Advice | I’m teaching a class on free speech. My students can show us the way forward.

But the answer to all this confusion cannot simply be updating the campus bylaws. Instead, we need to devise better forms of speech education, tailored to the purpose of the university: to give students the tools to deal with difficult cases on their own.

The treacherousness of the current moment has been increasing for some time. For much of the twentieth century, free speech was a rallying cry for the left, a way to stand up for communists, anarchists, pacifists, and student activists. However, in recent years this has not been the dominant storyline. In the United States, it has been the political right that has taken up the mantle of absolute freedom of speech, at least rhetorically, and it has been the left that has been at the forefront of efforts to protect minorities from the harms of certain forms of speech. hate speech to microaggressions.

Now the sides have suddenly reversed again. Left-wing voices, in support of Palestinian liberation, have embraced academic freedom and demanded that universities protect unpopular statements and speakers. Meanwhile, conservatives have gone all in on a book ban; ban on teaching critical race theory, among other apparently radical ideas; and now to manhandle about a series of pro-Palestinian expressions.

Accusations of anti-Semitism (some justified, others a cover for attempts to suppress criticism of the Israeli government’s policies or the war in Gaza) have helped make this new censorship palatable. The Congressional hearings of the presidents of Penn, Harvard, and MIT were primarily political theater, an hour-long episode in our ongoing culture wars. But a backlash against this kind of conservative censorship has already emerged, led by organizations like FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. All the whining on both the right and left has left unresolved the unanswered question of what the university is actually for.

But the sky really isn’t falling. Twice a week, about forty students from different racial, ethnic, national, religious, and political backgrounds in my classroom have done their best to understand debates about the boundaries of acceptable speech in different places and times. They’re grappling with what those boundaries should now be, including for hate speech, incitement and more. Even as the topics have moved closer to home, focusing on university presidents’ statements about Israel/Gaza and the language of pro-Palestine and pro-Israel demonstrations and counter-demonstrations, these discussions have gone remarkably well. Students waited their turn, listened to each other, and often respectfully disagreed with each other.