Monthly Archives: July 2024

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

I was a student in the late 2000s when I had my first brush with cancel culture. A campus group had invited Nick Griffin a racist Holocaust denier and leader of a fascist British political party, among other charming things to speak.

Many shocked students, including me, called Griffins views vile and warned that violent extremists might come to support him. Eventually, the group rethought the invitation and canceled the event. Thank heavens.

No ones speech had beendenied. Others had simply exercised theirown.

Yet a few short years later, campus protests like these became abete noirefor right-wing politicians, who produced countless diatribes against woke mobs and the free speech crisis on campus. Then, with ample backing from well heeled donors, they launched an actual war on speech, on campus and beyond.

Protest has never been a threat to speech itisfree speech. What weve learned is that the real threat is inequality.

Consider this springs campus protests against Israels war on Gaza and U.S. support for it.

Conservative politicians whod thrown fits over free speech on campus cheered as police officersroughed upandarrestedstudent protesters. Some even called to deploythe National Guard, which infamously murdered four Kent State students during the Vietnam era.

Meanwhile billionaire CEOs like Bill Ackman led campaigns toout students whod participated in the protestsand blacklist them from employment.

Cynically casting these oftenJewish-led protestsas anti-semitic, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) who has ahistory of embracing truly anti-semitic conspiracy theorieshauled several university presidents before Congressto answer for why the protests hadnt been shut down more brutally.

When University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill feebly defended the First Amendment, a$100 million donor complainedand Magill was compelled to resign. Under similar donor pressure, Harvard President Claudine Gayfollowed suit. And Stefanik? Sheraked in campaign cash.

Of course, high-end donors are shaping what can and cant be saidinsidethe classroom as well.

Corporate and billionaire-backed groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council and Of The People havepoured enormous sumsinto backing laws that ban books, restrict what history can and cant be taught, and severely curtail classroom instruction on race, gender, or sexuality.

Manypublic librariesanduniversitiesface defunding for carrying materials these billionaire-backed politicians dont like. And in some redstates, teachers and school librarians maynow face felony chargesforrunning afoul of state censors.

In other cases the public square itself is falling under sustained assault from extreme wealth. For example, after spending a fortune to buy Twitter, billionaire Elon Musk proclaimed himself a free speech absolutist andpromptly eliminated nearly all content moderation.

But perhaps absolutist was a relative term.

As threats and hate speech predictably flooded the platform, Musk threatened a thermonuclear lawsuit against a watchdog group that cataloged the growing trend. He also appeared tosuspend journalists that covered him critically and otherwise censored users who espoused causes he didnt care for, likeLGBTQ rights or racial justice.

A parallel problem has played out more quietly in local news, with beleaguered American newspapersnow outnumbered by dark money pink slime news sites, which peddle misinformation while posing as local news outlets.

Lying, of course, is usually protected speech. But when its backed by big money and linked to a sustained, state-backed assault on speech to the contrary, then weve badly warped the field on which free speech is supposed to play out.

Similarly, when the Supreme Court rules thatcash paymentseven bribes are free speech, then those of us with less cash get a lot less free speech.

Extreme inequality threatens our First Amendment right not only to speak freely, but to assemble together and petition our representatives.

Alongside real campaign finance reform and anti-corruption laws, higher taxes on billionaires and corporations would leave them with less money to spend warping our politics, classrooms, and public squares. So would stronger unions who can win pay raises and social movements that can protect their communities from retribution.

If we want an equal right to speech, we need a more equal country.

This article first appeared onInsideSources.com.

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Extreme Inequality is a Threat to Free Speech - CounterPunch

AsFIRE reported last Thursday, the U.S. Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights has begun to release conclusions of its investigations into ethnic discrimination complaints filed over thecampus protests and counterprotests regarding the Israel-Hamas war, starting with its findings regarding the University of Michigan, the City University of New York system, and Lafayette College.

