In Defense of Free Speech

Hate speech and free speech are not mutually exclusive.

On the night of February 1, 2017, a week after the University California-Berkeley announced that it would protect the free speech rights of right wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos, an intense series of protests broke out on campus demanding that Yiannopoulos, who repeatedly bashes feminism, social justice, and the “regressive left,” be banned from the university’s premises. Yiannopoulos responded that “the hard left has become so antithetical to free speech in the last few years,” capitalizing on the left’s disregard for the First Amendment in an effort to broaden his appeal.

And just like that, I — a progressive and a social justice advocate — was forced to agree more with a raging right winger than with members of my own team.

Protests at UC Berkeley in favor of banning Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking.

Let me be clear: I think that hateful words are very powerful, and offensive speech should be fought vehemently in the realm of ideas. “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me” seems inherently false; words, especially offensive rhetoric targeted at vulnerable populations, can be emotionally devastating. And there are many entirely reasonable ways to combat bigoted, xenophobic language such as that of Milo Yiannopoulos — teaching social justice in school, organizing peaceful protests, preaching empathy, holding community forums, and so on.

Yet, many so-called “Social Justice Warriors (SJWs)” think that combating hateful or offensive speech with reason and productive discourse alone isn’t enough. They argue that we must go even further to deter hate speech by implementing censorship to solve the problem.

Such support for censorship is spreading, especially across college campuses nationwide. Universities throughout the country have banned a wide variety of phrases, including “Christmas vacation” and “crazy.” The University of Wisconsin-River Falls even banned students from using the phrase “you guys” for supposed misogyny and sexism.

I’m not overreacting here. The idea of combating bigotry through censorship is an increasingly popular viewpoint, especially among young liberals. Facebook friends of mine have repeatedly bashed the ACLU for defending the rights of Neo-Nazis to march peacefully, and were outraged that University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor Rebecca Blank reluctantly permitted an “Alt Right” group to meet on campus. I stared in disbelief as three of my friends defended Hillary Clinton’s proposed 2005 Flag Protection Act, which would have made flag burning illegal, and later when I overheard a group of peers commend the Wisconsin government for making blackface illegal (which never actually happened, but the fact that they would have supported such an assault on free expression, no matter how despicable, illustrates my point).

Even more frighteningly, a 2015 Pew poll found that 40% of millennials and 28% of Americans in general believe that the “government should prevent people from publicly making offensive statements about minority groups.”

Growing American (and Western European) openness to censorship is not a small, ignorable problem — it’s widespread, it’s growing, and it’s dangerous.

28% of Americans and 40% of millennials support banning free speech that is offensive to minorities.

So, what’s the big deal? What’s wrong with these censoring actions?

For one, they simply violate the First Amendment, one of the few near-perfect elements of our flawed American democracy. The First Amendment is the one thing we can brag about to other countries (such as the UK and Germany, which have vague and restrictive free speech laws) and say, “we are a free, socially libertarian democracy, and we’re proud of it.” Free speech is what distinguishes America from North Korea, and we must do everything in our power to keep it that way.

But there are much better reasons for defending the First Amendment, even when it comes to hate speech. For instance, take “the line,” the boundary created by the government to differentiate free speech from illegal speech. In the United States, the line is in the perfect place: libel, slander, and direct death threats are illegal, and all other speech goes untouched by the State.

And we should keep it that way. While we liberals may presume that hate speech is clear cut and well defined, it is truly subjective in the eye of the beholder. Joe McCarthy, for instance, found communism to be hate speech. A large proportion of Americans find flag burning or anti-war rhetoric to be offensive. A multitude of conservatives find feminists and Black Lives Matter protesters to be “terrorists.” These, of course, are utter mischaracterizations, but they show that “hate speech” or “offensive comments” are extremely subjective, and no one agrees on where exactly the line should be.

And this is the problem. Would progressives trust Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Republican Establishment to draw an objective, nuanced line? Would liberals want Newt Gingrich in charge of policing the speech of ordinary Americans? Surely not.

The fact of the matter is that there is no perfect, universally agreed upon line. And given the corruption abundant in our current State, a more restrictive line would inevitably be used by the status quo to punish anarchists, liberals, critical thinkers, and anti-Establishment skeptics. Sound Orwellian yet?

Some may argue in favor of writing a law that would specifically censor genocidal rhetoric. That is a very intriguing argument. But let’s take a look at the exact definition of genocide.

