The Lines That
Divide America by NITIN NOHRIA (Dean of Harvard Business School)
The Two Clashing
Meanings of 'Free Speech' by Teresa M. Bejan (Associate Professor of
Political Theory at Oxford)
“While trigger
warnings, safe spaces, and no-platforming grab headlines, poll after poll
suggests that a more subtle, shift in mores is afoot. To a generation convinced
that hateful speech is itself a form of violence or “silencing,” pleading the
First Amendment is to miss the point. Most of these students do not see
themselves as standing against free speech at all. What they care about is the
equal right to speech, and equal access to a public forum in which the
historically marginalized and excluded can be heard and count equally with the
privileged. This is a claim to isegoria, and once one recognizes it as such,
much else becomes clear—including the contrasting appeal to parrhesia by their
opponents, who sometimes seem determined to reduce “free speech” to a license
to offend.”