Protect Freedom of Speech

In the hours after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Ward Churchill, an ethnic studies professor at the University of Colorado, penned an essay rationalizing the attacks as a result of U.S. foreign policy. Professor Churchill claimed that the attacks were in part, a retaliation for the "1991 US 'surgical' bombing of [Iraq's] water purification and sewage facilities, as well as other 'infrastructural' targets upon which Iraq's civilian population depends for its very survival."

Ward Churchill's essay received little notice until 2005, when students at Hamilton College in upstate New York successfully protested against the professor appearing as a guest lecturer. Professor Churchill then came under withering media attack for referring to the World Trade Center victims as "Little Eichmann's," a reference to Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.

Professor Churchill's essay stirred debate as to whether it is taboo in America to take an alternative view about the events of 9/11. The essay also resulted in a melee between those who would suspend free speech in favor of decorum and the proponents of unrestricted free speech. Professor Churchill used his First Amendment rights to take a stand on what he felt was an important issue. Unfortunately, the message was not pleasant and many American's did not want to hear it. Efforts by political conservatives to silence the messenger, even though the message content may be unpleasant, or even offensive, would have a devastating effect on civil liberties.

Ward Churchill's remarks were, as UH President McClain noted, "Personally offensive, wildly inaccurate and remarkably hurtful to those who lost loved ones there on that day" (Gima). Professor Churchill's most inflammatory analogy to Eichmann in his now famous essay was indeed inappropriate and unfortunate because it overshadowed the main point of the essay: the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were not first strikes, but retaliatory strikes. One of the points Churchill was trying to make was, much like the German citizens of the 1930s, Americans are choosing to ignore the activities of their government while they seek to fulfill their own self-interests.

When the Founders of this nation wrote the Bill of Rights, freedom of speech was of such paramount importance that they codified that freedom as the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Athenian leader Pericles used his Funeral Oration from the Peloponnesian War in 431 BCE as an occasion to make a classic statement of the value of democracy and freedom.

"The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbor for doing what he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty."

Each citizen of the United States should be allowed to express his or her ideas freely. If this nation's citizens do not allow for complete freedom of speech, it is too difficult to determine what the limits of speech are.

Speech cannot be restricted without instilling fear; fear is the fertile ground upon which propaganda flourishes. With restrictions on speech, only news that is considered "acceptable" will be published and there would be no dissent or questioning of the issues due to fear of retaliation and possibly imprisonment. Propaganda techniques were used by many of the media outlets immediately following 9/11: patriotic flag-waving, intentional vagueness, oversimplification of issues, rationalization, using slogans, stereotyping, testimonials from authority figures or celebrities, assumptions, and encouraging readers or viewers to "jump on the bandwagon."

President Franklin D. Roosevelt recognized the dangers of fear in a society. In his State of the Union Address delivered to the United States Congress on January 6, 1941, President Roosevelt articulated "four fundamental freedoms" that humans everywhere in the world ought to enjoy.

"...we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way. The third is freedom from want. The fourth is freedom from fear."

Professor Monisha Das Gupta of the University of Hawaii wrote, "Condemnation, fear and distortions stop debate and dialogue instead of encouraging them." If the citizenry cannot express their ideas and opinions for fear of reprisals then they will have lost not only the ability to exchange ideas and the potential for innovation, but and perhaps more important, they will have lost any hope of creating a different world by ending the enactments of violence that made the horrific events of 9/11 possible.

The row over Professor Churchill's comments reflects the differing opinions and morals among the many segments of America's population. Professor Churchill's comments are crass and unpopular, but that does not make them wrong. As a young man in the late-1960s, I witnessed the violent repression of free speech. Much like today, America was embroiled in an unpopular war. Speeches and protest rallies occurred both on and off campuses across the U.S. Many in my generation were labeled as "hippies" and "drop outs." Rallies were dispersed by police wielding clubs and tear-gas. The Ohio National Guard shot to death four Kent State University students who were protesting the escalation of the Vietnam War into Cambodia. Violence and threats were frequently employed to silence free speech.

Freedom of speech prevailed and the Vietnam War ended in 1975. Although some went to the extreme of criticizing returning soldiers for participating in the Vietnam War, many protestors, myself included, were not "unsupportive of the troops," as our current president likes to say. I had several friends fighting in Vietnam. But what I, and there were many like me, was not willing to do is support a government that would send those troops into harms way without just cause.

