Oversight
The Left-Wing Case for Free Speech
Stomping out speech we dislike will cause more harm than good
If you read the New York Times op-ed page or make the mistake of looking at political Twitter for more than two minutes, you’d think “free speech” had become an obscenity.
The argument — put forward by Bret Stephens, Bari Weiss, and countless others — goes something like this: Students, young people, and progressives are now actively hostile to the free speech protections that are afforded to everyone under the Constitution. Colleges are full of undergraduates demanding “safe spaces” and refusing to recognize the rights of those they disagree with. An entire generation of 18-to-24-year-olds are apparently all but ready to jettison the First Amendment.
This is bullshit. Take a look at the data — which almost no one seems to want to do — and you’ll see that the supposed controversy is both largely overblown and much more complicated than the headlines and frantic tweets about isolated incidents would suggest.
Even if the Free Speech Crisis of the 21st Century has been greatly exaggerated, the question of why we should protect strong First Amendment rights, even for those who express hate, is still an issue worth tackling. But it should be done by examining the roots of…
