Campus free speech realities and myths | Lee Rowland | TEDxUniversityofNevada

2017 was a hell of a year
for the First Amendment.

Nowhere was more central
to this culture war

than the campuses and
universities across America,

including right here,
at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Two UNR students became infamous
for their speech in the past year,

found themselves embroiled in two
of the biggest free speech controversies

of the past couple of years.

Student, Peter Cytanovic became the face
of white nationalism,

when a picture of him snarling,
holding a tiki torch

at the Unite the Right Rally
in Charlottesville went viral.

On the complete opposite end
of the political spectrum,

if you can call it that,

graduate, Colin Kaepernick,
went on to the NFL

and used his position to highlight
police brutality and racial injustice,

by taking a knee
during the National Anthem.

Both men became incredibly
controversial for their speech.

There were calls and campaigns for both
men to be expelled for their opinions.

But regardless, whether you agree with one
of them, or both of them, or neither,

the First Amendment protects
both of those men and their opinions

from censorship and retaliation
by the government.

That's a good thing,
and I want to tell you why.

It's becoming more common for me to hear

that we should have
lower protections for speech,

that specifically, we should
criminalize hate speech.

I hear this from the left a lot.

I think a lot of progressives
envision a world where people

like Colin Kaepernick can take a knee
and protest of racial injustice,

without fear of retaliation
from the government,

without fear that the President
will pressure the NFL to fire him.

But they also want to live in a world
where a government school like UNR

can expel a student like Peter Cytanovic
for his hateful views.

That is a fantasy.

And more than that, it's dangerous.

I'm a progressive,

it's not hard for me to pick between
white nationalism and racial justice.

One is abhorrent, one is an overdue
demand for equal rights.

But what would happen if I gave
a government the right to decide

which of those men
was too hateful to speak?

President Trump
is a pretty useful barometer.

He called the marchers
at Charlottesville, "very fine people,"

while reserving his ire for
black football players who take a knee

as "sons of bitches."

Your hate speech may not
be the government's idea of hate speech.

I sure as hell know,
it's not mine.

But even if you happen
to agree with Trump,

can you be confident that
the next President, the next government

will agree with your world view?

You shouldn't be.

That's why, above all,
I am an anti-authoritarian.

I know that the U.S. government
has a long history

of wielding its raw power
against the vulnerable communities

that speak truth to that power,

against those who seek
to change the status quo.

And because I want every student
to be able to take a knee

without fear of government censorship,

I am a true believer
in the First Amendment.

But even as a First Amendment attorney,
I find a lot of the common tropes

and myths about the First Amendment
really unsatisfying.

So, I wanna go through three
of these myths, dust them off,

and hopefully in the process,

we'll come up with three practical rules
for exercising your free speech rights,

powerfully and strategically.

So the first one, is one I suspect
we all learned in Kindergarten,

if you remember your nursery rhymes,
please feel free to join me.

Sticks and stones may break my bones
but words will never hurt me.

Does anyone, as an adult,
actually believe this?

It's manifestly untrue.

I'm a free speech attorney precisely
because I believe that words matter,

it's ludicrous to protect free speech
by denying its very power.

So, why do we lie to kids, right?

Why do we fabricate this thing for them?

Well, it's because humans of all ages
can be vicious, it's just true.

And when a kid is at the receiving end
of injustice, a taunt, hateful language,

we want that kid
to be empowered, not diminished.

In February, notorious troll,
Milo Yiannopoulos,

had a planned speech at UC Berkeley.

Students and others
in the community went nuts.

There were protests, there were riots,
things were set on fire.

The administration cancelled his talk.

In April, there was a repeat, same thing,
except this time, it was Ann Coulter.

She was going to speak,

School officials said,
"There's going to be riots."

They cancelled her talk.

Those two individuals, Ann and Milo,
man, they became martyrs.

They got to take on the roll of victims
of liberal censorship.

They went on media tours,
the media ate it up.

They got more attention
for being silenced than they ever did

for trying to peddle
their actual substantive views.

So, I think it's helpful to think
of professional, provocateurs and trolls

as we would those schoolyard bullies.

Yeah, their words can hurt,
there's no point in denying that.

But the better question is,
how do we respond to that, right?

And a troll, a provocateur
wants you to censor them.

That's part of the goal,
it feeds into their power,

it gives them something to sell.

So, we don't have to march to that tune.

You don't have to play that role.

And we can think of them,
like these bullies,

yeah their words hurt,
but, there's also power in sass.

There's power in refusing
to be goaded into a fight

or to play the role of censor.

So, don't do it.

But some words wound in ways
that are different from others.

Which brings us to myth number two.

I hear this one a lot,
particularly online.

We all know that hate speech
isn't protected by the First Amendment.

Not so.

As that anecdote about Trump
hopefully made you think,

hate speech can be
in the eye of the beholder,

ire of the behearer, I guess,
if that's a word.

Just this week in Spain,

a man was arrested for the hate crime,
this is real, of calling cops "slackers."

on Facebook.

Police are covered under
the Spanish Hate Crime Law.

That's what criticizing your government
looks like in a country

without a First Amendment.

But, we don't have to protect speech
just out of paranoia

that our government will warp
what we think speech and hate speech are.

There's also an upshot.

In the late 1960's,