Anti-free speech sentiments are on the rise in government, academia, and the media, creating an unprecedented threat to our constitutional right to express ourselves. This movement seeks to curtail a value that has long defined us as a nation, using fear and intimidation to silence opposing viewpoints.
In the wake of growing concerns about the erosion of free speech in the United States, Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley has penned an alarming assessment of the current state of affairs. According to Turley, we are living in "the most dangerous anti-free speech period in our history," with an alliance of government, corporations, academia, and media conspiring to create an unprecedented system of censorship.
This anti-free speech movement has its roots in higher education, where faculty have long argued that free speech is harmful. A generation of speech phobics has been raised, believing that opposing views are triggering and dangerous. Anti-free speech books, such as Barbara McQuade's "Attack from Within," portray free speech as an "Achilles Heel" that threatens national security and individual safety.
Free Speech Under Attack: The Threat to Our Indispensable Right
The Biden administration has added fuel to the fire, claiming that companies refusing to censor citizens are "killing people." They have sought to use the concept of "disinformation" to justify an unprecedented system of censorship. As Turley has pointed out in testimony before Congress, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has expanded its mandate to include "our cognitive infrastructure," giving it the authority to combat "malinformation" that may mislead others, even if it is based on facts.
The media has also been complicit in the anti-free speech campaign, running an unrelenting line of anti-free speech columns. The New York Times recently published a piece by Tim Wu describing how the First Amendment is "out of control" and protecting too much speech. Wu bizarrely claims that the First Amendment now "mostly protects corporate interests," further eroding public trust in the right to free speech.
Free Speech Under Attack: The Threat to Our Indispensable Right
There is even a movement afoot to rewrite the First Amendment through an amendment. Mary Anne Franks, a George Washington University Law School Professor, believes that the First Amendment is too "aggressively individualistic" and needs to be rewritten to emphasize "responsibility for abuses." Her proposal effectively replaces the clear statement in favor of a convoluted, ambiguous statement of free speech, leaving it open to interpretation and potential limitations.
Experts at leading universities have been fired or stripped of positions for questioning COVID claims. Conservative faculty have been hounded from schools, and conservative sites have been targeted by government-funded programs. Thousands have been banned from social media. What is particularly maddening for many in the free speech community is how the left has responded to opposition to censorship and blacklisting. Some have portrayed themselves as victims, claiming that those who criticize their work are targeting individuals and groups as disinformation.
Free Speech Under Attack: The Threat to Our Indispensable Right
Others, like comedian Jon Stewart, mock those who object to the erosion of free speech by noting that conservatives are making these objections on television or online. According to Stewart, if people can still object, there can be no problem. This suggestion that there can be no threat to free speech unless people are completely silenced is both naive and dangerous.
While Stewart may have the benefit of being a liberal comedian on a liberal network, the reality is that conservative voices face significant obstacles in academic and media forums. The purging of opposition viewpoints has created an echo chamber where those who remain have little to complain about.
Free Speech Under Attack: The Threat to Our Indispensable Right
The effort to assure citizens that "there is nothing to see here" is belied by a massive censorship system described by one federal court as "Orwellian." Conservatives face cancel campaigns and blacklisting in academic and media forums. As Turley has documented in his new book, conservative North Carolina professor Dr. Mike Adams faced calls for termination for years, ultimately resigning under pressure from the university shortly before committing suicide.
Many others have resigned or retired, robbed of the meaning and purpose that their intellectual pursuits once provided. This chilling message to others not to join the "cacophony of ... unlikeable voices" has had a profound impact on discourse and debate in our society.
Some citizens seem sufficiently afraid or angry to surrender their free speech rights. They have lost faith in free speech. For the rest of us, their crisis of faith cannot be allowed to become a contagion. We must have a reawakening in this country that, despite our many divisions, we remain united by this indispensable human right.
