Welcome to Opinion.
Here, you will find a timeless collection of essays on free speech as a philosophy, orations on its value to society, analyses of landmark cases, and reports on data germane to free speech. The collection will be updated periodically, so feel free to send us your favourite pieces for inclusion. To help orient you, we’ve accompanied each link with a short descriptive blurb. Enjoy!
MAY, 2025
A free speech absolutist pushes back against a philosopher: https://www.vox.com/2019/3/4/18197209/free-speech-philosophy-politics-brian-leiter
This essay challenges a political philosophy paper called “The Case Against Free Speech.” The author of the paper argues that free speech does not, as commonly supposed, lead to the truth in the marketplace of ideas. The essay’s counterpunch: So what? Politics is as much about values (how we live) as facts (what is true). And who gets to decide how we live without allowing the free exchange of ideas?
Supporting free speech for the wrong reasons: https://reason.com/2024/05/17/vox-wants-progressives-to-support-free-speech-for-the-wrong-reasons
Is there such a thing as supporting a good cause for the wrong reasons? This essay in Reason, the magazine for “free minds and free markets,” argues there is. Using the pro-Palestine protests that swept through American universities in 2024 as a case study, the essay calls out the hypocrisy of supporting free speech as a means to an end – such as protection from legal accountability – rather than a first principle.
Students reporting professors for wrongthink: https://greglukianoff.substack.com/p/survey-students-are-looking-to-report
The survey discussed in this report confirms that free speech is not alive and well on campus. When asked if professors should be reported to the university for saying something that students find offensive, 71% of respondents said yes – and that’s just one of the many double-yikes statistics to come out of the survey.
Arguments for freedom: the many reasons why free speech is essential: https://www.thefire.org/news/arguments-freedom-many-reasons-why-free-speech-essential
If you reflexively support free speech but have trouble explaining, feel free to borrow from the clear, muscular arguments in this essay by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). While discussed from a US perspective, the arguments transcend time and place. Like this one: “Freedom of speech is closely connected to freedom of thought, an essential tool for democratic self-governance.”
John Stuart Mill’s enduring arguments for free speech: https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/john-stuart-mills-enduring-arguments-free-speech
If all roads lead to Rome, all discourse about free speech and censorship arguably leads back to British philosopher John Stuart Mill. As explained in this Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) essay, what most worried Mill about censorship was not the government’s strong arm but the imposition of conformity by society itself.
Mill, free speech, and social media: https://philosophynow.org/issues/151/Mill_Free_Speech_and_Social_Media
How does British philosopher John Stuart Mill’s book On Liberty hold up in the age of social media? This essay in Philosophy Now, a publication that delivers philosophy in everyday language, argues that social media presents major challenges to Mill’s rationale for free speech: the free exchange of ideas in pursuit of truth.
Rethinking freedom of thought for the 21st century: https://www.doughtystreet.co.uk/sites/default/files/media/document/Rethinking%20Freedom%20of%20Thought%20for%20the%2021st.pdf
Do you believe your thoughts are beyond reach? Maybe not, according to this academic paper. Published in 2017 in the European Human Rights Law Review, the paper argues that, by providing new ways to access and manipulate human thought, technology could interfere with not just the freedom to say what we think, but the freedom to think our own thoughts. Paging Orwell, stat.
Freedom of speech: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freedom-speech
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has helpfully assembled key arguments for – and against – free speech in an interactive webpage. Click your way through the list to find out about the speaker theory, the listener theory, the “chilling effects” argument, external and internal constraints to free speech, and other goodies.
Matt Taibbi: how to fight back against the censors: https://www.thefp.com/p/matt-taibbi-censorship-free-speech-rescue-the-republic
This article by journalist Matt Taibbi reproduces his speech at a 2024 rally in Washington, DC. Here’s a taste: “Freedom of speech” is a beautiful phrase, strong, optimistic. It has a ring to it. But it’s being replaced in the discourse by “disinformation” and “misinformation,” words that aren’t beautiful but full of the small, pettifogging, bureaucratic anxiety of a familiar American villain: the busybody, the prohibitionist, the nosy parker, the snoop.
Canada’s assault on free speech (Persuasion newsletter): https://www.persuasion.community/p/canadas-assault-on-free-speech
This article makes the case that Canada’s Online Harms Act (initially proposed in 2024 and now off the books – for now) would cut off Canadians’ free speech protections at the knees. An amplification of the restrictions already in place under “hate speech,” the Act aimed to restrict expression that generates “detestation or vilification” of a people of a protected class, such as race, religion, gender identity, and sexual orientation.
Freedumb, you say?: https://www.perspectivemedia.com/freedumb-you-say/
One of the casualties of media reporting in the Covid era was freedom of expression. The author of this essay, FSU Canada communications officer Gabrielle Bauer, argues that the censorship of heterodox perspectives on pandemic management did more harm than the alleged “information quality control” resulting from this censorship.
Comedian Mike Ward wins free speech case in Supreme Court: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59015486
Mocking disabled people is not a good look. But what if you’re a comedian? And what if your schtick is to mock anything and everything? This report describes the legal challenges faced by Mike Ward, an edgy Quebec comedian, when he made fun of a disabled singer in a comedy routine. The Supreme Court ultimately agreed with Ward’s contention that it “shouldn’t be up to a judge to decide what constitutes a joke on stage.”
Lessons from a teacher’s college battle over free speech and decolonization: https://quillette.com/2024/11/29/lessons-from-a-teachers-college-battle-over-free-speech-and-decolonization/
What happens when a student in teacher’s college expresses heterodox opinions about such issues as colonization and gender ideology, thus making her learning environment an “unsafe space?” Written by FSU Canada advisory board member Jonathan Kay, this analysis charts the progression of an iconic free speech case that culminated in vindication for the student by the university’s highest tribunal. [Note: FSU Canada is helping Margaret Munn take the next step in her legal journey – suing Western University for damages.]
Canada’s assault on free speech: https://www.persuasion.community/p/canadas-assault-on-free-speech
Is free speech just one of many societal values, to be negotiated and balanced against other values such as safety and equality? Or should free speech come first, no matter what? What happens to a liberal democracy without it? For centrist political analyst Yascha Mounk, these questions lie at the heart of Canada’s diminishing commitment to free speech. Spoiler alert: he’s not a fan.
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