Why freedom of expression is fundamental

RACIST incidents on several American college campuses, notably at the University

of Missouri and at Yale, have sparked spirited student protests this month. As this
newspaperreported last week, some of these demonstrations have provoked further
debates about the freedom of speech. Is it acceptable for a faculty member to forcibly
prevent a student journalist from photographing a public demonstration and to call for
muscle to remove him from a scene where students are chanting Hey hey, ho ho,
reporters have got to go? Should administrators bow to student calls to unseat a house
master because she wrote a letter questioning Yales advice to students about how they
should dress up for Halloween?
Some observers say these events show that campus politics have veered from liberal
to intolerant. Others argue that highlighting offences to free speech are a self-serving
deflection from the scourge of racism on campus. At the University of Missouri,
recent years have seen white students littering the black culture centre with cotton balls
and using social media to issue death threats against black students. The atmosphere of
fear and intimidation is poisonous to college community. There is little doubt that
systemic and interpersonal racism plague many American campuses and that
administrators often fail to respond appropriately. Compared to these harms, the
purported damage to an abstract principle like freedom of speech may seem paltry.
But there are good reasons to resist calls to quieten down about the freedom of
speech. Democracy is founded on the proposition that people can govern themselves,
and well-informed self-governance is impossible in an atmosphere where members of
the press are excoriated for doing their jobs or where controversial ideas are subject to
punishment. John Stuart Mill argued in "On Liberty" that unconventional views often
contain a seed of truth that society should heed. The punitive impulse is inconsistent
with searching debate that may lead to novel approaches to old problems. Even when
dissenting views are completely without merit, he wrote, they might help others
understand anew why their ideas are worth holding. And as Justice Elena Kagan said a
year ago during a Supreme Court hearing involving a particularly nasty example of
online speech, the First Amendment requires a kind of a buffer zone to ensure that
even stuff that is wrongful maybe is permitted because we don't want to chill innocent
behaviour.
Maintaining that freedom of speech is fundamental is not to say that it is absolute.
Americas Supreme Court has held that there is no protection for libellous speech, for

example, or for expression that is obscene or likely to ignite a riot or provoke a fight.
Universities are perfectly within their rights to sanction students for issuing threats,
whether racially charged or not. Speakers are fully protected when expressing their
views about other peoples expression. But freedom of speech is not well served by
official action against people who deign to raise their voice in a debate.

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