Freedom of speech or freedom to silence?: how color-evasive racism protects the intimidation tactics of American extreme rightwing organizations

Abstract

ABSTRACT Extreme Rightwing Organizations (EROs) routinely use media outlets to harass professors and students. Simultaneously, EROs fund speakers and campus organizations that have a history of intimidating members of academic communities. Debates about how and whether to respond to ERO tactics that are framed in terms of balancing ‘freedom of speech’ against ‘inclusion’ engage in a variety of color-evasive racism that sustains white supremacist ideology and protects white privilege. This framing legitimizes tactics that empower EROs with the right to silence their critics and foster a climate of oppression. Through an autoethnographic case study of struggles at a small liberal arts college with how to respond to ERO tactics, this article argues that rejecting the ‘freedom of speech’ versus ‘inclusion’ framing that so often characterizes the debates can help us to move beyond the paralysis that EROs have manufactured and rally against their tactics of intimidation and harassment.