Yves here. This post confirms widespread American hypocrisy for free speech: it’s great as long as your ideological opponents don’t get to exercise it. It’s depressing as someone who was apolitical and middle-of-the-roadish in the 1970s and 1980s, when free speech was seen as a bedrock and the left of the day were willing to defend the right of bitter opponents like the KKK to exercise it, that the elites are so afraid of debate that the are all on board with stomping on the open exercise of view. This sorry development goes hand-in-hand with rising intolerance and demonization of perceived adversaries. They are no longer citizens with different ideas who might be amenable to persuasion, or in line with you on some but not all issues, to enemies who must be silenced and crushed.
Note that this article does not mention the fact that hate speech is not defined under the law, only hate crimes are. I shudder at the efforts to criminalize hate speech. In this era where the young have been trained to see microagressions as tantamount to real harm, the bar is likely to be set very low by historical standards.
In addition, this article skips over the ongoing suppression of political speech opposed to government institutions, such as the recent FBI raid on Scott Ritter, which was nominally about the bogus idea that he is a foreign agent.
By John G. Geer, Senior Advisor to the Chancellor, Head of Vanderbilt’s Project on Unity and American Democracy, and Co-Director of Vanderbilt Poll, Vanderbilt University and Jacob Mchangama, Research Professor of Political Science and Executive Director of The Future of Free Speech, Vanderbilt University. Originally published at The Conversation
Americans’ views on free speech change directions every so often. One of those times was during the protests at U.S. universities about the Israel-Hamas war. As scholars of free speech and public opinion, we set out to find out what happened and why.
The Supreme Court itself, as recently as 1989, has declared that the “bedrock principle” of the First Amendment is that “the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”
For years, conservative politicians and commentators have warned that college campuses are not strong enough protectors of free speech. But as demonstrations erupted, these same people complained that the protests were filled with antisemitic hate speech. Leading conservatives declared the demonstrations should be banned and halted, by forceif necessary.
Liberals executed a similar reversal. Many of them have supported increased regulation of hate speech against minority groups. But during the campus protests, liberals cautioned that crackdowns by university administrators, state officials and the police violated protestors’ free speech rights.
As researchers at Vanderbilt University’s Project on Unity and American Democracy and The Future of Free Speech, respectively, we sought to determine where Americans stand. We drew inspiration from a poll done in November 1939in which 3,500 Americans answered questions about free speech. In June 2024, we asked 1,000 Americans the identical questions.
When an Abstract Concept Gets More Concrete
We found that the vast majority of Americans – both then and now – agree that democracy requires freedom of speech. That’s in the abstract.
When the questions get more concrete, though, their support wanes.
Only about half of the respondents in both the 1939 and 2024 polls agreed that anybody in America should be allowed to speak on any subject at any time. The rest believed some speech – or certain subjects or speakers – should be prohibited.
This pattern is not unique to Americans. A 2021 survey in 33 countries by The Future of Free Speech, a nonpartisan think tank based at Vanderbilt, similarly found high levels of support for free speech in the abstract across all countries but lower support across the board for specific speech that was offensive to minority groups or religious beliefs.
We dug deeper in surveys in March and June 2024, asking which subjects or speakers should be banned. We thought the public’s appetite for free speech might have weakened amid the campus turmoil. We found the opposite.
When asked whether seven people with widely varied viewpoints should be allowed to speak, the share of people who said “Yes” rose for each one between March and June. Some of the differences were within the surveys’ margins of error, but it’s nevertheless noteworthy that all of them shifted in the same direction.
While showing a slightly increased appetite for free speech, these polls still fit with the overall contradiction: Large majorities of Americans passionately uphold free speech as a cornerstone of democracy. But fewer of them are supportive of free speech when faced with specific controversial speakers or topics.
The First Amendment Is Not an a la Carte Menu
Our surveys found that the public has a nuanced view of free speech. For instance, in our June 2024 survey we added some additional categories of potential speakers to the list we had asked about in March. More respondents were comfortable with a pro-Palestinian speaker than a leader of Hamas and with a scientist who believes that IQ varies by race rather than an outright white supremacist.