As FIREs research and advocacy has shown, colleges are notoriously bad at investigating accusations of harassment, though Lafayette College comes off better than the other two. While the CUNY and University of Michigan resolution letters are heavily and unjustifiably redacted, even what remains suggests the institutions let political motivations or personal preferences guide some of their responses to complaints. For example, theCUNY resolution letter recounts an incident at Brooklyn College where white students were told to keep quiet over allegations that Jewish students were being bullied on campus:

The complaint alleged that on [redacted content] 2020, a student (Student E) spoke to the Deputy Director regarding Student Es concerns about the bullying and harassment that Jewish students were experiencing (Report 1). The complaint asserted that the Deputy Director responded by stating that white students [redacted content] (Student F) should keep quiet and keep their heads down and that Student Es [redacted content] would not save Student E. . . . The complaint asserted that Student E also interpreted the Deputy Directors comment to imply that because Student E is [redacted content], she is considered [redacted content] and privileged.

Even with OCRs excessive redactions, if this account is anywhere near accurate, its impossible to imagine it could be an appropriate response by CUNY to a complaint of ethnic discrimination. TheMichigan resolution letter also outlines some complaints the school may have mishandled, including one that took more than four months to investigate, as well as confusion over where and how to report alleged discrimination.

The chilling message is clear: To avoid federal anti-discrimination investigations, schools will have little choice but to violate the First Amendment.

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In contrast, theLafayette resolution letter paints a far more positive picture of the schools behavior. While Lafayette College is private, itpromises students freedom of speech. OCR describes Lafayettes policy as saying that when speech or conduct is protected by academic freedom and/or the First Amendment, it will not be considered a violation of College policy, though supportive measures will be offered to those impacted.

And Lafayette appears to have consistently tried to address complaints about controversial speech on campus and on social media while refusing to explicitly censor students political opinions. Yet OCRs conclusion issomehow the same as at CUNY or Michigan: The college failed to meet its obligations underTitle VI, the federal law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance, which includes nearly all colleges. (Title IX applies to sex discrimination.)

The Lafayette letter leads off with a description of an Oct. 25, 2023 rally on campus where a pro-Palestinian student held up a poster saying From the River to the Sea, a well-known slogan pro-Israel advocates interpret as a call for elimination of Israel as a state, and possibly also the removal or killing of all Jewish people in the area between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea. As with nearly everything surrounding this issue, the meaning is hotly debated, but as FIRE Legal Director Will Creeleywrote last year, simply uttering the phrase without any other form of threatening language or conduct is protected under the First Amendment.

Students immediately met with Lafayettes president to complain about the poster, and the College Chaplain (who is also chair of Lafayettes Bias Response Team, its Director of Educational Equity, and its Title IX Coordinator) called the student who held the poster and informed the student that the phrase was hurtful and could be viewed as antisemitic.

Lafayettes president also emailed the campus community about the poster, and the campus group that organized the protest issueda letter saying we stand against and detest hate speech. Our core values include combating antisemitism, Islamophobia, and oppression in all forms.

A few days later, the chaplain met with the poster-holding student again, who said he wouldnt hold that poster again in future protests. (Its not clear whether the student actually changed his mind about the slogan or was just scared into silence.)

OCR followed this with a recounting of 11 other incidents of alleged harassment on the basis of shared ancestry that were reported during the fall 2023 semester, according to theinvestigation. Six of these appear solely related to social media posts featuring protected speech that the reporting party found offensive. This included statements such as a post compar[ing] a Palestinian dying with Jesus dying, and stat[ing] Same Picture, Same Land, Same Perpetrator, a meme depicting an Israel Defense Forces soldier as the same as a Nazi soldier and states The irony of becoming what you once hated, and the allegation that Israel kills a Palestinian baby every 15 minutes.

In each case, OCR describes some action the college took in response to the complaint. In response to the post about Jesus (OCR calls it Incident 1), an internal college email noted (correctly) that the post does not appear to be a direct threat or targeted at any specific individual. With that being said, this would fall within the students free speech in their personal social media account.

Its hard to see what else Lafayette could have done to try to address the allegedly hostile environment on its campus without actually descending into censorship.

The College Chaplain then informed the reporting student that it was a free speech issue and offered the reporting student supportive services.

