No easy answers where free speech clashes with hate speech.
Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof; or abridging the
freedom of speech, or of the press; or the
right of the people peaceably to assemble,
and to petition the government for a redress
of grievances.
—First Amendment to the
United States Constitution
The girl dribbled the
ball up the basketball
court, easily switching
hands as she worked her
way toward the goal. I
kept my distance, knowing
that if I guarded too
closely she’d speed past
me on her way to an
easy layup. She faked a
drive to the basket, and
when I was hopelessly
off balance, nailed a
twenty-foot jump shot.
“In your face!” she
laughed.
In my mind’s eye,
Amy Burns will always be that young girl with the quick
smile, easy laugh, and deadly jumper, but the memory
of the hour we spent playing basketball during a religious
retreat is now three decades old. Over the years
I would continue to teach the young adults at our
church, and while many would lead interesting lives,
none more so than Amy. In addition to a series of high-pressure
corporate jobs, she even spent a few years
working in war-torn Iraq.
Late in 2016, when she accepted the position of
Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing and Communications
Officer at Texas A&M University, I thought her
life might become slightly less stressful, but I was wrong.
A week before she arrived on campus, the president of
the university asked for Amy’s counsel: A private citizen
had arranged for a white supremacist to give a speech
on campus, there was no existing law to prevent the
appearance, what should the university do?
Ask this “free speech question” of different aged
Americans, and you will receive very different responses.
According to Pew Research, 40% of people born between
1982 and 2004, the Millennials, believe that the
government should be able to prevent people from publicly
making statements that are offensive to minority
groups. Only 25% of us Baby Boomers believe so. And
just 12% of the Silent Generation, the men and women
born between 1925-1945, endorse such a line of thought.
Like it, or not, the trend is
clear. So what has changed?
Imagine, for a minute, a
group of rich and powerful
white men, who, in addition to
leading a national political party,
have vested interests and undue
influences in business.
What? No, I am not thinking
about Trump and his Wall
Street cronies, but now that you
mentioned his name, I will offer
that if I wished to write, “He’s
a no-good, self-serving narcissist,”
I could, due to the events
of 1790-1800.
The Federalist Party, led by
one of our Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton, believed
in and wished to form a strong central government.
Two other Founding Fathers and eventual presidents,
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, suspicious of
ceding so much power to a handful of people, argued
against such a notion.
Prior to the presidential election of 1800, the Federalist
Party, which controlled all three branches of
government, passed the Sedition Act of 1798. The Act
made it a crime to publish any false, scandalous, and
malicious writing against the government of the United
States, the president, or either house of Congress, but
not against then Vice-President and the party’s future
opponent for president, Thomas Jefferson.
In response, Jefferson (who would become president
in 1801) and Madison drafted the Virginia and Kentucky
Resolves, declaring the Sedition Act to be a violation of
the First Amendment. Madison had not only written
the First Amendment to the Constitution, but the other
nine that followed, collectively, our Bill of Rights.
By the mid-1820s, the Federalist Party had all but
disappeared. In a footnote to history, Alexander Hamilton
died in 1804, the loser of an old-fashioned gun
duel with his long time antagonist, the sitting Vice
President, Aaron Burr. We take a reluctant leave of
such an interesting moment in American history and
move to the 1960s.
“Hell no, we won’t go; hell no, we won’t go!”
Such was one of the anti-war slogans of the 1960s,
shouted by many of my generation, who believed that
the government was lying to the American people
about the “success” of the Vietnam War. “We’re winning,”
the government lied. “You’re lying and we’re dying,”
we cried.
When the esteemed broadcaster Walter Cronkite
broke with his tradition of simply reporting the
news to opine that the war was a mistake, President
Johnson told an aide, “If we’ve lost Cronkite, we’ve lost
Middle America.”
James Madison would have been proud that the
“checks and balances” inherent in his First Amendment
helped stop the Vietnam War.
He might have been less proud, however, when my
generation burned the American flag in protest of the
war, one of many acts that have caused “we the people”
and our court systems to squabble about the definition
of First Amendment rights.
Does the First Amendment apply to hate speech?
Do I have the right to post what I want about whom I
want on Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube? What separates
art from pornography? Is Playboy obscene? How about
Penthouse or Hustler? In the last hundred years, our Supreme
Court has ruled on many such matters, interpreting
the words that Madison had written from earlier and
less complex times.
“Donald Trump, 2016.”
Those three simple words appeared before last
year’s election on a wall at Emory University. Concerned
that the mere name of the person who would turn
out to be our future president would stress some
students, Emory’s president pledged to provide them a
“safe environment.”
Are you kidding me?
Hey, you precious young darlings, when I attended
college the United States National Guard shot and killed
student protestors at Kent State and the University of
California-Berkeley, fifty thousand of my generation lost
their lives in Vietnam, and a number of my generation
were beaten and jailed by the police during the Civil
Rights protests of the 1960s.
And please, if you are one of the 40% who wishes
“the government” to define and pass laws limiting
speech that you find offensive, think the matter through!
Donald Trump is our president! Our Congress has Republican
majorities in both the House and the Senate!
So you wish to cede some portion of free speech rights to
the judgments of these like-minded people?
My over-fifty years of age friends of all political
persuasions, feel as I do: Better to tolerate the extremists
then to cede any portion of our First Amendment
rights. So does Joanne Berger-Sweeney, the middle-aged
African-American president of Trinity College
in Connecticut.
Frankly, I get it. Lately, some campus protests
around the country have gone awry in truly
ugly ways. Now it’s commencement season. Are
controversial speakers going to be uninvited
and ceremonies halted by protests?
If so, all of us in higher education should be
ashamed. It’s our job as educators to uphold
free speech and to teach the responsibilities
that come with that freedom. And, yes, we
must provide safe spaces, spaces that are safe
for speech, not from it.
So what did my friend and Senior Vice President at
Texas A&M recommend to that college’s leadership?
“I suggested that it would not be in our interest to
arbitrarily cancel the event. As distasteful as it was, by
the university by-laws, he had the right to give his talk.
If we canceled, A&M would have received much criticism
from those who believe in free speech, no matter
the subject matter.
“Once that matter was decided, I suggested we hold
a different event at the same time, only at a much larger
venue. Those who wished to affirm the inclusive values
that Texas A&M stands for could attend, as we celebrated
the diverse nature of our university and country.
“But despite our positive initiatives, we knew the
risk of conflict was high, and that any type of confrontation
could lead to violence, as has happened on other
campuses. So we met with the various law enforcement
agencies to develop plans and contingencies in
the event of trouble. Thankfully, there was none. While
the white supremacist was allowed his say, thousands
of our students had a place to share their far more affirming
values.”
Thirty years have passed since Amy and I played
our basketball game. Her mom and dad live nearby, so
once or twice a year she stops by for a visit. I am proud
of her many accomplishments, no more so than the
time she skillfully managed to protect the challenge to
our nation’s precious First Amendment.
Americana is a monthly column highlighting the cultural and historical nuances of this land through the rich storytelling of columnist Bill Fitzpatrick, author of the books, Bottoms Up, America and Destination: India, Destiny: Unknown.