Roundtable: The Truth About America and Free Speech

Is the culture of the United States of America empowering more voices to communicate its viewpoints or is it becoming restrictive and punitive; that’s a societal debate, and sometimes a contentious one between individuals and groups.

The New York Times editorial board has noticed and believes there is a notable cause for concern, something it discussed in its opinion piece, “America Has a Free Speech Problem.”

“For all the tolerance and enlightenment that modern society claims, Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.

“This social silencing, this depluralizing of America, has been evident for years, but dealing with it stirs yet more fear. It feels like a third rail, dangerous. For a strong nation and open society, that?is?dangerous.”

This Communication Intelligence conversation roundtable includes?Jared Carter, J.D., an assistant professor of law, Constitutional Law specifically, at Vermont Law School. Carter’s expertise includes the 1st Amendment.

This roundtable also involves Cheryl Casey, Ph.D., an associate professor of Communications and Creative Media at Champlain College. Part of Dr. Casey’s areas of expertise is language and culture, gender representation and identity, and critical media studies. In 2019, she co-authored the textbook, New Media, Communication & Society.

Communication Intelligence: The Times’ essay says, “Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.” Is that possibly overstated or has this become a significant cultural problem with oversized risks and dangers?

Carter: I think it is overstated but not unimportant. The First Amendment protects the right to speak — that does and should include the right to criticize the speaker. There is no right to not be criticized for speech one offers in the public discourse; it is a two-way street.

However, the right to speak only has value if others listen. Today, with social media and endless news cycles, few of us take the time to listen to one another — especially those we disagree with. Speech without listeners is of minimal democratic value.

You need civility to have civil society, and you need civil society to have a functioning democracy.?

Casey: It is a significant cultural problem, because the focus is far less on the quality of the ideas and more on the character and worth of the person expressing them. At the same time, everybody wants to speak but no one wants to listen.?

A healthy democracy requires that people are free to express their ideas and also that they are willing to listen to others’, ask and answer questions and engage in reasoned discourse.

Hurling insults, harassment, and threats — either in the name of free speech or to silence it — is a toxic proxy for the democratic exercise of free speech.

Communication Intelligence: “People should be able to put forward viewpoints, ask questions and make mistakes and take unpopular but good-faith positions on issues that society is still working through — all without fearing cancellation.”

Is this really happening? If so, are we grossly over-policing people's communication, digging up each other's histories as well as seeking to destroy or is a needed correction happening that will eventually prove beneficial?

Casey: The term ‘cancellation’ really bothers me, because it seems to have taken hold in the popular lexicon in the wake of rich and powerful figures — usually male and white — finally being called out and held accountable for their bad behavior.?

Those in power have been chilling speech and other forms of legal expression since before this country was founded. What is different and dangerous today is how our digital media environment enables, if not encourages us to weaponize our information technologies on a large scale against those with whom we disagree.?

Carter: People should absolutely be able to put forward viewpoints, ask questions, and make mistakes: That’s how democracy works. One of the problems in today’s society — in which social media ‘likes’ and viral videos launch careers — is that people don’t always take good faith positions.

For example, we’re seeing that at the highest level, where politicians claim loyalty to Donald Trump and his ‘stop the steal’ campaign in public, but it turns out they don’t really believe the 2020 election was stolen.

I am not sure this is a new phenomenon, it's just that the media culture and technological environment we are in now makes it much more pernicious.?

Communication Intelligence: “When speech is stifled or when dissenters are shut out of public discourse, a society also loses its ability to resolve conflict, and it faces the risk of political violence.”

How important is it that we protect dissenting speech, even if it angers us? Or is it important?

Carter: It is incredibly important to protect dissenting speech. And, we do. I would argue that the purpose of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment is specifically meant to protect dissenting speech.?

Casey: It is absolutely necessary that we protect dissenting speech. Anyone that has ever done a group project at school, at work, in their community or participated in team sports knows full well that the highest quality outcomes occur when lots of different ideas are considered and tested.

Like it or not, we are in this together.?

Communication Intelligence: “Making the internet a more gracious place does not seem high on anyone’s agenda, and certainly not for most of the tech companies that control it.”

What is the solution to this clear problem, whether it's tech companies or our citizenry?

Carter: This is a huge issue, perhaps the most important speech issue of our day. And, believe it or not, I think solving it presents us an opportunity to bring society together.

Let’s be honest: We all feel the lurking premonition that social media is harming us and harming democracy. It can be useful, but tech companies ultimately have only one interest and obligation — maximizing returns for their shareholders.

Just as Roosevelt did with the so-called ‘trusts,’ it's time for us to break up these all-powerful tech companies, or at least make them legally liable for what happens on their sites.?

