'Giving the Devil the benefit of the law': A brief survey of the state of free speech

Southern Illinoisan, July 15, 2014

 In Robert Bolt's classic play A Man For All Seasons, William Roper asks Thomas More, "You'd give the Devil benefit of the law?"

More replies, "Yes, what would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?"

"I'd cut down every law in England to do that!" Roper replies.

"Oh?" More says. "And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you—where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast—man’s laws, not God’s—and if you cut them down—and you’re just the man to do it—d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of the law, for my own safety's sake."

A quick survey across today’s America reveals a country filled with Ropers willing to deny the rights of free speech and academic freedom to a wide variety of devils. For instance, a promotions committee at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington denied Mike Adams, an associate professor of criminology, elevation to full professor status in 2006, allegedly for his writings attacking diversity, gay rights and feminism (Exhibit A: a chapter in one of his books titled “Behind Every Successful Man, There’s a Fat, Stupid Woman”). Adams sued, and earlier this year a federal court ruled in his favor.

Despite this particular victory, academic freedom remains under widespread assault from a variety of sources. A bill passed by the Michigan state senate this year, for instance, would levy a $500,000 penalty against any state institution that teaches labor history. Or, in Holyoke, Mass., the school board refused to renew the contract of a teacher, recently elected president of his local union, who had spoken out against “data walls” that publicly displayed students’ test scores at a school committee meeting. And in Belleville, NJ, a teacher—also a local union president—has been suspended and threatened with firing for protesting against a surveillance system installed by the school district to monitor students and teachers.

 As George Orwell once wrote, “Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out . . . depends on the general temper of the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to prevent them.”

Orwell went on to say, "even those who declare themselves to be in favor of freedom of opinion generally drop their claim when it is their own adversaries who are being persecuted." Thus did Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal complain about the lack of tolerance shown toward Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson’s opinions, but then quickly turned around and sued the policy group MoveOn.org for its billboard criticizing Jindal’s failure to expand Medicaid in his state. In April, a federal judge ruled in MoveOn’s favor. A victory for free speech, but the legal costs incurred by MoveOn likely create a chilling effect for others who might disagree with Jindal’s policies.

Or take the case of the National Rifle Association, which is based on the idea of Second Amendment absolutism, but is much less particular about the First Amendment. The NRA has pressured the University of Kansas’ Board of Regents to institute a new policy sharply restricting what faculty and staff may say on social media after one associate professor tweeted a criticism of the NRA. The new policy prohibits employees from saying anything “contrary to the best interests of the university.” The NRA also has pushed for laws like Florida’s 2011 “Privacy of Firearm Owners” bill making it a crime for pediatricians, concerned about the potential hazards of unsecured firearms, even to ask patients whether they have guns in their houses, punishable by a fine of $10,000 and revocation of the doctor’s license.

In his classic 1859 work On Liberty, British political philosopher John Stuart Mill commented, “the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race, posterity as well as the existing generation—those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth produced by its collision with error.”