National Free Speech News & Commentary

Commentary: Know Your Enemies

May 19, 2023 1 min read

By Angel Eduardo
Persuasion, Substack

Excerpt: If only out of pure self-interest, we shouldn’t just be willing to hear the arguments of those with whom we disagree, we should be eager to. Without letting them speak, you can’t know where they stand, and, to paraphrase John Stuart Mill’s famous quote from On Liberty: If you don't know the other side's argument, you really don't know much of your own, either.
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In this small Illinois town, beware the book police

May 19, 2023 1 min read

By Jordan Howell
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

Excerpt: An Illinois teacher is out of a job after a group of parents accused her of “child grooming” for including an LGBTQ-themed book in a reading assignment for eighth grade students in the town of Heyworth. The book is one of nearly a hundred of all different subjects and themes provided to students back in March as part of the assignment, and Heyworth Chief of Police Michael Geriets seized dozens of books during his sprawling, weeks-long investigation.
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VICTORY: UNC Chapel Hill rejects task force recommendation, shows why it’s a ‘green light’ school

May 18, 2023 1 min read

By Harrison Rosenthal
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

Excerpt: In a victory for academic freedom, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced its decision to not implement recommendations made by the School of Medicine’s Task Force to Integrate Social Justice into the Curriculum that would condition tenure and promotion on faculty commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
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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.
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Commentary: Collective Guilt is the Most Indefensible Form of Cancel Culture

May 17, 2023 1 min read

By Yascha Mounk
Persuasion, Substack

Excerpt: Last weekend, PEN America—which is dedicated to defending and promoting free expression around the globe—canceled a panel in which dissident writers, including Russian journalists who have long been deeply critical of Putin’s regime, were going to present their work.
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The Demise of Diversity in College Admissions

May 17, 2023 1 min read

By Mark Mutz, Richard Gunderman
Heterodox Academy

Excerpt: Most observers expect that later this year the U.S. Supreme Court will rule that race-conscious admissions programs at universities are unlawful. A ruling of this kind has the potential to clarify the tangled jurisprudence regarding affirmative action in higher education. It also has the potential to begin to reduce the concern and confusion about diversity besetting American institutions.
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