Episode 45 - First Amendment Follies: What the Right Gets Wrong About Free Speech & the College Campus

Speak Out with Tim Wise

As I wind down my summer hiatus from interviewing guests, enjoy this extended commentary on the issue of free speech, and what it means—and doesn’t mean—on campuses and in the nation at large. Lately, amid the decision of various social media companies to ban conspiracy theorist Alex Jones or neo-Nazis from their platforms—and amid pushback against right-wing speakers invited to college campuses—many folks (conservative and liberal) have insisted that these moves amount to violations of the free speech rights of those affected. But this is neither legally nor logically accurate. Free speech does not entitle anyone to another person’s platform, online, in a newspaper, on the radio, or in a lecture hall at a University. In this commentary I explore the fallacies surrounding the notion of free speech and the requirements of the first amendment, the legal standards currently in place on these matters and what colleges can do (and should be able to do) to uphold their missions and values, and to fulfill their core function: the dispensation of scholarship. To think that schools are obligated to provide platforms to particular outside speakers as part of the "search for truth" or as part of the “marketplace of ideas” is philosophically ridiculous, for reasons I explain in detail on this week’s show.