How to talk about free speech — and why we should all care

If you value free speech but dread talking about it in this toxic climate, here’s a suggestion: Call it something else. “Free speech” covers a lot of ground. People use the term to name very different issues, each with its own potential path forward. Unless we distinguish among them we’re wasting words or, worse, fueling the binary thinking that we claim to lament. 

When elected officials or government agencies ban or curtail access to material, that’s state-sponsored censorship. If you’re talking about the federal government regulating sexually explicit material, or school boards removing Harry Potter from library shelves, or legislatures outlawing specific anti-bias curricula, then call it this. We as pluralistic communities could consider when state-sponsored censorship is defensible and who has the authority to impose it. These discussions benefit from a little humility and some First Amendment research. Smart people have been thinking about this for a long time. 

When an individual chooses not to ask a question, express an opinion, or join a heated conversation, that’s self-censorship. No authority or law is intervening. A person who is formally free to speak may choose not to, for any number of reasons. If you’re talking about social media echo chambers or groupthink or a chilling effect or imposter syndrome, then self-censorship may be your topic. Here the “why” matters. Do those who self-censor fear making a mistake or being expected to speak for others? Are we afraid of being called out on social media, or offending a friend, or feeling isolated when we already may feel like we don’t belong? Addressing these questions honestly can help us build multiple contexts that support substantive, difficult, authentic conversations in which all feel free to speak. What won’t help is legislation. 

If you’re worried about Twitter-initiated boycotts, public calls for ostracizing or firing, interest groups buying influence or protesters shouting down speakers, then you’re questioning the tactics that individuals and groups are using to express themselves. Here it’s helpful to think through the line between speech and action and to ask if and why some tactics may be ill-advised, unethical, or subject to regulation. We could also consider how we each distinguish among tactics we think are appropriate and those we’re willing to question. Thoughtful people will come to varied points of view. 

These few examples, I hope, suggest that precise language matters, especially in times of division and polarization, when finding even a sliver of common ground is challenging. Precision makes conversations less fraught and less overdetermined. It also makes it harder to dress up a partisan stance — protecting speech we like while condemning speech we don’t — as a principled one. 

More concrete language can also bring together unlikely interlocutors. Those who support campaign finance reform, for example, might productively engage with those who question shouting down speakers. There are, perhaps, interesting analogies between imposter syndrome and a fear of being wrong. Professors, deans and students could discuss whether self-censorship can sometimes enable freedom of inquiry. And as we talk, we might experience an upside of living in a big, heterogeneous country — learning from unlikely allies even as we strengthen our deepest convictions.

Carol Quillen is a professor and president emerita, Davidson College, and senior fellow with the Aspen Institute.