Free speech expert Jonathan Turley believes America is in the midst of its "most dangerous" anti-free speech era, calling President Joe Biden the "most anti-free speech president since John Adams." Turley, a George Washington University law professor and the author of "The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage," told CBN News the assaults on free expression today are uniquely troubling, citing a triangular dominance in media and other spheres.
"We've had these periods of anti-free speech movements before, but this is the most dangerous," he said. "And the reason is because we've never seen an alliance like this, where the government, corporations, academia, and the media joined together in this attack on free speech." Turley lamented newspaper columns framing the First Amendment as being "out of control," and highlighted what he said is a movement among some academics to "rewrite the First Amendment."
"What we're seeing is, perhaps, I think, arguably the most dangerous anti-free speech movement in our history," he reiterated. "We cannot assume that, even though we've gotten through all of the periods discussed in [my book "The Indispensable Right"], that we will get through this one."
When asked to weigh in on long-held perspectives from many conservatives and Christians that Hollywood, media, and universities hold a bias against their views, Turley offered a candid response. "I think it is most certainly true," he said. "I have a long chapter on higher education and it details how much we've lost. I would never have imagined when I started teaching three decades ago that higher education would be this intolerant."
Turley charged that "universities have largely purged conservatives, Republicans, libertarians," and that many faculties fail to employ many — if any — people who subscribe to these views. Watch to see what else he has to say on the matter.
Welcome to Newsmakers, I'm Billy Hollowell and on today's show we are joined by free speech expert professor and author Jonathan Turley. He joins us to talk about why he believes free speech is in danger in America today and why we face perhaps one of the most dangerous situations when it comes to free expression that we have seen in this country's history right now with no further ado here is Jonathan Turley. If you have a new book, the indispensable right, free speech in an age of rage, I want to start with the state of free speech. If you could summarize from your perspective where we are right now in America on free speech, what would you say? Well what I say in the indispensable right is that we've had these periods of anti-free speech movements before but this is the most dangerous and the reason is because we've never seen an alliance like this where the government, corporations, academia, and the media joined together in this attack on free speech. You have major newspapers running columns like one two days ago saying that the First Amendment is out of control and needs to be significantly reduced. You have a movement to rewrite the First Amendment including by one of my colleagues who's argued that it is excessively individualistic and should be balanced against things like equity. Those are very popular movements in academia and the media. What we're seeing is arguably the most dangerous anti-free speech movement in our history. We cannot assume that even though we've gotten through all of the periods discussed in the book that we will get through this one. It's interesting because for a long time, for decades, you've heard a lot of conservatives and people on the political right, even Christians and some religious individuals outside of the Christian faith complain that they fell the media in Hollywood and universities and all of these different spheres have held a bias. There have been people who have said, "Okay, well those claims are over the top." When you look at where we are now, is there some truth to that in your view in terms of sort of the 30,000 foot, maybe collective bias that we're seeing in some of those spheres right now? Well, I think it is most certainly true. I have a long chapter on higher education and it details how much we've lost. I would never have imagined when I started teaching three decades ago that higher education would be this intolerant, this orthodox. I talk about some of these cases involving faculty that are shocking. There's one professor who was hounded by his university. Universities largely purged conservatives, Republicans, libertarians. Many of them don't have a single person in those categories. This was one of the last at his department and he had been to court three times to keep his job and then it succeeded. Then they found out he had made some dumb joke at a dinner and they put him under investigation again and they eventually coerced him to sign a resignation settlement. On the last day that he was a professor, he went home and he blew his brains out. What people don't understand is that this movement on campuses is unrelenting and vicious. They take away everything you value as an academic, publications, associations, teaching access. Everything is taken from you. The result is that no one wants to risk that. There's silence as faculty members are hounded off of campuses, their colleagues remain in this sort of cringing silence. One of the things that the indispensable right does is it sort of looks back at not just higher education. I have a long chapter on the media and also our current situation with the Biden administration. But it asks why we still struggle with free speech. We all agree it is what Brandeis said, the indispensable right, but we don't agree on why it's indispensable. The result is that we struggle with it and we often trade off parts of it to achieve other objectives. And what I suggest in the book is that this is due to what you might call the original sin of the American Republic. When the First Amendment was written, many of the framers, and certainly the