A notable foundation for freedom of speech

On Tuesday night, a large and extremely diverse crowd featuring not only people of different ethnic and social backgrounds but of contrasting political persuasions — conservative Republicans, libertarians, liberal Democrats, leftists — came together in a banquet hall in midtown Manhattan united by single conviction: dedication to freedom of speech. The occasion was a gala celebrating the recent relaunch of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, the group championing freedom of speech in educational settings since 1999, as the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression — now championing free speech in all walks of life and still going by the catchy acronym FIRE.

The large banners on display in the hall underscored the message. My favorite: “Canceling free speech doesn’t make us China, but it’s a red flag.” The lineup of speakers included Ilya Shapiro, the conservative legal scholar forced out of Georgetown University Law Center over a tweet arguing that then-Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson was a “lesser” candidate picked because of her race and sex, and Michael Render, aka Killer Mike, the Black rap artist and activist who has been an outspoken critic of government attempts to use rap and hip-hop lyrics as evidence of criminality. Killer Mike’s electrifying keynote address brought down the house.

Over the 20-plus years of its existence, the Foundation has been most often associated with campus wars over “politically correct” speech restrictions based on sensitivities about race, gender and sexuality; because of this, its critics have often portrayed it as a stealth right-wing group peddling the myth that overzealous college activists are the biggest free-speech threat in America. But in fact, it is an increasingly rare entity in our polarized world: a genuinely nonpartisan group.

It has defended college students and professors accused of racism for criticizing affirmative action or of sexism for defending the presumption of innocence in sexual assault cases. But it has also intervened on behalf of untenured faculty members fired after being targeted by right-wing media for statements about racism interpreted as anti-white — and on behalf of students disciplined not over political speech but over criticism of the college administration. It stands up for speakers sponsored by the right-wing organization Turning Point USA who get shouted down by student protesters, but its just-released campus speech report criticizes Turning Point for targeting left-wing professors for harassment. It has criticized mandatory statements in support of “diversity, equity and inclusion,” but challenged moves by “red-state” politicians to ban or restrict diversity and equity programs in schools and corporations.

“One thing we all have in common is that we hate bullies,” the Foundation’s president Greg Lukianoff told the audience in his closing remarks.

Some might ask why a pro-free expression organization is needed when the American Civil Liberties Union already champions First Amendment rights. In recent years, however, the ACLU has been a rather tepid defender of free speech in cases where speech clashes with perceived social justice goals such as anti-racism or transgender rights. The presence of former ACLU president Nadine Strossen as a speaker at the Foundation’s gala underscored the fact that it carries on the ACLU’s older tradition of nonpartisan civil liberties advocacy. That doesn’t mean the two organizations are rivals; in some cases, they are and will be allies. But in many ways, the Foundation is better suited to this political moment when illiberalism is escalating on both the left and the right. In a polarized world, support for free expression and opposition to bullies can be a depolarizing force.

Opinions expressed by Cathy Young, a cultural studies fellow at the Cato Institute, are her own.