Free speech is a bedrock principle that has helped to sustain democracy and catalyze tremendous growth and prosperity in America. At the same time, it’s a right that is often misunderstood or taken for granted. The pervasiveness of technology and increased political polarization has only made free speech issues more complex and often controversial.

Greg Lukianoff and Darpana Sheth are our guests on this episode of Voices of Freedom. They discuss the fundamentals of free speech and make the case for why it’s important to protect all speech.

Topics Discussed

• Free speech protections under the First Amendment
• FIRE’s updated mission and why it chose to expand its focus
• Why free speech must be preserved on college campuses
• California’s law to compel professors to adopt certain views and Florida’s law prohibiting professors from expressing certain views
• How to ensure that books remain protected speech and are age appropriate in school libraries
• The impact of Section 230 and whether it should be reformed
• The future of free speech in America

Lukianoff is the president and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), an attorney, and the author of Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, Freedom From Speech, and FIRE’s Guide to Free Speech on Campus. Most recently, he co-authored The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure with Jonathan Haidt.

Sheth is an attorney and Vice President of Litigation for FIRE. Darpana joined FIRE after 10 years with the Institute for Justice, where she litigated cutting-edge constitutional cases to protect property rights, economic liberty, and other individual liberties in federal court.