How far does the idea of academic freedom extend to professors in an era of racial reckoning? The protests of summer 2020, which were ignited by the murder of George Floyd, led to long-overdue reassessments of the legacy of racism and white supremacy in both American academe and cultural life more generally. But while universities have been willing to rename some buildings and schools or grapple with their role in the slave trade, no one has yet asked the most uncomfortable question: Does academic freedom extend to racist professors? It's Not Free Speech considers the ideal of academic freedom in the wake of the activism inspired by outrageous police brutality, white supremacy, and the #MeToo movement. Arguing that academic freedom must be rigorously distinguished from freedom of speech, Michael Bérubé and Jennifer Ruth take aim at explicit defenses of colonialism and theories of white supremacy—theories that have no intellectual legitimacy whatsoever. Approaching this question from two angles—one, the question of when a professor's intramural or extramural speech calls into question his or her fitness to serve, and two, the question of how to manage the simmering tension between the academic freedom of faculty and the antidiscrimination initiatives of campus offices of diversity, equity, and inclusion—they argue that the democracy-destroying potential of social media makes it very difficult to uphold the traditional liberal view that the best remedy for hate speech is more speech. In recent years, those with traditional liberal ideals have had very limited effectiveness in responding to the resurgence of white supremacism in American life. It is time, Bérubé and Ruth write, to ask whether that resurgence requires us to rethink the parameters and practices of academic freedom. Touching as well on contingent faculty, whose speech is often inadequately protected, It's Not Free Speech insists that we reimagine shared governance to augment both academic freedom and antidiscrimination initiatives on campuses. Faculty across the nation can develop protocols that account for both the new realities—from the rise of social media to the decline of tenure—and the old realities of long-standing inequities and abuses that the classic liberal conception of academic freedom did nothing to address. This book will resonate for anyone who has followed debates over #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, Critical Race Theory, and "cancel culture"; more specifically, it should have a major impact on many facets of academic life, from the classroom to faculty senates to the office of the general counsel.

'A fantastically timely book written by one of the smartest thinkers in Britain' Piers Morgan 'Impassioned, scholarly and succinct' The Times Free speech is the bedrock of all our liberties, and yet in recent years it has come to be mistrusted. A new form of social justice activism, which perceives language as potentially violent, has prompted a national debate on where the limitations of acceptable speech should be drawn. Governments throughout Europe have enacted 'hate speech' legislation to curb the dissemination of objectionable ideas, Silicon Valley tech giants are collaborating to ensure that they control the limitations of public discourse, and campaigners in the US are calling for revisions to the First Amendment. However well-intentioned, these trends represent a threat to the freedoms that our ancestors fought and died to secure. In this incisive and fascinating book, Andrew Doyle addresses head-on the most common concerns of free speech sceptics, and offers a timely and robust defence of this most foundational of principles.

"JUST STAY QUIET AND YOU'LL BE OKAY." That's what Mohamed Atta told the doomed airline passengers on 9/11. And we still hear the exact same message today from the powerful but shadowy lobby that is working behind the scenes to gut the First Amendment and prohibit "hate speech"—or any criticism—of Islam. As bestselling author Robert Spencer shows in his startling new book, The Complete Infidel's Guide to Free Speech (and Its Enemies), aggressive Muslims and their appeasers have mounted a dangerous and disturbingly successful campaign against our constitutional rights. Spencer reveals: How social media behemoths Facebook and Twitter—not to mention student groups at American college campuses—are doing the bidding of anti-First Amendment Muslim activists Why core Islamic teachings make criticism of Islam punishable by death How American representatives at the United Nations have already agreed to limit freedom of speech How Curt Schilling and other outspoken conservatives have lost their jobs for criticizing Islam Why Twitter and Facebook now regularly censor speech critical of Islam—while allowing death threats against its critics How blasphemy laws in Muslim countries are used as a pretext for arresting, even lynching Christians How European "hate speech" laws are used to prosecute and harass critics of Islam Why appeasement of Islam is endangering our First Amendment freedoms and could lead to your prosecution for "hate speech" If you value your First Amendment rights, you owe it to yourself to read The Complete Infidel's Guide to Free Speech (and Its Enemies). It will give you the information and tools you need to fight back—because Islam and its progressive fellow travelers have only begun their campaign to define what you can read, say, and think.

Reprint of sole edition. Originally published: New York: Harper Brothers Publishers, [1948]. "Dr. Meiklejohn, in a book which greatly needed writing, has thought through anew the foundations and structure of our theory of free speech . . . he rejects all compromise. He reexamines the fundamental principles of Justice Holmes' theory of free speech and finds it wanting because, as he views it, under the Holmes doctrine speech is not free enough. In these few pages, Holmes meets an adversary worthy of him . . . Meiklejohn in his own way writes a prose as piercing as Holmes, and as a foremost American philosopher, the reach of his culture is as great . . . this is the most dangerous assault which the Holmes position has ever borne." --JOHN P. FRANK, Texas Law Review 27:405-412. ALEXANDER MEIKLEJOHN [1872-1964] was dean of Brown University from 1901-1913, when he became president of Amherst College. In 1923 Meiklejohn moved to the University of Wisconsin- Madison, where he set up an experimental college. He was a longtime member of the National Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 1945 he was a United States delegate to the charter meeting of UNESCO in London. Lectureships have been named for him at Brown University and at the University of Wisconsin. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963.

Free speech is guaranteed under the First Amendment. Although it may hurt and offend, hate speech is still free, under most circumstances. But what happens when institutions like universities adopt policies prohibiting offensive speech? Do such policies cause more harm than good? Should measures be taken to curb threatening or insulting comments? Or does that amount to little more than censorship? Is our quest to be polite and politically correct curtailing opportunities to express, learn, and grow? When does free speech become criminally threatening? These questions and more are thoughtfully examined in this important resource.

"In this project Randall Bezanson examines judicial interpretations of free speech by means of a broad range of Supreme Court cases, arguing that over the past 15 years the Court has engaged in a truly revolutionary expansion of the reach of the free speech guarantee. The cases include the much-discussed Citizens United decision which granted the full measure of constitutional protection to speech by corporations; the Doe v. Reed case from Washington State that recognized the acts of signing petitions and voting in elections as acts of free speech; the Summum decision holding that the decision to select a monument for a public park and to reject another based on the government's disagreement with the monument's message is an act of government speech immunized from challenge by the First Amendment; and the Hurley and Dale cases that recognized free speech claims for messages and meanings that arose "out of thin air": speech without an author (a parade); and an author without a message (the Boy Scouts). As in earlier books on freedom of the press and of religion, Bezanson aims to arm the reader with the capacity to reach her or his own decision about whether the Court's conduct befitted the independent judicial branch and the consequences of its decisions for a representative democracy"--Provided by publisher.

​This book dives headfirst into the contemporary controversy over the limits of free speech. Changing conceptions of what constitutes legitimate harm coupled with the advent of the internet and social media have provided a challenging environment for defining the boundaries of acceptable speech in our contemporary society. This book argues that these problems emerge due to flaws in our free speech framework, leaving the argument for free speech vulnerable to becoming inverted into a justification for censorship. In response, this book argues for a version of free speech based on a framework of toleration. Drawing on the work of the philosopher Rainer Forst, a new justification for free speech is formulated – reflexive freedom of speech – which aims to overcome past issues and justify free speech in a way that is universal, consistent and just.