Freedom of speech and the communication discipline: defending the value of low-value speech

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 In these instances, liberal students attempted to silence a conservative speaker. There are, however, examples of conservative students silencing liberal speakers, yet those have been fewer in number over the past couple years than the more publicized examples described in this paragraph. The Foundation for Individual Rights, which defends students’ and professors’ First Amendment rights, maintains a database that documents efforts to disinvite 360 campus speakers by topic and by political orientation between 2000 and 2017.

2 Admittedly, creating a culture that resists inequity and bias is more complex than this checklist of recommendations might suggest, requiring an ongoing commitment of many stakeholders. It is outside the scope of this essay, though, to delve fully into the complexities of this important process.