Our Battle for Free Speech

 

These past few years I've been thinking a great deal about the right to free speech and how it relates to my writing, my advocacy, and my position as a state employee. What I keep returning to is a simple but uncomfortable truth: we have never truly had a right to free speech. Instead we are locked in an ongoing battle for that freedom. 

At the birth of our nation, free speech was not a universal right. It was restricted to the original beneficiaries of the Constitution: land-owning white men. It would be inaccurate (and deeply ignorant) to suggest that people considered non-citizens at the time, such as women, Indigenous peoples, and the enslaved, enjoyed that right in any meaningful way. Their speech was not protected, it was prevented, punished, or erased.

As history progressed, we saw a gradual widening of that right, or at least a widening of who it was intended for. The abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, and the eventual granting of citizenship to Indigenous peoples were all touchpoints along a long and ongoing journey. Each represented moments where the ability to speak one’s mind without retribution expanded to include people it was never originally meant to protect. That journey continues to this day.

But it is important to point out that then, as now, this right has always been largely theoretical, and perpetually in danger. Free speech has never been guaranteed in practice and our use of it comes with very real dangers.

Today, multiple forces threaten and diminish this right. When Citizens United turned money into “speech,” it fundamentally altered the landscape. While individuals may still nominally possess a right to speak, collectively the middle class and below have very little actual voice. Speech backed by wealth is amplified, speech without it is easily drowned out. The result is a system where the right exists on paper, but the reality is that wealth determines whose speech is heard.

In addition, the current administration has repeatedly attacked individuals and organizations exercising this right through intimidation, coercion, retaliation, and extortion. These attacks are not abstract or occasional, but obvious and pervasive. They are designed to chill speech and to make the dangers of speaking out feel too costly to undertake. Free speech, in this environment, becomes something you are told you have, so long as you don’t use it against certain things or particular individuals.

These rights were never a given. In the shadow of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we are reminded that speaking truth has often led to deadly consequences. History is clear on this point; progress is rarely welcomed by those who benefit from injustice, and those who challenge power are often punished for it.

Considering all of this, and considering where my own speech exists within this paradigm, I have found myself asking difficult questions. What is my free speech worth? Is it worth my career? Is it worth placing myself or my family in danger? Is it worth retaliation from bad actors? What is the dollar amount I can place on this freedom? After much deep thought and introspection, what I found is that there isn’t one.

There is no price on my free speech. There is no position, no title, no compensation that is worth surrendering it. Not because what I have to say is more important than what others do, and not because I am braver than most, but because so many extraordinary individuals have fought and died to protect even this imperfect version of freedom. To allow the conditions of our time to silence us is a disservice to their sacrifices.

At this moment in our history, more than ever, we need people willing to speak truth to power and to hold people accountable, if only with our words. As common ground continues to shrink and echo chambers harden into separate realities, it becomes vitally important that we speak out against authoritarianism, inequality, and the fundamental injustices that persist when left unchallenged.

We must speak out and speak up for one another. For our rights, for our dignity, and for our shared humanity. Liberty and justice for all cannot begin and end with a simple pledge. Freedom and justice are not self-executing ideals. If they are to be realized, we must use our voices, loudly, persistently, and collectively, to advocate for a free and just society rooted in dignity, accountability, and respect.

The greatest danger we face is not that free speech will be taken from us outright, but that we will be slowly convinced it is safer not to use. When misunderstanding becomes inevitable, silence can feel like wisdom. Over time, that silence reshapes what is considered acceptable, until injustice no longer needs to oppress, it simply needs to wait.

A fully realized vision of free speech would be one where speaking out is not an act of bravery, but a normal civic responsibility. It would be a society where truth does not require personal sacrifice to be heard, and where disagreement is understood as engagement rather than hostility. In such a world, speech would not belong primarily to those with wealth, influence, or protection, but to everyone equally. 

That vision is what we now struggle to realize. That vision demands participation. It requires us to reject hopelessness and resist the temptation to withdraw. Free speech is not a static right, it is a living practice. Like any living thing, it survives only if it is nourished, exercised, and protected.