"Violence must never be a response to speech"
by Nico Perrino, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
https://www.thefire.org/news/violence-must-never-be-response-speech
We are horrified by yesterday's assassination of Charlie Kirk on the
campus of Utah Valley University. We are horrified first and foremost
because two children lost their father and a wife lost her husband. And
we are further horrified because all of us at FIRE have dedicated
ourselves to the defense of free speech and open debate on college
campuses.
At their best, America's colleges and universities provide a
unique venue to discover truth, talk across lines of difference, and
develop a deeper and fuller understanding of the world. Over the years,
students and student groups have invited Kirk to speak at hundreds, if
not thousands, of campuses. At these events, he would share his opinions
and invite others to do the same. America must be an open society where
this sort of debate can take place, where we feel safe to share our
ideas in the public square, not just from behind bulletproof glass and
bulletproof vests.
Sigmund Freud once said civilization started the day man first
cast a word instead of a stone. He was right. Words are not violence.
Words are what we use instead of violence to resolve our differences. We
must not lose sight of this civilization-defining distinction.
Unfortunately, since 2021, we've seen a steady rise in support
for violence in response to speech on campus. Earlier this week, we
released our finding
that one in three students express some support for the use of violence
to stop a campus speech. That's up from 20 percent only three years
ago. While we do not know the identity of the gunman, what happened
yesterday is indicative of a broader cancer in our body politic that we
must address.
But it must not be addressed with censorship.
For more than 25 years, FIRE has challenged colleges that use
speculative and amorphous security rationales to justify censoring
controversial speakers. Through public records requests and other means,
we’ve often found these rationales serve as a pretext to shut down
debate and capitulate to demands for censorship. Indeed, according to
our Deplatforming Database,
Kirk was the subject of at least 14 attempts to stop him from speaking
on campuses since 2021. Over the years, FIRE has repeatedly written to
colleges that sought to silence Kirk’s organization and supporters.
Moving forward, we can expect colleges and universities to
place even greater emphasis on security ahead of controversial speakers
arriving on campus. But administrators must not pass security costs
along to speakers or use security concerns as pretext to cancel a
speaker’s appearance. They have a moral and legal obligation to redouble
their efforts to protect free speech. Rewarding threats of violence by
taxing speech or silencing speakers will only invite more threats and
more violence.
Yesterday, an assassin’s veto silenced Charlie Kirk, just as it
silenced the journalists and cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo a decade ago,
and just as it attempted to silence Salman Rushdie in 2022. But we
cannot let the censors win. We cannot let violence prevail. We can and
must come together in defense of our rights to be who we are and to
speak our minds.
Nico Perrino
Executive Vice President, FIRE
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