Law Prof Warns of New Assaults to Free Speech

"Free speech is dying in the Western World," writes GWU law professor Jonathan Turley, who catalogues efforts to limit free speech in Europe and the U.S.

Such efforts focus not on the right to speak but on the possible reaction to speech — a fundamental change in the treatment of free speech in the West. The much-misconstrued statement of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes that free speech does not give you the right to shout fire in a crowded theater is now being used to curtail speech that might provoke a violence-prone minority. Our entire society is being treated as a crowded theater, and talking about whole subjects is now akin to shouting “fire!”

Turley identifies 4 rationales used by speech-restricting advocates: