Michael Roth - Freedom of speech and freedom to disagree in school and beyond

Freedom of speech is about freedom of expression. I want to be able to express myself, in dance, or in painting or in speech, because I should be able to tell you what I think.

About Michael Roth

"I'm the President and a professor at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.

My work is on how people make sense of the past. I have spent many years thinking about the philosophy of history through films, political theory, psychology and psychoanalysis. Most recently, I've written a couple of books around education, how it changes one's history and how it uses the past to create a different kind of future."

Debates on the lack of debate

All over the United States, there are extraordinary debates about whether you can have a debate. People say there’s no debate going on, and they’re debating that. Some people who think of themselves as left-wing liberals or moderates feel like they’ve been outflanked by students they call “woke”, which means students who are very concerned about racism and racist oppression. Some people on the right think that universities have become centres of indoctrination and nobody can disagree. Recently, I did an interview with an education publication that asked: ‘Isn’t it true that academic freedom has declined precipitously in recent years because people are self-censoring – people are afraid to speak their minds?’

Key Points

• Having others disagree with us is fundamental to learning when we are wrong.
• Instead of focusing on our own freedom to disagree, we should want others to have the freedom to disagree with us.
• Freedom of expression is important, but authority figures have a responsibility to stop people from using expression as a tool of intimidation or harassment.