This pattern suggests that the public distinguishes between extreme and more moderate positions and is less tolerant of the rights of those with more extreme views.
This shift runs against the purpose of the First Amendment, which was intended to protect unpopular speech. The amendment very specifically was not intended to apply only to certain speakers or viewpoints.
Ours is not the only survey to find that many people don’t fully appreciate the logic and principles behind free speech.
In 2020, a Knight Foundation poll found that members of both political parties oppose speech that goes against their values or beliefs.
Later polls, including those conducted by other organizations, found more specifics: For instance, Democrats were more likely to support censorship of racist hate speech or vaccine misinformation.
And Republicans opposed drag shows and kneeling during the playing of the national anthem.
A February 2022 national poll commissioned by The New York Times and Siena College found that 30% of Americans believed that “sometimes you have to shut down speech that is anti-democratic, bigoted, or simply untrue.”
A Return to Fundamentals
With the 2024 election looming and polarization increasing among Americans, some people may want only those who agree with them to be allowed to speak.
But a true commitment to the fundamental principles of free speech requires people to allow space for controversial and even offensive viewpoints to be aired.
History reveals that censorship of hateful ideas is often a cure that is worse than the disease, deepening social divides. James Madison, a key drafter of both the U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment, wrote in 1800:
“Some degree of abuse is inseparable from the proper use of every thing … it is better to leave a few of its noxious branches, to their luxuriant growth, than by pruning them away, to injure the vigor of those yielding the proper fruits.”
As the founders knew, a respect for diverse viewpoints and the ability to express those views – good, bad and harmful alike – in the public sphere are essential to a healthy democracy.
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Apologies for sounding flippant but:
made me think of the 1980s TV clips I’ve recently been binge watching on YT when things seemed so much simpler. Case in point – Knight Rider and FLAG (the Foundation for Law And Government).
We had an AI car which makes Elon’s stuff look utterly pathetic and so obviously biased. But I’m Gen X who lived for shows like that……! And KITT still looks better than Elon’s cars/trucks: fight me!
Well, you did not have an actual AI car, but a fiction of one. Which is much like this “free speech” thing, including Musk selling his own X brand of it (that performs as good as his AI cars).
Sure, but now imagine KITT built into a DeLorean (flux capacitor and cocaine behind the dashboard optional). Beat that if you can!
Feige said no! And he has a list and knows all the words ;)
The idea that to criticize democratically elected officials is to deny democracy may be one that people are willing to accept today.
A lot of those officials have been pushing the line that “hate speech” isn’t protected by the first amendment. Direct incitement to a crime is the only exception, not nasty rhetoric.
I found the March to June, that is, most current, seeming increase in tolerance(?)/interest(?)/ desire(?) for diverse views lead me to wonder…
As intolerance is most often sold wrapped in fear which the pols and media know and use quite liberally, and tolerance comes with a diversity of knowledge and/or experience, requiring the individual to make some effort; how might we interpret those changes?
That is: do they reflect true tolerance, a desire to hear more from suppressed viewpoints, or the successes of targeted media and its reiteration in peer groups?
Tolerance < acceptance < approval < celebration. People can (and do) argue on how indifference relates to tolerance, or even if they overlap. I assume by “true tolerance” you mean approval?
Anyway, given that onky 7% of US population finds media very trustworthy, it’s more likely the shift in the data reflect increasing polarization more than willingness to listen. Meaning the fence-sitters are choosing sides, as there’s no room for indifference.
No. Tolerance, even “true tolerance”, is not synonymous with acceptance other than of a things existence.
I find it critical that any number of PHDs in Bigotry be let ample room to express their views…. it enables one to see them for who they are.
You can substitute -phds in bigotry- with any thing you want. The point being, racism etal loves the cloak of darkness and secrecy (maybe a big tall nightcap as well) and is better to be in the light than worming around underground unseen.
Free speech?
There is a “hate speech” case in a town nearby, supposedly the state AG wants the book thrown at the hate speaker!
Seems a church in a nearby town has a multi-color flag with the term: “All are Welcome”.
Somebody performing a spiritual act of mercy posted a note saying “Repent…. and the usual alphabet soup appellate”. Sort of like what they cut John the Baptist’s head off for.
