Freedom Of Speech For Everyone
The first amendment of the United States Constitution gives citizens protection to exercise freedom of religion and expression without government interference. Today, it is strongly questioned and criticized as people try to define who can have a say and who cannot.
One current incident touching on this controversy was on Sept. 27. The executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia Claire Guthrie Gastañaga was speaking at the College of William & Mary about the first amendment and rights at demonstrations when she was shutdown by protesters. This attitude took away her right of freedom of speech, as well as the rights of whoever wanted to listen to what she had to say.
Other discussions about freedom of speech include the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville that produced three deaths, President Donald J.Trump’s tweets and National Football League players protesting during the national anthem.
While Charlottesville is an extreme and delicate case, since three people ended up dying and it was a protest organized by neo-Nazis (that support movements such as Nazism, racism, xenophobia, homophobia and extremist nationalism), people still had the right to protest, according to the first amendment, even though their views do not represent most of the population’s opinions.
Should certain people be limited to have a right to voice their opinion in specific topics? A poll from 2015 made by the Pew Research Center showed that 40% of millennials think it is necessary to censor certain types of offensive speech. However, when we take away a person’s right to express their opinions and ideas, it’s like we’re controlling how people should act, think and interact. It makes us more closed minded.
President Donald J. Trump and his love for tweeting random words also fall under this category. But when he demands private companies fire certain players that are bending their knees, the law 18 United States Code 227 is being infringed. The regulation stands for “wrongfully influencing a private entity’s employment decisions by a Member of Congress or an officer or employee of the legislative or executive branch,” but it would only be applied to the president if certain players were to actually get fired.
College campuses are spaces that students use to share their opinions and ideas. When we limit who should come and who should not come to speak in our campuses, we are also showing students with different points of views that their values and ideas have no place among us. When students protest controversial speakers, free speech is in danger of censorship only because of different points of views.
