Ep. 20 | Our Free Speech Crisis. Don't Blame the Students.

For our 20th Episode, we circle back to the beginning. In Episode 1, we asked why the mainstream press struggled so mightily to call the GOP’s campaign of discriminatory censorship what it is: an unapologetic assault on free speech. Unfortunately, little has changed. 18 months later, and much of the press remains mired in a dysfunctional and dangerous “free speech debate.” To correct that narrative, we dive into a Newsweek op-ed that Prof. Feingold published with renown critical theorists Professors Athena Mutua and Angela Harris, all members of the Critical (Legal) Collective. They identify four troubling dynamics that continue to distort our national “free speech” conversations: (1) misdiagnosing the crisis; (2) presuming universities can’t take sides; (3) selective sympathy for conservative viewpoints; (4) disdain for students. The upshot: there is a free speech crisis. Unless we see it or name it, we shouldn’t expect to survive it.

#RaceClass Reqs: The Real Threat to Free Speech is Coming from the Right