The do gooder is being prosecuted for speech crimes against the state religion.
Both parts of the First amendment are not active.
In this era where the young have been trained to see microagressions as tantamount to real harm, This is a great point because it is a great weakness. How the heck did it get this way?
As an aside, the war on free speech sure looks familiar to the war on science.
I’m thinking it arose, innocently enough, with the movement to award everyone plaques for Participation’ in whatever was being promoted at the time. When everyone is ‘special,’ then no one is. You end up with an amorphous mass of indistinguishable drones in a severely hierarchal social structure, because someone with the requisite lack of moral and ethical standards will literally steal control of the process.
The concept of “Microaggressions” is merely a tool of social engineering.
It is a tool of social engineering, but it wasn’t innocent. Micro Aggressions much like White Privilege rose out of Critical Race Theory.
Originally, they were honest attempts to illustrate the unconscious or unobserved ways in which race was a major issue in how we interact with each other. While one can argue whether or not they are valid (also I’d argue “White Privilege” should of just been named “Majority Privilege”, would of worked better IMO), they were attempts to grapple with complex issues and were meant to be a way of opening actual avenues of communication and study, not to be used as bludgeon. Which is what they became, a useful tool to assert power and shut down people you didn’t like or ideas that might challenge your own. Once certain people realized how effective they were, they spread and were warped from the original intent and used as a blunt instrument. And like all short sighted use of power it had unforeseen knock on effects .
The first people using them as a means of control might of been doing so cynically, but the next generation is not, they don’t realize it’s as a weapon to use to have power, they think it is legitimate, so now we have a generation that truly believes that asking someone of a non majority ethnicity “where are you from” is an act of vile racism, and attach to that what they have been taught is the proper trauma reaction to it. We’ve accidently created a generation of completely brittle people who cannot engage with other ideas or viewpoints, doing so makes them engage a trauma reaction and as such those ideas and viewpoints must be removed.
Well, here at Big State U, the only time anyone is actually fired is for physical violence. I assume defining words as violence is just another stick in the hard scrabble struggle for meager stakes.
Free speech is like free market, and free lunch.
Yup. How about “free 30 day trial”?
The best free speech money can buy!
I would quibble a bit and observe that the “value” of speech arises from within; and is only imposed from without as a form of control over said speech. In other words, the uses to which the word “free” here is put is another form of social engineering. The observation applies equally well to the other forms of “free” endeavour. The “free” market is a ‘regulated’ one. The “free” lunch is a form of clientelism. Etc. etc.
Revoking the Fairness Doctrine had profound consequences.
Yes, but how would that work on the internet, with millions of “channels” and web sites. The coming storm hit home with me when they started insisting that the Russians had helped elect Trump using social media. Obviously, the problem is not that Russia influenced an American election using social media, but that Trump did.
I am not really worried about “the internet”. there is no reason to think that the vast array of voices who stream from their basements will ever be “all true”, or well informed.
the society which will be resilient will only need to police all the established media and publications; which are most of what most people see.
If there was a force to make mainstream media inclusive of the wide divergence of opinions, with enough evidence to actually BE an opinion. that would be enough.
the conspiracy theories pushed by mainstream media, the false stories planted in every medium of “THE MEDIA”…, would all be washed away if the population could actually HEAR/SEE the evidence of the other side.
Then the internet, voices would look pretty silly going over what everyone else can see for themselves.
But instead…. this morning national propaganda radio is saying Venezuela, doesn’t have a president….. and all the rest of their “conspiracy theories” and extremists bold faced lies.
The gaurdian is talking about kids learning to tell what is real and what isn’t, in middle school… while the paper itself pushes lies, conspiracy theories, and extremist content everyday
After all, trump just lies and makes stuff up…. but the media are really responsible for no actual level ground to start from… so when he says “fake news”…. both the uninformed and the well informed.. have something to agree with. trump is the symptom… not the disease.
