The lethal freedom What is Free Speech? The History of a Dangerous Idea, by DabhoiwalaFara (Allen Lane, pp471, £30)

Protests and Dangerous IdeasU.S. College Campuses in the 1960s Jason S. Lantzer (bio) Radicals in the Heartland: The 1960s Student Protest Movement at the University of Illinois By Michael V. Metz (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2019. Pp. ix, 269. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Clothbound, $110.00; paperbound, $26.95.) Dangerous Ideas on Campus: Sex, Conspiracy, and Academic Freedom in the Age of JFK By Matthew C. Ehrlich (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2021. Pp. vii, 216. Illustrations, notes, index. Clothbound, $110.00; paperbound, $24.95.) Matthew C. Ehrlich's Dangerous Ideas on Campus: Sex, Conspiracy, and Academic Freedom in the Age of JFK presents an account of free speech debates at the University of Illinois in the early 1960s. Ehrlich considers two faculty-inspired cases that defined the Urbana campus for the tumultuous decade and beyond. The first is that of Leo Koch, whose contract to teach was terminated after he wrote a letter to the editor advocating a relaxing of societal norms towards sexual relations, including how they played out on the campus. The second case occurred in the wake of Koch's firing, and involved Classics professor Revilo Oliver, an increasingly radicalized right-wing figure at Illinois, who advanced not just anti-communism and antisemitism, but also conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Ehrlich's account of how the university handled these two ideologically different cases reveals how they were ultimately related, beyond taking place on the same campus. Despite their opposite ideological positions, both Koch and Oliver pushed and prodded the existing hierarchy, challenging the university's leadership, headed by President David Henry. Dangerous Ideas on Campus is driven forward narratively by Ehrlich's prose as well as the campus guide he provides the reader in the person of University of Illinois undergraduate Roger Ebert. The eventually famous movie critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper columnist first burst onto the newsroom scene covering some of the events Ehrlich describes. As a result, readers who might otherwise be unfamiliar with various aspects of law, campus life, politics, or just Illinois outside of Chicago, are given a familiar voice to help them navigate what at times is a disturbing and complex story. The chief strengths of Ehrlich's account are the questions he poses for readers to consider. What is the responsibility of the academic community to professors? What is the difference between free speech and academic freedom? These are important questions that Americans and the nation's universities still wrestle with. Ehrlich also highlights the irony that Koch, the liberal, was fired over exercising opinions about sexual relations between college students and the univerity's stance in loco parentis that eventually became the norm nationally, noting that the blowback over the university's decision to terminate him likely saved Oliver, the conservative, from a similar fate. Facing disgruntled faculty, parents, students, state politicians, and an official inquiry by the American Association of University Professors, the University of Illinois had no stomach for taking on Oliver's stances on a variety of issues. Perhaps one of the more interesting things Ehrlich touches on in his tightly written book, though he does not explore the issue in [End Page 80] depth, is how the status of these two men mattered. Koch was a contract instructor, what we might deem contingent faculty today. Oliver, on the other hand, was a tenured faculty member. If, as Ehrlich notes, tenured faculty are a check on campus administrations, then it is worth pondering the current state of higher education and how that effects modern campus discussions of both free speech and academic freedom. John F. Kennedy, pictured on the cover of Ehrlich's book at a 1960 campaign stop on the campus, is important for our memory and understanding of the 1960s. His election and presidential term, cut short by his murder, provide a convenient demarcation between the decade as Ehrlich describes it and the one that Michael Metz guides us through. Like all historical demarcation lines it is somewhat arbitrary, imperfect, and yet accurate. American life did change in the wake of Kennedy's assassination. Metz's narrative picks up where Ehrlich's ends. Radicals in the...

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsDaniel C. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. London, Allen Lane, Penguin Press, 1995Jon HodgeJon HodgeDivision of History and Philosophy of Science, Department of Philosophy, University of Leeds Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Volume 48, Number 3September 1997 Society: The British Society for the Philosophy of Science Views: 4Total views on this site Views: 4Total views on this site Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/48.3.435 Views: 4Total views on this site © 1997 by The Author. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Issues of incitement or verbal instigation of breach of the peace are often raised in prosecutions under statutes that have nothing to do with dangerous ideas or political radicalism. These issues are often litigated under statutes relating generally to public decorum or breach of the peace, as in the Australian decision Coleman v. Power, which is excerpted below. Although the legal contexts in which these issues are raised differ widely from the speech-specific statutes discussed in the previous chapter, the basic principles of free speech (and the ways in which courts discuss these principles) are often strikingly similar in each context. One of the questions raised by these cases is whether the prosecution of antisocial or offensive speech is just a cover for official suppression of the government’s ideological adversaries. Many of the statutes used against disruptive speakers involve public order or public decorum mandates. Should legal regimes protecting freedom of speech recognize a legitimate governmental interest in protecting the public from gratuitously abusive or insulting language? If so, should political dissenters nevertheless receive broader protection from official attempts to regulate the style of a speaker’s discourse? How would Mr. Coleman be viewed in this regard? Although his pamphlet complained of police corruption, he was not engaged in what would traditionally be considered political advocacy or political dissent. Viewed from this angle, these cases raise the question whether rules protecting free speech should treat generalized antiauthoritarianism in the same manner as more traditional political dissent.

