative speakers invited to their campuses. Our research shows how the students on the front lines of debates over free expression and inclusion conceptualize the stakes and think about the consequences of their political involvement. Our analysis goes beyond simplistic portrayals of young people as being either "for" or "against" speech rights. Instead, we argue that conservative activists adopt an absolutist stance toward the First Amendment, which is encouraged by outside national organizations that regard free expression as a wedge issue in higher education. This contrasts with progressive activists, who struggle to weigh the value of individual freedoms against the potential harms caused by derogatory or hostile words and symbols. Ultimately, our semi-structured interview data allow us to see the complex (and sometimes contradictory) reasoning behind students' responses to contentious speaking events at colleges and universities
THE MISEDUCATION OF FREE SPEECH
Virginia Law Review Online, 2019
Despite being promoted by politicians, civil libertarians, university administrators, media outlets, and scholars, the narrative of widespread liberal intolerance and suppression of conservative views on college campuses is a myth. This false narrative of the campus free speech crisis is harmful for two primary reasons. One is that, in Orwellian fashion, it is used to justify the imposition of laws and policies that severely restrict students’ right to protest—censorship in the name of free speech. The impact of these regulations is not likely to be evenly distributed but will instead further chill the speech of already marginalized groups. The false narrative of liberal intolerance has particularly vilified the responses of women, nonwhite men, and sexual minorities to the provocations of far-right speakers and other situations seemingly calculated to incite campus conflict. The second harm inflicted by the false narrative of the college free speech crisis is that it undermines the legitimacy of the university as a free speech institution. This is particularly alarming in our current historical moment, when our nation’s leaders have demonstrated open and sustained hostility to free speech and the Internet has been used to degrade every value the right was intended to protect: truth, autonomy, and democracy. While individual universities doubtless often fall short of the ideal, the university as an institution serves to inculcate free speech values in their students and faculty and provides a uniquely valuable model for the cultivation of free speech norms in a broader context. The myth of the censorious campus distracts us from the very real threats to free speech posed by our nation’s leaders and delegitimizes the university’s ability to fight them. The university model of free speech, which at its best encourages research, reflection, and self-improvement, is needed now more than ever to compete with the Internet model of free speech, which at its worst rewards ignorance, impulsivity, and self-satisfaction.
Free Speech and Democracy: A Primer for Twenty-First Century Reformers
U.C. Davis Law Review, 2021
Left unfettered, the twenty-first-century speech environment threatens to undermine critical pieces of the democratic project. Speech operates today in ways unimaginable not only to the First Amendment's eighteenth-century writers but also to its twentieth-century champions. Key among these changes is that speech is cheaper and more abundant than ever before, and can be exploited -by both government and powerful private actors alike -as a tool for controlling others' speech and frustrating meaningful public discourse and democratic outcomes. The Court's longstanding First Amendment doctrine rests on a model of how speech works that is no longer accurate. This invites us to reconsider our answers to key questions and to adjust doctrine and theory to account for these changes. Yet there is a more or less to these re-imagining efforts: they may seek to topple, or instead to tweak, current theory and doctrine. Either route requires that reformers revisit the foundational questions underlying the Free Speech Clause: what, whom, and how does it protectand from whom, from what, and why? Part I of this Article discusses the threats to public discourse and democracy posed in the twenty-first-century speech environment, as well as the failure of traditional First Amendment theory and doctrine to adequately address these threats. Part II compares the advantages and † Copyright © 2021 Toni M. Massaro & Helen Norton. * Regent's Professor and Milton O. Riepe Chair in Constitutional Law, University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. Warm thanks to Barbara A. Babcock, Genevieve Leavitt, Carol Rose, and Andrew Woods for their very thoughtful comments.
