Commentary: Statehouses, Not Student Activists, Are the Real Threat to Free Speech

May 17, 2023 1 min read

By Eduardo Peñalver
Chronicle of Higher Education

Excerpt: The fact that Martinez’s letter, written in response to her students’ constrained conception of expressive freedom, is being hailed as a watershed moment — even as dozens of states consider or implement bans on critical race theory — reveals a great deal about the complex and often confused nature of our national conversation about freedom of speech on (and off) campus.

Many of these strident voices — so concerned about the dangers left-wing students and faculty pose to the freedom of speech — have remained curiously silent about the use of state power to suppress speech in the form of bans on so-called “critical race theory.”

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