Who do you think Donald Trump or Neil Gorsuch would label as genocidal under this definition?

Since ISIS advocates for the genocide of all apostates, Shias, Atheists, and non-Muslims, President Trump, who has repeatedly shown an inability to distinguish Islamist fundamentalists from moderate Muslims, could have the grounds to ban Muslim prayer in the United States. Socialist revolutionaries could be considered “genocidal” against the ruling class, and therefore banned from congregating. Trump could even use Micah Johnson’s shooting of five Dallas cops to label Black Lives Matter a genocidal movement as a whole and to censor their ideas.

Even with clear-cut definitions, the State cannot be trusted to instate such nuanced bans in the real world. And when there are many better ways to combat fascism and bigotry outside of censorship —protests, dialogue, and reforming the education system included — the case for restricting free speech becomes more and more weak.

Protests that call for progressive change — not censorship — are the right way forward.

Many pro-censorship members of the left would respond to my list of alternative strategies by saying, “that’s not enough. We need to do everything in our power to stop fascism.”

But here’s the problem with that statement: it assumes that censorship is an effective deterrent to fascism. A closer look reveals that censorship can actually be counter-productive.

According to Rasmussen, 79% of Americans see political correctness as a “serious problem.” Many Americans feel like they have no voice among the crowd of left wingers, causing them to tune out our messages (“oh, the left? You mean, the people who want to censor me? No thanks!”). Censorship makes the average American feel alienated and ostracized.

When we shut them off, shout them down, and silence their voices, people begin to despise the left and sympathize with the right. That only weakens our power to sway people to our side.

Censorship also victimizes bigots. When we censor Milo Yiannopoulos, his public image transforms from that of a bigot to that of a victim (“poor Milo, just let him talk!”). This transformation helps the right wing.

When we use logical arguments, we win. When we use censorship, they win. We have the winning argument — why don’t we use it more?

Stipulating to right wingers that we are anti-censorship can go a long way. A few weeks ago, I was approached by a far-right Eastern European man who denied the existence of racism. The woman sitting next to me responded by shouting him down for half an hour straight, interrupting his statements and using straw man arguments. This man felt censored and promptly ignored the woman’s arguments.

But, when the woman left for the bathroom, I told the man that I’d listen to his ideas with open ears. I let him finish his sentences, and then responded by logically debunking his arguments one by one, citing real examples of systemic racism. When he felt listened to, he began to listen to me, and when he couldn’t formulate a logical response to my arguments he softened his position and agreed with me on several points — progress that would have been impossible in an atmosphere of censorship.

In addition to alienation and victimization, censorship and overt political correctness often obfuscate real, non-verbal issues in society. Too much focus on words hinders discussion on non-verbal, systemic issues like the gender pay gap, racially disproportionate incarceration rates, and other forms of homophobia, Islamophobia, and transphobia.

This distraction from systemic issues can be seen widely throughout my experience with social justice organizations at my high school. My classmates recently produced a video entitled “Microaggressions,” in which the narrator declared, “these microaggressions are the new form of racial discrimination,” a slap in the face to Michelle Alexander’s groundbreaking book about modern day systemic racism, The New Jim Crow. Surely, the inherently racist policies codified in the War of Drugs represent a more important aspect of racial discrimination than microaggressions. When my school’s Student Voice Union held discussions with freshmen about racism, I was shunned for acknowledging the fact that black and Hispanic children nationwide are three times as likely to be born into poverty than white children, and was instructed to focus solely on microaggressions and verbal slights.

Censorship and overt political correctness don’t help our movement — they hurt it. By removing censorship and PC outrage from our message, we can bring new voices into the conversation and simultaneously talk about equally (if not more) important issues.

Black and Hispanic children nationwide are about three times as likely as white children to be born poor. Unfortunately, I was forced to talk about microaggressions instead.

None of this is to say, of course, that hate speech should be encouraged or accepted —in fact, we should fight it at every opportunity — but it simply means that we have to revise our tactics. Just because something is hateful and bad doesn’t mean that the government should automatically step in and censor it. We should combat bigotry with just as much vim and vigor, and by replacing censorship with discussions, peaceful protests, and education, we open up millions of ears to our cause.

If you’re going to support the left through censorship, you are hurting our cause. You are endangering our progress. We must do better.