In free speech, every issue is open to assessment and interpretation and it just so happens that Professor Churchill's views ignited controversial debate. Freedom of speech is not, however, without limitations. Over the years, numerous common laws have evolved to create the following limitations on speech: obscenity; inflammatory speech, or language that is likely to induce violence toward the speaker; defamation; commercial speech, or advertising, must not be misleading; true threats are statements that may be interpreted by the recipient as an expression in intended harm; and incitement of lawless action.

Although some would argue that Professor Churchill was immoral for writing his opinion, his only transgression seems to have been inflammatory speech. He did not resort to obscenities to make his point. His speech does not fall under commercial speech, so he is allowed his point of view. He did not direct his comments toward any one person or class of people so he did not defame anyone. He certainly did not make any threats against any person nor did he attempt to incite lawless action. More important, Professor Churchill was not guilty of sedition, as Bill O'Reilly of Fox News would wish (Therese).

Because the right to free speech is not absolute, some demarcation must be made between acceptable and unacceptable speech. Every society willingly limits certain freedoms, deciding the realm of acceptable speech. This willingness to accept restriction of rights is best explained by John Locke as self-preservation.

"Why will [a person] give up [his or her freedoms], and subject himself to the dominion and control of any other power? To which it is obvious to answer, that though in the state of nature he hath such a right, yet the enjoyment of it is very uncertain, and constantly exposed to the invasion of others."

As demonstrated by Professor Churchill's essay, controversy arises when people disagree over where the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable lies. An undeniable and perpetual tension exists between those who espouse unrestricted free speech and those who favor restrictions on the content and certain types of speech.

It would be false to say that the freedom of speech has never been manipulated to inflict damage upon others. Freedom of speech has been used to defend debasing forms of speech including hate speech, obscene and sexually explicit materials, and flag burning. These forms of speech generate heated debate between those who demand completely unfettered freedom of speech and those who call for some degree of restriction on the type of speech and the words used.

Opponents to unrestricted free speech insist that certain forms of speech create harm by inflicting emotional pain or intentionally inciting others to violence. This would include those portions of Professor Churchill's essay that provoked the student protest at Hamilton College and were considered more than merely offensive by some members of the news broadcasting industry. But the right to free speech must take precedence over the emotions of those people who are offended by that speech. The more effective way to combat hateful speech is to respond to it rather than suppress it. Only an educated response to hateful speech will expose the faulty reasoning, fallacies, and simple-minded bigotry.

Ward Churchill showed a lack of judgment and character. But his goal was to get his point across and to provoke a response, which he has succeeded in doing.

In the "War on Terror," as Americans face new formal and informal restrictions against "offensive" speech, there is no reason for complacency. Yet freedom of speech is not an issue American's are discussing with urgency. Free speech is frequently trumped by other priorities or lost in the mind numbing sensationalized news of minor issues. America's cultural climate is such that none of the restrictions on free speech provokes more than half-hearted dissent. Free speech is simply not held to be especially important when weighed against security or the protection from enemies, whether real or imagined.

Lost is the understanding that freedom of speech was a hard-won freedom, not to be taken for granted. The debate over remarks made by Professor Churchill and his detractors is mirrored in numerous issues throughout American culture. Pornography and hate speech on the Internet, books describing homosexuality as a lifestyle choice, teaching creationism in schools, sexually explicit music lyrics, violence in movies and video games are just a few of the free speech issues on which Americans are divided. Restrictions on the freedoms of speech are not issues to be decided by plebiscite or public clamor. The politically orchestrated campaign that was waged against Professor Churchill is an example of the need to buttress the First Amendment. It is very easy to stand up for the speech that we all agree with. The whole point about free speech is it is the free speech that one hates that one has to stand up for. Voltaire said it best when he wrote, "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Works Cited

Das Gupta, Monisha. "We Teach Students to Evaluate Ideas." Letter. Honolulu Advertiser. 23 Feb. 2005. 13 Apr. 2007. <http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2005/Feb/23/op/op12pletters.html>.

Gima, Craig. "Lawmaker Wants Speaker Blocked." 19 Feb. 2005. Star Bulletin. 14 Apr. 2007. <http://starbulletin.com/2005/02/19/news/index3.html>.

Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government. Locke's Two Treatises of Government. Ed. P. Laslett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970, 1690.

Roosevelt, Franklin D. "The Four Freedoms." 6 Jan. 1941. FDR Library. 21 Apr. 2007. <http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/od4frees.html>.