Tag: Free speech

Speech we don’t like needs most protection

By William H. Freivogel The tricky thing about the First Amendment is that you have to protect the speech you hate as fiercely as the speech you love.   You have to protect leftist speech as much as rightist speech. Communists as much as fascists. Religious fundamentalists as much as atheists. Calls for war as much

Wash U chancellor harms free speech by embracing College Republicans’ 9/11 message while ignoring hateful attacks on student protester

Washington University has condemned student Fadel Alkilani for removing some of the 2,977 American flags that the College Republicans placed on Mudd Field this past weekend to commemorate the victims of the 9-11 attacks.  In a statement issued Sunday, Chancellor Andrew Martin declared that Alkilani’s action impeded “the free exchange of ideas.” The university is

Charlie Hebdo haunts the media

By GEORGE SALAMON / When Islamist gunmen killed 10 journalists and two policemen in January at the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo, the satirical magazine firebombed in 2011 for its irreverent cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, media reaction to the massacre immediately after was best summed up by the headline of an article in Reason