Actually the Fairness Doctrine would be obsolete regardless due to the government only being allowed to invoke it on regulated airwaves. One could argue that cable is controlled by a few monopolies but they don’t need a government license to be included in each other’s monopolies. Terrestrial radio still would apply but most TV channels no longer operate under a limited bandwidth which required a government license to keep everyone from broadcasting at the same frequency.
Attempts at thought control don’t really work anyway but are expressions of power and a tool for its maintenance. So for the censors the point it not so much to make, say, the campus Gaza protestors shut up as to show they have the power to make them shut up. It’s brawn versus brain.
This urge to make somebody else shut up is never going to go away and Turley in his book shows how, despite the first amendment, our government has periodically gone to the bad place starting with the Alien and Sedition act of John Adams. Meanwhile no true intellectuals favor censorship because free inquiry is their mainspring and motivator. Universities that embrace censorship are giving themselves away as finishing schools for the ruling class rather than institutions of learning. It seems that all of our major institutions here at the empire are taking on a whiff of decadence. Meanwhile in Europe the revitalizing ruling class long for the old days when it was off with their heads. That’s what America was supposed to be revolting against.
The people going on about misinformation are of course the trained media touts who are most in love with it. Never eat at a place called Mom’s. Avoid a capital newspaper and a political party that claim they are all about “democracy.’ They mean the opposite.
“If a white man wants to lynch me, that’s his problem. If he’s got the power to lynch me, that’s my problem. Racism is not a question of attitude; it’s a question of power.”
Stokely Carmichael
To add to the great discussion: the frame of what is to be included in public discourse is largely dictated by BigTech/MassMedia. “Free speech” is mostly an illusion, and is what the oligarchy deems to be acceptable. The focus on superficial, emotional, and “identity politics” in public discourse is intentional: it is a grand distraction from the “meat and potatoes” issues like economics, foreign policy, housing crisis, health care crisis, infrastructure etc while the plebs are herded into two camps based on identity politics, not interests. Not only a distraction, it works very well to divide: the plebs fight among themselves over superficial issues, while the oligarchy pillages the place. It works very well.
A simplification: Those who control the media control the message.
I would argue that there is no effective “free press” either, for the same reasons. There are very few truly independent journalists left. And, as noted, we see what happens to whistle-blowers, and journalists who step out of the acceptable frame of discourse. (Scott Ritter, John Kiriakou, Jeffrey Sterling, Julian Assange…)
Also, since a couple of SCOTUS decisions have legally equated money as free speech; and gifts for political favors; this has formalized political bribery.
In short, if you aint got no money, you aint got no free speech, aint got no free press, and no democracy
30 years ago free speech meant that if you wanted to state an opinion in a newspaper or magazine, they had the right to print in part or whole or not at all-your message, and rarely was an anonymous letter to the editor published.
We’ve strayed a bit from that…
How unlike your Christ are your Christians… MG
Ten Marxists have a party, there are nine opinions.
The two that agree expel the other eight.
Oh good heavens. You sparked my mind there.
It came to me that today’s Democrat Party are the modern day ‘Tankies.’ We all know what happened to that lot. I can’t wait to hear history rhyme with its older self.
People want “conformity” to the extent they want “compliance” from others, free speech runs in direct opposition to that.
Funny thing is in cultures with very high “conformity” and very little “free speech” people don’t state their non-compliance with their words, they just sabotage everything you make them do every step of the way in any manner they can.
“They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work.”
They pretend to pay attention to us, and we pretend everything still works.
At the time the Bill of Rights was drawn up, the only means of “speech” were standing up in public and raising your voice loudly or paying (or being) a printing press operator who could run off a relatively small number of pamphlets or handbills. Most people only came in contact with others who lived in close geographical proximity, and communities were mostly not “diverse” and not very large. So a lot of speech that was theoretically free could be punished by social pressure, harassment, or even expulsion from the community. You didn’t need a law against sacrilegious or obscene speech when your neighbors would drive you out of your home for voicing it.
So I doubt the founders had in mind all the extremes of “speech” that could result as citizens over time became more and more detached from their local community and its socially enforced norms, and became more subject to a constant bombardment of centrally controlled or distributed communications media. Is freedom of speech the same as freedom to broadcast, when a small group controls what is broadcast? Is it the same as freedom to donate money to political causes, when only a few people have enough money for their donations to make a difference? Is it the same as freedom to solicit money or encourage its spending for selected products, when the media employed again are concentrated in relatively few hands?