people that influenced them, believed that free speech was a natural right, something that you got from God. It was not something that the government bestowed upon you. It was not something that was granted to you because it helps make for better government. It was something that belonged to you as a human being that you could not be truly and fully human without being able to speak freely. Now, that was a magnificent moment. It was the most revolutionary moment of the American Revolution. But within a few years, we lost it as courts reembraced the Black stonion or English view of free speech. And ever since then, we have struggled and we've gone through these terrible periods. And what the book tries to do is it tells our story through the personalities and periods that help define free speech. And some of these characters are really quite vivid. They are our heroes. Even though they tend to be people on the edges of our political system. They all have one thing in common. They just refuse to shut up. I mean, it is an amazing trait that some people have. George Bernard Shaw said that unreasonable people expect the world to conform to them. That's why all history is made by unreasonable people. And these are just magnificently unreasonable people that put their lives at risk to say what they had to say. You know, it's interesting to me kind of going back to what you were saying about colleges, having taught at a number of colleges as well. The thing that has struck me the most in recent years, I don't know if you've had the same experience, but these students who are afraid to speak because they know this dynamic, they feel this dynamic, they experience it, even in teaching speech and debate classes, being afraid to actually have a debate or to speak out on a topic they feel passionately about and always encouraging them to still do it as long as they're respectful. That is alarming to me and that is a newer dynamic. I hadn't experienced that 15 years ago, but I'm experiencing that more now of them coming to me and saying, you know, can I do this? Can I say this? You know, I'm afraid to do that. I don't know if you want to reflect on that at all, but it is crazy to me that it's gone from the professors feeling it and now the students are feeling that as well it feels. No, it's very true and we have polls and surveys that show that a very high percentage of students and faculty feel that they are not free to express themselves on campus. We also see that in countries that, you know, this anti-free speech movement in the United States really came from academia, but it's heavily influenced by this global anti-free speech movement that many of us have been writing about for 20, 30 years and that wave has finally reached our shore. And if you look at those countries, you'll see what we are going to encounter if we go down this path. In Germany, only 17% of citizens feel freely to speak publicly. That is what happens when you embrace the criminalization of free speech. You actually have very little impact on neo-Nazis in Germany. Your biggest impact is you kill free speech. The neo-Nazis are doing just fine in Germany, which is just so bizarre, you know, they've got this burgeoning neo-Nazi movement, but free speech is as dead as Dillinger. So in academia, we've seen the same phenomenon and it is a shame. You know, as I write in the book, you know, when I went to University of Chicago, I loved every minute of it, to me it was like walking into that sort of Star Wars bar scene where you had every type of different viewpoint, different value being expressed by people, many of which I'd never encountered before. And I loved every minute of it. I just, I thought they were all crazy, you know, when I was living, we had Trotskyites meeting in the basement. We had militant vegans upstairs. We had libertarians next door. And I couldn't get enough of it because I thought it was really interesting that people could see what I was seeing but see something so very different. And so it was the Smorgasborg of different viewpoints, which is what college should be. And now it's sort of, as I say in the book, it's been reduced to a happy meal. It's this fast food creation that runs from the left to the far left. And the problem of this happy meal is no one's particularly happy. You know, it is, you know, on campus, people are miserable, faculty are miserable, students are miserable. And that's because we're killing the very thing that has sustained us in higher education. You know, I've got to ask you this because, and I know you talk about this in the book, we've had these different phases, these attacks on free speech, but this feels different. It feels heavier. It feels more dangerous. What is it that led us to this particular iteration that is so heavy and so difficult to really break through? Yeah, I think a lot of it goes back to higher education because it's not just this movement which treats free speech as harmful. And so that's coming out of just everywhere from secondary to college to graduate level studies. It is unrelenting that that's now the majority view on campus. You have various books out that came out with mine that are calling for the first amendment, calling for free speech to be curtailed, denouncing free speech. Those are the popular views now. And so we have raised a generation of speech phobics of students who are taught since they were very young to fear free speech that they are the right to be triggered when they hear opposing views. So of course, when a conservative judge goes to Stanford, the students go absolutely ape and they shout him down and they won't let him speak because we've taught them that they are supposed to be triggered, that they shouldn't have to hear opposing views. And now that has metastasized into the media. And by the way, the media also came from higher education in terms of that movement. You know, J-schools now teach that journalists have to reject objectivity and neutrality, that