By Margaret Sullivan, Media Columnist, September 24, 2017<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the state of free speech in America?<\/p>\n
Sanford Ungar, who teaches about it at Harvard and Georgetown, has a simple, depressing answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a mess,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just the problems on college campuses where high-profile speakers haven\u2019t been allowed to talk. It\u2019s not just what happened in Charlottesville, where a counterprotester was run over and killed. It\u2019s not just President Trump\u2019s insistent call for the firings or suspensions of NFL players who take a knee during the national anthem to protest police violence.<\/p>\n
An insidious problem also is developing in dozens of states where legislatures are considering \u2014 and sometimes approving \u2014 new laws that restrict free speech.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are criminalizing things that are pretty routine,\u201d Ungar told me. \u201cMuch of the activism of the Vietnam and civil rights era would be completely illegal\u201d under the new laws.<\/p>\n
The lunch-counter sit-ins that were a staple of civil rights protests in the \u201960s would, under some new legislation, be punishable because they \u201cdisrupt commerce.\u201d And the demonstrations that brought thousands into the streets of major cities to protest the Vietnam War would be a crime because they blocked traffic.<\/p>\n
Twenty-seven states have considered such legislation, he said. Twelve bills have become law, and many others remain under consideration.<\/p>\n
Some of the bills sound perfectly acceptable at first because their purported aim is tranquility.<\/p>\n
But here\u2019s the problem: Meaningful protest isn\u2019t always as mild as milk. The new laws have little tolerance for the tumultuous reality of dissent.<\/p>\n
In Iowa, for example, the legislature considered a bill to punish protesters who block highway traffic with up to five years in prison.<\/p>\n
In North Dakota, the governor signed a bill that would punish masked individuals in any public forum who are trying to conceal their identity.<\/p>\n
In Arizona, the state Senate approved a bill that would add \u201crioting\u201d to organized crime statutes, making participation in a protest that turns into a riot a possible criminal racketeering offense.<\/p>\n
Florida even considered a bill that, in some cases, would exempt drivers from liability if they struck a protester.<\/p>\n
Traci Yoder, National Lawyers Guild director of research and education, predicts that<\/a> whether this wave of bills ends up passing or not, the effect may be the same \u2014 to tamp down dissent.<\/p>\n \u201cFew people would be as willing to protest if they thought they could easily be arrested, fined, imprisoned or even killed,\u201d Yoder wrote. And most regular citizens aren\u2019t keeping track of the details, she said, but may know that the penalties have been vastly toughened.<\/p>\n It amounts to a nationwide movement to chill speech.<\/p>\n And while it might be convenient to blame it on Trump\u2019s hard-line views on law enforcement, much of this movement predates the Trump administration. A substantial amount of the proposed legislation stems from protests over the Dakota Access pipeline and from the Black Lives Matter movement.<\/p>\n While countering this trend won\u2019t be easy, Ungar is making a start with the Free Speech Project,<\/a> based at Georgetown, with funding from the university and the Miami-based John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. (The former president of Goucher College in Baltimore, Ungar is a journalist, a former host of \u201cAll Things Considered,\u201d and the author of an acclaimed book<\/a> on the Pentagon Papers.)<\/p>\n One element is a Free Speech Tracker<\/a>, which has more than 50 entries for troubling incidents or legislation around the country. That\u2019s likely to grow dramatically over the next few months, he said.<\/p>\n A journalistic reality is part of the problem: There are far fewer state-government reporters around the nation than there were a decade ago. A Pew Research study<\/a> showed a 35\u00a0percent decline from 2003 to 2014; it\u2019s undoubtedly worse now.<\/p>\n That means that some state legislatures are freer to act at will without the watchdog function \u2014 and the public reaction to it \u2014 that once was routine.<\/p>\n At the root of these laws, Ungar believes, is a false narrative: \u201cSpoiled students and liberal faculty shutting down speech because they don\u2019t want to hear and confront the truth.\u201d And, at the same time, the idea that protests of various kinds are \u201cgetting out of hand.\u201d<\/p>\n So conservative lawmakers are stepping in to, in their view, fix it.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not so simple, he says, and the stereotypes translate quickly into a political diatribe about free speech in which nobody wins.<\/p>\n His effort will not only keep track of what\u2019s happening \u2014 useful in itself \u2014 but find ways to promote civil discussion across political divisions.<\/p>\n Protecting this basic American right sounds like it should be simple enough, but it\u2019s often a minefield. (Or, at the moment, a football field.)<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody believes in free speech,\u201d Ungar notes, \u201cuntil you get to the topic on which they don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n