In response to the post comparing the IDF to Nazis (Incident 4), the college again found (correctly) the speech was protected, but nonetheless, the College Chaplain offered to have a mediated conversation with the reporting student and respondent student, but the reporting student declined. In each of the six incidents involving social media, the school followed a similar course: declining to punish the student for speech while trying to intervene and educate in other ways.

But that didnt seem to matter to OCR. In fact, OCR seems to have flatly misstated what the college did in response to these reports. In the legal analysis section of its report on Lafayette College, OCR writes:

Based on the evidence to date, OCR is concerned that notwithstanding the Colleges many efforts to respond proactively to prevent the operation of a hostile environment based on shared ancestry during fall 2023, the Colleges practices particularly with respect to notice of harassing conduct on social media were not reasonably designed, as required by Title VI, to redress any hostile environment. The College appears to have operated a categorical policy not to address allegations of harassment on private social media as distinct from social media of a College-recognized student group as in Incident 9 unless the harassment constituted a direct threat. This practice does not satisfy the Title VI obligation to take prompt and effective steps to redress a hostile environment about which the College knows; that requirement is not limited to conduct that occurs on campus or outside social media.

It is simply untrue to say Lafayette had a categorical policy not to address allegations of harassment on private social media. OCR knows this, as it describes what the college did to respond to such allegations in the very same letter (specifically, what OCR labels Incidents 1, 2, 4, and 5).

Now, Lafayette did have a policy of not formally punishing students or student groups for their protected speech on social media, which is what FIRE recommends. But in every incident discussed, the college tried to dosomething to address the complaint, even if the reporting party was ultimately unresponsive. If anything, Lafayette was a bit heavy-handed: Most students would think twice about posting on Instagram after being called on the carpet by the college chaplain to discuss their political opinions. (Indeed, it was only five years ago that theSixth Circuit took issue with University of Michigans bias response team for similar speech-chilling activity.)

The First Amendment protects a vast range of speech and expressive conduct. But it doesnt protect all speech and expressive conduct.

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Its hard to see what else Lafayette could have done to try to address the allegedly hostile environment on its campus without actually descending into censorship. Along with the interventions discussed above, it held meetings with multiple Jewish, interfaith, and Greek student groups and held an interfaith vigil after the October 7 attack. It even provided OCR with affidavits . . . that the College is a good place to be a Jewish student, and that none had observed or heard from Jewish students that they felt that there was any pattern of harassment or discrimination.

That didnt matter. Nor did it matter that those affidavits were from the Director of Hillel Society, the former Director of Hillel Society, the current Chair of Jewish Studies, and the campus police lieutenant, all of whom had some reason to know.

College documents reflect that it did not address whether social media and off campus conduct individually or collectively created or contributed to a hostile environment based on shared ancestry, which does not satisfy Title VI, according to OCR. Yet Lafayette tried everything to address the complaintsexcept formally punish students for their speech.

The implication is thus clear: the only way to satisfy OCR that your institution is obeying the law is to silence offensive speech, regardless of the First Amendment or college policies protecting students rights. For an agency prevented by the First Amendment from requiring institutions to censor protected speech, that implication is disturbing indeed.

Read more here:
Fed investigation of Lafayette College over Israel-Hamas protests highlights new threat to free speech - Foundation for Individual Rights and...

I was a student in the late 2000s when I had my first brush with cancel culture. A campus group had invited Nick Griffin a racist Holocaust denier and leader of a fascist British political party, among other charming things to speak.

Many shocked students, including me, called Griffins views vile and warned violent extremists might come to support him. Eventually, the group rethought the invitation and canceled the event. Thank heavens.

No ones speech had been denied. Others exercised their own.

Yet, a few short years later, campus protests like these became a bete noire for right-wing politicians, who produced countless diatribes against woke mobs and the free speech crisis on campus. Then, with ample backing from well-heeled donors, they launched an actual war on speech on campus and beyond.

Protests have never been a threat to speech it is free speech. What weve learned is that the real danger is inequality.

Consider this springs campus protests against Israels war on Gaza and U.S. support for it.

