Free Speech Ain’t Enough

The university is a furnace, not a megaphone.

The start of the new school year has brought with it renewed focus on how well (or poorly) American colleges and universities respect the free speech rights of their students, faculty, and staff. However, the in many ways laudable focus of campus advocates for free speech rights distracts from an important truth about higher ed: 

Free speech ain’t enough.

Ideally, universities would view themselves as more than town squares. They shouldn’t function as if they were London’s Hyde Park enhanced with cafeterias and Saturday football tailgates. Free expression of one’s opinions is a mere part (and arguably not even the most important part) of the larger activity that our colleges and universities are dedicated to: inquiry that leads to the discovery, preservation, and transmission of knowledge and understanding of the world in all its variety. Our universities and colleges are where ideas should be rigorously examined, challenged, and refined through thoughtful discourse and evidence-based argumentation.

All of this means that colleges and universities are not primarily platforms for individuals or groups to speak their opinions about whatever topic or cause they are passionate. No—colleges and universities are instead supposed to be places for individuals and groups to ask questions, seek evidence, and advance knowledge.

Students and their teachers must grow the skills and desires to have reasoned discussion, share relevant evidence, listen to each other’s thoughts, and rigorously evaluate diverse perspectives. Without these elements of open inquiry in place, even the university that offers the strongest protections to free speech risks devolving into a cacophony of caustic calumnies and closed-minded echo chambers.

We see some of this devolution in the tendency of scholar-activists on both the political left and right to engage in moralizing criticism of certain researchers and their research. One hears of a scholar “harming” women simply by being interested in research on the biological roots of sex differences. Those interested in investigating the long-term effects of racism in the U.S. on minority groups are derided as “woke.”

Moralizing criticism is protected by the right to free speech, but that doesn’t make it helpful to the university’s purpose or to its learners. Indeed, the freedom to attack the character and ethics of one’s colleagues and peers and to rally others to this cause may, ironically, contribute to a campus culture of ideological conformity and self-censorship.

Consider the experience of Harvard researcher Carole Hooven, whose exit from a Harvard teaching post was precipitated by public social media attacks on her character from a graduate student who chaired the Diversity and Inclusion Task Force of Hooven’s department. Or consider the experience of Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, who was publicly attacked by colleagues for his views on Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and so resigned his faculty position in Israel and moved to the U.K. In these and in many other instances, the right to free speech is abused—or at least badly used—to cut off inquiry.

Nevertheless, none of the above means that colleges and universities can or should restrict the right to free speech. In fact, in order for universities and colleges to effectively foster open inquiry, they must enact rigorous protections of the rights of students and faculty to speak freely. Imposing onerous speech codes on faculty or students is therefore not at all desirable.

But again, free speech, while necessary, remains insufficient to the cause of higher ed. So, how do we move beyond the narrow focus on free speech to fostering open inquiry in our colleges and universities?

The English jurist John Fletcher Moulton postulated the existence of a domain of human action he called “the domain of Obedience to the Unenforceable”—a domain where we voluntarily limit our behavior, not because we are obligated to do so by law or policy, but because we acknowledge that some things are just the right things to do. On campus, this means that scholars should exercise their right to free speech in ways that advance open inquiry, not in ways that suppress or crowd it out, even if institutional rules and the law allow such conduct.

That resolving the tension between the right to free speech and the ideal of open inquiry lies in the realm of “obedience to the unenforceable” means that it won’t be by law or policy alone that free speech is protected and open inquiry promoted. Universities and colleges could have the most perfect adherence to the First Amendment and still fail to foster inquiry. To achieve their true purposes, our colleges and universities must—without censoring their constituents—diligently seek to cultivate an environment where students and scholars develop individual and corporate virtues conducive to good inquiry.

One might object that I’m advising everyone to develop an internal censor, a scolding Jiminy Cricket that prevents speech acts which inhibit inquiry. But this misunderstands my argument.

The point is not that scholars should censor themselves. Instead, they should cultivate the virtues necessary to exercise their right to free speech in ways that advance instead of hindering open inquiry. These virtues include intellectual humility, intellectual charity, open-mindedness, receptivity to intellectual criticism, and genuine curiosity about the world in all its facets. By cultivating these and other virtues, scholars can create a university culture conducive to open inquiry and resistant to forces that would suppress or crowd it out.

The university is not a megaphone. It is a furnace that refines and purifies ideas through rigorous examination and debate. So we must go beyond merely protecting free speech. We must actively cultivate an environment where diverse perspectives are not only tolerated but eagerly sought out and critically engaged. We must approach difficult disagreements as opportunities for learning rather than battles to be won. 

By embracing these principles, we can create a truly vibrant intellectual ecosystem that advances knowledge and understanding. It's time for students, faculty, and administrators alike to commit to this higher calling. Free speech ain’t enough, so let's not just protect the right to speak freely, but champion the duty to inquire well. The future of our universities—and our society—depends on it.