Free Speech: Time for a Different Kind of Discussion
by Joseph Kahne and Carlos E. Cortés
A January 6, 2022, headline in the Washington Post trumpeted the dire news: “Most Americans support freedom of speech, but....” The article’s first line went on to proclaim that while Americans overwhelmingly support free speech, they are “deeply conflicted on what is protected, what should be restricted, by whom, and on what grounds.” The story pointed out that “a shockingly large minority supports government restrictions on some kinds of speech under some circumstances.”
Shocking to them, maybe, but not to us. That’s what repeated polls of high school students have been reporting for a number of years. When given the opportunity to respond in the virtue-signaling abstract, students express support for freedom of speech. However, when that broad abstraction gives way to individuals’ aspirations about how speech should function in daily life, they feel quite differently. Over and over, large majorities of students opine that some kinds of speech (especially speech that demeans social identities or signals intolerance of mar- ginalized groups) need to be restricted.