Conservative politicians whod thrown fits over free speech on campus cheered as police officers roughed up and arrested student protesters. Some even called to deploy the National Guard, which infamously murdered four Kent State students during the Vietnam War era.

Meanwhile, billionaire CEOs like Bill Ackman led campaigns to out students whod participated in the protests and blacklist them from employment.

Cynically casting these often Jewish-led protests as antisemitic, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y. who has a history of embracing antisemitic conspiracy theories hauled several university presidents before Congress to answer for why the protests hadnt been shut down more brutally.

When University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill feebly defended the First Amendment, a $100 million donor complained and Magill was compelled to resign. Under similar donor pressure, Harvard President Claudine Gay followed suit. And Stefanik? She raked in campaign cash.

Of course, high-end donors are also shaping what can and cant be said inside the classroom.

Corporate and billionaire-backed groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council and Of The People have poured enormous sums into backing laws that ban books, restrict what history can and cant be taught, and severely curtail classroom instruction on race, gender or sexuality.

Many public libraries and universities face defunding for carrying materials these billionaire-backed politicians dont like. And, in some red states, teachers and school librarians may now face felony charges for running afoul of state censors.

In other cases, the public square itself is falling under sustained assault from extreme wealth. For example, after spending a fortune to buy Twitter, billionaire Elon Musk proclaimed himself a free speech absolutist and promptly eliminated nearly all content moderation.

But perhaps absolutist was a relative term.

As threats and hate speech predictably flooded the platform, Musk threatened a thermonuclear lawsuit against a watchdog group that cataloged the growing trend. He also appeared to suspend journalists who covered him critically and otherwise censored users who espoused causes he didnt care for, like LGBTQ rights or racial justice.

A parallel problem has played out more quietly in local news, with beleaguered American newspapers now outnumbered by dark money pink slime news sites, which peddle misinformation while posing as local news outlets.

Lying, of course, is usually protected speech. But when its backed by big money and linked to a sustained, state-backed assault on speech to the contrary, then weve badly warped the field on which free speech is supposed to play out.

Similarly, when the Supreme Court rules that cash payments even bribes are free speech, those of us with less cash have less free speech.

Extreme inequality threatens our First Amendment right not only to speak freely but to assemble together and petition our representatives.

Alongside real campaign finance reform and anti-corruption laws, higher taxes on billionaires and corporations would leave them with less money to spend warping our politics, classrooms and public squares. So would stronger unions that can win pay raises and social movements that protect their communities from retribution.

If we want equal rights to speech, we need a more equal country.

Peter Certo, communications director of the Institute for Policy Studies and editor of its OtherWords.org op-ed service, wrote this for InsideSources.com.

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Counterpoint: Extreme inequality is the real threat to free speech - TribLIVE

During my second week as the new executive director of the ACLU of Indiana, I found myself in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee testifying against Senate Bill 17, an online age verification bill supporters claim is aimed at preventing minors from accessing pornography.

You can imagine how popular that made me with the other parents of teenagers in my neighborhood. Nonetheless, the position was the right one to take to protect the Constitutional rights of Hoosier adults.

The bill passed the legislature, was signed by the governor, and was scheduled to take effect this week. Fast forward to last Friday, when Pornhub, the most visited pornography website in the United States (and the countrys 10th most visited website of any kind) blocked access to its site in Indiana because of our states age-verification law. In announcing their plans, Pornhubs parent company explained in a statement, Any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is putting user safety in jeopardy.

Led by the Free Speech Coalition, Pornhub, other websites, and individual performers filed suit against the state. Late last week, US District Court Judge Richard Young put Senate Enrolled Act 17 on hold because he found that it was likely facially unconstitutional under the First Amendment. In other words, it is likely the law is unconstitutional in toto.

The ACLU of Indiana strongly agrees with this decision. The First Amendment doesnt just protect a speaker, but also those who want to hear what someone is saying. And in the case of constitutional protections, speech is interpreted broadly to include video productions, including pornography. Protecting free speech is not a theoretical exercise. Today, local and state government officials in Indiana are threatening free speech in our libraries, schools, universities, public spaces, and online.

