On the right, "free speech" tends to mean freedom from speech, specifically any speech that contradicts conservative beliefs. It's basically the "right" of conservatives — and only conservatives — not to be exposed to any speech that might offend, startle, or upset their tender feelings in any way. As Trump's terms of service indicate, it means a belief in the "right" of conservatives to be free of criticism. Thus "free speech," in Republican circles, becomes a justification for blatant censorship — and even, in violation of the constitution, using government power to suppress any speech that makes them uncomfortable. To make the situation even more dire, Republicans are increasingly championing their "right" to use violence to silence political dissent.
The national war on what has been misleadingly described as "critical race theory" in public schools is, in reality, of course, a right-wing attempt to censor any discussion of racism, historical or otherwise. This has been perfectly illustrated in the Virginia governor's race, in which the GOP candidate, Glenn Youngkin, has been running ads calling for schools to censor materials that tell the historical truth about slavery. The ad, which features a woman telling a maudlin story about her son having "night terrors" from an assigned high school reading, is oblique about what book, exactly, Youngkin thinks should be censored. Of course, Youngkin is embarrassed to admit it because the answer is "Beloved," a canonical novel by Nobel prize winner Toni Morrison. It's not a mystery why conservatives want to censor this classic novel about the evils of racism. It's for the same reason that Texas Republicans are circulating lists of other books to censor, the vast majority of which are about racism being bad or LGBTQ people being normal. As I noted in last week's newsletter, this is the same fascist urge to suppress free thought that led to the Nazi book burnings, and there's no reason to sugarcoat it or play the "can't happen here" games. It can happen here, and is happening, as evidenced by a Republican running for statewide office on a pro-censorship platform in Virginia.
A similarly chilling situation is playing out in Florida, where three political science professors at the University of Florida have been barred from testifying or otherwise offering expert opinion in an ongoing court case over voting rights in the state. The school isn't even trying that hard to conceal that their reason is to placate Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who signed the racist voting restrictions, citing "a conflict of interest to the executive branch of the state of Florida." DeSantis has been quite open out his eagerness to cut funding to punish schools that allow any speech that he disagrees with, so it's not surprising that the university administration is fearful. But, as the New York Times noted, universities typically allow "academic experts to offer expert testimony in lawsuits, even when they oppose the interests of the political party in power," and legal experts say "the action was probably unconstitutional." Indeed, the school's accreditor has already opened an investigation into this issue, which could threaten the university's access to federal student aid.