This chapter investigates how the Supreme Court's growing adoption of Millian philosophy was halted, and regressed, in the early 1950s. Dennis v. United States (1951) succinctly exhibited the anti-Millian approach taken by the Supreme Court during the early years of the Cold War: “The societal value of speech must, on occasion, be subordinated to other values and considerations.” Another Red Scare gripped the nation, bringing with it a feeling that dangerous ideas needed suppression. Nevertheless, Justices Hugo Black and William Douglas dissented in Dennis, Roth v. United States (1957), Barenblatt v. United States (1959), and other key early Cold War cases. This pair of jurists harkened back to the free speech libertarianism of Holmes and Brandeis, with some of their opinions not only referring to the older dissents and concurrences but also reading like summaries of On Liberty, sometimes citing Mill. By referencing the opinions of Holmes and Brandeis, Black and Douglas—eventually joined by Chief Justice Earl Warren and Justice William Brennan—preserved Mill's thought in US constitutional law.

This article addresses fracturing of modern First Amendment law into multiple different sets of rules and rationales for protection of depending on what kind of speech is an issue. It is no longer accurate to say that there is one universal First Amendment jurisprudence; indeed, it is no longer accurate to say that there is one First Amendment. Today there are many different - often very different - First Amendments for different types of speech. On a practical level, this fracturing of First Amendment law creates difficulties only in that it requires litigators and judges addressing First Amendment issues to identify category or categories into which a particular example of speech fits. But on a theoretical level, fracturing of First Amendment jurisprudence is much more problematic. These theoretical problems arise because First Amendment jurisprudence is not just a collection of narrow rules and doctrines. These rules and doctrines are based on series of presuppositions about nature of individuals, proper relationship between government and its citizens, extent to which society should accept risks posed by dangerous or antisocial ideas, and liability of speakers for consequences of their speech. The problem is that courts make one set of assumptions when dealing with one area of expression and very different (and often contradictory) assumptions when dealing with other areas of expression. The article starts by describing baseline for all free speech jurisprudence - jurisprudence that applies to political advocacy. It then distills from Court's major political speech cases a set of principles that will be called the Brandenburg paradigm. The remainder of article discusses whether theoretical assumptions made in Brandenburg paradigm should also be applied to areas of speech other than political advocacy. Several areas of expression are addressed specifically, including threats, obscenity, teaching speech, and student speech in public schools. An assessment of these different speech categories indicates that there is no good reason to ignore Brandenburg paradigm outside political advocacy category. Indeed, there is one very good reason to apply Brandenburg paradigm to entire range of First Amendment issues: The assumptions that underlie Brandenburg - for example, that citizens control government rather than vice versa, that citizens should develop their own value systems free of government coercion, and that government should suppress ideas it dislikes only in face of serious, concrete harms stemming from that expression - should not be regarded solely as artifacts of First Amendment, but rather as indispensable elements of constitutional democracy itself.

Should the government censor dangerous anti-vaccination propoganda? Should it restrict the praise of terrorist groups, or speech intended to promote discriminatory attitudes? In other words, should the government curb the advocacy of dangerous ideas and actions (i.e. 'harmful advocacy'), or should the government take a more permissive approach? Strong free speech supporters argue that citizens should be free to engage in and to hear harmful advocacy, arguing that restrictions are deeply objectionable at best, and, at worst, wholly impermissible. To support their position, strong free speech supporters have offered a wide range of arguments and ideas. One of the most interesting arguments revolves around the idea that restrictions on harmful advocacy are deeply insulting to citizens. The worry, broadly understood, is that this kind of censorship is demeaning, treats citizens as though they are stupid, or as though they are children. As such, even when censorship is effective in preventing harms to citizens, it nonetheless comes at the significant political cost of failing to properly respect the citizenry at large. By contrast, so the thought goes, an alternative political scheme that prohibits censorship, or permits it only in exceptional cases, does a better job of respecting citizens as independent, rational, morally responsible agents. This alternative political system may, sometimes, be less effective at preventing speech harms. But it is a political system where citizens can stand tall and hold their heads high. In this paper, I consider and reject three versions of the worry that censorship is insulting. §1 explores the idea that censorship is insulting qua involving a negative appraisal of the citizens being interfered with. The key idea here is that censorship involves a lack of what Stephen Darwall terms ‘appraisal respect’, insofar as the government is suggesting that citizens cannot be trusted to manage their own beliefs and intentions. Drawing on the work of Thomas Nagel, §2 explores the idea that censorship diminishes the political status of citizens. Finally, §3 explores the suggestion that censorship is incompatible with a full appreciation of the thinking nature of citizens, and thus involves a lack of what Darwall would term ‘recognition respect’. The paper argues that censorship is not necessarily premised upon an insulting view of the citizenry. On the contrary, it argues that the best kind of censorship stems from a rich appreciation of the diverse range of capabilities, needs, vulnerabilities, and responsibilities of citizens, as well as the need for co-operation between citizens if societal flourishing is going to be achieved on a large scale. Granted, such a vision places an emphasis on the imperfections and liabilities of citizens – at least when compared to the rather solitary, highly intellectual creature one sometimes finds in the philosophical literature. Still, such a vision of citizens as imperfect falls well short of being genuinely insulting. To err is human. And there’s nothing insulting about being treated like a human.