Regardless of how you personally feel about pornography, you should be concerned when the government makes it harder for adults to access it. And a government that is allowed to infringe on free speech because the subject matter is sexual in nature will expand that power to infringe on free speech because it contains ideas that they think are harmful.

The state isnt prohibited from taking any action to help parents keep their children safe. They are just required to do so in a way that accomplishes the states goal while creating the least burden on adults constitutional rights. For instance, they can fund and launch a public education campaign to help parents filter pornography online and can make filtering software more available. Neither of which will affect access for adults.

And you dont have to take my word for it that age verification will negatively affect access for adults. The Indiana Catholic Conference testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee that they supported the legislation, in part, because age verification would change an adults interaction with [a pornography] site. They said that age verification would lead some adults to leave a particular site instead of going through the process.

Even though Sen. Mike Bohacek, author of SB 17, testified that the motivation for the bill was to protect minors, supporters of the bill who are morally opposed to pornography see a larger benefit of the law. This is the exact kind of government overreach that courts have said violates the First Amendment.

When the ACLU of Indiana testified on age verification during session, we told Statehouse leaders that there are effective alternatives that are constitutionally permissible. We also told them wed work with them on these alternatives. We remain hopeful that theyll take us up on it.

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Free speech is why it's important that adult Hoosiers have access to Pornhub Indiana Capital Chronicle - Indiana Capital Chronicle

The marketplace of ideas is under attack. The front lines have formed on university campuses. And remarkably, universities are leading the charge.

Within the last year, law students at Stanford and Yale shouted down speakers with whom they disagreed. Encampments raged at Columbia, University of Chicago, Florida, UCLA, and other schools. Stanford students participating in a protest march entered an engineering building, constructed makeshift barriers, and spray-painted a wall all while other students were working in the building.

The protesting students invoked freedom of speech, and administrators all too often agreed. Both groups were wrong, and it is time that universities start teaching them why.

At least at law schools, some instruction is in the offing. Confronted with growing threats to campus speech, the American Bar Association recently adopted Standard 208, which requires all law schools to adopt policies protecting the rights of faculty, students, and staff to communicate ideas that may be controversial or unpopular. [F]ree, robust, and uninhibited sharing of ideas reflecting a wide range of viewpoints, the ABA now acknowledges, is necessary for [e]ffective legal education and the development of the law.

Standard 208 is an encouraging first step, but it is not enough.To educate students effectively, law schools need to do at least two more things: (1)reconsider policies that undermine free speech, and (2)enforce permissible restrictions on expression that threatens operations or student safety.

MIT just announced that it will no longer require diversity statements from prospective faculty members. Why?Not because it believes that creating an inclusive community is no longer important.Rather, MIT recognizes that compelled statements not only are ineffective, but also infringe on freedom of expression.

Requiring faculty candidates to explain how their work supports a university-approved worldview impedes robust and open discussion.It sends a clear and powerful institutional message: If you want to be hired, promoted, or tenured, champion the schools viewpoint, or, at a minimum, remain silent and hope your silence is not held against you.

Challenging established orthodoxies is virtually impossible, however, when a school requires everyone to sing from the same ideological hymnal.To avoid stifling debate, schools must remain institutionally neutral on social, political, religious, and moral issues. As University of Chicagos Kalven Committee Report emphasized, [t]he university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic.

Just last month, Harvard decided it was finally time to adopt a version of the Kalven Report, pledging to (generally) remain institutionally neutral on public policy issues. Other universities should follow suit.Instead of taking sides on contested topics, universities should shape social and political values by training faculty, students, and staff to be active participants in researching, debating, and writing about the important issues of the day.

Unfortunately, not all academics share this vision. In the wake of former Harvard president Claudine Gays ouster, the dean of social sciences at Harvard penned an op-ed contending that professors have diminished speech protection and that they can and should be punished for public statements that might incite external actors (such as alumni and donors) to intervene in Harvards affairs.

