Letter: Freedom of Speech is Sacred

Dear Editors,

You put me in the rather difficult position of defending the Nazis, but such is my commitment to freedom of speech that I shall do so.

In your editorial “Safe Spaces and Free Speech,” you predicated that “[t]here is a crucial distinction to be drawn between free speech and hate speech,” thereby demonstrating your formidable talent for paradox. If ignorant, offensive comments are not protected by the freedom of speech, then that freedom is nothing but an insulting farce. I do not enjoy being derogated, but I sold my torch and pitchfork to help pay for textbooks and therefore have been unable to persecute offenders.

“In the vast majority of cases, speech or assembly ought to be sacred,” you wrote. It happens that sacredness does not work quite that way. Either one supports absolute freedom of speech or one supports censorship; the two are incompossible. This is true even when the censors believe they are acting for the benefit of their community. A peaceful march is a peaceful march, regardless of whether the marchers are Nazis or girl scouts. What you call a university’s responsibility to its members quickly and alarmingly becomes a direct abrogation of the free debate for which President Faust advocated so strongly at Convocation.

This issue can be summarized by our old friend Thomas Jefferson: “Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.” Racial and sexual harassment are the results of ideas; if we are to eliminate them, we must spend more time arguing tolerance in the open forum and less time browbeating people with capricious restrictions of their fundamental rights.

Liam Warner '20 lives in Weld Hall.