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WATCH: What’s Happening to Free Speech on College Campuses?

By Maureen Collins posted on: July 16, 2020

Is free speech worth protecting?

Our Founding Fathers protected this right in the First Amendment of our Constitution because they knew that the free expression of thought is a vital part of a free society. And if certain viewpoints are censored, it is a recipe for tyranny.

But this past summer, we’ve seen many argue that certain viewpoints must be shut down rather than debated. We’ve witnessed:

  • Author J.K. Rowling  received sharp criticism simply because she tweeted that biological sex is real.
  • A group of left-leaning professors, journalists, and authors sign a letter in favor of free debate of ideas only to face massive backlash. Some even recanted their signatures.
  • The New York Times Editor Bari Weiss and New York Magazine author Andrew Sullivan both resign this week from their jobs because their colleagues were intolerant of the opinions they expressed.

And that’s really just scratching the surface.

What’s happening now isn’t surprising when we take a closer look at some of the developments on university campuses the past several years. You can learn more about it by watching the latest Freedom Matters video below:

 

 

On many university campuses, if you express a viewpoint that is out of line with far-left ideology, you will face repercussions. And as you saw in the video, some faculty members argue that freedom of speech is an oppression to be fought instead of a good to be protected.

Unfortunately, these attacks on free speech are no longer constrained to college campuses. We are seeing them in newsrooms and other public forums.

Thankfully, there is hope. There are brave people in our nation who are still standing for free speech, including college students like Bernadette Tasy, who stood up for speech on her campus in California, and Chike Uzuegbunam, whose case will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court next term. And Alliance Defending Freedom is honored to stand with them because every American has a God-given right to speak freely.

FREE SPEECH IN DIVIDED TIMES: THE PROBLEM OR THE SOLUTION?