Two Concepts of Freedom (of Speech) 1
2019
Of the many challenges facing democracy in America today, few perplex the public mind like the freedom of speech. Until recently, however, few freedoms seemed more obvious and ours. Let all else descend into the maelstrom of partisanship and polarization—Republicans and Democrats could at least agree to adjudicate their differences through the free (if not always fair) exchange of insults, as well as ideas. Yet ongoing controversies at American universities suggest that now free speech, too, is a partisan issue. While conservative students and their supporters invite controversial speakers to campus and assert their rights to offend their peers, self-identified liberals have engaged in increasingly disruptive, even violent, efforts to shut them down.2 For those who remember the original campus Free Speech Movement of the 1960s, this spectacular shift from Left to Right is a source of some confusion and chagrin.3 Many civil libertarians have suggested that what kids these days really...
The Conservative Defense of Free Speech
Routledge eBooks, 2022
Free speech generally receives its most ardent support from those of a liberal or radical persuasion who push the bounds of acceptable speech, arguing from the position of individual rights and from the purported necessity of challenging social authority and transgressing social bounds. Conservatives are often been cast in the role of censor, curbing verbal excess and valuing social stability over individual expression. There is much to these stereotypes. Nonetheless, traditionalist conservatism may offer a corrective to certain blind spots in traditional defenses of freedom of speech. Concepts such as tradition and authority have been central to conservatism since Edmund Burke's famous attack on the French Revolution and they found a place in the thought of Louis de Bonald in the nineteenth century and Russell Kirk and Robert Nisbet in the twentieth. This paper suggests that some elements of conservatism often used to justify suppression of free speech may be an appropriate part of a broader strategy in a defense of free speech. This chapter is not arguing that conservatism does better in understanding the role of free speech than does liberalism, nor that the concepts employed here could not (and have not) been used to defend censorship. Instead, this chapter points out aspects of traditional conservatism that have hitherto be underappreciated by free speech advocates and that might serve as tools in their arsenal rather than targets of their attack. To put it another way, the premise of this paper is not that conservatism or the elements discussed here would offer a better defense of free speech than liberalism per se. It suggests that the neglect of conservative concepts in the defense of free speech may leave vulnerable certain aspects of our understanding of free speech and it might narrow ideological support for free speech. In this way, certain conservative concepts may help to identify and shore up the standard defenses of free speech in a way helpful to all free speech advocates. It can do this in two ways: first, by providing arguments amenable to philosophical conservatives (a longstanding cadre of free speech critics) thus recruiting them
Towards a Post-Liberal Theory of Free Speech
Debates about free expression commonly divide along clear lines. At one end, a longstanding civil libertarian tradition applies some version of John Stuart Mill’s famous harm principle – even when its adherents don’t use that phrase and haven’t even read Mill. Government, they claim, must not censor repugnant ideas. Since the late 20th century, post-colonial, black empowerment, radical feminist, queer, and other critical movements have waged forceful challenges to that tradition. They have questioned the liberal assumption that all citizens can speak with equal voices within an open ‘marketplace’ of ideas. Those dichotomies between "liberal" and "critical", far from surpassing the classical paradigm, only ever entrench it, leading to perpetual impasses in debates about free speech. This piece seeks new terms for the debate, suggesting that a "democratic" view does not necessarily collapse either into a straightforward majoritarian or a liberal one.
Origins and applications of free speech in America
Karoli Mundus, 2022
The American idea of free speech has been highly contentious from its early days. Furthermore, since its codified entry into the United Sates Constitution, the ideal has been, redefined, expanded, and allocated. Originally applied to the press, the term now covers almost all instances of performative action, spoken and unspoken. But now, the internet, and social media, are casting new doubt upon the ability of “free speech” to remain in a position of an absolute right. This paper outlines the philosophical origins of the term and traces its changing application through the two centuries of the American system. It then examines free speech in the contemporary lens of social media, and the changing definition of “public square.” Finally, it argues that ultimately, continued existence of this right requires the public acceptance of messy, robust, and sometimes uncomfortable process. It remains to be seen if dedication to this principle can withstand an increasingly hostile social environment.