How free speech became a radical notion to the left
And why it's just a matter of time until things get set straight
I'm perennially optimistic. I've maintained for as long as I've been writing columns that our best days are ahead. I understand how others might not share this confidence, but I think (or at least hope) that they just aren't looking far enough ahead. If, for instance, you were living in Germany in the 1930's you'd have probably not been too hopeful about the future either – and you'd have been right, but only for about a decade.
The evidence for a positive slope on the humanity vs time curve is overwhelming. We do encounter the occasional run of one step up and two steps back, but we always snap out of it. Unfortunately we're in one of those runs right now on the matter of free speech - which is in rough shape for a society which enshrines freedom of expression in the law.
One of the things that makes our country great are the protections on speech afforded by the First Amendment. The First Amendment, however, prevents only the government from interfering with your right to say what's on your mind. The First Amendment does not apply to private entities – nor should it. If, for instance, you promote ideals or practices that run counter to what your employer wants they may cut you loose. As long as the government isn't involved, it's their right, in most instances, to send you packing even if they are wrong on the substance.
But there exists a substantial gray area in the realm between government and the private sector in which individuals or entities act, for all intents and purposes, as agents of the government. There is no guidance in the First Amendment for this. That leaves it to the judiciary to clean up.
I'm confident that we're about to see a plenitude of such First Amendment cases in the coming years. I'm hopeful that any of these which reach the Supreme Court will be decided, when appropriate, via an original, or at least a textual, interpretation of the First Amendment. My guess is that they will - and that potentially means trouble for censorship by social media companies over “misinformation” at the behest of government officials just for starters.
This week I posted an article on Substack that addressed the current hostility towards free speech in higher education. Although I think this is an issue in education from top to bottom, it's particularly (and unfortunately) acute at many colleges and universities. The devaluation of free speech in academia is nothing less than a betrayal of foundational ideals in higher education.
Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal, recently gave a speech in which he stated that higher education is now as corrupt as the Catholic Church was during the Reformation. Thiel cites the widespread academic practice of stifling debate by canceling those on the wrong side of woke orthodoxy. These individuals, generally faculty, almost always turn out to have run afoul of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) dictums. These days, debate in higher education is allowed only if both sides come from corners on the same side of the ring.
Thiel, in my opinion, is absolutely right - and the contagion is spreading. When a critical mass of professionals: academics, scientists, doctors and CEO's, start believing that meritocracy is bad, that the link between effort and reward is structurally inequitable, that hard things must be dumbed-down to nonsense (generally by people who have little idea of what they are deconstructing) because they don't easily lend themselves to equity, we have a problem.
When all of this becomes unchallengeable, as it often has in higher education, we have a disaster.
A few weeks ago I wrote about Ilya Shapiro and his cancellation at Georgetown Law. Mr. Shapio's case is unusual only in that Georgetown was particularly shameless in their mistreatment of him despite a lot of empty boilerplate about freedom of expression.
The way that it generally works in higher education, something which I've had to chance to observe up close, is more through subterfuge. If you are on the wrong side of the correct orthodoxy, which generally means being politically and/or socially conservative and reluctant to self-censor, you might find that you don't get the best committee assignments, that your internal grants get scrutinized much more carefully, that your tenure and promotion (or post tenure review) is anything but routine.
I maintain that the suppression of conservative speech in higher education is not only hypocritical and dead wrong, but that it's illegal. Any institution which receives taxpayer funds or that falls under the auspices of Title IX, and that's most of them, is an agency of government. This makes cancellation illegal under the First Amendment.
The single thing that has been most responsible for my drift away from the left is their penchant for condemning and punishing speech that they don't like. Ultimately they'll lose this battle, but there's plenty of time for mischief until they do.
Any non-partisan who watched the televised debate a few nights ago between Pennsylvania Senate candidates John Fetterman (D), and Dr. Mehmet Oz (R), would have a difficult time concluding that Mr. Fetterman has regained much control of his ability to communicate after his recent stroke. Yet when a journalist from NBC, Dasha Burns, reported before the debate that Fetterman was having trouble communicating off-script, she was roundly condemned by the left as an ableist. Fetterman's wife, Gisele, advocated for “consequences.”
It turns out that not only did Burns accurately report Fetterman's condition, but that she was the only adult in the room when it came to the blow back. Burns actually defending her media critics by stating that it was entirely possible for different reporters to get different impressions from the subject of an interview. Bravo, Ms. Burns.
Though I do not agree with Mr. Fetterman's politics, I felt bad watching him struggle in such a public way. No one should be humiliated like that. His handlers, who knew about his condition even before his primary victory, are the ones who ought to be ashamed. Can Fetterman function as a Senator with his medical issues? Who knows? But the public has a right to know what's going on.
In Ms. Burns case, though the enmity directed towards her doesn't involve the First Amendment, it is an indication of how far the left is prepared to go prevent ideas or facts which they find inconvenient to be discussed without “consequence.” I don't think that they can get away with this for much longer, but every day that do is one too many.
Associated Press and Idaho Club-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time with family, riding mountain bikes and motorcycles and playing guitars. His writing on Substack, “Howlin' at the Moon in ii-V-I” may be found at martinhackworth.substack.com