I think people have a sense of the original intent to allow individuals freedom in expressing their political opinions and to some extent their artistic statements, while at the same time recognizing that there was more to the story than an absolute right granted to every person (including corporations, when they were declared to be persons by the courts). So exceptions have always been made for libel, inciting violence, perjury, some definitions of obscenity, and fraud. But because they sense that the concept always had some limits implicit in its conception, people are more eager to perceive those limits applying to people who don’t think like them or who express different political, religious or artistic values than the ones they themselves hold.
TLDR: the whole concept of free “speech” and “press” needs to be rethought for current society and its media of communications, which are not like what you found in the 18th century.
I have to disagree. I am not that close to the history of that era, but there were royalist supporters after the Revolutionary War, big controversies about banking….the idea that a not-diverse-by-modern-standards society meant more self censorship or homogeneity of thought, frankly, strikes me as modern snobbisme.
The post ends with –
“As the founders knew, a respect for diverse viewpoints and the ability to express those views – good, bad and harmful alike – in the public sphere are essential to a healthy democracy.”
Well which ones? Because not all of them were in favor of these freedoms. We got the Bill of Rights as an addition to the Constitution. The founders weren’t all so keen on those freedoms from the get go. And even the passage of the Bill of Rights didn’t stop Adams from passing the Alien and Sedition acts, making certain speech illegal.
So some of the founders, Alexander Hamilton prominent among them, clearly did not want the populace to have all these freedoms, and were not big fans of what William Hogeland terms “the Democracy”. He has a great recent book on the topic – The Hamilton Scheme .
I think the fear at the time was tyranny. I suspect, even if just from reading John Greer, that diversity of thought was actually greater in those early days. Tocqueville marveled at the proliferation of political clubs. Madison said no government would be necessary if men were angels, then proposed a divided system of government designed to play interests against each other and prevent any faction from seizing control. Jefferson said he would prefer newspapers and no government to government and no newspapers.
I believe free speech is central to self government.
>>>I believe free speech is central to self government.
And this is why it is a threat to be eliminated by those in power. The control of speech becomes the control (and restriction) of thought.
Although I am recently and happily retired from Little College on the Tundra, I’m still on several institutional mailing lists, so I have the satisfaction of deleting stuff that previously would have eaten up time and attention. (I’m sure that the novelty will wear off.)
Hence, I got the notification for an upcoming training course on “The Major Problem with Microaggressions” – promised to go on for 2 1/2 hours(!) – offered by a consulting outfit which seems to have carved out a nice little intersectional rice bowl for itself. It was tempting – briefly – to sign up just to get the advance readings. But material reality beckoned, and I realized that my time would be better spent on weeding the leek bed, searching for runaway zucchinis, turning the compost piles, and seeing if there were enough cukes for another batch of dill pickles.
I hear you. The irony of focussing on “microagressions” while people go without housing, health care, endure police brutality etc. at home- while our public resources fund, support and enable genocide and mass murder is not lost. Oh the callous hypocrisy….
I’m still hoping that someday we can address all the ‘macro-aggressions’ that happen all the time which result in massive gaps in life expectancy across various demographic groups. But, for now, I guess we need to focus primarily on not saying awkward remarks to one another.
This training session was organized by the same office that trumpeted a major breakthrough last summer: designation of special parking spots in key locations on campus for “pregnant people”.
This is what happens when the message is controlled by a small number of big players and they want to keep that control. There are relatively few owners of the media on the left and right, and they have a reciept of purchase! They don’t like it when minor league voices butt into their tribalism us vs them.
We rightfully rag on Aaron Sorkin here, but I have always loved this speech from The American President. I will always love it.:
I’m editing here, but the end about the liberal President’s opponent also applies but unfortunately because now it is all about this and not about ‘problem solving’ for almost all of our elected officials, and I only say almost because though I am hard pressed to name exceptions, they probably are too busy fighting the status quo to make it on Face the Nation:
What Sorkin doesn’t include is that making actual free speech the norm does get pesky ideas out there, and it isn’t just candidates who want easier elections with no substance it is the entire donor class. It is no wonder that the public has lost sight of the reason that the ACLU fought for neo-nazi holocaust deniers to march through a predominately Jewish community was to protect EVERYONE’s right to say what they believe.
