Charles H. Lawrence Free Speech

Charles H Lawrence first begins his essay by presenting himself as a political dissenter. He does this to establish some sort of credibility as a free speech advocate, supposedly in contrast to what he will continue to speak about. While there is no mystery why he does this in my estimation, in so doing he perpetuates what I believe to be a fundamental misconception about free speech as it relates to law and the continued health of democracy. If free speech is to have any power at all, the ability to shout down ideas that have no value must remain. Freedom to criticize and freedom to create legislation based on that criticism is in fact the only idea that gives free speech any power at all. The fear of regulating speech on the basis that what
Lawrence expresses concern that allowance of hate speech normalizes the treatment of minority groups as second class citizens and can potentially give rise to increasing displays of verbal and physical aggression. In the 27 years since the essay’s publication he has been proven right by my estimation, which concerns over political correctness and censorship increasing the number of spaces in which slurs and ethnic stereotyping are considered acceptable. This has resulted in an increased visible presence of groups using exclusionary and fascist rhetoric in public political consciousness, which in recent years has led to increased concessions to these groups in both media and legislation. Counter intuitively I do not think this has decreased or increased the number of people who hold views that could be considered hateful in nature, merely allowed them to enjoy greater focus under the permissiveness of those who might otherwise contradict these views with enough determination to silence them.

Lawrence however, limits his scope specifically to free speech as it relates to a university setting. Citing Brown V. Board of Education as legal precedent, he draws a line between both segregation and hate speech as having the effect of isolating minority groups and preventing them from properly pursuing educational goals. Additionally, Lawrence argues that this falls
Lawrence may well be perfectly aware that there is no need to falsely equivocate free speech and hate speech as related areas of argument. But it is exactly this tactic that has allowed such speech to still exist in what is often referred to as the marketplace of ideas. By valuing the right to speak your mind above the actual content of your speech, one is convinced to defend the unthinkable not according to whether you agree but because it is your moral obligation. Advocacy of any kind is equal to any other, whether for the devil or his victims. Lawrence may be conceding ground to this argument but he may only be doing this due to feeling he has no choice but to do so to present his argument in a way that its audience will