Greg Lukianoff

Shut it down.

That was the order given by angry students in response to a pro-Israel speaker.

This is UC Berkeley 2024, and pro-Palestinian students were determined not to let this talk happen.

A call to action went out on social media, urging students to shut down the event, and nearly 200 students showed up.

They attacked the venue, they broke down a door, they broke a window, and they forced the speaker to flee.

Now, I have defended the free speech rights of literally thousands of students and their right to protest, but you do not have the right to shut down someone else's talk and decide for everyone else who they are allowed to hear.

That is mob censorship, not freedom of speech.

But unfortunately, 2023 and 2024 were the two worst years for mob censorship and shout-downs on record.

Now, to be clear, not all speech is protected, nor should it be.

There are certain categories of speech acts like incitement to violence, harassment and true threats that aren't protected.

Indeed, if there is such a thing as a free speech absolutist, I have never met one.

But I am an opinion absolutist.

I believe that all opinions should be protected and your right to free speech is a human right.

But I also believe everyone's opinion is crucial data to have about the world.

But then again, I'm the weird law student who went to law school specifically to study freedom of speech and the First Amendment.

There was this one dude who actually laughed at me that I would never find a job in this field.

Well, joke's on him.

I've been doing this now for 25 years at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

Fire.

And that 25 years of experience has allowed me to see both how far students have fallen from understanding freedom of speech, but also how principled and even joyful they used to be in defense of free speech not very long ago.