Free Speech in American Universities
Free speech only comes into its own when you freely consent to hear what you hate to hear.
When everyone is singing from the same songbook, it sure may sound mighty sweet – but it is not free speech. It then becomes a type of cackle of congregating geese or perhaps even the synchronized song of several robins of early spring, singing the same song together. Except for the robins themselves (or perhaps even for them!), this would become insufferably boring after the first full flush of amorous feeling.
It is the multitudinous, different tones and timbres and pitches of birdsong that has been the stuff of the poet’s longing and the spurned lover’s consolation when he walks in the woods alone. In comparing the song of the skylark to that of the nightingale and several other choristers of the skies and choosing one (Shelley, the skylark) or the other (Keats, the nightingale), we may join the poet in the exercise of free choice that follows the exercise of free speech.
For those of us who have resolved to fight the good fight of freedom, for those of us who believe in the right to protest and the right to free speech, we must support free speech anywhere, everywhere, even in our universities. Especially in our universities.
We don’t have to agree with those who protest. We may even detest their views with all our hearts. But we of all people must uphold their right to protest. To protest in peace is a fundamental right. It follows from the right to free speech and it is deeply indebted to our Christian civilization and the bequeathing to us of the ability to choose life or death, blessing or curse, for ourselves.
The present, widespread turmoi
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