Oh, and for the record I know that Sorkin’s Andrew Shepard is not really serious either, but it is still a great speech. And to be even more trivial I still love Annette Benning’s haircut as well.
To bad what calls itself the ACLU today, doesn’t even believe in those principles anymore.
I hear you. The irony of a focus on “microagressions” while people go without housing, health care, endure police brutality etc. at home- while our public resources fund, support and enable genocide and mass murder is not lost. Oh the callous hypocrisy….
These are strange times and I find it confusing to keep score. Who’s trying to silence whom now? One group that’s routinely shut down is women, the disobedient ones, as illustrated by the poll cited, which asked whether speakers with particular views should be allowed to speak on college campuses, including: “The head of a group that supports the rights of transgender athletes.”
As far as I know, no one’s saying that athletes who claim to be the opposite sex can’t compete; they just need to compete with their sex. Just like 20-year-olds can’t complete in the “senior” category, and adults can’t compete in the junior olympics. Women deserve the right to compete against only women, To say that men should be able to invade women’s spaces and sports because of their feelings is just rampant sexism, dressed up in rainbows.
This thinking is pervasive and allowed the head of the Davis, California, public library to shut down a public event when a woman accurately called a man, a man. The speaker’s politics don’t and shouldn’t matter. There was no discernible outcry among the many Davis “progressives” about this because the speaker was deemed conservative and heaven forfend that women should be able to have single-sex spaces and sports.
Weirdly enough, I find myself a little heartened by the idea that even Hamas and White Supremacists have a core-group of 35-40% of people that are willing to let them come speak on campus or in other public events and places.
Let’s keep in mind, convincing ordinary people to support censorship requires a substantial amount of effort by elites to manufacture consent. They’ve been working really hard at this for decades. They have got to tell us about how scary all the various groups are, and why it’s SOOOO important to shut them up. It doesn’t just happen on its own.
Hearing from these sorts of ‘marginalized’ viewpoints, yes, even the horrible, distasteful ones, forces us to think hard about why we hold the views we hold and whether they’ve really been battle tested, or just based on assumptions that ‘everyone knows’.
I’m actually happy to see that all the modern propaganda messages and techniques deployed since 1939 haven’t really moved the needle that all that much away from free speech.
In my experience, all you have to do to convince people to curtail freedom of speech is claim it is “to protect children.” It seems to work pretty good for social media. The issue with censoring speech is that the censors are not without bias. To paraphrase Juvenal: Who censors the censors?
Freedom and liberty are different things and I think there is considerable confusion between the two. Some of it is intentional in order to cause confusion.
The preamble to the Constitution states the intention of the founders as in, “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
Freedom is an exception within the Constitution which is based on liberty which is why we have a Statue of Liberty, Liberty Bell, Liberty ships and coins.
Whereas freedom means you can do what you want, liberty means you can do whatever you want as long as it’s within the law. The law guarantees a secure society.
Most people, however, are surrounded by laws, everything from parking rules to tax regulations and laws against violent crime.
Thus, when it comes to speech they often see no reason why there should not be laws about speech.
More should be said about the distinction of freedom of speech and liberty within laws because without it the US will become unrecognizable.
It’s about power and control, by the rich over the middle and poor (the large majority). Two of my favorite quotes: ” He (or she/him/they/cousin it) who lies first, wins”. And another from Jaron Lanear “The largest server wins”.
The failing globalist dispensation is grounded in World War 2 atrocity propganda.
If you are not allowed to question this dispensation, or the claims made by the atrocity propaganda which forms its moral basis, then you do not have freedom of speech.
Unless one is specifically advocating killing a specific person or specific people, or committing some other violent crime, free speech should be absolute. And, no, social media companies like facebook and X are NOT “private companies” exempt from this. Their involvement with the state is too extensive for them to be exempt.