Freedom, Speech and Universities
238 years after the death of Voltaire, the man who famously stated, “I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to death your right to say it”, his home city, Paris, suffered one of the most terrible attacks in recent history, which drew everyone’s attention not only to the facts, but also to the debate about the right to speak one's mind. The attack of the Kouachi brothers on the satirical magazine “Charlie Hebdo”, sparked the long discussion about the limits and nature of free speech.
As terrible as these attacks were, and regardless of how much discussion they sparked, the biggest short-term threat to freedom of speech is something right in front of our eyes, and not really in islamic fundamentalist groups: universities. In the last recent years, and especially after Trump's election, freedom of speech has been questioned in universities all over the western world under the banner of political correctness.
The limits of free speech are usually decided by the moral standards and values of each society. Nonetheless, it is clear for me that an educational space whose goal is the intellectual development of the individual shouldn’t consider free speech a threat but an advantage. In fact, an academic institution must favor and protect the universality of human thought and freedom of speech as indispensable tools for the intellectual enlightenment of its community.
Curiously enough, “University” comes from the Latin word universitas which translates to universal. To be more concrete, the nature of universities is etymologically related to the universal nature of knowledge and the value of truth everywhere and for everyone. Adding to that, freedom of speech is the Alma matter of intellectual progress. It allows individuals and societies to question false ideas, find answers and slowly move towards the acquisition of true knowledge and, with it, progress. The prevalence of the personal opinion or interest of the individual or institution be undermined by the importance of free speech as a tool for mankind's progress.
For many centuries and in different civilizations, liberty of thought was suppressed by corrupted systems to ensure the continuity of its obscure oppression. One of the most meaningful steps towards the overthrow of these frameworks was the creation of modern universities as facilitators of knowledge and enlightenment. The resurgence of free speech allowed humanity to move from feudal and agrarian societies to modern industrial ones, capable of personal liberty and social change.
Therefore, an academic institution must respect the values that make any university worthy of being called as such. In other words, it must comply with freedom of speech and with the universality of knowledge. No idea should be too controversial to be analyzed and no piece of knowledge should be prohibited. Any university that doesn’t comply with these terms should, in my opinion, refuse that name and become a simple business instead.
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