Why Every Side Eventually Needs Free Speech

Nearly a decade has passed since my Supreme Court case, Matal v. Tam. What I remember most now isn’t the decision itself, but the reaction around it.

There was a real fear at the time about what would happen if I won. Some thought stronger First Amendment protections would unleash hateful expression. Others worried it would undercut efforts at social change, including pressure around the Washington football team’s name. Neither of those outcomes materialized in the way people expected.

The flood never came. The team changed its name anyway.

What’s stayed with me since then—especially after speaking at hundreds of colleges and universities—is how little censorship actually has to do with meaningful change. People shift culture. Communities shift norms. Conversations do the work. The instinct to hand that responsibility to institutions or governments rarely produces what people think it will.

That feels hard to miss when you look at campus free speech debates today, including FIRE’s 2026 College Free Speech Rankings, which try to measure something that is, in practice, lived more than it is quantified.

Over the past decade, I’ve spoken with students, faculty, and administrators across the political spectrum. I’ve been invited by professors who once faced free speech controversies, and by institutions that worried I might be “too controversial” to host. I’ve spoken in states where my memoir has appeared on banned book lists. I’ve also had events jointly sponsored by groups that rarely agree on anything, including the Federalist Society and the American Constitution Society.

One of the things I hear often is that concerns about free speech in higher education are overblown. I don’t think that’s right, though not always for the reasons people assume.

When we talk about freedom of expression, we’re not just talking about unpopular opinions or online criticism. We’re talking about institutions that shape public discourse, educate future leaders, and carry enormous public influence. When those institutions become hesitant to engage with difficult ideas, the effects extend far beyond a single campus.

At the same time, I’ve noticed how often the focus gets misplaced onto students as the source of the problem. That hasn’t really matched what I’ve seen.

Students are usually more open than the institutions around them assume. They’ll ask direct questions and challenge ideas. They’ll sit through discomfort if the space is structured in a way that feels honest rather than performative. No, the pressure point tends to be elsewhere. Administrators carry the responsibility for everything at once: reputation, safety, donor relationships, legal exposure, political scrutiny, and increasingly federal or state-level attention that can carry real consequences. That mix of pressures makes risk calculation almost constant…and yet some of the most memorable events I’ve been part of came out of exactly that tension.

I remember one administrator who was unsure about hosting me during a moment when many universities were stepping back from anything associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion. We didn’t change the substance of the talk. We just reframed it around civil liberties and freedom of expression. Since it was public, all kinds of attendees showed up. People who would not ordinarily have seen themselves on the same side of anything were suddenly speaking to one another as if they were part of the same conversation. Some were deeply skeptical of DEI initiatives, others cared deeply about them. But there was a shared recognition that whatever else they disagreed on, the government deciding which ideas are allowed to circulate was not something they wanted to accept.

By the end, people were literally singing together around a principle that belonged to all of them (you know, I’ve got to bring music with me to all events).

Before a speaker arrives, people imagine worst-case scenarios. Afterward, things are quieter. People realize they can disagree without catastrophe, that speech can be answered with more speech, and sometimes that they have more in common than expected. I believe that the best events don’t end in consensus; they are where people leave with a deeper sense of the humanity of those they disagree with.

And that’s where the real issue in these debates sits, I think. Free speech tends to get treated as something you support when it protects your side of the moment. But it doesn’t really work that way in practice. The protections either hold universally or they don’t hold at all.

A decade ago, the pressure was often coming from one direction: controversies around conservative speakers, disinvitations, and protests. Today, it shows up in different forms, including scrutiny of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, cancelling courses, and institutional hesitation around certain topics.

Rules written in moments of agreement rarely survive moments of disagreement. And rules built for your opponents will eventually be applied to you.

I get asked sometimes whether any of this actually matters and whether defending these principles changes anything in practice. But that’s the wrong question. The more important question is whether it’s something worth doing regardless of the outcome.

Opposing racism isn’t conditional on measurable effect. It’s a commitment because it’s right. The same is true, in a different way, for freedom of expression. A society built on open inquiry depends on the ability to question, challenge, persuade, and dissent, even when it’s uncomfortable.

More recently, I’ve started thinking about where the next pressure point might be for higher education. It may not be speech itself, but how speech and thought interact in an environment increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence. When answers are always available instantly, I wonder what happens to the slower process of thinking things through—of sitting with uncertainty, working through disagreement, or struggling toward clarity. Those are small, unglamorous parts of education, but they’re also where real reasoning gets built. Reasoning, in the end, is what makes free expression meaningful at all. What happens when it is lost?

Nearly ten years after Matal v. Tam, I find myself less interested in any one controversy or case than in the conditions that make disagreement possible in the first place. For universities, that doesn’t mean deciding which ideas are acceptable. It means resisting the impulse to adjust those standards depending on who is speaking, who is offended in the moment, or who is in the White House.

The goal isn't to create campuses where everyone agrees. It is to create campuses where people with fundamentally different views can learn from one another, challenge one another, and continue talking long after the controversy fades.

Because eventually, every side needs free speech.

P.S: If you're interested in bringing this conversation to your campus or conference, let me know.