You Can Defend Alexandra Wallace’s Right to Free Speech Without Defending the Speech Itself « Student Activism

You Can Defend Alexandra Wallace’s Right to Free Speech Without Defending the Speech Itself « Student Activism

You Can Defend Alexandra Wallace’s Right to Free Speech Without Defending the Speech Itself

by Angus Johnston

There’s something I find very weird about the campus-free-speech crowd centered around FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education).

Every time a new example of incendiary, bigoted campus speech hits the news, the FIRE folks rise up to defend the speaker’s right to his or her opinions — as, in my opinion, they should. Like them, I’m generally opposed to campus speech codes and in favor of the principle that more speech is the best remedy for bad speech.

But see what I did there? I called bad speech “bad speech.” Because my opinion on whether speech needs defending has nothing to do with whether I consider that speech obnoxious. I’m happy to describe bad speech