Casey: No place run by cut-throat mandates of profitability will ever be gracious. Our media and tech industries create products for our consumption, use and culture. The fate of democracy is more wrapped up in the political economy of media than any other industry, and as long as our democratic tools are primarily governed by the logic of capitalism, we will be hard-pressed to find a viable solution.

Both tech companies and citizens are complicit in preserving this status quo.?

Communication Intelligence: “But the old lesson of ‘think before you speak’ has given way to the new lesson of ‘speak at your peril.’ You can’t consider yourself a supporter of free speech and be policing and punishing speech more than protecting it. Free speech demands a greater willingness to engage with ideas we dislike and greater self-restraint in the face of words that challenge and even unsettle us.”

This seems obvious, yet it isn't to us as a collective. How do we, as individuals and a country, come to realize it and work towards it in a manner that improves our communication towards one another, whether one-on-one, in groups or through the bullhorn of social media?

Casey: Nobody ever talks about the importance of listening when it comes to free speech. Yes, listening is implied in the act of engaging with ideas, but without naming it and understanding it as a crucial act in that engagement, we tend to overlook its significance and the intentional effort it requires.?

How about, ‘Listen before you speak?’?As soon as we hear speech that we don’t like, we react, often with knee-jerk speed. But hearing isn’t the same thing as listening.

Carter: I think we need to reimagine civil society and get back to teaching civics in school. You need civility to have civil society and you need civil society to have a functioning democracy.?

Communication Intelligence: “Emily Leonard is a 93-year-old from Hartford, Conn., who described herself as a liberal. She said she was alarmed about reports of speakers getting shouted down on college campuses.”

It seems that like college campuses are where we are empowered to express ourselves yet some people only seem to want that liberty for themselves. They don't want to extend it to others to whom they don't respect or like. They want to be part of mob rule. Is this healthy and if so, why and if not, why not? And will students take this behavior into the workplace and society, shouting people down?

Carter: If you are going to say controversial things, you’ve got to be willing to accept that people are going to respond in loud and controversial ways. I think much is being made of ‘shouting down’ speakers, but I don’t think this is actually the norm on most college campuses.

No doubt, there are certain institutions that are more liberal and others that are more conservative but I generally think our colleges and universities are accepting of diverse political views. I think the solution isn’t to start prohibiting students from criticizing a speaker who is saying controversial things — and even sometimes shouting that speaker down.

We do need to do a better job listening to each other, that is where civics comes in. But sometimes we need to shout — no matter which side of the political coin we are on — and the First Amendment protects our right to do that.

Casey: College students are modeling their behaviors after the adults in their lives and society at large. And many adults are legitimizing mob rule through their own behaviors. Of course it’s not healthy.

Shouting down speakers means not listening. Shouting is toxic in interpersonal relationships when it dominates the communication climate, and that toxicity scales up pretty effectively.

Communication Intelligence: “Attacking people in the workplace, on campus, on social media and elsewhere who express unpopular views from a place of good faith is the practice of a closed society.”

How do we not realize that we are not as open a society as we believe, with our speech, these days as we believe and that we might be moving dangerously and unwanted, to even more of a closed society than we might feel we're living in now?

Casey: We don’t realize what’s happening because as a society, we are historically terrible at understanding problems through a systemic lens. The American value system cherishes individualism first and foremost. Success and failure are each the function of an individual’s willingness to be productive.?

We see this myth embedded in media narratives and public discourse across the decades, from the image of the Marlboro Man to the celebration of those who ‘pull themselves up by their bootstraps.’

Our collective storytelling makes little room for how political, economic, and social structures work to constrain some individuals and empower others. Those who manage to overcome systemic constraints — either by sheer luck or sheer force of will — are referenced as evidence of what an individual can accomplish.

In reality, they are exceptions to the rule being used to prove the rule. In the case of free speech, we’re losing the forest for the trees by focusing so intently on individual agency.?

Carter: I disagree with the basic premise here that we are a closed society or moving in the direction of becoming one.

I do fear that social media and tech is breaking society up, but not in the way implied by this question. That we are here talking about these issues and these problems is, in part, demonstrative of the fact that we can still debate these topics, and even debate the way we debate these topics.

I do think that if we don’t figure out the social media-tech side of things, we will end up in a society where we don’t really listen to each other, don’t really have respect for each other, and have a pretty hard time functioning as a democratic society.

The New York Times editorial board opinion ended this way (if you didn’t or don’t read it):

“Free speech is predicated on mutual respect — that of people for one another and of a government for the people it serves. Every day, in communities across the country, Americans must speak to one another freely to refine and improve the elements of our social contract: What do we owe the most vulnerable in our neighborhoods? What conduct should we expect from public servants? What ideas are so essential to understanding American democracy that they should be taught in schools?

“When public discourse in America is narrowed, it becomes harder to answer these and the many other urgent questions we face as a society.”

This article first appeared in Communication Intelligence on May 5, 2022.