those are no longer considered the touchstones of journalism. And so they're trained to be advocates. And that's the reason you have like this week, the media trying to explain why they never revealed to the public that the president was diminished physically and mentally. And you know, there's an interesting article where they actually blame the right wing. They said, well, we didn't want to pursue that story because it would just fulfill right wing narratives. So it's an open admission that you're framing the news for political purposes, but they were trained to do that in higher education. Yeah. Instead of following the truth, and if the truth is that a certain narrative is what it is, well, if it's the truth, then that is what it is. And you report the truth. I think it's troubling that everything feels like it's advocacy, you know, at this point. And it seems like religious liberty and religious freedom as an issue has also gotten very confusing to people. You had the Joe Kennedy case a couple of years ago. I mean, that's another area where it really that's a difficult area for people debating over the separation of church and state. From your view, when it comes to that issue, where do we stand? Do you think there that the court has maybe come to, you know, a healthier place where it should be? What is your perspective there? Well, I feel strongly about freedom of religion as I do freedom of speech. So these are the core values that define us. And I think the Supreme Court has reinforced that right. And we'll continue to do so, at least in the near future. But once again, if you look at, and I talk about this in the book, you know, I would love to see a pro-life faculty candidate try to get on the faculty of Harvard or Columbia or my faculty. It's just not going to happen, I mean, because conservatives, pro-lifers, dissidents have been purged from those faculties. And the result is that you have a country that is at least half conservative, you know, roughly half this country voted for Trump is also a deeply religious country. And so you have faculties that reject those values with a vehemence and do not allow teachers that hold those values. And many of those are public universities. And they view the public itself as a type of captive audience. And at the end of this book, one of the reasons this book was 30 years in the making is that I didn't want to write another free speech book. I wanted to write a book that could actually come up with ways of reawakening, it's pathways for us to regain what we've lost on free speech. And so the last part of the book is on how we can regain this core value. And it is a value that is essential to protecting freedom of religion and other rights. No other rights, that's why Brandeis called it indispensable. All the other rights are meaningless unless you have freedom of speech. Freedom of speech goes, so do the rest of them. And the book looks at how we can do that. And one of the things is for the public to stop being treated like a captive audience. It's crazy that universities are purging people that hold the values of half of this country. But they get irate if anyone suggests that the public shouldn't continue to subsidize them. Well, it doesn't work that way. That is if you're creating an academic echo chamber, if you're excluding people who are religious or conservative in their viewpoints, then you can do it without public money. And go to your donors and see if they want to support the University of Oklahoma or wherever they you may be. Yeah, so it sounds like you have some hope that this can be turned around. How much hope do you have? Well, you know, at the end of the book, I say something that I truly mean and I've told my students this because I do have a small core of students that tend to gather around my office. And they often ask that question because they don't see a lot of hope in what they're encountering on campus. I mean, they're sort of closeted. Many of them are religious. Many of them are conservative. And I had one student tell me two years ago at graduation, she said, she had just gone through my Supreme Court class, and she said, I went through four years of college, three years of law school, and my last class was yours. And that was the only class that I felt that I could be open and honest about my viewpoints. And I remember just being crushingly sad about that, you know, that that's so horrible to think about. But I am optimistic. And here's why. There's a certain optimism that comes from believing that free speech is a natural right. If you believe that free speech is part of being human, that it's a God given right, that it's what completes us as humans, then you are optimistic. Because even with this administration, I think Joe Biden is the most anti-free speech president since John Adams, this administration has created a horrific massive censorship system. But even with all that, they can succeed in diminishing our appetite for free speech. But they can't really take away our taste for it. Because if you believe it's a natural right, it's in our DNA, you really can't extinguish it any more than you can distinguish faith. And this is a leap of faith. That's what free speech is the United States. That's why it is still revolutionary. That's why law professors want to amend the First Amendment. It is still revolutionary for what it means. And they are people who are experiencing a crisis of faith and who we are. But our Constitution requires citizens to take a leap of faith, that we have faith in each other. And even those that we disagree with, that yes, there's a lot of bad ideas out there, even hateful ideas. But in the end, good speech will prevail over bad speech. Well I love that. And it is a great place for us to close. The book is the indispensable right free speech in an age of rage. Appreciate your time today. Thank you for having me. the world. Thank you. Thank you. the world. the world. the world. [BLANK_AUDIO]