Threats to academic freedom also are found closer to home.Following some (undisclosed) student complaints about course content and conduct, UNC Chapel Hills business school secretly recorded Professor Larry Chaviss economics class, using the footage as part of an unannounced professional review.UNC then declined to renew Professor Chaviss contract after 18 years of teaching without telling him the reason for his dismissal or the specifics of the complaints. One can almost feel the chilling effect on speech emanating from Harvard and UNC.

Administrators and academics would do well to remember United States v. Alvarez, a case in which the Supreme Court explained that [f]reedom of speech and thought flows not from the beneficence of the state but from the inalienable rights of the person. Those freedoms do not flow from the university either, and for good reasons. Adopting a school-approved view pressures members of the academic community to conform or remain silent. This pressure is especially acute for students, staff, and junior/contract faculty members, all of whom must rely on the administration for so many aspects of their professional development and livelihood a lesson Professor Chavis painfully learned.

Furthermore, universities must make clear that freedom of expression is not absolute. Certain speech is unprotected (e.g., true threats, fighting words, obscenity, and defamation) and can be prohibited consistent with the Constitution and Standard 208. Reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions also are permissible to enable schools to carry out their educational mission.

Even when convinced that one holds the moral high ground, there is no hecklers veto, no right to preclude others from exercising their speech rights or to interfere with the safe operation of the school. Universities exist to educate all, not just the most vocal or disruptive.

A university has the authority indeed, the responsibility to remove encampments, like those that recently popped up on campuses across the country, when they violate these viewpoint-neutral principles. Granted, determining when and how to stop disruptive protests may be difficult.But teaching students to engage controversial issues through reasoned argument and debate is essential to a universitys mission, especially in a divided nation.

Now is a critical time for institutions of higher learning, and there are reasons to hope for a rebirth of freedom of expression, properly understood.Last year, the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees unanimously approved the creation of a new school at UNC Chapel Hill committed to free expression. And the University of Austin has promised students, faculty, and scholars the right to pursue their academic interests and deliberate freely, without fear of censorship or retribution.

In addition, High Point University is opening a new law school that will champion free speech principles.As part of the inaugural faculty at HPU law school, we are building a program rooted in freedom of thought, inquiry, and expression to train lawyers who are equipped to represent their clients effectively and to lead in an increasingly polarized world.

Protest is an important and powerful form of expression. But so is reasoned argument in defense of a contrary position.Universities should remain neutral caretakers of both.

Link:
Reestablishing universities as guardians of free speech - Carolina Journal

The Supreme Court isnt going to rule on a case that could fundamentally change how we think about the First Amendment as it applies to the internet. But within its indecision came one decision: Social media has at least some First Amendment protections, the court said.

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The high court on Monday sent two cases brought by a social media trade group against Texas and Florida back to lower courts. The two states passed similar laws in 2021 prohibiting social media companies from removing user-generated content based on political viewpoints. NetChoice, an industry trade group that represents companies such as Meta and TikTok, and the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) sued both states over the laws, saying they force companies to host speech on their platforms against their will. The cases made their way to the Supreme Court in February.

But the justices on Monday vacated lower courts rulings and sent the cases back for reconsideration. Those courts had handled each case differently, upholding the Texas law and striking down key parts of the Florida law. The Supreme Court said the lower courts didnt do a good enough job analyzing the cases.

Justice Elena Kagan said in her opinion that the question in such a case is whether a laws unconstitutional applications are substantial compared to its constitutional ones.

To make that judgment, she wrote, a court must determine a laws full set of applications, evaluate which are constitutional and which are not, and compare the one to the other. Neither court performed that necessary inquiry.

NetChoice saw the ruling as a win. Thats because, in sending the cases back to the lower courts, the justices also said that social media companies have First Amendment rights. Lawyers for Texas and Florida had argued that the sites did not have such protections.

Todays ruling from the Supreme Court is a victory for First Amendment rights online, Chris Marchese, director of NetChoices litigation center, said in a statement. As our cases head back to the lower courts for consideration, the Supreme Court agreed with all our First Amendment argumentswe are gratified to see the Supreme Court acknowledge the Constitutions unparalleled protections for free speech, including the worlds most important communications tool, the internet.

Kagan said that, to the extent social media platforms create expressive products, they receive the First Amendments protections. And although these cases are here in a preliminary posture, the current record suggests that some platforms, in at least some functions, are indeed engaged in expression.

Zephyr Teachout, a Fordham law professor, wrote in The Atlantic in February that a platforms decision to ban a certain user or prohibit a particular point of view can have a dramatic influence on public discourse and the political process.

Leaving that much power in the hands of a tiny number of unregulated private entities poses serious problems in a democracy, Teachout added.

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The Supreme Court won't decide Big Tech's free speech fight with Florida and Texas - Quartz

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Mitchell Oakley: Court's decision is a blow to free speech - The Daily Reflector

I was a student in the late 2000s when I had my first brush with cancel culture. A campus group had invited Nick Griffin a racist Holocaust denier and leader of a fascist British political party, among other charming things to speak.

Many shocked students, including me, called Griffins views vile and warned that violent extremists might come to support him. Eventually, the group rethought the invitation and canceled the event. Thank heavens.

No ones speech had been denied. Others exercised their own.

Yet, a few short years later, campus protests like these became a bete noire for right-wing politicians, who produced countless diatribes against woke mobs and the free speech crisis on campus. Then, with ample backing from well-heeled donors, they launched an actual war on speech on campus and beyond.

Protests have never been a threat to speech it is free speech. What weve learned is that the real danger is inequality.

Consider this springs campus protests against Israels war on Gaza and U.S. support for it.

Conservative politicians whod thrown fits over free speech on campus cheered as police officers roughed up and arrested student protesters. Some even called to deploy the National Guard, which infamously murdered four Kent State students during the Vietnam War era.

Meanwhile, billionaire CEOs like Bill Ackman led campaigns to out students whod participated in the protests and blacklist them from employment.

Cynically casting these often Jewish-led protests as antisemitic, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y. who has a history of embracing antisemitic conspiracy theories hauled several university presidents before Congress to answer for why the protests hadnt been shut down more brutally.

When University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill feebly defended the First Amendment, a $100 million donor complained and Magill was compelled to resign. Under similar donor pressure, Harvard President Claudine Gay followed suit. And Stefanik? She raked in campaign cash.

Of course, high-end donors are also shaping what can and cant be said inside the classroom.

Corporate and billionaire-backed groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council and Of The People have poured enormous sums into backing laws that ban books, restrict what history can and cant be taught, and severely curtail classroom instruction on race, gender or sexuality.

Many public libraries and universities face defunding for carrying materials these billionaire-backed politicians dont like. And in some red states, teachers and school librarians may now face felony charges for running afoul of state censors.

In other cases, the public square itself is falling under sustained assault from extreme wealth. For example, after spending a fortune to buy Twitter, billionaire Elon Musk proclaimed himself a free speech absolutist and promptly eliminated nearly all content moderation.

But perhaps absolutist was a relative term.

As threats and hate speech predictably flooded the platform, Musk threatened a thermonuclear lawsuit against a watchdog group that cataloged the growing trend. He also appeared to suspend journalists who covered him critically and otherwise censored users who espoused causes he didnt care for, like LGBTQ rights or racial justice.

A parallel problem has played out more quietly in local news, with beleaguered American newspapers now outnumbered by dark money pink slime news sites, which peddle misinformation while posing as local news outlets.

Lying, of course, is usually protected speech. But when its backed by big money and linked to a sustained, state-backed assault on speech to the contrary, then weve badly warped the field on which free speech is supposed to play out.

Similarly, when the Supreme Court rules that cash payments even bribes are free speech, those of us with less cash have less free speech.

Extreme inequality threatens our First Amendment right not only to speak freely but to assemble together and petition our representatives.

Alongside real campaign finance reform and anti-corruption laws, higher taxes on billionaires and corporations would leave them with less money to spend warping our politics, classrooms and public squares.

So would stronger unions that can win pay raises and social movements that protect their communities from retribution.

If we want equal rights to speech, we need a more equal country.

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Two Views: Extreme inequality is the real threat to free speech - The Sun Chronicle